A Weekend Cruise and My Little Rockstar

Last weekend I got to do something I've wanted to do for a long time...have a girl's weekend. And even better, I got to do it on a weekend cruise! As Lauren put it...she's one of my besties, a sista from another mista...when she lived by me, we taught summer school together, then did our graduate/credential schooling together, then got hired on as full time teachers together at the same school as math teachers. We were connected in all parts of life. So, it was very sad when their family moved away. But this was a great weekend where we got to totally hang out and catch up with no kid distractions. We had so much fun. It was so fun to be with someone who wanted to do all the same things I did all the time (normally with husbands, more compromising is happening:) During the day we lounged by the pool, had tons of girl talk, read books, took naps...During nights we went to the shows, the comedy club, did karaoke, and went dancing every night. As you see too, we had fun taking silly pictures on the ship with the photographers.This is Ensenada behind us...we decided to stay on the ship and soak up the sun all day rather then go to Papas and Beer...where I'd say at least half of the people on the ship went. It turned out to be a good choice since the next day was cold and rainy.

Since it was a weekend-spring break cruise...and people were in party mode...it really did make it that much more fun. At karaoke, everyone sang along and danced (compared to our cruise last year where people took karoake as a serious chance at becoming a recording artist)

Dancing was a lot of fun too...we went to the club every night. And then on the last night as we were headed to our rooms tired from club dancing, we passed a live band with a bunch of people singing and dancing. So we went in there--and that was seriously the funnest of all. We danced until the band finished. Although I will say I came home with my clothes smelling of beer...not because I drank any:) But I seemed to be a magnet for having beer spilled on me by people. This one time, this guy literally completely fell over onto me with his beer. I can't imagine the hangovers these people all experienced the day after the cruise ended!

Anyway, we had such a great time...thanks to Jeff for really being the one who made it happen. It would be awesome to make something like this an annual tradition!

Now switching gears, I thought I'd include a pic of our viewing party for our Renovation Realities show. So funny. I had to watch it back a 2nd time to actually hear the show since I missed everything the 1st time...I was laughing so hard at seeing us on t.v.

And switching gears again:

A couple nights ago we had our roadshow performances. I directed our ward's roadshow...so that has been a very busy and large part of my life for 2 months. Jake had the time of his life through all of our rehearsals...He was just one of the teenagers--they loved him and gave him so much attention. So of course Jake was always on stage through all of our rehearsals, and learned all the songs and dances. Earlier this last week, everyone in the cast started saying I had to let him be on stage for at least the Young Men's number. So we did...and guess what. I've got a little performer on my hands. He was a total ham and wasn't shy at all. They had a rock number to Sharp Dressed Man by ZZ Top. Jake stayed front and center and sang all the words and did the dance moves. It was really fun to watch. Our stake did it as a traveling roadshow. So we went to three buildings and performed it 3 times in one night. Here's Jake and Dallin in the parking lot.

Here's our committee that worked from beginning to end on the show. I really liked getting to know so many more people in my ward, both adults and the youth. We were really happy with how our show turned out...we had lots of musical numbers...it was ambitious, but we did it!

And here's some shots of Jake in the Sharp Dressed Man number with the Young Men. I couldn't help but stop doing director things during that number, and just watch and take pictures of my little boy:)

And that's my little rockstar

Our big news...

You guessed it! We are having another baby...woo hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We waited a while for Jake and we've waited even longer for this one. And I feel so blessed and so grateful that we can grow our family.

We did In Vitro to get pregnant with this one...I can't even say how nerveracking it is to wait and find out if it worked...it was a hard process of doctor appointments and medications and injections...and the biggest try you can do. So it feels like there is a lot at stake to find out if it worked. So when we heard, I was ecstatic...and really almost couldn't believe it for a while. I'm 11 weeks now...getting to the end of the 1st trimester. So we'll be finding out in a couple weeks if its a boy or girl. So exciting!

We're in the paper!

A reporter from the OC Register interviewed me and wrote an article about us doing Renovation Realities. The article is up today on their website. Here's the link (then scroll down and click on #5...the link to our article):

http://www.ocregister.com/search/?q=La+Habra

At first when I read it this morning it said "Lucia" for my name all throughout the article. And then there were a couple other things he said in the article that weren't right. I called the reporter to see if he could fix my name, and he made all the changes on the spot. I guess that's the nice thing about having it come out online before it is in the actual newspaper...I don't have to be Lucia:)

Our t.v. show air date!

Ok, it's official...the premiere of our show is this Saturday (March 12th)! So exciting! It has been 3 months since we filmed it and I can't wait to see how they decided to edit a week's worth of footage into a 30 min. episode. Here's the link to our show page where it says all the air dates and times it will be on throughout the month:
http://www.diynetwork.com/renovation-realities/the-reukert-job/index.html

Hope you have the DIY channel. Set your DVR's!!

February

We signed Jake up for a beginning karate class every Tuesday night for 5 weeks. It was really cute...he learned to stand at attention, do punches and kicks while saying "ha-ya" and then ran through an obstacle course at the end (his favorite part). But...if this was any glimpse into how he'll be as a student in school...we'd better gear up for many parent-teacher conferences:) He was a wild child running all over the room constantly and bouncing off the walls, while all the other kids stood still practicing their exercises. At least he's still got a couple years to let that energy run loose:)
Hallelujah! The trash pile in our yard got cleaned up! I was beginning to wonder if we'd just leave it there forever. This is the before picture. I just realized I didn't take the "after" picture...but you can imagine it:) I'm just so happy kids can go outside and play again, without the danger of old rusty nails sticking out from pieces of wood.

We went to Knotts with Shannon and Lindy for the day...the boys had a ton of fun. This is them on a ride that brought back childhood memories for me. I remembered being a little girl going on this ride and feeling like I was in the backwoods of a thick forest, on my own, moving my car along, and yes...enjoying nature. Now as an adult I stood and looked at it...the whole track is in full view from the park and there's a couple trees...haha. That was funny to see. But it still gave me full satisfaction to now be sending my child on the nature ride experience. Of course about two-thirds of the way through he gave up on pumping and just laid back in his car.

This airplane ride was the first one they did. You have to pull a lever towards you to make the airplane fly up high. Jake was in a plane with some random girl and they both couldn't figure it out. Every other plane was up high in the hair and Jake's was riding along the ground. He was pushing the lever the wrong way with all his might and looking up at Luke in his plane yelling "it won't go up!" over and over. He finally gave up and just started waving hi at Luke and Seth in their plane. I felt bad for him but it was the funniest thing to watch. Me, Shannon and Lindy were all trying to yell through the gate to pull the lever the other way.

Don't these boys look so big? It's like they're riding a real roller coaster

This is Valentine's Day...a very happy boy with his candy
We made heart shaped sugar cookies during the day and took some over to friends. Jake likes to help me in the kitchen...especially when he gets to keep dipping his finger in the sugar:)