Elsja Down Under

5 Years Ago Today March 19, 2008

Yes, I am aware that 5 years ago today, the “War on Terror” started. But more importantly, (to me at least) it is also the day that my beautiful niece was born. Her birth is much happier than war, and she is much prettier and sweeter than war… so that’s why I’m blogging about her and not my thoughts on the war. I’d like to say Happy Birthday to my favorite (and only) niece Emma Linnea!

5 is so old. 5 is halfway to 10! She’s growing up too quickly!!

My Christmas December 27, 2007

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! Mine was great! I am thankful that I was able to spend it with my family, although I did miss Andrew. I just really enjoy watching my niece and nephew get so excited! They are so sweet and although they are spoiled, they are not greedy like some kids. They are thankful for each gift they get and frequently say Santa is SO nice and when they open presents from their family they exclaim “you are the BEST!” They are patient as we all take turns opening our gifts in a circle as we’ve done since I was a kid.

 

My 7 year old nephew Preston got us all presents from his school boutique. My sister gave him money and they create a list for who he can spend the money on. He bought each of us a gift, he even got one for Andrew and he picked them out all by himself without any help. He put so much thought into his gifts that he chose- picking something that made him think of each of us. For my mom, he got her a set of these chocolate/candy covered spoons that you stir in your coffee/tea. My mom always makes him tea or hot chocolate, it’s their special little thing that they do together. He got my dad a toy antique car, knowing that my dad has a collection of these small cars in our living room and even has 2 real “antique” cars in our garage. He got his sister a cute stuffed bear that she quickly named Bob.  Bob was an interesting choice considering she normally names all of her animals things like “beary, sparkles, lamby” and other cutesy names. My gift was a small candle. The candle is the clear kind with the shells and little blue coloring to make it look like the ocean. His reasoning for picking thit out is that it would help me remember Huntington Beach when I am in Australia. He is such a sweet precious boy. I am looking forward to seeing what he picked out for Andrew. I didn’t want to open it yet- although maybe I should have since I’ll be taking whatever it is through customs. Sweet little Emma was so cute talking about her “pressies” all day. I told her awhile back that Australians call presents pressies and now she insists on calling them pressies as well. She’s also started using the word “bum.”

Christmas wasn’t just fun for the kids- I got lots of nice goodies as well! Here are a few of my favorite things I received:

1. The kitchenaid Mixer- yay! Now I can bake, although I probably wont do that for awhile since I need to lose the 7-8 lbs I gained when I moved to Australia

2. The cute apron that I asked for. I never really REALLY understood why people NEEDED aprons. I thought they were just for looks- however after baking for a few weeks and cooking a lot more, I realize that cooking is actually very messy. So- I actually DO need an apron to avoid the flour and sauce from getting all over my clothes. And yes, I chose a cute one that I probably wont want to get dirty anyways- but a dirty apron is better than dirty clothes.

3. My Rabbit corkscrew. I love wine- and this will just be great for Andrew and I. Yippee

We also had a really nice family Christmas “dinner” although the kids kept getting annoyed that we were calling it dinner since we ate around lunch time. I missed out on Thanksgiving so the turkey and stuffing and potatoes, etc. were VERY tasty! I am very thankful for having such a great family and friends and I’m happy to have had such a nice Christmas. I just wish Andrew could have been here. The only thing that was a bit sad about the holiday was knowing that my poor boy had to work on Christmas eve, Christmas and boxing day I wonder when we’ll actually be able to spend our first Christmas together. Maybe next year

11 Days and Baby Crazy September 13, 2007

When you leave your home, even for a short time- you think of the things you will miss… favorite restaurants, boyfriends/girlfriends, pets, your own comfy bed…

But when you are leaving for good… you REALLY start to think about things you’ll miss. Things you never really even thought about. Sure I always realized I’d miss my friends and family, my dog, mexican food, dr. pepper, Thanksgiving,  etc. But I thought about it today and realized… in 11 days I’ll also have to say goodbye to:

KROQ (and all the other radio stations I listen to), driving, jello pudding snacks, my treo, my housekeeper, parking lots (although I have thought about this one a  lot), my own closet, the gym, TV shows when they actually come out (yeah, I’ll be way behind all of you this season), my family doctor who has taken care of me since I was 5, Sephora, online shopping (i guess it’s not that easy in Aus), fat-free cream cheese (I don’t even eat this that much, but I hate the fact that if I want to one day… I won’t be able to), my hair stylist/eyebrow waxer and nail salon (looks like I’ll be beautifying every 3 months when I come home). Ok Ok that’s enough for now.

On the other hand… I will not miss:

my $100 texting bills (well maybe it’s cheaper than calling????), sitting in traffic after work every day, Orange County freaks of nature, oh I could go on and on; but lets talk about happier things.

Like BABIES.

Well, this is a happy topic to SOME people, not necessarily me- but I’d like to say congrats to the 3 people I know who had babies in the last 5 days! (and that makes 4 people in 2 weeks if you include little Nelson).

• One of our web developers at work had a baby on the 8th… MY birthday! What a special girl! Welcome little Elizabeth!
• Daryl and Cindee had their little sweet pea, Brooklynn Hope Sakaguchi on 9/11/07. Yay for more little girls.
• And finally, yesterday (well it was the 13th in Australia already) Andrew’s cousin Benn and his wife Tanya welcomed their first baby, Amelia into the world.

So many girls this week! And this week FLEW by! I can’t believe my party was almost a week ago! Only a little more than 1 to go.

Happy Birthday Carter and Nelson! September 1, 2007

I’d like to say happy 2nd birthday today to my youngest nephew, Carter. Such a sweet baby- although I hear that he’s starting to show signs of the terrible twos…. and weighing in at over 40 lbs… he’s not easy to manage. Let me just point out something- you can see this kid is clearly not fat, yet at 2, he weighs more than my 4 1/2 year old niece. Just a solid little boy. My sister definitely has her hands full.

Also, welcome to the world Mr. Nelson Kade Sikes.

My cousin gave birth to their 3rd little boy yesterday. Here’s just the first camera phone pic- but i think it’s cute because his face is all squishy

1 More Thing July 19, 2007

Congrats to Deanna and Mike who had their sweet little baby on 07/17/07. I haven’t actually seen her to know that she is sweet, but pretty much all babies are sweet so I am assuming she is too How could she not be sweet? Aww Deanna’s days of sleep and relaxation are OVER for the next million years!

Welcome to the world Vivian Mia Moore!! I can’t wait to see her!

A Fun Fourth July 5, 2007

 

 

I love the 4th of July! It’s just a nice summery, warm day filled with BBQs, friends, family, drinks, fireworks, water fun…

I spent the day with my family at my sister’s. Some of her neighbors and friends stopped by as well and we had a nice bbq- great food (that I didn’t enjoy as much as possible due to a crappy stomach ache). Oh well…it was nice enjoying the hot sun and relaxing in the kiddie pool with Preston and Emma. 

When the sun went down, the fireworks came out and so did the entire neighborhood! My sister has a little grassy area next to her house that backs up to a clear wall and there is a great view of Orange County for all to see. Crowds always gather in that area to get a view of all the firework shows- but it seemed that there was an unusally large group last night. SOOOO many families showed up. Someone even brought a portable movie projector to entertain the kids! Trevor entertained the gathering crowd with his slew of illegal fireworks.

The most interesting part of the night came when we headed into Bronwen’s back yard for our own personal private viewing of all of Orange County’s firework shows. All our friends and family cruised to the back of the house… and then so did some random kids, and some random adults. No one even knew who they were. Trevor even was nice enough to offer one of the random ladies a drink and she was so picky that she told him “I’d rather have a cocktail than a beer.” Then, when he told her they just had beer… she asked “what kind?” 

UMMM… WHO are you lady and WHO even invited you? Weirdos. My sister’s neighborhood is full of them!

Here are some pics from the day/night.

And my favorite picture of the day, taken at the neighborhood BBQ/Party

Emma Sings “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” June 17, 2007

On our way to the airport yesterday Emma decided to start singing for about 30 minutes. She kept trying to sing Take Me Out to the Ball Game but she wanted to say “Angels” and Preston kept saying “Padres” so she was getting very irritated that people were interrupting her song… (and making her mess up). I think it’s rather cute

 

Emma singing Take me out to the ballgame

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A Nice Weekend June 3, 2007

Well even though the weather was pretty shit until 3 or so every day, I still had a nice weekend.

Friday was real fun. I went to Magic Castle with my sister, Cathy, Ryan, Chantelle and Danny.

 

We all went up for Chantelle’s birthday and I really was impressed. Dinner was really nice and some of the magicians were pretty impressive. I must say, part of the excitment was getting to be the magician’s assistant for the main show. I was a “Barker’s beauty” (which means i modeled a toaster… long story). It was fun and i think the 3 glasses of wine made it even more fun. Oh and we saw this guy too: http://imdb.com/name/nm0884313/ Chantelle kept saying she saw the guy from “Crossing Jordan” and I had no idea who she was talking about… but once I saw him, I knew EXACTLY who she was talking about.

The night ended rather abruptly with bad news so we took off before the last show. Overall though, it was a really nice night.

Saturday I became an official honorary “soccer mom” or rather “baseball aunt” when I painted my car windows with ” PADRES ARE #1!!! and GO PRESTON!!”

Preston had his first baseball playoff game and his team won. I never knew kid sports could be so entertaining to watch…but it really got exciting!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And lastly, to top it all off, a baby shower for our dear friend Deanna. I still find it hard to believe that our friends are getting married, let alone having babies!!! But they are! And I’m sure Deanna and Mike’s little girl will be precious.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just Drug the Children May 3, 2007

Jen You will appreciate this one!

LasT night Andrew and I were talking about how one day (far, far, far in the future) it will be very difficult to take kids on an overnight 14.5 hour flight. I said it would be very difficult for someone to take a sleeping pill on the flight if they had kids because if the kids woke up… then the person would be screwed and drugged up.

This was the conversation that followed:

Andrew says: 

Elsja says: 

 i seriously think i’ll drug my children with cold medicine on flights 

Elsja says: 

just a little to make them sleepy

Andrew says: 

Andrew says: 

half a sleeping pill each 

Elsja says: 

no way 

Andrew says: 

cop that u little bastards