"you can't be friends with a squirrel! a squirrel is just a rat with a better outfit!"
-carrie bradshaw

karen and i became great friends with a squirrel once. his name was pedro. i think he had a crush on winston.

Lone Soldier

i just want you all to know that all day long i think about things to blog about and my mind comes up with very clever, witty banter. when i sit down to write, however, i almost always draw a blank.

mer.

eric left for pittsburgh, pa this morning (at the butt crack of dawn mind you) so i am a bachelorette for the week. what does this mean, you ask? many many things.

#1 convincing myself i am a siw* and there's no need to be scared when i'm home along.
#2 eating cereal for dinner if i want to. in what twisted world do i look forward to cereal for dinner when every other night i get a well balance, sometimes gourmet, meal purchased and prepared for me? i am such a spoiled lame-o. i probably won't have cereal for dinner, but i COULD if i wanted.
#3 watching the celtics DEMOLISH the lakers in game 6. watching the celebration right this very minute. **just an update** i have learned this year, that not only is the diaz trio red sox fans, we are also fans of any other sport played by a boston team, namely the celtics and the patriots. stay sharp everyone.
#4 making the apartment look spic and span and then watching it stay that way for 3 whole days in a row. ps: when was the last time you heard the term "spic and span?" when was the last time you actually said it out loud. think about it.
#5 making cookies and eating them all myself. well, i do that anyway.
#6 doing whatever i want, suckas!

in other news:
i have decided i want to be a morning person. this may be shortlived, but i'm giving it a shot. more on that to come...i've gotta hit the sack!

Daddio

so i did remember dad's birthday and emailed him on the appropriate day, but realized i didn't publicly wish him a super special sweet 16+24+4+12th birthday!

dad, you're great for lots of reasons. wanna hear 'em? thought so.

~you introduce me to new movies i would never have rented

~you are always up for a good road trip

~you make me stronger

~you give really good hugs

~it must be said, you are a kick ass bike rider!

~you made us all really tall and i really like being tall

~you make me feel like anything is possible

~people tell me all the time that i look like you and i think that's great, cuz i'm pretty sure you're a stallion.

~you are the bravest person i know

...and ALL the reasons krista said, especially about fixing things and except for maybe the music part because, to be honest, i don't really like blue-grass, but i love that you love it!

i love you dad, and i'm glad you got to spend your birthday in thailand; how cool is that?

it's a jet pack michael, what could possibly go wrong?

-gob bluth

A little and a lot more...

do you get to the point in your blogging life where so much has happened and you are so backed up on your posts that it's overwhelming to even think about trying to post? yeah, i'm there.

wait, wait! i have semi-good excuses:

1. our laptop decided to go the way of the earth. Is that even an expression?*
2. our camera's memory card spazzed out and erased most of the pictures on it which were AWESOME, thus discouraging me further.
3. i'm pregnant**

so, here i am. i feel forced to borrow krista's bullet list, at least you'll get the basics.


:: eric, pj and i flew to california to surprise the fam. super fun. went to disneyland AND the dodger game. radical.

:: my bff hollie turned one year older and wiser. eric and i made her a super fun cake that truly mimicked her personality. luckily i took a picture of it with my phone, so not all was lost.

:: ashley's baby turned 1 and we also made him the best cake ever, but sadly, those pictures could not be recovered. it was light blue with different sized brown polka dots and a big orange A (for Alexander) on top. when i sat it in front of him, saw that his bib was the exact same pattern! you can imagine my pain in having no documentation.

:: i feel like i am progressing towards school, which is very exciting. i am continually learning about myself and my personality and i have discovered that when i want something, there is not much that can stop me. i mean, eric and i are married. enough said, right? sooo...i know in my heart of hearts that i want to finish school and that I WILL finish school. for whatever reason, i haven't been inspired to do so. guess what? i am now! (yay! audience applaud here) it really helped last week, when i had to work on memorial day (against my will). i believe i have a strong work ethic and am not afraid to get down and dirty and get the work down. HOWEVER, a holiday is a holiday, man! give a girl a break! i decided on that day that i am done working for someone else and ready to work for myself. it's time. i know it will be quite awhile before i get to that point, but just thinking about it makes me want to do the happy dance. (see justin) anyway, i digress. more on that topic later.

:: brian and meg and lyza came to visit (yay!). we sauntered through the market, skipped churh and ate lots of good food (thanks again, eric). for pictures, see here. i got called lolo all weekend, does it get better than that? we miss you halversons!

:: saw indiana jones and loved it. say what you will about the cheesy jokes and cheesy fight scenes and cheesy accents. but after watching the 3 previous movies to ramp up, we felt the new movie stayed true to form. dun dun dun dun....dun dun dun! love you indie!

:: saw sex and the city. LOVED IT. sorry for the readers who didn't know i was such a floozy. it's true. i love the show and i thoroughly enjoyed the movie. enough said.

:: decided my new favorite color is light blue and painted my bedroom to fit my current mood.

:: decided to stop using capital letters and write everything in lower case.

:: still annoyed it doesn't feel like summer.

:: oh yeah, mother's day was really great this year. i keep my expectiations pretty low for this day every year, but everything changed this year. i started skipping church on mother's day many years ago because i'm usually kind of bummed out. this year, though, it turned into my day because i became an insta-mom this year. pj made me a great little something (insert interpretation here: ashtray, change holder, whatever, it was wonderful). i didn't even know i needed a bobbi pin holder, but it's changed my life. i still skipped church (why break tradition) and we had a great lunch and a lovely afternoon. i got to pick a special dessert and we watched indiana jones. the one with shortround, i think. it was lovely.

:: it's been almost a year and i really love being married. i keep thinking about it. eric is wonderful and i love him like crazy a lot! for reasons i didn't even know. really, so much.

:: there's probably more, but i'm now an hour late for bed and the girl on top chef that SHOULD have gone home didn't, so that stinks.

...goodnight!

*if i sound stupid or stop making sense you can blame krista, who just called and harrassed me about my lack of posting so now I'm staying up past my bedtime

**ACE! suckas. but i am pretty sure everyone else i know is. seriously.

Victory!

I am in the process of decorating/redecorating our bedroom and making sense of all the crap, I mean stuff we own. I am attempting to replace all our odds and ends with a somewhat cohesive look. It's quite the process as I have put myself on a very tight budget forcing me to be super creative. My goal is to sell the pieces we have before purchasing new ones. Which leads me to the topic of this post...

::

I posted and sold my very first item on Craig's list this weekend! The purchasing of this item was also quite victorious to me as it was one of the first two grown up items I purchased as an SIW*.

The other was a brand new Queen sized bed.

p.s. I got both of these items home and put together all by myself.

::

Goodbye, IKEA Expedit Bookshelf... Hello growner upper furniture!

::

*SIW [Strong Independent Woman] is a term Eric used when he was trying to get my friends Amanda, Maria and I to figure things out on our own when he was our employer. "Figure it out" was also one of his favorites. Good times.

Birthday Extravaganza!

My mom threw me a safari themed birthday party when I was young and I remember it being amazing. Apparantly, some big animal cutouts and safari hats go a long way when you're 7 or 8. Since then, I can't remember a lovelier birthday! Everything went right on April 22nd this year. I woke up and had a gorgeous sunny drive to work (granted it's only a 3 minute drive, but it was lovely!) and a few hours into my work day my coworkers and I had a fun little celebration with yummy cake and party hats. When I got home Eric started preparing for our MexiFest Celebration. I have to share the invite email he sent out, because it really adds to the mood of the party.

HEY ALL, Lauren's birthday is Tuesday - TOMORROW, April 22nd. Yes, another person with an April birthday... (I think the 4th of July leads to lots of people gettin' naked...)

Anyway, being that we are most likely the ONLY MEXICANS that you know, we have decided to have a little Mexi-fest, in honor of Lauren's first birthday as an 'official mexican'. Tomorrow night from 7pm until we're done... I will be making some excellent Mexican foods. (Carne asada, chicken, homemade tortillas, guacamole...)

And we may play some "mexi-games as well" like:

-a standard pinata'

-guess who's the drug mule' (I still need 2 more volunteers...)

-"cross the border" (a game of skill and strategy)

-how many pesos is that worth?

-pimp my el camino

-whats in the moustache?

-dirty sanchez... (...not really a game but who cares.)

-7 minutes in heaven with ryan carlson. (he asked me to make it mandatory that all of the single girls attending play this.) but you don't have to...

Let me know if you can make it, so I can try to plan for food. GRACIAS! If you are trying to

come up with a good gift idea... perhaps a live chicken, a fair poncho, or some chiclets we can have PJ sell around Bellevue Square, or some social security numbers for us... As for the late notice - what do you expect? We are freaking mexicans for crying out loud... we barely speak the language. see you tomorrow.

Don't worry, he got mustaches for everyone to wear. He certainly does keep me laughing! Plus he can frikkin cook! We had a great meal and he made me the raddest cake ever! (With his signature handemade fondant-he loves to show me up) I Love you Eric! Thanks for making my birthday so spectacular!

Oh, yeah, I got a bedazzler...AWESOME!

Our crazy friend Rob stopped at the party store on the way to the shindig and decided to use their restroom to transform himself into a spaniard...or something. P.s. He is completely caucasion