2009 In Review: February

February was kind of a transitional month because Daniel had just gotten home at the very end of January and was getting used to life again. It was actually a really easy transition and I know that we were all very grateful for that. We were able to go on our very first family outing with Daniel and we decided to go out to Simi Valley to see the Reagan Library. I highly recommend it! You get to tour Air Force One and see Marine One and get to do a whole bunch of other cool stuff. Here are just a few pictures from our adventure:

He we are, minus Aaron (and Diane, of course), in front of the library. Aaron was standing on the far left of the picture and the stranger taking the picture for us cut him out. I suppose beggars can't be choosers. :(

Here's our sweet Aaron pie! Proof he was there! He had a tiny scratch on his forehead and insisted on wearing that lovely colorful Band-Aid. haha! I just love him!

My cute parents with a statue of Ronald Reagan

A good one of Daniel and Nancy

Me hiding on the American side of Checkpoint Charlie

Here's Nancy with a picture of her mom! She was in elementary school when Reagan was president and people used to call her Nancy Reagan and ask if Nancy Reagan was her mom...since they're both named Nancy, of course!

Some of the menfolk with a gi-normous picture of Reagan

The sexy Wheeler women! ; )

Here we are rocking it old school! When we were kids, we used to pack an ice chest and eat sandwiches, chips, sodas, and some of those generic sandwich cookies whenever we would go out on a family day trip. I didn't realize then that our little picnics would be such a fond childhood memory, but doing it after so many years was awesome!

More of our magic picnic!

The park we stopped at happened to have a duck pond, so we got to use some of our extra bread and give the birds a little snack! Yet another fond childhood memory!

2009 In Review: January

So, this has probably been THE craziest year of my entire life. My recap for 2008 consisted of a few pictures and very brief captions. Since this year has been so...ummmm..."eventful", I thought I'd take a little more time on it and do a post per month. Here we go!

In an earlier post, I talked about Daniel's mission homecoming, which was one of the best days ever! He came home at the end of January (scheduled to return January 23rd, but actually got home on the 24th), so that means that the earlier part of January was devoted to cleaning. I had been buying furniture and stuff for when I move out for a while and storing it, temporarily, in his room. Needless to say, it took quite a while to find new homes for all of my crap. : ) BUT when Daniel actually got home, it was well-worth all of the work!


Here's Wiss holding the sign that she and the boys made for Daniel (the boys call him Buddy!)


The boys are SOOO cute in their "Uncle Buddy Loves Me" shirts. Here they are just waiting for the plane to land.


Awwww! Getting in place for him to come!


There he is! Diane is on the left and Daniel on the right. It's pretty cool that they were on the flight together...eventhough all of us at home were super jealous! : )


Hugging my baby brother for the first time after not seeing him for 2 years! Words cannot describe! I actually cried when I hugged him eventhough I'm not really a crier when it comes to things like this.


A few days after Daniel came home, we went to Disneyland. Daniel went with Melissa and the boys early in the morning and then Nancy, David, and I joined them as we got off of work. Before we all got there, people kept telling Daniel and Wiss how cute their kids were! Haha! Awkward! lol


Daniel and Nancy


Daniel and David


Daniel and me

Whad'ya Know! I'm 25!

Sooo...on September 28th, I turned 25! This one was seriously on of the best birthdays I've ever had. I always get really nervous when my birthday is near because I had a string of 5 or 6 birthdays on which really crappy things happened. These days, I just hope for a birthday without disaster and don't really expect anything great...I know...slightly pessimistic and kinda sad, right? This birthday, I enjoyed a day with NO disasters and instead had a great day (or couple of days) with family and friends. It was great! On my actual birthday, Jake invited some people to dinner at BJ's. There were about 15 of us and it was fun and no fuss! Perfect!











The next day (Tuesday), we did a family thing. All of my siblings, except Diane, were able to come. Jacob and his 2 little boys came too. We had dinner and did the birthday cake thing and just hung out for a bit. Then, we all decided to go to a park that Daniel had found on one of his runs. It is Fontana Park; you should seriously check it out! It has a ship to play on and a tower, lots of little bug toys to climb on, etc. We now call it the "Alice in Wonderland Park" because the caterpillars, snails, ladybugs, etc. are painted in really bright colors...kinda psychadelic and very cool! We all played there, grown-ups and kids alike, for quite awhile and it was lots of fun!

My Trip to Ireland

Too Good To Be True?

I woke up this morning to find this clip from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on my AOL welcome screen. I thought it was absolutely amazing (as per my minor/not so minor obssession with all things Saved By The Bell)! A Saved By The Bell reunion would pretty much be the best thing that could happen at this point! lol So, without further adieu (you must be reeling with anticipation) I present to you, this clip, which has absolutely nothing to do with me! : ) Perhaps it will turn your frown upside down like it did mine! Enjoy!

Pleasantly Surprised

I kinda suck at this blogging thing. : ) Anyways, this school year is wrapping itself up pretty quickly; I only have 10 school days until the end of the year and I can't even believe it. Before I started teaching and even after a few months of the school year had passed, people kept warning me about how miserable my first year of teaching would be and how much I would probably hate it! lol Fortunately, I found that this was not the case. Am I exhausted? YES! Am I ready to be done with the year? DEFINITELY! Am I looking forward to another year of teaching? ABSOLUTELY! Some days were great and other days I wished that I had just stayed in bed, but I think that you'll have those days regardless of your profession or situation in life; it's simply part of life. I feel a sense of accomplishment too. It's nice to know that teaching is something I can do and that I feel good about. I had worried that I would get into the classroom and not be able to hack it and have all of my college years gone to waste. BUT I did it! YAY!!! I'm gonna miss my "little naughties" as I affectionately call them! We've had a good year: been through a lot, learned a lot, accomplished a lot, and SURVIVED! Woohoo!

Welcome Home Daniel!

So many great things have happened since my last post! My little brother Daniel was due to come home from his mission at 8:40 PM on January 23rd. We all went through the whole day tracking his planes through the layovers like real-live stalkers and we were all SO excited! He had his last layover in Salt Lake City, Utah where my sister, Diane, lives and she was waiting to join him for the last leg of his flight from SLC to Ontario. BUT the inversion layer rolled in and they both got SMOGGED in. No planes were coming or going from the Salt Lake airport. SMOG??? In Utah??? Whaaaa??? So, I didn't know that was an issue there, but live and learn, I suppose! : ) They called and told us that the flight had been officially cancelled around 7:40 PM. We were WAY bummed. Daniel and Diane immediately got in line to book a new flight. The next flight from SLC to Ontario wasn't until Monday, which was 3 days away! The rest of my siblings and I were in a crazy panic. There was even talk of a trip up to Utah. If he couldn't come to us, we would go to him. My parents told Daniel and Diane to book a flight that would come in anywhere from San Diego to Vegas. Fortunately, they found a flight that flew into John Wayne Airport in Orange County the next morning around 9 AM. So, the next morning, we headed out there to get him. One bummer was that some of the people that were going to come to the airport were unable to come. It was rainy and cold weather and so far away. My aunt and uncle said that they weren't going to be able to make it, but when we got to the airport they were already there. It was a great surprise! We even walked right past their car in the parking garage and didn't even notice! Anyways, the plane landed safely and on-schedule and we had a great reunion! Later that day, a bunch of the family went to dinner at El Torito. It was really a great day and it's been awesome to have him back!