New Addition to the Family

We weren't expecting to add to our family until July, but Christmas came a little early this year. We know that nothing goes according to plan as often we'd like as we never know what life will throw at usalong the way. We figured baby would come in July and we had time to plan things out but things didn't turn out quite that way.



We spent this morning like most Memorial Day mornings: we got up and washed the Ford Escape and drove over to the church for the annual Memorial Day Breakfast. We left the clean Escape at home and took the dirty Jetta instead. Ally left with Grammy without saying goodbye and we figured we had a free playday... or at least a few hours. So we decided to go out looking at cars, not necessarily expecting to come home with one. We at least wanted to check things out and see what was out there. One thing we knew for sure was that with 2 kids we would need something bigger than the Jetta. This is the last time we saw the Jetta...We stopped at a dealer and started looking and found something that we thought we liked. We both took it for a test drive and liked it and decided it was what we wanted. We both had our eye on the Chevy Equinox and had been looking into it a bit. We liked it enough to leave the Jetta behind and walk away with our new addition. So here it is...
BUT... we wen't the only one who got a new set of wheels. Good ol' Uncle Ben got himself a new bike. I'm not sure if he was planning on getting rid of his old one but this one seems to suit him. I love how he's going for what he calls the "on-deck": wearing the helmet over the baseball cap. Gotta give him credit for respecting the mandatory state law of wearing a helmet while on a bike.

At the Speed of Life...

It's been quite a while since our last blog but that's what being busy gets you. A number of things have happened since then and here's just a few:

• Feb. 7- Ally loses her first tooth before the age of 5. Shouldn't be a surprise since she got her first teeth at 14 weeks. 3 weeks later she loses another. She then loses #3 in April and is in the process now of losing #4.


• During Becky's week off in February, Joe took the week off and we headed to a couple places for a quick family outing. We first headed to the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield and Ally had a great time... eating jelly beans. We also headed off to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Ally got to see her fish and we used the trip as a good excuse to check out Rosine's (shameless plug). The food isn't great but this place is all about the deserts. We walk in and see a display of cakes about 12" high. We were going to get a couple slices as we couldn't decide which to choose. We noticed a cake with quite a chunk cut out and asked what the size of a slice was. "You see what's missing out of that cake? That size." Needless to say, we stuck to a single slice and it was great! We'd been hearing quite a bit of this place and we're anticipating the next trip.


• March- we find out that baby #2 is another girl. We're calm as we realize that it will be cheaper this way since we saved a bit of Ally's things. Prior to finding out we asked Ally if she wanted a baby brother or sister. "I want a baby sister. We already have Coach (the dog) so I already have a brother." Precious. It's a good thing Coach's training class graduation diploma lists his name as Coach Pereira. I'm not sure we're allowed to have a baby boy to carry the name otherwise thanks to Ally's selection process.


• April- we got the "Avatar" Blu-Ray... awesome!


• May- Ally turned 5. We ended up getting a much bigger cake for her than we thought so we had a couple people over to help us eat it. We asked for no gifts but of course no one ever listens to me. Ally was opening her gifts and when she got to Grammy's, everyone asked "what is it?" Ally nonchalantly grabbed the bag and before loooking in said, "Clothes, of course." Sure enough, it was clothes. She got the bike she's been wanting and then asked what kind of bike she was gonna get when she turned 6. And we decided to have another girl?

That's been the major events over the past couple of months. Too many little things in between but little time to sit and blog regularly. Maybe one day when we have nothing better to do. At least tomorrow is Memorial Day and we both get to enjoy a day off. Much needed.