the end of my twenties...

What a great way to finish off my last day in my twenties...

I spent the evening at a worship night at EV Free Fullerton church, singing and praising God. It was so great! My buddy Mark "Hoop-Dog" was there, my co-worker Ryan was in the band on electric guitar, and my boss Jeff and his wife and son were there too.

After that great night of worship, I'm ready to leave my twenties and all that those years entailed...and start fresh in my thirties! One of the songs (hymns) played tonight really hit home for me, with the words "Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe, sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow". What an amazing feeling, knowing that no matter what has happened in my past, God is all forgiving and continues to give us second and third chances. Wow, I really am going into my thirties with a clean slate! I know God has something wonderful planned for my life, and I am looking forward to the unveiling of it all. I'm so grateful to Ryan for encouraging me to go to this worship night...I couldn't have asked for a better way to transition into my thirties! :)

Roses Are Red....

ROSES ARE RED, VIOLETS ARE BLUE, I'M TURNING THIRTY, AND AM LOVING IT TOO!
I had a special delivery at work today...
my sweet mom sent me some beautiful roses!
Not only did she send me a dozen colorful roses, but a box of chocolates came with it! YUM YUM YUM!
AND...the florist made a mistake and sent a second bouquet!
So I have lots of wonderful flowers keeping me company! :)

Thank you Mom, and Ray-Ray for my present!
I love you guys and wish you were here to celebrate with me!My co-workers also took me out to lunch today to celebrate my birthday! They are so great! Goodies Wednesday,and lunch today! I feel so special!
Thank you Matlock Associates!the gangmy boss feeding me my birthday cherryme and Ryanme and my boss, JeffOlya, Steve, and Tom (my other boss, and friend!)

I LOVE MY BIRTHDAY WEEK!!

Make A Wish!

My 1st (and probably only) 30th Birthday Cake!
Can you guess what I wished for??

Today my office celebrated my birthday with me! :)
They had a yummy, super ooey-gooey brownie dessert with peanut butter chips, chocolate chips, and almonds...and a yummy lemon cake!
(thank you Connie for baking for me!)

I just LOVE birthdays!
(well, not the getting older part, but I love the parties!)

Thanks Matlock Associates for making me feel special!
And thanks for singing to me
...even though everyone hates singing that song! :)
My first picture with Liz in 7 years! Can you believe it!Ugh...2 1/2 more days till I'm old!
Where did the years go???

I'm almost OLD!

Tonight I had my first birthday dessert. Most every Tuesday night I have dinner wtih my "Stand-In Parents" Tom and Judi. Since my family all moved away, on Tuesday nights I'm their daughter and we go to dinner together. They are very sweet! :) So we went to Vince's and had a super yummy time! Since we've been going there for years and years and years (as long as I've been alive), they know us there. Our waitress, Julie, came over and chatted with us for a bit. As we were all discussing what I should do on my birthday, Saturday, to celebrate the big 3-0, Julie and another waitress, Gina, brought over my birthday dessert and sang Happy Birthday to me. How sweet are they! :) So I had some yummy vanilla ice cream and we had fun taking some pictures. I was very entertained watching Tom and Judi try to figure out how to send my mom a picture of me with my ice cream and candle with their cell phones...pure comedy! So I'm one day closer to old age...one day less in my twenties :( Today is my last Tuesday in my twenties...yea, I've been doing that with everything. I'm looking forward to a new chapter in life, but a little depressed that I keep getting older and I still haven't gotten to the most exciting chapter...a family. Hopefully that will come with the big birthday! :) Wish me luck...better yet,
PRAY I FIND A MAN IN MY THIRTIES!! :)
(um, it wouldn't hurt to mention early thirties in your prayers...heehee)
My grandparents are very faithful pray-ers...they pray I'll find a husband everyday! They even mentioned it in my birthday card this year....they're awesome! Thanks G&G Vasquez for my 30 big ones!! :)

I'll be his Desperate Housewife! haha :)

Wow, so this was a great weekend! Let me start from the beginning...

NIGHT OUT WITH "HOOP-DOG"
Friday night I went out with my old buddy from college, Mark (sometimes I like to call him "Hoop-Dog" because his last name is Hooper). I haven't seen him in many months, so it was great to finally reconnect and catch up. We drove out to Victoria Gardens and had a nice dinner at CPK (California Pizza Kitchen). After we each ate ALL our food (yummy pizzas) we walked around the outdoor mall and caught a live act out in one of the courtyards. There was this band playing, and they weren't all that great. So we stayed for a short time, just enough to have our picture taken, and then headed out. We went back to my house and sat around for a little while chatting, and then he headed home. Mark is such a great guy...I've known him for about 12 years now, and I hope that he will always be in my life. It was so nice to hang out with him again...Love you Mark! :)

TINA TANG
So Saturday was so awesome! Earlier in the day, Carissa and I went to a jewelry party out in Santa Monica where this artist, Tina Tang, displayed her jewelry in this super cute backhouse and you could walk through and shop. Unfortunately it was all a little pricey, so I didn't buy anything...but I did get a free necklace for going! So that was cool.

BAND FROM TV
"Lost" meets "Heroes," crossed with "Desperate Housewives," a little reality TV and a fiddle -- what's not to love?
After the jewelry party, we drove out to Griffith Park in LA to a park next to the Autry National Center where Netflix was putting on a free show to see this band called "Band From TV". Greg Grunberg had a brilliant idea and got a bunch of actors together and started this charity cover band. They played lots of familiar songs, and looked like they had a TON of fun doing it! Anyway, I got to meet some famous people, it was GREAT! :) The show was really good, but I think I was most excited about meeting the actors! Yea, I'm weird like that!
Me with James Denton the Plumber from Desperate Housewives...LOVE HIM! :)

James played the guitar and sang...and was smokin hot out there!!!

Bob Guiney, from "The Bachelor" and "Date My House"...and Greg Grunberg, from "Alias" and "Heroes" were the MC's.


Jorge Garcia from "Lost" made an appearance on vocals a few times

and Hugh Laurie from "House" jammed on the keyboards

Teri Hatcher from "Desperate Housewives" sang three songs and did great!...

and Hayden Panettiere from "Heroes" got the crowd pumped when the show started, and also sang a little in the first song

Jesse Spencer from "House" played the electric violin

and Adrien Pasdar from "Heroes" was on guitar

Zack Levi "Chuck" sang a few songs with "The Bachelor" Bob Guiney
I had a great time at the show with Carissa...I hope she did too, although I left her a few times to go take pics of the band :) She's not as into meeting famous people as I am. I was SOOO EXCITED!

OLYMPICS
Sunday I actually got up on time and made it to church! :) After church I had lunch at my favorite mexican place "Tony's" in Chino and then headed home. I caught up on a couple of my Netflix movies and then spent the rest of the day watching the Olympics. Aren't these athletes just so talented!! I love watching swimming, diving, and gymnastics, although I was a bit disappointed in the USA girl's gymnastics last night...they didn't do all that great. But at least they got good enough scores to make it into the finals!

Beach Beauty

"My Goal, to be a Beach Beauty like My Aunt in Huntington Beach"
(I wish I still lived in HB!)
So I was in Huntington Beach when I found out my sister was in labor with my new little niece (I finally have a niece after 5 nephews!!). So I ran down to the local tourist shop and bought her a cute little shirt. Isn't she just so cute!! :) I can't wait to meet her, hopefully I can fly out to Mississippi soon and see her in person! Little Hailey Jo
She is just so precious! I love you!!

PS...Thanks Jenny for posting a new blog! :) Miss you sis!

A few more encounters...

This one is for my nephews....

So I have had a few more encounters with that terribly ugly possum! A couple nights ago it was in my backyard again. The neighbor's dogs behind my house were going crazy barking, and you could hear all sorts of scuffling in the bushes. So I got out the BB gun and peered through the window...and what do you know, the possum came running out of the bushes onto my lawn. So I got the flashlight, and turned the safety off the gun, and went out the door. I walked up to the possum (well, not too close) and flashed the light on it and shot three times. In the meantime, my neighbor turned off his lights, so I'm assuming he did that so he could watch what I was doing. Great, so now I have an audience! I'm sure I looked real great out there in my wife-beater and boxers! Oh well. Anyway, I swear I hit the possum with the BB's but all it did was stare me down! I realized that the BB gun just won't cut it for the death of this thing, and so I headed back in the house. It didn't even scare it this time! :( Anyway, it keeps lurking around my backyard every night and then last night decided to come up on my front porch and look through the screen door at us! How dare that little sucker! It has no fear now, that's not good at all! I think I need a real gun to kill that thing, cuz the BB gun just isn't cut'n it. Is there a manly man out there who would like to come and kill the big rat for me? You'll be my hero!!! :)

To my redneck nephews (haha, jk) - Jake, Zack, Ben & Sam:
I'll be sure to take a picture of the possum for you....once its dead! :)
I love you boys so much and miss you bunches! I want to see some pictures of you guys playing on your acres of land out there in Mississippi!
Come visit Auntie Jo soon, ok? :)
BIG HUGS & KISSES!!!
I love you!!!how cute are my little nephews!!! :)

Chuck E Cheese, Junk'n, Movies and More...

I had a great weekend spending time with my friends! It all started out on Saturday morning...

I slept in, which is unusal for me, and got a little bit of a late start. Late morning I met up with my friend Sarah and her two little girls at Chuck E Cheese in Costa Mesa. We played games for a few hours there and had so much fun! Little Joey and Abbey are so adorable! They were having a great time playing, but Abbey had the most fun just putting all her tokens in the machines! She was so cute...she didn't care about playing the game, she just loved the tokens! Sarah and I also had fun playing too...ski ball was our favorite, although we did enjoy the sketch booth where we took quite a few pictures and they came out as sketches. Fun times! So we hung out at Chuck's and had some lunch and played a little bit more. Then it was time to head on out to the fabulous thrift stores!I'm not sure why we are raising our hands here...we were just being silly
Sarah and I LOVE to go junk'n! We have our favorite thrift stores that we have to hit while she's in town (SaveMore is the best). We found so much stuff, it was great! The girls were having fun shopping too...they got lots of new clothes and some new toys! It was fun! Shopping lasted quite awhile, as we are serious shoppers and get our hands dirty digging! :) It was great! I'm in heaven when I'm thrifting! Anyway, after a few hours at the one store, we checked out and headed over to Sarah's mom's house where she's staying while out here on her visit. We put the girls to bed, chatted with her mom for a bit, and then headed back out. We got our favorite chili cheese fries at "Anita's", before heading out for more fun.After Anita's, we went across the street to the Goodwill and got a little crazy there! We had fun trying on sparkly dresses...heehee :)We finished off the night with a movie, "Swing Vote". It was good, but a little long. Well, it could be that we thought it was long after our LONG and TIRING day of shopping. But we had fun taking some more pictures :)On Sunday my plan was to get up and go to church...but again, I slept in. I'm not sure what's going on with me, I never sleep in. I had turned off my alarm clock in my sleep and woke up kinda late. So again, I wasn't out of the house until the afternoon. I met up with a couple girlfriends, Carissa and Kristy, at Victoria Gardens where we had lunch at Johnny Rockets, hung out at the library (they had to study and I read a magazine), and then we went to the movies and saw "Mamma Mia". Such a cute movie!! I've been wanting to see it for awhile, so I'm glad I was finally able to go :) I love musicals, and Meryl Streep is one of my favorite actresses! Anyway, my friend Kristy also gave me my birthday present...my birthday month has begun! :) She is so sweet, she got me a Paris journal, a London travel book and some little travel accessories that I will need on my 30th Birthday Trip to Europe (London and Paris)! I'm so excited for the trip, I can't wait! Thanks Kristy for my very thoughtful and sweet gift! I love you!! :)So it was a great weekend, but I'm tired now. Too bad the weekends aren't a little longer so I have some time to rest after all my fun outings! :)