New Milestone

By the way, we started feeding Derek food other than milk. He is now eating Organic Gerber Rice/Cereal. We also started him off on grinded up peas. Next up, jarred baby food!

Our Photographer

This one is for you Susie! So this past Saturday, we got a chance to hang out with our really great friend and photographer, Susie Linquist. Oh yeah, she was also down at our place to take pics of Derek at 6 months old. Derek was all smiles and was ready for Auntie Susie to get some great shots of him. As mentioned in one of my very first posts(and the inspiration for creating this blog), Susie has been our Engagement Session, Wedding, Maternity and Derek's Photographer. Knowing and working with her for nearly 3 years has been great and we could not have asked for a better individual to be friends and clients with. She drove down from Encinitas to take some great shots of our happy family in and near our house, as well as the neighborhood park and future site of Derek's elementary school. Susie, its always great to see and hang out with you. For those who don't know Susie Linquist or are possibly interested in booking her for a Wedding, Maternity or a family shoot, check out her website Susie Linquist Photography(No, she didn't pay us to say that...). We highly recommend her. Here's some shots from Susie's camera. Recognize these people?










Here are a couple of pics from our camera of us with Susie. Thanks again! We can't wait to see how these will turn out!

We're Homeowners Again!

We were minutes away from Qualcomm Stadium, within walking distance for Charger games and even lived in the same complex with Charger stars Antonio Cromartie and Antoine Cason. The apartment was Derek's first home. As our family expands, we outgrew our place and wanted to raise our little boy in a house instead of an apartment. The timing couldn't have been better. We scored a home down in the beautiful, family friendy Otay Ranch in Chula Vista. Not only did we get a hell of a deal due to the housing crisis and rise of foreclosures, we were able to move into a place that we see ourselves living for the rest of our lives.
Since the place was bank owned, there was plenty of work that needed to be done. For instance, the previous occupant painted the living room yellow and orange as if it was Reeses Pieces. Also, one of the rooms was poorly painted blue to a point where there was still blue tape and unfilled portions where the original markings were. Thanks to the help of our family and friend, Joel, we were able to make our place more "homey" by painting the entire interior of the house with several of accent walls. We chose khaki for the main colors and dark green, blue and grey for the accent walls. Check out the crew and some pics of our masterpiece:

Its a blessing to have this new home, especially from what we went through by overcoming the idea of foreclosure with our previous house and to also be able to watch our little man Derek grow up in a house instead of a place of rent. Thank you Erica's Mom and Dad for helping us obtain our dream home, my Mom and Dad for helping us clean and move our belongings from our previous residence into our new house, to Uncle Boy, the twins Samboy, Joel (and my Dad) for helping us paint and also Charm for helping us clean our apartment. We love all of you guys and we can't wait to spend the rest of our lives in our awesome home!