More balloon love

He loves everything about balloons

Except when they get a little too close...

Sunday walks

 He loves going for walks in the baby carrier and is slowly starting to like his hat to shade him from the sun.  We call him Indiana Jones or our little cowboy when he's in them.

 Our Sunday walk out to the park

Dave discovered Kyle could do this and they both love it!

Thank goodness for mirrors!

This is the one sure way I found to get him to stop crying.  No matter how upset he is, once he sees himself he'll let out a couple more cries or grunts and then is pacified.  

He loves to try to sing along and usually will get very into and start kicking his legs like crazy.

After a week with no balloon...

After a week with no balloon... he was so happy!

So fun!

Every once in a while he'll take a break from his balloon to play and talk.  

He's starting to get the peek-a-boo concept, but it'll only keep his attention for a short time and then hell notice his balloon and get back to kicking it around .

Day 1279 (aka 3 1/2 years)

Time is sure flying by.  We just hit 3 1/2 years of wedded bliss.  Since it was our half anniversary, we decided to celebrate everything 1/2 style, starting out with an early morning trip to the stores for 50% off Halloween candy.  

 Side story: I look forward to the day after Halloween and Easter all year round.  50% off all mini sizes really helps with rationing and it's a great price. In San Antonio, I'd get to the stores very early and it would be a mad house, people everywhere and the candy would already be picked over.  I had the day off, so I woke up early and dragged Dave with me to Walmart (he had gone to a late night movie premiere and was out pretty late, but he knows how important this is to me)  We got there about 1/2 hour after it opened and they hadn't even put all their Halloween candy out or marked it down yet!  We had to check every bag with their scanner to see the price. We grabbed 2 big bags and I rushed Dave over to work for an all day conference.  I decided to try out a couple more stores before heading home.  Even 24-hour Safeway hadn't marked their stuff down yet.  I called a couple other stores that all said to give them a couple hours to get it all set up.  I guess bargain candy shopping isn't as important here in Pleasanton as it was in San Antonio.  I decided to go home for a nap and after pulling in to our complex realized that Dave had the house keys and his phone was turned off for this conference.  The office didn't open for an hour, so I decided to walk across the street to the other Walmart to stall and use the bathroom.  Of course, I walk in and the bathrooms are all closed for some major plumbing issue.  Since I still had 45 minutes to kill I had no choice but to ask if they had any leftover candy.  They directed me to a huge stack of boxes and said they hadn't had a chance to put it all out yet, but everything there is 1/2 off.  So I went to town digging through rows of boxes.  It was probably quite the scene seeing a pregnant lady moving boxes and standing on shelves to dig in candy boxes.  Soon a few others joined me and we helped each other find all of our favorites.  I ended up buying 6 more smaller bags of candy...I feel I had no choice since I was stranded there.  I would've bought a lot more had we not already bought the 2 big bags earlier.  Finally satisfied I walked back to the office and got another key to get into my apartment.

I ended up getting 12.335lbs of 15 different varieties of individually wrapped candy for just under $20.  Happy 1/2 anniversary to us!

For dinner we decided to do Olive Garden and their buy one entree get a second free to take home.  We ordered 2 meals, filled up on breadsticks and salad and split one meal, then took one home along with our 2 to-go meals.  I feel like I got my money's worth and it was delicious.  I can't wait til next years 1/2 anniversary.

Babymoon!

This past weekend we decided to get out of town and go on a little "Babymoon"  There are so many places around us to visit, but we decided on Santa Cruz for a little sunshine and beach.  We took off early on Friday after work and went straight into downtown Santa Cruz for a delicious Mexican dinner.  I found a great hotel deal that included my one wish... a heated pool.  Since I can't do hot tubs, this was so so nice, plus I felt as light as a feather swimming around in there!

The next morning we slept in, had a nice complimentary breakfast and took our time getting over to the pier.  We walked up and down the wharf, did some shopping and watched the sea lions.  

Dave made some friends with a couple locals.

After some lunch we went to check out the Boardwalk.  I couldn't do most of the rides, but we did take the little tram across the boardwalk.  What a beautiful view! We enjoyed the rest of the afternoon walking around the whole place, eating cotton candy and we even ran into two old college friends.  We also spent some time playing out in the sand and enjoying being by the ocean.

We had so much fun, I wish we could do it again every weekend!  We're excited to come back again someday with our little family.

Working Californians

We've both been so blessed to find jobs that we love!

Dave is an account executive for a smaller big data company with about 75-80 employees. They do technology and predictive marketing for real estate agents and he loves it.  He's been given the Nevada/Utah territory to sell in and does really well there.  Most of his work is on the phones, with the option to travel if there is some kind of trade show or real estate convention going on, which might happen a few times a year.  He's surrounded by people his age and interacts with the CEO and CFO on a regular basis.  He's got a great trainer who has been working right alongside him helping him learn it all.  Plus, they're always bringing in lunch for everybody, which is just one of those extra perks that makes a big difference.  We have the most amazing health insurance through them where our monthly premiums, deductible and co-pays are half the price we were paying in Texas.  It is such a blessing that has been just what we needed.  He rides his bike the 5 miles round trip everyday and is grateful he doesn't waste any time commuting .Yet the biggest blessing has been the fact that Dave has a base salary.  His last job was purely commission based and it was tough not having a steady pay check. Now we are able to live off of his base salary alone and his commissions are just a bonus that we throw into savings.  It's a great feeling, especially since we have a baby on the way!

As if we're not blessed enough with Dave's new job, I was able to find a job that I love and start working, all within a month and a half.  I'm working at an English as a second language school in Berkeley.  It's right across from the UC Berkeley campus and is for high school graduates and up.  Some are needing to pass the program in order to be allowed to apply to an American university for undergrad or a masters and some are just sent here by their country or job to learn English.  There are students from all over the world, but the majority seem to be from Asia and the Middle East.  They are all so eager to learn, I love it!  I run from class to class and the time seriously flies by.It's a lot of work, but the students are so fun and they definitely make it worth it. The building I work in is an old dorm surrounded by frat houses.
There are classrooms intermingled with dorm rooms.   One morning I got there a half hour early and I ran up to the 3rd floor to make copies in the computer lab, came around the corner and almost collided with one of the students. He was just coming out of the bathroom after his shower, with only a towel wrapped around his waist, awkward!

Our life is so good!!!