PLEASE CLICK ON THE COLLAGE TO ENLARGE! ENJOY!
Wow, It's been FOREVER since the last time we updated. As usual, a lot has happened, and we were too busy to update the blog since we were having so much fun! After our last update (back in November of 2009!), our wonderful family has gone down to the Bay Area for Thanksgiving, celebrated Eden's 12th birthday, celebrated Emma's 3rd birthday, celebrated Christmas, had family over for New Years, and LOADS MORE!
A couple days before Veteran's Day, I took Emma and Sophie with me down to the Bay Area. Since I'm able to work practically anywhere that has a computer, and the girls are not in a school or daycare, we were able to come a couple weeks early down to the Bay Area. It was very sad to leave Joy and Eden up in Oregon. We drove down... Yes, drove. It's a 10 hour drive, but it took us 11, just to be safe. The girls were fantastic all the way down! Sophie was a bit sick, so she slept most of the time, and Emma had a blast listening (and singing) to music and watching some movies. While I worked from my parents house, my mom and/or dad would watch the kids. Sophie took a little while to get comfortable with my parents, but after a couple of days she was her happy smiley self.
The days went by pretty quickly. Emma, Sophie and I would Skype with Joy and Eden every other day. It was hard to be in the Bay when it was Eden's 12th birthday. I don't like missing special events like that for our kids. She looked great in her dress though! Joy made Eden all her favorite foods, like Korean BBQ and Sinigang. The little ones and I would visit (rather frequently) the Rubin's house for some PS3, and NERF War action! Emma had such a great time shooting Ninong J-Lee. We were practicing and gearing up for the great Thanksgiving showdown! Finally after 2 weeks of being apart, Joy and Eden took the Amtrak down to the Bay Area. It was a 16 hour train ride! They were met by Emma, Sophie, Mama, Papa, Inay, and myself! It was great to have everyone back together again!
The week that Joy and Eden were in the Bay was probably our busiest yet! We visited all of our hangouts and literally pigged out on all the food that we were missing out on! We had our pictures taken for our Christmas cards by Jon's cousin Billy. He did an amazing job taking TONS of pictures of the family. Thanks Billy for capturing many wonderful memories for us!
Thanksgiving LUNCH this year was at the Rubin's house, and it did not dissapoint! It was food overload, with a showdown of sorts for the cousins. NERF WARS! Thanks to Inay (well really Sae for donating most of the guns). We also celebrated Eden, Emma, and my dad's birthdays there. After a semi food coma, we followed the Navarretes to Thanksgiving DINNER at RJ's house in Benicia. MORE FOOD!!! We also got to meet Logan, who was super cool and very adorable. He and Sophie had a wonderful time playing together!
Friday was "errand day". We spend most of the day in Fremont getting our van fixed and doing some Christmas shopping at Costco. Joy and I went and visited Jon and Billy that night for a late night snack at BJs (formerly Houlihan's at Sunvalley Mall). We ran into Norbert, Bobby, and Adel there! Random!
Saturday was TEATRO ZINZANI. First of, a huge awesome THANK YOU to Kuya Gerry. That night would not, could not, have been possible without you. Thank you for everything! We had a wonderful time and memories that we will take forever. If you ever get the chance, you MUST go and see Teatro Zinzani. Their performances are amazing, and the food is just ridiculously delicious! I won't spoil anything from the actual performances, but let's just say that it's definitely MUST SEE! After Teatro Zinzani, Joy and I headed down to Billy's house for a little get together he was having. We arrived right before Holman and Alesia were "leaving". They had been trying to "leave" for almost an hour. It was good to see them, and everyone else for that matter! Thanks to Auntie Jet and Billy for opening up your home to us. We probably arrived there at 1130, but had to leave about 1AM since we were leaving for Oregon the next day.
Sunday was going home day. Granted, it's not a fun day to begin, but it's a day that always has to get done. I hope that made sense. One highlight of this day was going to In N Out on the way up to Oregon. It's our last stop in California before hitting the border.
After being gone for almost a month, Oregon felt different when I came back. It was probably because it was FREEZING when we arrived. The next couple of days before Christmas, we had temperatures in the TEENS almost every day! If it warmed up, it only got to about 37 degrees as a high, and it would rain. Just a couple more degrees and it would be a blizzard, but it never came down as snow.
Emma's 3rd birthday party was so much fun! Joy always makes what the birthday celebrant loves to eat. For dinner we had Mac and Cheese (Kraft style), McDonald's Chicken Nuggets and Fries, and corn. Go figure.... Not the healthiest dinner, but it was still yummy nonetheless.
Getting ready for Christmas was very memorable. I spent a good hour or so on the roof of our house putting up lights. Having Christmas in our first house is definitely a memory that will be with me forever. We had Christmas Eve dinner at Joy's parents house, and opened stockings. Thanks Mom, Paw, Lara, and Grandma Belle! The Night Before Christmas (the kid friendly and unrated versions) was read by Paw with Sophie and Emma sitting on his lap. Since it was our first year in our first house, Joy and I decided to have Christmas Dinner here. Paw, Mom, Lara, and Grandma Belle arrived super early Christmas Day to see the reactions to the girls waking up to Christmas morning. Emma's gift from Santa was a playhouse/dollhouse, and Sophie's was a buggy that she can ride and be pushed in. Eden got a digital camera and an MP3 player. My lovely wife gave me my ring that she restored. It was previously (and purposefully) cut off of my finger a couple of years back. (It's kind of a funny story, but a bit long to post here.) I have one word to describe Christmas Dinner... DELICOUS!!! We had pernil (pear-kneel, Puero Rican style pork shoulder), raviolis and gnocchis from Genovas in Oakland (which we took with us from the Bay), green beans (Leah and Nick style) and Joy's awesome eggplant parmesan.
A couple of days after Christmas, my sister came up on the train to visit us for New Year's. She said that she didn't care what she did while she was up here, as long as she got her hair "did" and that it snowed. She got both of that, on the same day... After having freezing temperatures and rain on opposite days, it finally happened. God was with us that day. My sister wished for it to snow because she wanted to see snow falling. It's one thing to see it on TV, but to see it in person is another. It's so quiet, that's the amazing thing about it. It's beautiful and quiet. The funny thing is, the snow FOLLOWED us up to Tualitin where Inay was going to get her hair done. It snowed a good 6 inches, with Eden and Emma in the thick of it! My sister got her wishes, a nice new hairdo (complete with purple streaks), and it snowed. The weatherman called it a "freak" occurance, because the next day you could barely find any snow anywhere.
The next day also happened to be the day that the Ignacio boys were coming up via plane. I drove up with my sister (she had to get some last minute touches done to her hair), and met them at PDX. It's always a fun time when Kuya Royce, Kuya Edsel, and Kuya Rodney are around! Even though they like it better when Joy drives, we drove them around Salem and Portland and showed them some of what Oregon has to offer. We went bowling, looked at houses near the golf courses, and watched Avatar in 3D. We celebrated New Years Eve by playing poker and watching The Hangover. New Years Day was TAX FREE SHOPPING DAY for the Ignacio Boys. They took advantage of saving an automatic 10% on everything they bought, and got even better deals when we took them to the Woodburn shopping outlets!
On January 2nd, we had to say good bye to all of our visitors. We had breakfast at the Stepping Stones cafe, a place that Adam Richman from Man V. Food visited when he came to Portland. They really weren't lying when they made MAN-cakes! We dropped off the three boys first, then went to IKEA for some shopping before we dropped off Inay.
Alas, winter break was over for Joy and Eden, and it was back to the daily grind of work and school for us. I just want to thank everyone for all the support that you have given my family. Your love, prayers and thoughts are all that we could ask for. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts. God has blessed my family with a wonderful network of people who truly care and love us. We cannot be more grateful. Thanks for reading! Hopefully we'll be more dilligent in updating! :)
