Happy Thanksgiving!!!

It's Thanksgiving already?? Just a few weeks to go and will already be Christmas. Time to get shopping.

We finally got back from our trip yesterday. That was by far the longest trip to CA by car EVER!!!! Between traffic and inclement weather we spent about 30-35 hours just in the car alone. Blech. Next time I think I will scrap being cheap and just fly (at least during winter driving conditions).

We all had a great time. Spent the 1st part of the trip in Santa Maria hanging with Greg's mom, dad, and Chris. We took a drive out to Vandenberg AFB to explore the beach and tide pools, then we went to Greg's dads second home, the Rod and Gun club. We all did some shooting with a couple different guns that are part of "NRA Papa Mikes" collection while Belly and Nana Debbie played in the car. I'll download some pictures in the next couple of days. Also got a chance to hang out with the Craig family and I am happy to report that this time the dog did not poop on my shirt!! hehehehe.

The 2nd 1/2 of the trip we spent over in the Valley. A big "Thanks!" to Sheila and Alex who let us stay and take over the house for a few days. We spent lots of time with Shayley who is so tiny and cute. It was great to just hang out like old times and relax. Sunday we spent the day with our cousins in Dinuba. Belly had the best time playing with Alik, Arlen, Karnig, and Melina (or as Belly calls her, Belina). We had yummy dinner and spent the afternoon kicking back with the family. We also had a chance to meet up with Frances, Bill, and Carlita. We were glad to see them and get a chance to hang out and eat some dinner with them. :)

Last day of the trip we visited with Grama Rachael and Aunt Candi. Belly and Allison got a chance to play together with only a few squabbles. hahahaha.



Overall we had a great trip and were sad to go. We miss and want everyone to come up and visit. We have room and would love to have some visitors up here. It is nice though to be back home, sleeping in our own cozy beds and enjoying the rain and cold. (Yes, we really do love it.)

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving wherever you are. Hopefully everyone is having a great dinner and getting a chance to relax. We are off to "regular" Nana and Papa's house to have dinner and then, yipeee, I am back to work tonight to listen and to all the family disturbances, drunk drivers, and heart attacks that this jolly holiday brings. :)

And we have arrived....

I can't believe the response we have had to the blog!!! Fan-tas-tic!


We haven't had so many legit emails in I don't know how long. :) Anyway, its great to hear back from everyone and also to get responses back on the actual blog site. Just in case anyone misunderstood, we are still good to go for responding to emails to our gmail account just like normal.

So of course, after setting up the blog site, we all got very busy with working OT in addition to our regular hours and alas- no updates. So finally, we are on vacation, relaxing, and I have some time to update.

Since the last....

On November 8, we took Belly to her 1st Laker game. Was Lakers vs. Portland Trailblazers. We hoped for a win, and once again, the Lakers failed to impress us. :( They lost- 101-90. Belly, however, had a great time. We went along with a friend, MiSun and her "friend", Eric. Oh sorry MiSun-- if you are reading this, yeah, yeah, I know, he is really just friends with you. sure, right....hahahaha!!!

Belly loves sports and has been watching all the Laker games broadcast on TV with Greg since this season started. She was pretty excited to go. We even went out and got her a purple shirt for the event. It was a great crowd, and even though we aren't Portland fans by any means, they did play great and it was a good game. Would have been nice if the Lakers took the win but seems they can't seem to grab a win while in Portland.







After the game, we were back on work mode. I had to work a bunch of OT and Greg was back to his normal schedule at Chipotle. Last post I forgot to mention what an over-achiever (haha!!) Greg is. Always trying to climb up the corporate ladder of success, Greg took the liberty of being this year's Halloween pumpkin carver. Check out his Chipotle inspired gourd below... (the other pumpkin design is complements of Belly, the artist)



Not to toot my own horn too much, I did get employee of the month for the 2nd time this year. My 1st employee of the month was back in August for a critical police incident that occured on the 1st day of my being on my own at dispatching without a coach observing me. The cliff notes version of the incident is that an undercover cop working in East Portland came screaming up on the air that he was driving behind a stabbing suspect that had knifed a Target security officer in the neck while shoplifting just minutes before. When he came on the radio, Target hadn't even called the assault in yet to 911. I started other officers to cover and in minutes a brief pursuit followed, the suspect bailed from the car and ran into a junk car lot. As officers were chasing him, another officer screamed on the air for medical help for an injured officer. A few minutes later the suspect was tazered and taken into custody. Medical arrived minutes later for an officer who shattered his leg while in foot pursuit. Pretty chaotic for a 1st day on my own. This month's award though was for a medical call involving an infant choking who was unconscious and not breathing. Without going into a lot of detail, the real reason I was selected was because I was able to calm the caller enough to have her follow directions to remove the object in the baby's throat and then perform rescue breathing to bring her back to life. Later the mother of the infant admitted to police that she had purposefully stuffed a baby wipe down the baby's throat and then became frightened when she stopped breathing and couldn't remove the item. I am pretty proud of that call and it was nice to be recognized. The one bummer thing about working at 911 is that you get a lot of calls for help that as soon as you hang up the line the call ends forever for you. We never get follow up and never really know the outcome to what happens to victims, patients, or complainers. I did get follow up for that call from a police detective who informed me that the baby is alive and well and will have no permanent brain damage despite being without oxygen for several minutes. Truly a miracle. Enough about work...

On Sunday the 12th we finally packed up and piled into the car to head south! The weather was more than inclement and we basically encountered non stop pouring rain and full storming weather for the entire duration of our trip from Aloha to Santa Maria. We ended up stopping the 1st night in Eugene due to high winds and unsafe driving conditions. The 2nd day we drove the rest of the way. It only took 14 (!!) hours. Just a short driving trip. hahahahaha. We did manage to see some beautiful snow in the mountain passes and luckily the roadways were clear and plowed. Belly was great on the ride down and was so excited to get to Santa Maria to see Nana Debbie, Papa Mike, and Uncle Chris.

Here are some pics of the scenery...




Enroute we got great news. Sheila's baby, Shayley Anne was born 11/13 at 0324. I am glad to report that she and mom are happy and healthy. Shayley is 7lbs 9oz and 20". She's very cute. Since photography is a hobby of mine, I took the liberty of taking a bunch of pictures of mom and the new baby. I decided to add a few pictures I took of her in the hospital and on her 1st day home. Makes us miss the days of when Belly was a tiny little baby.







We will be hanging out with the family here in Santa Maria through the rest of the week and then heading back over to the Valley on the weekend where we will see the other part of the family and hopefully get a chance to see some friends while we are at it. I will post more pictures from the trip as we take them.

Thanks again for everyone writing in, keep the comments, emails, and messages coming!!! Hope everyone is doing great. Can't believe next week will already be Thanksgiving.

Only 39 days left to finish Christmas shopping.

Countdown to trip back home: 6 days

We are getting ready for our 3rd trip back down to CA this year. Exciting for us since up until January we hadn't even been home since we moved up here in June '04. We are excited to come and see everyone and finally meet Shayley who is due to arrive here any day now as well as spend some time with family and friends we hardly get to see.

Anyway, life up here in Portland is rainy!!!!! It's fantastic! Yesterday, it seemed the city would drown the way people were calling into 911 to report standing water and stalled vehicles and today should be the same fun as it has been pouring pretty much all day. For a city with a lot of rain, they don't seem to prepare very well and all the drains were blocked and creating mini flash floods. Sigh....

We got our pictures of Belly and Halloween back and here are some for your viewing enjoyment. This was her first year that she was actually excited by the thought of Halloween and even picked out what she wanted to be for Halloween. She is already talking about Santa Claus, Christmas trees and presents so this year should be a blast.

Send us an email or a post back. I don't think you have to join a blog to post a comment, I'll test that out before I submit this one for publication.

Hope everybody is doing ok!

Since I am regularly bored out of my mind at work, I have decided to create a blog of useless bits of information for my friends and family. Lucky you. hahahahaha. Anyway, eventually I will regularly add pictures of Belly and update the (sarcasm ahead...) very exciting goings ons of our lives up here in Portland.

Hope you will occasionally read and post a comment or 10.