Baby Showers

Before we had our 2nd baby, Erica had a couple of baby showers thrown in her honor.



The first was a very intimate one with Erica's closest friends at our house. The guests included Aurena, Nora, Michelle, Rochelle, Annie, Steph, Sheryl & Yella. They played several games including Who's That Baby, Who's The Celebrity Baby, Guess Mommy's Measurement, Beat The Clock, Baby Price Is Right, Baby Parts Quiz and Wright Family Poem.











The following day, the Buenaventura's threw Erica a baby shower at Beijing Chinese Buffet in National City. This event included 65 of our close family and friends. We also played games including the measurement of Erica's belly, memory and an assortment of raffles.

Erica's 30th Birthday Celebration & The Ellen Show

On February 9th, 2010, Erica was welcomed into the 30-year-old club. That same day, she became officially 37 weeks pregnant. Both of us went to work and took a half day. At work, Erica was greeted with Happy Birthday's from her coworkers as well as a cream puff cake. We spent lunch at our favorite restaurant, Onami's in Mission Valley. After lunch, we headed to several baby appointments. Erica's parents came in that same day and we picked them up from my parents house. We capped the rest of the day hanging out with them and got ready for a day in Burbank for the Ellen Degeneres Show.













The following morning, Erica, her parents and I took a day trip up to Burbank for the Ellen Degeneres show. We got tickets for the Grammy's show, which aired the following Friday. We woke up at 4am in the morning and left San Diego at 5am. We did not have guaranteed tickets, but rather standby tickets. This means that we had to show up at the WB Studios at least at 830am to get first-come-first-serve ticket numbers. Once we got there at around 840am, we were approximately numbers 40th thru 43rd as standby members. We had about 4 hours to kill so after we got the tickets, we ate at Bob's Big Boy, then proceeded to the streets of Hollywood, where we checked out the Hollywood sign, stars and the Chinese Mann Theatre. We finally got into the show and the guests included two performances by Ricky Martin and Samuel L. Jackson. Erica scored a free shirt since she was "13 months pregnant" and we all came home each with a Grammys Hits CD for 2011 and a Ricky Martin CD. On the way home we stopped by Irvine for some Thai food and then picked up our little man from my parents house.

Jalen's 10th Birthday

Our nephew and Derek's cousin, Jalen, celebrated his 10th Birthday at Legoland California in Carlsbad. Jalen is my brother and sister's first of two children. This was the first time that we had an outing with my brother Jay and his family. Usually we spend time with the entire family during holidays and an occasional hangout out but we've never been to a theme park together. All of us had a great time. Even though the S-B's have Legoland passes and we've been to Legoland 12 times since we got the passes, there were still several rides that we did not ride until this day. These attractions included Skipper School, Sky Scraper Climber, Dune Raiders, Cargo Ace, and Hideaways. Derek had so much fun that he did not take a nap until we left the park. We ended the day by going over to Mom & Dad's house for dinner, which included Hawaiian BBQ and chocolate birthday cake. Overall, we were happy that Jalen enjoyed his 10th Birthday at Legoland we were glad to be a part of his special day!

Christmas & New Year's Break 2010

This past Christmas & New Years break was full of family time, fun and relaxation. We kept the same traditions of spending Christmas with both sides of our family. As always, Christmas Eve was celebrated in San Diego with the Buenaventura's while Christmas Day was spent in Delano, CA with the Sison's. For the Eve of Christmas, we spent the evening at Jay, Joanna, Jalen & Jolene's house. That evening was spent hanging out, playing video games, eating lots of food and of course, opening presents. Each of the adults in the family participated in a Secret Santa gift exchange in which each participant spent a minimum of $50 on their perspective draw. The kids, Derek, Jalen & Jolene all got hooked up with presents from the family. Erica and I got gift cards and cash, while Derek ended up with a train set, some cash, gift cards, a dancing Mickey Mouse plush toy, a mini helicopter, clothes and a toy car. As a Buenaventura tradition, we dressed up in a single color. This year it was yellow. In the previous years it was powdered blue, green and red.





The following morning on Christmas Day, we took a trip to Delano and spent the weekend with the Sisons (minus Elaine, Carlito, Xavier, Zachary & Ysabelle. They were in the Philippines celebrating Christmas in the Motherland). We ate more food, opened presents and hung out with the family. We also did a gift exchange Secret Santa as well. The minimum for this one was $100 and of course the kids were except and got individual presents as well. Erica drew Dad while I drew Mom. Dad got a $100 American Express gift card and I got Mom a Barnes & Noble Nook. I was picked by Carlito, while Erica was picked by Elaine. Erica got a cool camera lens for our camera and I scored an XBOX 360 Kinect. Derek received a book shelf, clothes, a stuffed animal, cash and a pillow pet.








As soon as we got home from Delano, it was our turn to exchange gifts within our own household, S-B style. This year, I hooked up Erica with Juice Plus and she hooked me up with a Chargers Authentic Antonio Gates White jersey. We contributed to Mom & Dad's gift to Derek, a table top train set, and also bought a few Thomas The Train cars to go with his train.







This New Year's celebration was the first time Derek was awake for the majority of the evening. He almost made it to midnight but he fell asleep 10 minutes before. We did kick off the evening with a hunt for cake donuts. We couldn't find any of these particular donuts within proximity from our house so we drove to National City to finally pick up the last two pieces of cake donuts along with some glaze donuts at Winchell's and Yum Yum Donuts. For dinner, we had some Super Sergio's carne asada fries and roll tacos. Derek enjoyed the fries and even at a roll taco. We gave him a few bites of a glaze donut and had an immediate sugar rush. I guess that explained why he was up for a while. We planned ahead for Derek to celebrate New Year's by watching the East Coast telecast of the New Year's celebration at Times Square New York. Once it was 9PM Pacific Time, Derek got his taste of Happy New Year's and jump around and celebrated. We were hoping for him to stay up at midnight for the West Coast New Year's Celebration but as I mentioned earlier, he was out right before. Erica and I stayed up for a bit and tossed money all over our house for good luck and an hour later, we called it a night.













Overall, we had an fun Christmas and New Years Holiday. We were even productive on several errands, including getting our garbage disposal fixed, getting our house cleaned and repairing our Dyson. It was great to be off of work and spend a bunch of family time. Happy New Year Ya'lls!

S-B Baby #2 Pics

Here's a couple of the latest 4D ultra sound pics of Derek's baby brother/sister. To this date, we are less than 2 months away until another S-B is in this world. Time is flying so fast and we can't wait for he or she to be present in our lives.