So long Corporate America, you've been good to me

Six years in Corporate America. Five of those years working from home for HP. When I was hired I asked my manager if they cared where I lived since I worked from home. Her response, "You can live on the moon as long as you have an internet connection."

Can you say DREAM JOB!

I haven't talked about my job on the blog at all and now that I'm moving on to full-time motherhood I wanted to give a little shout out to HP, for being an amazing place to work full of wonderful people. Granted, all the downsizing and restructuring have killed a bit of the fun but man, I used to pinch myself all the time, I felt so lucky. HP you'll always have a bit of my heart. Don't change too much.

Highlights....

1. Creating and giving a communications training to a team in Bangalore, India and Singapore with one of my favorite friends and old BYU roomies who was also a co-worker of mine
   
2. Hotel shopping for a conference I organized in New York City. This meant traveling there several times and being spoiled sick by the Westin Times Square, The Roosevelt, The Waldorf-Astoria and the Essex House - all in an effort to win our favor
3. Presenting at a few of the many many worldwide webcasts I produced every few months
4. An absolutely pointless and fabulous team meeting trip to Munich, Germany
   
5. A week in Acapulco, Mexico (hotel hunting for another conference) where I swam with dolphins and got a lovely sunburn sitting with my laptop by the pool
6. Getting a one-way ticket to Houston because they needed my help so much...and staying for 17 days. I ate EVERYTHING on the Sheraton's room service menu and got a zillion starwood points
   
7. Working on my laptop while getting a pedicure
8. Traveling so much I would often forget which airport I was at
   
9. SPA trips and amazing hotels! The Ritz-Carlton in Singapore, the Leela Palace in Bangalore and a myriad of Starwood favorites.
   
10. I could go on forever. Thanks Marie, Pat, Emil, Katie and the million other people that made HP such a wonderful place to work and helped me appreciate the finer things in life (haha, Kris is ever so grateful :)

And now....the best adventure yet! Full-time, stay-at-home Mom. Something feels so great about typing that.

Happy One Year!

On February 21st Tofer turned one year old!

Tofer's latest:

1. He loves pushing around his walker, his own stroller and anything else that moves if he pushes hard enough
   
2. Watching "Anne of Green Gables" (potentially mother-inspired - haha)
3. Trying to run
4. Going outside
5. Wrestling with Dad
6. Sucking on pennies and trying to hide it from Mom
   
7. Toilets - watching anything go down the toilet, trying to splash in the toilet when mom is not looking, trying to put things in the toilet, flushing the toilet.....
8. Taking showers
9. Playing magnets on the fridge
10. Holding Mom :)
11. Kids, he really likes kids...time for a brother?
12. He says: Mom, Dadadadada, Nana (for banana) and Aaaahma (for Grandma)
    
13. He has never liked baby food. He loves english muffins with raisins and bananas
14. First steps at 10 months, he is now trying to run and it's hilarious
15. And he just loves to do whatever we are doing - sanding, sweeping, drawing, typing....he is a great little worker and the cutest kid alive :)
    

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE HIM!











We had a little party for his bday with some buddies but he was overwhelmed and cried most of the time :( Ha. Poor little guy. Alas, he pulled through and by the end was in fine form.

Oops!

So...let's talk about Valentines Day.

We both forgot it. How is that even possible? I'll tell you. We suck. That's how it's possible.

We went on a camping trip for President's Day weekend with our buddies Jared and Vanessa. For a month we've been talking about the "President's Day weekend camp trip". Valentines never made it in the title. When we got to Morro Bay we realized it was also V-day weekend. Ha. But what better thing to do than a weekend getaway with our friends, right? I'm still slightly bitter but will probably buy something to make myself feel better :)

Truthfully, it was an awesome weekend. The documentation begins.

Here's the group! This was our V-Day hike. It was so beautiful.

Tofer looks like Aunt Jemima.

We bought a bike seat from REI on the way out. He LOVED it. What a trooper. He missed so many naps on this trip but stayed happy the whole time.

Here he is riding with Uncle Jared, AKA, the Godfather

Me and Tof in Morro Bay. Don't mind the three days of not showering.

I love this pic. He was so happy to play with Dad all weekend.




On the way home we stopped at a little pizza place in Santa Barbara. No shirt, no shoes, no business, right? But who would turn away that face? Kills me.

A great weekend.

BEFORE AND AFTER

When you buy a fixer-upper, you never really know what you're in for. And one of the hardest things, I think, is finding contractors that you like, that specialize in what you are looking for, are honest, and do a thorough job.

Because of this I had to make a post about Eric Frishcosy for anyone out there on the hunt. I've known Eric for a few years and I gotta be honest, I usually shy away from hiring friends for various reasons but hiring Frish is the BEST decision we've made in this whole house project.

Scraping ceilings, ripping out floors, painting walls, putting in new floors...the list is endless on what he is helping us with. I was just so impressed with him! If anyone out there is looking for a contractor, or handy man, or someone to remodel for them - call Frish. We've been begging him to move into our spare bedroom :)

Eric Friscosy
OC Home Remodeling and Repair
714-478-6198
frishcosy@yahoo.com

Here are the first before and after pics of our lovely little fixer. We'll have a series of posts as we finish more projects. We'll start with the living room. Thanks Frish.

BEFORE





IN PROCESS - The Man Himself





AFTER




Gotta do the edging on the step down still and finish some details on the baseboards but we're getting there!

Baby Iron Man

Tofer cracks me up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpR7U_kP9K8

The Happys and the Sads

I'm not sure I've ever gone over a month without posting. Just goes to show how crazy life has been. Too many things to discuss so I will just say we are living in our house! It's a major work in progress. We basically live at Home Depot and I spend my days chasing Tofer around the construction zone so he doesn't kill himself. We have some great before and after pics I'll post tonight. Recessed lighting in the kitchen today. Woohoo!

News of the past month:

1. Christmas at "Sunny Acres" - post to come
2. Tofer's first steps
3. Miscarriage at 9 weeks :( - it was sad but I'm ok. More time is good. Life is too crazy right now.
4. Moving into the house is a biggie
5. So many friends who have helped us along the way. I LOVE YOU ALL!
6. Two of my girlfriends are dating pro-sports players (ok, they would get mad at that statement so I'll say....they are being "befriended" by them. HELLO!)
7. Tofer's musical debut - post to come

Life has been so good. Living out of boxes is tricky though. I haven't been the most pleasant wife on the planet.... Found my blowdryer after TWO WEEKS of living here. You can imagine how beautiful I've been looking... We still haven't unpacked most of our stuff because we are finishing floors and walls, etc etc etc. But I love the house! More posts to come!!! Heres's Tof in the construction zone! Seriously, he's the love of our lives.

Happy Birthday Super Star

Let me tell you a little known fact about Kris and one reason why he is a super star (besides it being his 29th birthday today). When Kris was in high school someone thought he looked just like James Dean and told him they would pay for acting classes if he would just agree to take them. So he did and then off they shipped him to New York City to perform in front of a bunch of producers.

Turns out they really liked him and thought he would be great for some show. He had already been accepted to BYU so he would have had to drop out to do this. I, naturally, was wondering why he didn't take them up on it! I mean, shoot, it's not every day producers in NYC are wanting to make you famous, right?

But he chose going to BYU instead. Didn't even hesistate, in fact. It just wasn't the life he was looking for. I've always been impressed with that.

And so I say thank you dear, for not becoming famous so I could meet and marry you. You will always be my super star.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I LOVE YOU!

Worst Anniversary Ever

Besides the fact that I haven't slept for about two weeks (took Tofer off the reflux meds to see if he's ok without them and he stopped sleeping for a week so we put him back on...THEN two days later he got sick so he hasn't been sleeping this week either) we also had to move out of our rental yesterday. Yesterday being December 1st, our two year anniversary. Awesome.

Since the house doesn't close til the end of the month but we had to move out, we are homeless. Thanks to our dear friends the Pobsts, we have a place to sleep. Kris and I spent all day packing and moving stuff to a storage unit and feeling sick. We are all sick, the three of us.

We also spent the entire day fighting.

Last year for our anniversary we went to the St Regis resort in Dana Point for the weekend. The memory of that made this year suck even worse (if that's humanly possible).

This morning we felt bad for being such wrecks and our conversation went something like this:

Cathy: I'm feeling remorseful for being such a brat to you yesterday.
Kris: Yea, me too.
Cathy: Do you love me less now?
Kris: No. Do you?
Cathy: No
Kris: But I sure don't love you more!
*long pause*
*laughter*

I like how Kris makes me like him. Dude, yesterday sucked so this is NOT a warm fuzzy post, just get that straight...but in an effort to be repentant I will say, I do appreciate how he makes me like him even when I really don't want to.

Happy Crappiversary Dear.

You guessed it!

Nope, not Irvine! But I knew that would throw some of you off because of the great schools and "safest city in the country" - I think since 2007 Irvine has actually carried that title.

MISSION VIEJO!

I had no idea that Mission Viejo was so AWESOME! We feel really blessed and are so excited! Only trouble, moving tomorrow.....don't close until the end of December....which means we are homeless until we leave for Christmas vacation to Virginia. Thankfully we have some great friends who are helping and an old landlord who is super cool. Blessings.

The house needs a lot of work so we'll do before and after remodel pics just for kicks (i love that kind of thing). And although it will be overwhelming, we are super excited!! As we are not blog privateers I may only post a few outside pics of the house. Don't want the paparazzi banging down the door ;)

P.S. The winning guess goes out to Miss Hermana Anderson (Mission Companion Extraordinaire and dear friend for life ;) love you!!!)

Announcing....

Through a series of miracles (literally) we FINALLY found a house and in a place we had actually never even considered!! Yayayayayayay! Bank owned, KILLER deal, 6 offers in two days and the highest was $35K higher than ours and we STILL won. It's an awesome story actually.

ANYWAY! AFTER we offered we realized more and more awesome things about the city and neighborhood. I even broke down and cried as I was learning. Anyone wanna guess where it is??? Here are some clues and some of the things I found out after the fact...

1. In 2007 Newsweek voted this city the safest city in the country
2. This city is the largest master planned community in the country
3. The high school is in the top 2.5% in the country
4. You CANNOT walk to the beach :( but it's still close (relatively)
   
5. The average high in August is low 80s
   
6. The neighborhood has a big park and backs up to a reserve with trails
7. There is a lake across the street from the neighborhood that we have HOA access to
8. Around the corner is a youth athletic center where they have all the t-ball games, etc
   

Any guesses????????



P.S. This is NOT our house....but it IS a Tudor style and this house is my inspiration. Pics to come.

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