In case you haven't heard...

We've got a baby on the way, due in mid-March, and we are all terribly excited! I am 13 weeks right now and I'm not really showing yet, but when I do start to get that baby bump, I'll post pics.

I had my first pre-natal appointment on September 4, and everything looked great. The baby looked healthy and was doing acrobatics, martial arts, gymnastics, something! The baby was so excited to see us that its arms and legs were flying everywhere - it was so cute! And the heart rate was 162 which is really good.

I cannot wait to find out if our little bean is a boy or girl! Then I can really start focusing on names and nursery themes/colors! :D

It also occurred to me yesterday that I'll be celebrating the next Mother's Day!

♥

Our New Favorite Place

Over the weekend we went down to our new favorite shopping center in Rancho Cucamonga called Victoria Gardens. It is the neatest place! It is like an outdoor mall/village type shopping center, and there are tons of retail shops and restaurants. There's also a movie theatre and cultural center there. It's very kid and family friendly, and they have this little park area where they have different events on the weekends.

We went on Saturday and were there for a few hours. As we passed by this park area, we heard some live music so we decided to sit for a while and listen. This girl's name is Brooke Ramel, and she was very good - she sounds just like Jewel! She mostly did covers and took lots of requests, but she does have some songs of her own. Her songs have been featured in a couple of movies and a plethora of TV shows, like the Gilmore Girls, Six Feet Under, Charmed, and Dawson's Creek.

As you can tell, the kids loved her and they loved sitting on the steps right in front of her. It was so cute when she played a more upbeat song and all the kids started dancing around! This photo is a bit grainy, but these were two little sisters that were close to us and they were so cute!

Ants are going to pick me up and carry me away.

Any day now, I'm just waiting for it. I'm waiting for my chair to slowly start gliding across the floor.

I AM SO SICK OF ANTS.

They are everywhere. Mostly in the kitchen, but it doesn't matter. Upstairs, downstairs, wherever. I have put probably twice the legal amount of insecticide out in the yard, I have somewhere in the neighborhood of, ohh, 30-something ant baits on the floors, counters, and cabinets. I'm sick of having to keep my cereal and Blow Pops in the refrigerator. I try REALLY hard to keep my counters clean and to keep Moby's little eating station cleaned, but NOTHING IS WORKING.

What's the next step? Get used to them already, or call the exterminator? Because apparently my extermination skills are lacking.

HALP. :(

5.4

5-7 seconds. That's about as long as it lasted. 5-7 seconds.

I knew sooner or later we'd experience an earthquake, seeing as we are in California, and today was the day. I was in the shower (yes, the shower, of all places) and had just picked up my face wash bottle when I felt a bit of a jolt, I guess. My initial thought was that it was a truck bumping/passing by, as we do live right by a semi-busy road. But the longer it lasted, I knew it was a quake. So what did I do? Just stood there. In a glass shower. And "watched" the shaking and listened to the house creak and crack. As soon as it stopped, I stood there and yelled "HONEY!!!!!" as if to expect Burin to come "rescue" me or something. So I grabbed my towel and ran out of the shower and ran downstairs to where Burin was. The whole time, he was down here yelling "Brandi!!! Where are you?!?!" But of course I couldn't hear him for the shower.

Burin had gone to work for a little while this morning after having been on call last night, and got home and got into his comfy clothes, a t-shirt and undies (teehee). He was sitting in one of the chairs in the living room and he said with the initial jolts, it felt like someone had hit him in the back, or pushed the back of the chair and made him jump. When he figured out what it was, it didn't take him too long to get his jeans back on! I think he felt it more on the ground floor, which makes sense I guess. He said he had felt an earthquake in Thailand a long time ago and this one was worse.

But man, it was crazy! I was shaken up for a good two hours afterwards. Nothing fell off the counters or anything here and as reported on the news, there has been no major structural damage and no injuries anywhere. There has been some cosmetic damage and some groceries off the shelves at stores closer to the epicenter, but nothing too bad, thank goodness. I'm just glad I wasn't in one of the tall buildings in downtown LA, where they said the buildings were swaying. Can you imagine.

So after a few minutes when things calmed down, I called mom and told her about it, and then went to very quickly finish my shower because I was afraid aftershocks were coming, but we never felt anymore. They said that this one was the worst in 14 years, since the Northridge one back in 1994, which was a 6.1 and killed something like 72 people and injured hundreds more.

Hopefully this will be our last quake to experience, and if not our last, maybe it's the worst we'll experience.

Update update!

We're still engaged! But no wedding plans yet. At all.

Tenneille came out and visited me a couple of weeks ago and we had a blast! The day she got here we went to Universal Studios, which was a lot of fun. Now, I'm not a fan of The Simpsons or anything (and I'm especially not fond of the "are we there yet?" commercials), but that new Simpsons ride was frikken awesome! I wanted to do it again but did not want to stand in that line again. Most of the other rides and attractions there was pretty cool too. Another day we went to Disneyland, which was ok, just a lot of kids and kiddie stuff. Most of the rides there were pretty amazing though. And OMG! we saw an actor there with his kids and a couple other people. His name is Rick Gomez and I only know him as Dave from the sadly-cancelled TV show "What About Brian," which was on for only a couple of seasons, last year maybe. He also had a very small part in that Transformers movie.

What else did we do. Oh! We went to The Price is Right! (I know, we're sooo cheesy). But it was so much fun! The waiting process was long and ridiculous, as in we got there before 6am to attend the 1pm taping. It was pretty rad though, and the studio of course looks so much smaller in person than it does on TV. The show came on yesterday morning and I saw us a couple of times!

The rest of the time we just rode around (because gas is just sooo cheap here) and went up to Malibu, the Santa Monica Pier, Huntington Beach, Hollywood, etc. Next time we'll try to make it to Jay Leno or something.

:D

Headed Back to the Land of Thai

Well in about 24 hours we're headed back to Bangkok! We'll be gone for one week and are going for his brother's wedding which is next Sunday the 18th. I'm actually kinda looking forward to this trip because the last two were for unfortunate reasons and they were just very emotionally draining.

Anyway, it's our first trip as an engaged couple.. aawwwww. I know, I know... *gag*

♥
brandi

A new day, a new month, a new... relationship status?

Ok I'll get right to the point WE'RE ENGAGED (as most of you know by now)!

Eight years on and it finally happened! We had of course been talking about getting engaged off and on over the years. We always knew we'd eventually get married, it was just a matter of starting the process and making it official, and now seemed like the 'right' time. We just wanted to make sure we were the one for each other! :D

So we went shopping for our rings last weekend in Hollywood at a shopping center called Hollywood & Highland. We had kinda looked in this store called Teno before and both remembered that we really liked their jewelry. It's a German company and everything in there is stainless steel and has a really modern and unique feel to it. We 'bought them out' so to speak, and ended up getting both my ring and band, and his band as well. No, this isn't your traditional engagement ring, but hey, when have we ever been traditional? hehe.. I love it. :)

I didn't get to wear the ring right away though, because Burin wanted to have a proper proposal and had in his mind how he wanted to do it. He happened to be off work yesterday (May 1), so we went to Seal Beach yesterday morning and luckily there was nobody really around (or we would have had to find someplace else because we all know how modest I am and don't like to cause a scene!). So he quickly got down on his knee in the sand by the water with the seagulls as our witnesses and asked. And that's when I said those three little words:

"It's about time." :)

Afterwards we went to have brunch at a restaurant that was right there on the water, and then went on about our day. And that was it.

We'll more than likely have the wedding in MS because we all know Doris ain't gonna get on a plane and come out here :P .. and we're thinking around August/September? I'll keep everyone posted with the details as I know them!

So, back to reality, everything has been great out here in CA! We're loving it. The gas prices, not so much. Tenneille rode out here with me when I moved in mid-March, and we had a blast the two days she was able to spend out here. We did a touristy Hollywood tour on one day and went to a taping of Deal or No Deal the next day. That particular episode (Star Wars-themed) actually aired this past Monday night and we were able to see ourselves a few times in the audience! Other than that, Burin and I mostly hang around here, though we have ventured out a time or two and rode along the Pacific Coast Highway, which in some areas has amazing views of the Pacific from a cliff. One of my favorite things to do is go to Hollywood and ride along Hollywood Blvd. or especially the Sunset Strip, look at the neat shops and restaurants, and watch for celebrities! LOL.. haven't had any sightings yet though, unfortunately (except for the time that Forrest Whitaker was on the same plane as I was coming from Memphis to LA). Maybe one day....

♥

brandi