I'M HERE, I'M ALIVE AND STILL UNPACKING

I'm so behind on my blogging. The days seem to have gone by in a whirlwind. Let me try and sum up the past few weeks as quickly as I can...

BIRTHDAYS - We celebrated my sister's 40th birthday on May 17th. It was a really hot weekend so we BBQ'd and had a great time.

BAPTISMS - My nephew Adam was baptized on May 18th. We celebrated afterwards at a restaurant with some close friends and family. Adam was a perfect little baby the entire day. He's getting chubbier and more adorable with each passing day. His eyes follow his brother Erik all the time and he loves to laugh at him. It's so cute to watch! He's such a good baby.

HOUSE - We picked up the keys to our house later that evening. We officially moved in on Saturday, May 31st. The actual move went smoothly (except for a few casualties...scratches here and there, a dent on our cherry wood headboard) but it didn't help that I had to fly out to New York THE NEXT DAY for business. It was a short trip but nonetheless, it was time lost on trying to get settled in.

REMODEL - When we hired the contractor to remodel our bathroom, he told us the job would take him 10 days. Now I know what everyone says...all contractors are the same...but I was naive and truly believed this remodel would take him 10 DAYS. It wouldn't have been such a problem had we bought a house with more than one bathroom but being that this is our only bathroom, we were miserable throughout the entire process. He was a nice guy and we saved ourselves some money but being the meticulous person that I am, we weren't exactly happy with all the work. It was sloppy and even after we would complain and he tried to fix it, we still weren't happy with the end result. Don't get me wrong, we love our bathroom (it was officially completed YESTERDAY - 21 DAYS LATER) but there are certain things that I lived with just to get this guy out of our house and done for good! I'll post pictures of the before and after as soon as I download them. Remember, it's a small house which comes with a small bathroom but we did what we could in a small space.

HOUSE - Overall, it's very expensive being a homeowner. There are so many things we want to do and buy but we have to do things one step at a time. But in the end, we love our house. I think we'll love it even more once we get back into a routine. There are still boxes left to unpack (quite a few but they are dwindling down each day) and dust left to clean but bottom line, I see many happy years together there.

FAMILY - Everyone is doing well. I meant to post a couple of weeks ago about my brother-in-law's sister. His sister lived in Mexico City where they were born and she was stricken with breast cancer recently. She was married and they had an 8-yr-old little boy. Unfortunately, the cancer spread and Laura lost her battle on June 7th. My sister Erika and her husband Hector flew out to Mexico after her surgery in hopes that she would recover soon. Hector didn't get to say goodbye to his sister. It's been very hard on all of them. Her son is now left without his mommy. It's a very heartbreaking story. She was a very brave women who battled this awful disease on her own since she didn't want her family to suffer so they knew very little of what she was going through. If you would like to donate anything to help them with funeral and medical expenses, please e-mail me at jolene_tetangco@yahoo.com and I will provide an address of where to send it to. Anything you could help with would be more than appreciated. Now I just ask that you pray for her entire family...that they are able to get through this very difficult time.

Well, that's about it. I will post pictures as soon as I can. Hope you're all well!