2008 Trend for Outdoor Holiday Decorations

2008 trends for the holiday season are a flop this year. I have noticed through out my neighborhood the new holiday decorations for 2008, that people put up on their lawns. Not so good this year. The worst one is this inflated, life size, Santa Clause/Snow Man. Intended to look like the photo above. Each night these are on, filling with air to keep standing, BUT when the Santa is turned off, all the air goes out making the Santa go limp and lying "dead" on the lawn. The Snowmen turned off just looks like a melted Snow Man on the lawn.

One of these Santa's are set up on a front porch; so when Santa gets turned off, it looks like he is a passed out, drunken Santa...leaning over the banister of the porch. (photo below). Bad design for the new Christmas Decorations.

Another new decoration this year is a strand of white lights with lit snow flakes dangling down. This looks very nice over an entrance of a house. A few houses in my neighborhood has this up as their outdoor decorations.

We didn't do out door decorations this year, but I do enjoy driving home at night to see everyone else's decorations. Merry Christmas everyone!

Major Freudian Slip!

Andrew and I are shoping at the Home Depot in the Plumbing department. We were picking out a toilet part and I see on the shelf some Calk. It is a sealant that comes in a tube and is called Calk (pronounced Cock), and sometimes applied to cracks and corners with a calking gun. First off, I am in bathroom mode and thinking of house repairs to fix up. I am inisantly saying the word Calk to Andrew, but to him it is coming out ALL wrong.

Conversation played out between Andrew and I:

Ooh, I need some calk! ...for the shower in the bathroom.

Some what?

Calk, I use to help my dad out when he used his, except he would use a gun with his calk...I wonder if we need to find a gun to use this calk with?

Huh?

Back when we remodeled the Margarita house we finished up the bathroom and lined the tub with his calk and gun. I don't see a gun for this...The gun makes the calk squirt out smoothly and less mess...

Martiel! stop saying that word!

What word, GUN?

No, (whispering) Calk! and using it in the same sentence as you helping your dad out with his calk!

LAUGHING OUT LOUD!!!! OOOOOH! oops. I totally didn't mean that. Well it is a good thing I didn't go up to a Home Depot guy and ask him to show me where he keeps his calk and guns at!!! HAHA!

(Whispering back to me) Quiet, Martiel, let's go now, no more calk talk!

Andrew was getting imbarassed and I was oblivious to what I was saying. Some one walking by could take my words out of context.

Audrey or Kara? VOTE NOW!

Our baby is due March 25th or so. It is looking like I am measuring at 2 weeks ahead of the due date! So any day in March. I'm 28 weeks now. Andrew and I are back and forth on our baby's first name. At first we had Audrey Kara Hay; to be named after Audrey Hepburn. This name is also the same initials A.K.H. and fit nicely as a little girls name. NOW we are both liking the name Kara as a first name a bit more than Audrey...but we have told everyone already that she'll be named Audrey! Some friends tell me it's OK to change the name around, nothing is set into stone until it is written on the Birth Certificate! Changing to Kara as her first name would mess up the whole Audrey Hepburn A.K.H. name. She would be K.A.H. as Kara Audrey Hay!

It is so hard picking a name out! This name will be what she goes by as a kid, adult, and grandma...her whole life as which ever name we pick. She could be DR. Audrey or a Teacher, Judge Kara, or Police woman Audrey....who knows!?

To my fellow blog readers: HELP! We want your input/vote. Which do you like better? Audrey? or Kara? as her first name.

Click on the comment, below, to vote and let us know. We are running a poll & I want your vote!

This must be a PREGO CRAVING!?

I, for some reason, bought a soda from the vending machine at break. First off, I don't drink soda. If I do drink soda, it is usually when I am at the movies. But I have really cut it out of my diet for the past couple of years actually. When I do have soda, it is usually a Sprite or Dr. Pepper, and on the airplane rides I always get a Ginger ale! I HATE Pepsi sodas and NEVER (emphasise on the never) drink Pepsi. I am a pure coke gal...well apparently the baby likes Pepsi? Being prego I have to cut out caffeine or limit the intake at least, for the baby. But I have been good on not having any, so a soda wont hurt. I felt like having a soda, today, and choose the Cherry Pepsi option on the vending machine. What am I doing? I hate Pepsi?! But it tastes good for some strange, pregnancy out of whack reason. This is just temporary, I am not committing myself to Pepsi, and I am just drinking this one can. Call it a prego craving.
One of the reasons I don't like Pepsi! What is this ad telling me? Odd!

007 Critique

I went to the theater last nigh with my friend, Jenay. We saw the new 007 movie, !Quantum of Solace. The James Bond actor is Daniel Craig for the second time in a row. He has also done a dynamite job in the HBO series Rome.

I kept track during the movie of how many different modes of transportation James Bond operated. Four types of transportation, he drove (1) Boat, (1) motor scooter, (1) airplane and (4 vehicles!

I should have counted how many wardrobe changes he made! He NEVER carried any luggage on him, in the movie. Only twice; the movie shows him stealing some Else's clothes. Other parts in the movie he would be in the desert running from someone and wearing a different outfit. One scene made sense, where he sneaks into a dinner function and knocks out a guy, and steals his tux. It was so distracting for me to watch the movie, noticing small details like this. I am an observer and look for off the wall things in the movie. I know, I am strange.

THEN the lady who is James Bond's boss (Judi Dench) only wears one outfit (pictured below)! She is wearing, in 90 % of this movie, the black blazer, white collared blouse, and dainty necklace on her neck. There may be a part of the movie where she wore some other outfit, but I don't recall. I just found it odd for her character to be wearing ONE outfit and the James Bond character wearing 10+ and with NO suitcases. Jumping around from country to country and from rooftop to rooftop.

Crazy Cravings!

I was food shopping the other day and on the shelf was a jar of Pickled Beets, begging to hop into my cart! What was I thinking? I bought a jar or pickled beets!? Must be a prego craving. I do like them at salad bars, but I have never bought them before at a store. Actually I didn't even now one could even buy these at a store. I have only seen these in Salad Bars like at Sizzler or Home Town Buffet type places.

In case you are wondering what a pickled beet is, it's those purple, sliced, round, beets. On Sunday, I took the jar of Pickled Beets out of the fridge, struggled to open it up and dished out 5 slices to nibble on. Not bad. Still odd though. Being pregnant really does persuade you to eat things out of the ordinary, and to actually have cravings for certain foods. I never understood it myself until I joined the prego club. Last night I was driving home and picked up my weekly craving of Orange Chicken to go. Yummy in my tummy. Baby likes it too, she kicks after I eat it. *Photos found on internet, copy/pasted into blog.

Thankful for Thanksgiving!

Andrew and I flew out to CA to visit with family. Thanksgiving dinner was very nice with Andrew's folks and his brother, our sister-in-law, and their yr old son. I loved the pumpkin pie, we were all so full after dinner, we took it back to our hotel for later. My M-I-L was so sweet to my preggy belly, patting it and talking to baby Audrey. Then as we were leaving she kissed my belly to say buy to Audrey for the night. So sweet. She is going a fun grandma to little Audrey.

On Friday we headed down to Long Beach for a quick visit over to his grandparents house. On the way there we stopped by IN N OUT a local burger joint to the California area. It's funny because both Kyoung and I are pregnant and had a big craving for IN N OUT since we can't get it back where we live now. We could only get it when visiting in CA. So we made a to go order to bring along and share with the grandparents. While we were waiting Andrew was holding his nephew to get in some "daddy practice" and just as he was saying, "I could do this, piece of cake, (holding a kid and handling them in public)." Andrew then pauses and asks, "why is my arm all warm?" We didn't know what was happening and he puts little man down and we all start giggling, because Andrew had a big pee spot on his shirt and sleeve! HA! Little man was so relaxed and sleepy and just let loose, having an accident on Andrew! OOOPS. teehee.

When we got to Grandpas he borrowed an old shirt from him to change into...When I say, "old" I mean straight form the 70s with metal snaps old! It fit Andrew so well.
Photo below!!! HA!


While we were at the house I had to take this photo. It is 4 generations of the Hay Men in the family. Andrew, Gordon Jr. (Bobs brother), Bob (Andrew's dad), Grandpa Gordon (Bob/Gordon's dad), Jordan (Andrews brother), & little man (Jordan's son). Grandpa Gordon is 96 yrs old, and little man is 2 yrs old, a big fluctuation in ages.

A pretty photo of Grandma Thelma's Rose garden out front of their house.
Friday night we went to a restaurant for dinner at the West Lake Village Inn where Andrew and I were married 6 yrs ago! We took a photo opp by the gazebo we were married at. It was symbolic, being there now 6yrs later and with me being 6 months pregnant with our first child.

On Saturday, Andrew and drove up to the Santa Barbara Mission and meet up with my folks and had an early lunch, walked around and took more pictures. Our baby to be will be my parents first grandchild, it was so special for them to see me with a prego belly and share that moment together.

There were candles to purchase and then place on the candle lighting prayer table in the mission. I bought one to light up a prayer for our soon to be baby, Audrey. Andrew and I lit the candle together, praying for a long, healthy and happy life for our baby. Our candle is the first one in the front row.Then there was a stairway to what use to be a door way and is now a window. I titled this photo, "Stairway to Heaven" Because when you go up to heaven, you get your wings, and just fly through the window, and not need the doorway. This was at the S.B. Mission. Something so simple can be something so symbolic.