Friday Night is Ladies' Night!

So much happened this weekend, I'll have to make two or three separate posts just to make sure I cover everything. So if you're a follower of my blog, be prepared for a lot of reading!

On Friday night, I hosted a BeautiControl party for my Auntie Emy (seen above on the far right) and invited a couple of ladies over to the house to get pampered for the evening. BeautiControl offers a wonderful line of cosmetic and skin care products. I use the skin care line myself and have found it to be quite effective, especially with my skin acting up within recent months.

As you can see from the pictures, the ladies had a marvelous time getting their treatments! Not only that, I had a delicious assortment of refreshments available to the ladies. I had a chocolate fondue to dip some strawberries, pound cake chunks and marshmallows in; some cheese and crackers, other fruits and a few dessert wines (my favorite kind of wine) that I purchased at the Boulder Wine Festival a few months ago. Can you say yummy? Oh, it ALL was! Here, my mom and Antonette are experimenting with the foaming cleanser. That's a funny face, mom! Charisse is getting some of that foaming cleanser on too. As if she needs it...her skin's as clear as ever anyway!

Here, Charisse and my Auntie Sepa (visiting from San Diego) try to relax by putting some cooling/moisturizing pads on their eyelids. My Auntie really got a kick out of the whole event. Her laughter during the whole thing was quite contagious!

Here, my Auntie Daisy slathers on the lip moisturizing treatment. First, you apply the exfoliant and after wiping it off, apply the accompanying moisturizer. The stuff is just great!

I'm not allowed to advertise BeautiControl specifically for my Auntie Emy, but I am allowed to direct you to the company's main website (I've provided links throughout this post). So, if you are interested in either purchasing items, becoming a consultant, or hosting a party--check the website out! Thanks to all the ladies for coming and especially to Auntie Emy for being our gracious consultant for the evening!

I love Patrick Dempsey!

I actually wanted to sleep in today, but that didn't happen. I ended up cleaning the backyard, and taking trash and wood scraps to the Fort Carson Recycling Center. Oh joy, oh joy! But it didn't end there. I went to Lowe's to return all the pickets that weren't used for the fence--there were 66. I had to unload them all by myself. No sympathy needed, thank you. I actually needed the workout!

Malu called while on a break from the range. It's always such a nice surprise to get a phone call from him in the middle of the day considering how much training those guys are doing. I told him all about the ticket I got yesterday and he got a good laugh. We both know that he would've gotten out of the ticket if the roles were reversed. The guy's been pulled over three times more than I have, but has never gotten a ticket. What's up with that?

So yeah, did some cleaning around the house and then decided to watch the "Made of Honor" movie my sister left here (here's a picture from one scene of the movie). I don't know about you guys, but I'm a huge Patrick Dempsey fan--you know, McDreamy from Grey's Anatomy, the nerdy guy from the 80's movie "Can't Buy Me Love"? Sure you know him. He's such a hottie...and I'm a sucker for chick flicks and this one was as good as it gets. You should watch it when you have the chance.

Now I have about half and hour to kill before my ride arrives to head to Pueblo. Can't wait for classes to be done tonight! It'd be really nice if the time flies for the next few hours.

I Took A Test Today.....

And the gosh-darn thing was, like, 20 pages long--I kid you not! It was the Operations Management test from hell. Anna and I spent all day studying for it and once it was done, I swear, I was so spent that I could barely drive home, not to mention my hands (since I have really bad carpal tunnel) felt like they were going to fall off. It was the first exam for this class (and it's technically the midterm since the course only runs the first seven weeks of the semester). So there's this test and the final. Let's hope I did okay. I have mixed feelings, but I'm not going to worry about it until next week. To me...my weekend starts today! I have class tomorrow, but no tests so yeah, the weekend starts TODAY!!!

The day would have been a lot better, however, if it weren't for the speeding ticket I got earlier today. Roz and I were driving down this one road that leads to our mom's house. Technically, I was speeding. The cop clocked me going 50 in a 40. What sucks is that I saw her pull out onto the road behind me through my rearview mirror. When that happened, I started to slow down and went all the way to 45. She follows me for a good half a mile, then next thing you know, the lights go flashing and I get pulled over. She tells me that I was speeding and that I continued to accelerate. Bull crap, I said (to myself, at least)! Whatever, I really wasn't going to argue with her. It probably would have irritated her more. Then, after she wrote me up (for a $177 ticket, by the way), she noticed my sister holding all my Operations Management notes for me, asked what they were, to which I responded that they were the notes I'd been studying for a midterm I was going to have today. She responds with, "well, let's hope your day gets better." Yeah, would've been better if I got off with a warning. Am I totally hating? Yes. But it's my blog, and I'll whine if I want to!

I have a busy weekend coming up. My dad's sister, my Auntie Sepa, is stopping by for a visit (with my Uncle Mike). They're supposedly arriving tomorrow afternoon from Texas (where their daughter lives), on their way back to San Diego. I haven't seen them for 15 years or so, so I'm really excited. They might be staying at my house too, so I have to do some cleaning.

On Friday, I'm hosting a Spa Night party at my house to promote my Auntie Emy's BeautiControl business. It's a cosmetic/skin care line and she's going to share some of her products with the 10 or so ladies that attend. I actually use the skin care line and let me just say that it is a wonderful product. I'm going to serve finger foods. You know--cheese, crackers, chocolate covered strawberries and other fruits, and wine! That should be fun.

It doesn't end there. I'm hosting a Pampered Chef party for Antonette on Saturday evening, so I will be entertaining yet again. Can you tell I'm trying to keep busy? Well, I am. Better to have company a lot, then to just be here all in my lonesome (not that cuddling with Lucy is a bad thing....love ya, baby girl)!

Okay, that's all for tonight. Considering all the brain power (which really isn't a lot in the first place) I focused onto that darn test tonight, I'm surprised I can still write a few coherent sentences here! I'll talk to you guys again soon. Ta Ta for now!

What a Weekend!

As I said last week, my weekends start on Fridays since I have no classes. I usually work at mom's office on Fridays, but I only had to work half the day. I spent the first half in Denver, dropping off some equipment at Malu's unit for him. Since the weather was lousy and I didn't feel like rushing back home, I dropped by the nearby mall for a little shopping. Yeah, totally not necessary, but there were some good sales and I couldn't pass up the opportunity! By the time I got back to Colorado Springs, I only had three hours to work, which is pretty good for a Friday! Ever since Malu left, Fridays have become family dinner night at our house, which I love! Although times with my family can be quite chaotic, I enjoy having their company and especially enjoy a home-cooked meal. Jolene had marinated some pork chops in a homemade pesto sauce she received from a co-worker days earlier. My brother took the liberty of grilling them for us and they were so delicious!

My mom made one of her specialties, a traditional Filipino dish called Beef Sinigang (pronounced "See-Nee-Gahng"). It's a soup dish and was perfect for this nippy, rainy evening. I'm going to post a basic recipe for this dish on my cooking blog, so check it out!

The next day (Saturday) was an early one. It was Day 2 (the final day) of our fence construction project. At what seemed like the butt-crack of dawn, I met up with my parents, and four uncles--my Uncle Raymond (who's my real uncle--my mom's brother), Uncle Art, Uncle Larry, and Uncle Ray--to load a couple hundred pickets and a whole bunch of nails and screws onto our trucks and to haul them just a half-mile away to my house. With all the guys on-hand I barely lifted a finger...which was pretty much the theme for the rest of the day!

I am so grateful that my family has so many good friends that will step up to the plate whenever there is a need in the community. They're support, especially with Malu gone, means the world to the both of us! And the going rate for all this hard work? You got it....free food and free beer when the job is complete. Seriously! They labored the entire day, but don't you feel too sorry for them! They were fed and cared for every step of the way. Check out my mom bringing them their millionth snack...a nice cool Filipino favorite--halo halo! Yum!

As I said, I barely lifted a finger for the fence construction. But I did manage to get my hands dirty by mowing the lawn. Thankfully, mowing the lawn last weekend made it so much easier to do this time around, but still! Mowing that football field of a backyard--successfully--is quite a feat! However, when you've got good lawn-mowing form like you see here the job gets done in a snap! Yeah whatever!

Those guys didn't get done until about 7:00 p.m. And the results? A beautifully done fence on both sides of the house. Our yard is so big, I have to take the pictures in two sections and here they are:

And all this work.....for our baby girl right here. Who would have known that putting up a fence would take so much work? It's definitely not cheap either, but the fact that I can look out the window and see Lucy happily running circles around the place makes it all worth it.

My mom and grandma had dinner waiting for the guys when they were done. I invited my friend, Anna, over and she brought her 11-month-old golden lab, Howard, with her. I've been so happy to have Anna to carpool with to class from Monday to Thursday. She is also a graduate student at the CSU-Pueblo Business School and is actually an international student from Germany. It just so happens that she's dating an officer in the military who is deployed (so we have another thing in common) and lives just down the street from my mom and dad!

So today rolls around and I had intentions of resting after church and before doing some schoolwork. Too bad that didn't happen. I decided to invite Charisse over to help Roz and I do our Tuesdays with Dorie baking for the week (recipe will be posted on my cooking blog this week--check it out!). Charisse had cookies she wanted to bake for her co-workers and since Roz and I didn't want to get stuck eating extra cookies for the third week in a row, we figured we'd let Charisse have them once they were finished.

I decided to post a picture of me and my Kitchenaid Mixer, whom we've dubbed "Rosie", since she's gotten to much use over the last few weeks since I started my online cooking blog.

Dad decided to come over to watch the Broncos vs. Chargers (which was a great game, by the way) and to let the dogs play together. Here, dad is playing ball with Misty and Lucy. Rusty? Well, he's not too big into playing fetch. When they were completely exhausted, they all just spent the rest of the afternoon lounging out inside the house. Aren't they just adorable?

All in all, it was a busy but fruitful weekend and I'm thankful to all the family and friends who made it all possible! I must say that I'm not looking forward to this week, particularly school. I've got papers and exams and the combination is just not cool!

Malu calls every night and is, as usual, in good spirits. He's been (and will continue to be) on the range this week. He qualified expert the other day on one range, so I'm real proud (although he does all the time)! Please continue to keep him in your prayers!

Well, that's all for tonight. I hope everyone had as great a weekend as I did. May you all be blessed this week!

Bubble, Bubble...

No toil or trouble, thank goodness! Okay, see the picture? That was me tonight. Okay, that's not really me in the picture. You can tell--that chick has killer legs. Not me, no! Anyway, it's the end of my week and I figured since I have a nice, big tub in my bathroom that hasn't been "christened" yet, why not enjoy warm, relaxing bubble bath on this rainy evening?

I didn't have any candles lit, or soft music playing (maybe next time!)--just the warm, bubbly water and the sound of raindrops hitting the window right next to me. Hmmmmm....relaxing! I could have fallen asleep in that tub! I'm definitely doing it again.

But hey, stupid question...what's the proper bubble bath etiquette? Are you supposed to take a shower before you do it, or take one after, or just do the soaping and scrubbing in the bubble bath? For the record, I just hopped into the bath tub, did my bubble bath thingy, then hopped into the shower to rinse down. Seemed simple enough. Hmmmm...the fact that I'm even entertaining such a question is probably a good indication that I have no life! Seriously!

Anyway, I'm just glad the week is over. School is anything but exciting right now. I just don't have the motivation for it right now--perhaps the result of Malu being gone or maybe because I see the end of the road so clearly (especially now that I know where I'm getting assigned to next) that I just don't really care right now, or both. Who knows? What I do know is that I can't carry on like this any longer. I know I'd be really disappointed in myself, if I didn't get my A's this semester anyway. So if anyone has any good ideas for how I can get a little more psyched about going to school then be my guest!

Well, just wanted to drop a few lines before I hop into bed. I have an early day tomorrow. I have to head out to Denver to drop some of Malu's equipment off at his unit. Not particularly excited about the drive, but it will be nice to get out of town for a while. Maybe I'll stop by the mall while I'm there! I guess I'll talk to you all later!

P.S. the spacing on this post is probably off again. Arghh!!!

Bad Girls!

Okay, I'm guilty! Of what, you ask? Skipping class! Yes, I said skip! My friend, Anna, and I usually carpool to class and you should have heard the way we justified skipping today. We were stuck in traffic heading to I-25 with the intentions of heading south to Pueblo. Neither of us felt in the mood to sit in a three-hour operations management lecture. I particularly didn't want to because I was tired and had a finance test that I wanted to study for. Anna was also tired and wanted to finish painting her house. These reasons and a few more for the pro-stance for missing class (okay, so we couldn't find any reasons to not miss class) led us to turn right around and head home. I'm actually glad we did. I got to go to my mom's to do some studying and I might just get to bed early enough to wake up tomorrow morning to cram for my finance test.

Yes...we're bad girls! We're so living on the edge! I can't be that bad though. After all, I did remember to put the trash out for tomorrow ;)

P.S. Malu, if you're reading this--sorry I missed class! I know you hate it when I do :)

Weekend in Review

I'm lucky enough to have my weekends start on Fridays since I don't have any classes. I wanted to have a quiet, relaxing weekend at home and as it turned out, about a month ago my good friend, Tisha, had planned a Girls' Spa Day for that morning--which I completely forgot about! What a nice surprise!

So, that morning I made the drive out to Pueblo. We--Tisha, Kimberly, and I--started out at Hopscotch Bakery (the best bakery in Pueblo) and moved down the street to the Colorado Avenue Day Spa & Wellness Center, where we all indulged in an hour-long massage and a blueberry facial. I've been to several spas, but there was just something about this one that made the experience so much more enjoyable. Well, I know what that something was...the massage was just altogther fantastic. The rub down was so soothing and the oils so aromatic. And the facial--just divine! The place uses all-natural ingredients so the oatmeal scrub they used, along with the blueberry mask, were so fragrant I almost felt like eating the stuff right off my face! Seriously! But we ladies left that place just completely rejuvenated. We were lucky enough to have our picture taken, which has become somewhat of a ritual after all of our Girls' Spa Days.

Then on Saturday, I had my uncles come in to start on our fence. If I didn't have to work for mom that day, I would have taken tons of pictures of them and my dad struggling with the auger they used to drill the holes for the fence posts. It was quite hilarious. It's funny...the first thing my Uncle Ray said before they started that morning was, "damn, this is a big-ass yard!" Those of you that have actually seen it know that it really is huge. As a matter of fact, it's so huge, I hate it and can't wait to have the whole thing done and over with. We have all the landscaping done, it's just a matter getting the fences up.

Anyway, when I got off from work, I had the honor of mowing the darn thing and it took me an hour and a half! I need a riding lawn mower, I swear! We have one of the rechargeable electric ones, and although it's brand new and so quiet you'd barely know you're mowing, our yard is just too big for it! That night, I made sure to make Malu feel guilty for the fact that he left in time for me to do the tedious chore. But as usual, we ended up laughing about it and really just loving the fact that Lucy is enjoying her big back yard. You should have seen her out there, rolling around in her newly mown grass. She's the reason why we got this house with that size yard anyway....spoiled dog!

Today, after church our family joined the Fil-Am Community at the Golden Corral buffet for a luncheon. Naturally, we pigged out on those butter-coated rolls and all-you-can-eat steak and shrimp. It was all so good! So good, I went home determined to take a nap but failed miserably. I ended up doing some cleaning and preparing to have Roz and Jolene (my brother's fiance) come over to bake some cookies. Later on, my brother ended up joining us to watch the scary flick--Prom Night. They left a few minutes ago and I'm so scared right now, I have to do something to keep me occupied until I'm tired enough to fall asleep without having a nightmare--hence, this blog post. Yes, I'm one of those people!

All in all, a good weekend. And I'm happy to report that Malu is well and staying very busy at Fort Dix. He's been doing a series of classes for the last week and today, had some on weapons familiarization. He told me today that he's been assigned as the gunner for his team--which means he'll be manning the turret on his patrols. I'm not too thrilled about the idea (okay, I'm freaked out as all hell), but hey, that's the nature of the beast. We're both guessing that he'll be home on Columbus Day weekend for four days. Well, we know he's coming home for a four-day, we just don't have any confirmation on when. But Columbus Day weekend makes the most sense. It's amazing that those guys are even allowed to have a weekend off, especially since they're in the mobilization phase and all. You would probably never see this kind of thing on Active Duty. Commanders don't like to take that kind of risk when the unit is about to deploy. It's just too great an opportunity for soldiers to get into trouble. Sometimes they get into trouble serious enough to make them non-deployable. I've actually seen it happen before, which is why I was surprised when Malu told me he'd be coming home after he'd just left. I just consider it a blessing from God and we're going to make the most of those four days. I can't wait!

Well, I've got a busy week ahead--tests and everything. Wish me luck! May all of you be blessed this week and always!

P.S. For some reason, every time I make a post, it doesn't post the way I want it to (i.e. no spaces between some paragraphs, even though I type it that way). If anyone can help me with this problem, I'd really appreciate it!