Hey Girl:Jack Johnson Edition

Oh Jack.

{here is where this came from-before I made it awesome}

He sings to me too:

Hey Girl:Eddie Vedder Edition

I LOVE the Ryan Gosling "Hey Girl" pictures...they make me smile every time. 

However I'm not 100% in love with him...so here is my kinda "Hey Girl"

{source-prior to my "addition"}

Oh Eddie.

He can sing to me too:

2012

So I thought we were supposed to have flying cars by now? Maybe that's 2020?

Either way 2011 DID become a big year for technology in our house. I hope the evil-geniuses over at Apple appreciate our hard earned money...2 new iPods (plus 1 recall trade-in), an iPod Touch, an iPhone and an iPad make us happy and nerdy all at the same time.

I'm not going to recap the year, that's what the right side of the blog is for. But I'd like to note that we are thankful for our jobs, friends, family & health. 

I will however talk about what's in store for 2012. 

I always make the same resolutions:

-get healthy (formerly get skinny)

-get organized

-pay off bills

Every year these things don't happen.

So apparently I need to change my game plan.or actually follow through with the said plan.

As for the get healthy portion I am currently reading these two books

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*

I'm fully aware that merely reading these won't actually help, so I suppose I will have to put for some effort in my get healthy plan. I already have been working on cutting out(or) back on animal proteins. So far my mechanism for dairy is just not adding any. Like not adding cheese, butter or sour cream. Things that already have them in it are still going into my mouth...like cookies. 

As for meat, I had a turkey on Thanksgiving and pork on my birthday. Along with seafood twice since then. 

It's not a big deal. I..I have made sure to not make it a big deal. 

What I have involved others in is this:

After watching this:

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I convinced my mom(a die-hard water bottle fan) to use a filtered reusable one. Though she (nor I) love the ones that I bought...poor flowage. We'll see. 

Watch for yourself and tell me you don't want to run out and buy one.

Those above books were influenced by a few documentries I watched on Netflix...damn Netflix.

*

The get organized issue isn't being solved with reading blogs. SO I guess I'll have to be a little more proactive on this one.

The pay off bills portion is a slow and steady battle. I'd like to change this to save money.someday.

I told my girls that once this place: 

is opened that if I can't buy it there we aren't getting it.

Yea, this didn't go over well.

So that's about it. No trips planned, nothing fancy like that. 

However we will now be frequenting this place:

And...

Can't wait for softball season to start.

Can't wait for 2 weeks off for Spring Break.

Can't wait for summer time.

Hope 2012 is full of Sunshine, Rainbows & Lollipops!

Like this:yes-click here for a visual

I hope we ALL stay safe, happy & healthy.

And hope this for you as well♥.

(fyi-thanks google for the pictures)

Insta-Friday: Gobble Vacation Edition

Nowadays over here (a many other school districts) Thanksgiving means an entire week of school off. And (hello furlough days) this also means a week off for me too...which is nice.

This had to have been one of the best days ever that i have spent with my little peeps. Roller skating (yes, of course I skated) with friends, the park, Pier 1, Flame Broiler for dinner, then Barnes & Noble.great day.

Funky Santa Metro Link train production. Full-fun tub. Patient 14 year old cat. My desk. My hard-hat wearing husband looking at the receipt that says we'll be getting $8.13 for recycling our 5.5 year old washer.humbling.

Gobbling it up at my dads. Too many documentaries lead me to do crazy things. FYI, celery is strong when juiced. Happy Subway customers.

Insta-Friday:Mostly Food Edition

Last Friday started with a round of streep for one of my little peeps..and some freaky-huge tonsils.not cute.

 Cheap muffin mix and 1/4 of whole wheat flour=scones

 This makes working at a new school just a little easier.

Attempting something new and "fun."

Those aren't pancakes...they are supposed to be tortillas:fail...fun-ish though.

Scary.

My magical kit I got from here.

{I'm too lazy at this point to take a final product picture..but it's pretty awesome.even if my husband had to school me on some sewing machine tips.}

 Dinner date with my Abigail....a sandwich for her...burrito salad for me! 
Thank goodness for strip malls.

Bounce house birthday party. Always fun.

No, it's not Friday.

I'm failing at this.

The Happy Day Project

Being spontaneous and randomly thoughtful doesn't always seem to be the first choice over here. So it's something I {we, but default} are going to attempt to work on...we'll see how it goes.

Here is the mission:

Read this.

I have a blog crush on this lady. 

Don't tell her, I'm local so now it just sounds creepy. ;-)

Here was the inspiration:

Read this.

I started this morning by offering to get my co-workers this:

{yes, it IS self-serving as well}

However one insisted it was their turn to buyand forced me to take money...but I am SOOOO still counting this one!

While there I also got one of these

for the new teacher I'm working with... after all the woman has aloud me sneak out early all this week since we had 1/2 days. It's such a treat to leave work early to pick up my own kids from school♥

This brought some extra happiness this morning...from a thoughtful coworker.

Day Trippin'

The Otellio's don't take day trips much(so this is a long post). We've been to Sea World a few times and see a movie maybe twice a year. Usually we hit up local parks or just consider our weekly Costco trip followed by some frozen yogurt a family outing.

However this summer we made a little list of some stuff we wanted to do. 

#2 was Ride a Train

So we did!

We got on at the Santa Ana station and rode the 28 minutes to San Juan Capistrano. 

 The nice train man hurried us along...

We made it...

 The Los Rios Historic District has amazing adobe buildings, shops and little restaurants.

 Yes, I grabbed me a cup...cream behind the counter and no stirrers at 9:45am? Hummm? Oh well...coffee is coffee (for the most part) in my book. 

An old house.. 

I had bought a Jasmere (like Groupon) deal for Zoomars...$18 for us to get in 3 baskets of veggies for the animals and 2 kiddie train rides.

  We LOVE guinea pigs and my kids have always wanted to hold a rabbit. So when they saw a 20x20 pen filled with both running a muck they were in heaven. 
I'm anti-pet stores, circus' and can barely tolerate zoos-so I'm a little sketchy on the care ALL these little guys get-they looked happy and willing to be man-handled my dozens of kids though. What can you do?

We LOVE piggies!

I LOVE goats!

The pigs were sweet.

So were the ponies.

Emus are a bit creepy, but made awesome sounds.

A big cow:

The llamas win for best fur:

A $6 bag of dirt magically had "precious" gem stones in it while panning. I could have sported $12 for the bag that had a "real" arrowhead in it, umm. no.

Juliet thought it was awesome, I suppose that is the real point. (and I should grumble about the $6)

After Zoomars we headed to the the Los Rios Historic District to check out the historical sites...

(yes, I think this hilarious)

We had lunch at a little family owned restaurant that is in the old train depot...they also hold a Murder Mystery Dinner Theater there...it's really a beautiful building.

After lunch we walked by Mission San Juan Capistrano. Abigail went there in March on a field trip and Brad went the many times as youth, as did I. We didn't go in....Juliet will just have to wait four years until 4th grade so she can go too.

 We aren't getting into heaven anytime soon:

We saw a few photo shoots going on around town, there are SO many great spots for them!

Los Rios Park is fairly new. There isn't much shade, since the trees aren't mature yet. But the weather was great and the girls played until it was time to board the train to head home.

Here comes the Amtrak!

Abigail had a brief moment of panic when she read or heard something that said "this train runs non-stop to San Luis Obispo." (which is about a 6 hour drive away)..panic..almost tears. Even the "it's ok we have money to get home or someone can get us and we'll always keep you safe" speech wasn't helpful. Until they announced our stop was coming up. End of panic mode...thank goodness.

We were home by 3:15pm after stopping at 7-11 for some Slurpees. Later that night we went to Souplantation for dinner, stopped at a park for a while, then went home and all watched Kicking and Screaming (we love Will Ferrell-even in clean form)...I'd have to say it was just about the BEST.DAY.EVER. for us people anyhow.

♥