Category Archives: Uncategorized

Schools out for summer used to be my favorite phrase, but three kids later not so much. Now it means finding activities for all three kids to do at the same time so they don’t kill each other and we don’t completely lose our sanity! Some days it already feels like our sanity is long gone… I mean adopting three kids at once, who does that? Oh yeah, crazy people! We love them dearly and most days wouldn’t trade them for anything, but just like any parents you have those days you consider it…

They truly are great kids but getting them to respect each other is hard work. Real respect from a place of honesty, trust & love was never modeled for them till us, so we understand them not grasping it yet. We just wish there was a quicker way to get it through to them.

In order to keep things civil here at home we’ve looked up every kids activity within a 25 mile radius. Thank The Lord we found a half day Christian summer school program for our oldest, and our youngest got into a Christian PreSchool program. That just left our girl with nothing to do, so far she’s got swim lessons going and loves it. You almost need a 3rd & 4th job to pay for all these activities. They are great programs but they aren’t free. It’s a catch 22 you need the programs so you can actually get work done but at the same time the money you make is going right out the door to the programs. We decided to get smart about it… We set up activity accounts for each kid and we have them put some of their chore money in each month. They get to fund their own fun & pick their own activities (with in reason).

Wow we couldn’t wait for spring to get here and it sure warmed up fast. We’ve already had almost a full week of mid 80’s temps. Looks like its time to bust out the summer apparel already.

This month is off to a great start, great weather means fun outdoor events. This past weekend we had the privilege of having Vivi stay with us… (for those of you who don’t remember…she is our friend Esmeralda’s daughter, who was our flower girl in our wedding.) Friday we went to see the movie HOP, it was a great movie, then we went to A&W for dinner. It was Vivi’s first time eating at A&W so of course we went with the classic chicken fingers basket, which happens to be her new favorite.

Saturday we went to Vivi’s Volleyball game, it was only her teams 2nd game ever, and their first loss ever. After the game we went home got changed played in the front yard with all our puppies and fed all of our fish. We also finished painting our master bedroom, it looks great, next we have finish the tile…it’s going to look amazing when it’s all done and put back together. Since it was Saturday we took a vote on what to have for dinner, and it was a landslide for pizza. We hit the grocery store picked up a massive amount of bacon, to have with breakfast on Sunday, and ice cream for dessert later. Then picked up our Hawaiian pizza on the way home. After dinner we cleaned up and headed out for few bowling games. The first game was a total loss for all of us, but the 2nd game there was some major improvement.

We were pretty tired after bowling so we headed back home for a game of Monopoly and some ice cream. We played Monopoly till 11:30pm then finally went to bed, time just flew by.
Sunday morning we were up bright n’ early…for pancakes and bacon…someone’s favorite… bet you can’t guess who…

When we finished breakfast there was only 2 pieces of bacon left and 5 pancakes left. We cleaned up and emptied the dishwasher then reloaded it. We all got dressed for the day around 11am, then loaded everyone up into the car, even all the puppies, and headed out to the farm for some much needed fresh air. Vivi ran all over the farm, and ran a quarter mile in 3.48 minutes. We had a great lunch out there, BBQ’d Ribs, corn on the cob, and grilled beans…. with mini-cupcakes for dessert. By the end of the day Vivi had worn out all of our puppies, when it was time to go home the pups couldn’t get in the car fast enough. Once we got home the puppies all passed out on the tile floor, and we relaxed on the couch by playing Wii bowling & boxing till Vivi’s mom came to pick her up.
It was a great weekend.

April 15-17th we’ll get to see her again… Tulare is hosting the annual Antique Farm Show. It’s a great event for friends and families. There’s going to be parades, BBQ’s, Pancake breakfast in the mornings, arts & crafts for kids and a ton of other stuff. We are really looking forward to it. If you are going to be in the area at that time check it out: http://www.antiquefarmshow.org

We are so excited that spring is finally here. The weather has been absolutely amazing. Our family has grown again, we now have a new cousin who was born in December ( Colbie Elaine) and a beautiful new niece (Paisley Rae) born in February.

Family is amazing… so we found some old photos and posted them to our facebook albums. Click here to view them.

Our beautiful Christmas tree! We had a wonderful, quiet Christmas at home. It was so peaceful and relaxing. We didn’t go crazy with gifts and it was one of the best Christmases we’ve ever had. Our “kids” enjoyed it too. They ripped open their presents and played all over the farm for hours, then passed out by the fire place with all of their new toys.

We made a yummy chocolate meringue pie for dessert.
The meringue turned out perfect.

Overall it was a wonderful day to praise God for sending His son to earth for us.

Wow another year of marriage has flown right on by. It’s been another amazing year. We still love each other like crazy, tell each other everything, best friends, it’s all we ever wanted and more. We don’t take anything for granted, we remember to enjoy the simple things in life, and always put God first.

November was a month full of adventure and fun. We went to Las Vegas for our anniversary/work conference. We had a great time seeing all the sites.
Did just a little gambling on the penny slot machines and won $19.00 from only $1.00…. not bad.We made a visit to the wonderful M&M Store, one of our favorites.Next we made our way over to New York, New York. Super cool place with taxi cabs everywhere and the most important NY Landmarks shrunk to fill the inside and outside of the hotel.
It was a great trip, we walked the strip at night to see all of the amazing lights, and ate at wonderful restaurants. We also went to quite a few unbelievably beautiful art galleries.

After getting home from Vegas the rest of the month was pretty calm.
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving surrounded by family. This whole month we’ve constantly been reminded how truly blessed we are and we are so Thankful to our Lord Jesus Christ.

We went to Atwater for the 4th of July to enjoy the famous Gurrola Family BBQ. Good food and great people. We had fun getting to hang out with everybody….catch up on what’s new etc.
Johnny & Josiah will both be fathers before 2011. We’re hoping they have girls….there’s enough boys in the family already. 😉
The family just keeps on growing. It’s gonna be an exciting year.

Gurrola boys in control of the BBQ.

We had a great time chillin by the pool watchin all the kids play.

We spent our weekend up in Atwater, with family. We just BBQ’d and hung out with everyone. Beautiful weather, nice and warm.
Almost the whole family was there.
…but we still missed BECCA!!!

There was a ton of food and it was all completely awesome.

We made fried rice…2 big containers and it sure disappeared fast!

Exciting news…we found out we are going to be Uncle and Auntie again... 2 new babies will be here some time this Fall.
The family keeps getting bigger and bigger.

We love family!

We went to San Jose for the weekend so we could be there for our nephew Jacob’s 9th Birthday party.
We had a great weekend with family.
For Jacob’s birthday we went to his baseball game and cheered on the Dodgers! Next we went to Round Table Pizza for pizza, cake and presents. He got a lot of presents…
After presents we headed to the roller rink, for hours of roller skating. Most everyone managed to stay on their feet.
It was a great day…soo much fun.

The rest of the weekend we just hung out with friends and family, talked, laughed…lots of laughing…and ate a lot of great home cooked food.

We went to the PMA Expo in Anaheim this year. PMA stands for Photo Marketing Association it is a Worldwide Community of Imaging Associations. It was fantastic, we got to learn about all the latest and greatest gizmos and gadgets coming out for photography. We had a great time hanging out in Anaheim for 4 days. We met a lot of really great people and went to some new restaurants.
Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. is absolutely amazing. The weather was wonderful, it only rained once. I can’t wait for next years expo, but in 2011 it will be back in Vegas, which is a great place, but it was really nice having it closer to home.

Papa left us to be with Jesus on Sunday. I guess going to church wasn’t good enough…he just had to see him face to face. 🙂 He seemed to have went peacefully. It’s a hard day even though we know he is in heaven with his golden John Deer Tractor. 🙂 He’ll be missed everyday.