What a happy birthday!!

Today was a great day! I woke up next to the man of my dreams. Yes we live together and sleep next to each other every night but Xian recently got a "promotion". This means that there was a problem store that was in desperate need of a good manager. It has been chewing managers up and spitting them out for the past 3 years. It is an incredibly busy store with employees that...hhmmm..shall we say...they have been in survival mode instead of really living the values of our company. It has been 3 weeks and Xian has been making good progress...but it means a lot of over time, stress, and WORK. He works from 5am-5pm and I work 4pm-1am. So we never wake up together. So it was a special birthday treat to wake up, open my eyes, and see my beautifully delicious favorite person in the world.

Have you heard of the House of Blues' Gospel Brunch? I went to it for my 13th birthday in New Orleans. Then my friend Julie took Xian and I to the one on Sunset today. It was SO GREAT! I danced, stomped my feet, and clapped my hands and did I mention danced? It was phenomenal! i had sooooo much fun. The energy was intoxicating. I even danced on the stage with the gospel singers because it was my b-day!

Then I went swimming @ Steven and Sarahi's.

Then I went to Stacie and Tim's for a campfire...or rather a backyard fire. It was fabulous just visiting, hanging out, and enjoying each others company. My birthday was spent with great friends and I couldn't ask for anything else.

OKAY OKAY. If I was allowed to be greedy I would want to have seen my friends and family that are in WA, WI, Denver, and Sacramento too...but you get the point:)

HEAT WAVE!

Okay...so I am so not a happy camper! It is 103 degrees here and it is almost 9pm. It reached 109 today! IIIIICKKKKKY! There were two things that were very important to Xian and me when searching for our house: central air and a garage. This place has both...however the ac broke on wednesday night. The good news is that we asked the seller to buy us a home warranty for 1 year from the purchase date and it included the ac. They are coming to fix it on Monday and we only have to pay a $50 deductible...the bad news is that we have to suffer through this excruciating heat with three little fans that do nothing but push around the stifling hot thick air. Poor Xian slept through his alarm this morning because it sounds like a 747 is taking off in our room with all the fans! C'est la vie!

I had an audition for a national commercial for Gold's Gym. They wanted a "normal, beautiful, athletic, natural, woman in her mid to late 20's with an athletic build that can 'mock' exercise." I am way ahead of the game because I can actually EXERCISE! It was in the basement of this cool building that appears to have once been a bank. I was wearing work out attire so I was, at the very least, comfortable. It was somewhat unorganized with my call time being at 3:30 and me not actually going in until after 5. I did great. It all boils down to the "look" that the client wants because I am sure that we all did sit-up, push ups and ran in place PHENOMENALLY well. Although i wore capri pants they asked me to roll them up and my scar was exposed...I will have to get some make-up to cover it up in the future.

The most interesting aspect of the afternoon was that they were casting a horror porn film in the office next to us so there were many interesting and colorful characters coming in and out (no pun intended). I befriended three drag queens that possibly looked better in 4 inch heels, thongs, and fish net stockings than I could ever hope for myself. This is Mayhem, Detox, and Paulina. You go girls!

Triathalon Day!!

My great friend Stacie and I continued on with our second annual tryst @ the Danskin Triathalon. It was at Disneyland at the California Adventure Park. For those of you who haven't been to CA Adventure it is set up like Coney Island ( think Tom Hanks making his wish in BIG) with a lake in the middle and the board walk surrounding the perimeter of the lake with all the rides and attractions. We swam in the lake in the middle. Then biked. Then ran. It was fun. My biggest strength is the swim! Stacie and I had a good time together. I will post pics when I get them

Sierra!

I found this pic of Sierra when she was about 1. She is so freaking cute!

Sierra's Baptism

Sierra was baptized in the Catholic church on Fort Lewis in January. I was finally able to meet Nate, her God dad. I think Tam and Chris met Nate in North Carolina and he quickly became part of our family. i always heard so much about him but every single time I came to town, which was pretty often, he would always be outta town or busy. I started to think that Tam made up this amazing guy one day when she and Chris were lonley and really wanted to play Rummikub...but he really does exist! I met him the day we became parents together....God parents that is!

Chris, Tamara and Sierra

OMG Here is the most amazing lil family ever. I hope that I like my future children half as much as I adore Sierra. From the moment she was born she has had this uncanny ability to look at you and everything else in the world melts away and you are the singularly most important person in the world! At barley 2 years old she is talking up a storm and makes up songs about everything. Her little voice is s precious! I have about 13 saved voice mails of her amazing lil voice singing to me. I lOVE IT!

Pics to share

The girls and I at the Consumer Electronic show in Vegas in January. We were the "booth babes" for Hitachi. Hitachi sent us a packet of dozens of pages of information that we were supposed to learn. So I was all stressed out trying to memorize all the stats and function of all the new products, but then my friend Curtis bluntly said that all i needed to do was to stand there and look pretty, attract the men to the booth, and then hand it over to the Hitachi men for any extensive questions. Duh! that took a lot of pressure off. It was 5 long days of hard work but I was fortunate enough to meet four great girls. We had a "handler" named Hyami. She was responsible for driving us from the show to our hotel and she was very "interesting". It was like having a den mother. I put a $5 bill in a Wheel of Fortune Penny slot and immediatley won 50,000 pennies which the lady next to me explained was $500:) Plus our outfits were WAY cuter then any of the other booth babes. Over all it was a good trip!