Philly

I just love Philly. I have such good memories of Philadelphia. I got to go for almost 2 weeks and I really didn't do much but just hang out with my family. They absolutely love the baby but I mean who wouldn't. In going back thru all the pictures I was sad to find that I am not in very many most of them are of baby or he is in all of them. I only got one where he is not in it. The whole time I was there it was raining and just yucky so I didn't get to go into the city like I had wanted to so on my last day I asked my dad to please take me to the stadiums and so off we went not knowing that we were going to freeze. It was incredibly cold. We actually were not able to walk around just drive around and hop out of the car at spots we wanted to take pictures.

My parents are moving out of my childhood home so it was kinda sad going back knowing that this was going to be the last time I would ever be inside that house. I always get so sad when I have to come back since being back home is just so stress free and I have tons of help with the baby and I get treated like a baby too. I miss my family terribly, hopefully some day I will be able to have them close by.

Ok so here is proof that I really was in Philly.

Life is hard

It really is and I think that most of the time at least for me it's easier to look at the negative things going on around than the positive. I really need to make an effort to look at the good things going on in my life.

The other day I was in the middle of writing some depressing post and got to talking with a cousin and she made me realize that even though we are going thru some hard times we are pretty lucky. I do have a healthy, beautiful baby boy, my husband adores me and we are both healthy too. Everything else will fall into place sooner or later. So I just need to have patience.

Once we get out of this house I know I will feel a whole lot better knowing that our money is going to last longer.

I had to go private

My blog at first was a way of keeping a journal of our family but since baby was born no one is really interested in what is going on in our lives just what is going on in baby's life which I totally understand. So I decided to make a blog for baby and make it private since I don't want strangers knowing what is going on in the life of my baby. Since I did that I decided that this blog could be a way for me to express my feelings and emotions and what goes on in my life. I think that as a human being I should be allowed to feel whatever way I want to feel and if I want to write about it then I should do so. Some people clearly do not think like me.

A few weeks ago some of my husbands family or should I say one person came across my blog and realized that some of the things I had posted about were about this one person even though I never mentioned names but they are not dumb so they decided to tell other family members about things I had posted but took things way out of context. Now you might ask yourself how do I know this, well let me explain. It was a Sunday and I get a call from my MIL and she tells me to please not to talk about any of their problems on my blog, ok I understand that but I haven't really posted anything about their problems. At the time I didn't think much about it I just told my husband that it was weird that she had said that to me but whatever. Then we get home and look at our email and we have an email from my husbands aunt, she is totally worried and upset because she heard that Jon had said that he hated his life. Now if she had really read my blog she would have known how that whole story went. So this is where I start thinking that someone is calling the family and telling them things I am writing but not the whole story. My husband freaks out because he isn't sure of what I have been writing on my blog and he heads on over to it and reads it and he doesn't really find a problem with it but can see how that one person might have gotten upset and called around to get people to be mad at me or something. He tells me right away to stop blogging or make it private cause I am going to cause issues in that family. I was so mad but I have done what my husband asked of me.

I didn't talk about it to my husband much since shortly after that I left for Philadelphia and just barely got back but since being back I talked to him and told him how my blog is a way of me writing my thoughts and that I should be allowed to do whatever I want to do with them. He now totally understands me so for now I will stay private but in a month or so I will just change my URL and other things on it so that no one can find me.

update

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! We got to go to my cousins house for dinner and it was yummy. She had 2 turkeys one was baked and the other was fried. Plus there were tons of side dishes. I think I might have some left overs in a little bit they were so yummy. I am so thankful to my cousin and for how sweet and giving she is. I love living near her. I tell my husband all the time that I don't think I can leave Ogden just because she lives nearby.

I wasn't able to post the other day but tonight I got baby down already and hubby is cleaning the kitchen. What a great guy I have.

I have a few updates so here it goes:

-I took my US citizenship test and passed it, YAY! I posted about this on facebook and people were confused, some thought I was born here, others thought I already was one and then others thought that I married my husband for a green card. Hahaha! First of I was not born here I was born in Costa Rica. Second of all I did NOT marry my husband for a green card. When I married my husband I had been a permanent resident for about 10 years, so I was legal, people. My dad and my siblings are all US citizens so I was the only one left with my mom (my mom failed the test since her english is not good). I had been putting it off for years and I don't really know why, I'm just weird like that how many people would die to be able to become a US citizen but finally my green card was expiring so I figured it was time. I still am not a US citizen but I will be as of January 6th, 2010 and I am super excited about being able to get a US passport. Also exciting is that when you apply for citizenship you can change your name to anything you want and I chose to finally change my last name to my husbands last name legally. A lot of people think I am a Doulas legally already but I am not I just go by it and sign things as Doulas but legally I still have my maiden name.

-Our heater broke about a week ago and this totally blows since we do not have the money to get it fixed. Thank goodness for space heaters which have been keeping us nice and cozy. I try to not be at home during the day since everywhere else other than our bedroom is freezing. Since it is freezing everywhere else the house is a mess because I do not feel like cleaning or doing anything inside the house. Oh and to top it off we call our property manager and when he checked it out he tells us it was our fault for not changing the filter which we didn't even know it existed. I don't understand why it is that if you are renting a house why do they not tell you where everything is at when you move in. We had changed a filter and thought that was the one but I guess it wasn't. That's why we have to pay to get it fixed. It really sucks not having money to pay for simple things and then to have this happen, ahhhh!

-I have been a little depressed because it seems my husband works all the time and we just cannot get out of this hole we are in. Me working is out of the question since by the time we are done paying a babysitter and gas there is no money left from me working. A lot of changes will be happening in the next few months for us as we try to down size. We really have been living for a while like we had tons of money when we really didn't. My husband has really tried to spoil my in so many ways and now we can no longer do this. It's sad to have to give up the nice things but that's life and we have to do what we have to do to be able to survive.

update on the quick

I know, I know, I said I would be doing the grateful thing every day but I am a little depressed and I just have not been able to see the good in things going on. AHHH!!! Life is just so crazy and scary. I don't have time right now to update on everything but I will hopefully feel better by the end of today and update on what has been going on.

Day 11...

I am grateful for our good neighbors. Out of everywhere that I have lived this is the only place where we have had such nice neighbors. They are friendly, nice, helpful, giving and many more things. Specially our neighbor James he is just awesome. Whenever I have gotten locked out of the house he has helped or if we need to borrow anything for our lawn he lends it to us. When we first moved in there was a neighbor who went around the whole block cleaning the snow off the sidewalks and driveways. I mean I really have never seen this anywhere else. Whenever we move out of this neighborhood I will really miss my neighbors.

Last night out heater broke and so it is freezing inside the house. This morning as I was getting ready to take baby over to my cousins to give him a bath in a warm house my neighbor was out and I waved hello and he asked if he could come over and see the baby which of course I said yes to. I told him not to mind how baby looked that I was taking him to go get a bath and so then I told him how I heater was broken. He asked to see what was going on with it and I am sure that if he could have fixed it he would have he got all dirty trying to see what the problem might be. How awesome is that. Oh and he wife is pretty awesome too, the day we brought baby home for the first time within like 30 minutes she was over with a cake, which was so delicious. Ok one more example, my next door neighbors have fruit trees. One day I had run out of pears and baby was on this pear thing where he only wanted to eat pears so I send Silvia over to go buy some from them and they just gave us some pears for free.

I really do live in a pretty sweet neighborhood and I have some pretty awesome neighbors.

Day 10...

Today I am grateful for our cousin Huong. She is married to my husbands cousin, did you get that? They happen to live in Philadelphia and its a funny story about how I met them, actually I will tell you at the end of this post. Anyways she called me the other day and asked me if I was going back home for Thanksgiving and I told her no cause the tickets were too much and right now we don't have that kind of money to spend. So then she tell me that she has a voucher for southwest airlines that will be expiring in December and no one in her family can use it, so she said that if I found a flight that I could use it. Well I got super excited because I really was planning of going to Philly with baby in November but with the money situation it didn't happen and I was super bummed so when she told me that I got on the internet right away and found a ticket. I only paid about $70 for the whole thing, isn't that amazing? She totally has made me the happiest right now. I just thought that was so sweet of her to think of me and offer me that.

Ok now the story of how I met her and her husband. Well my husband and I met online, I think everyone already knows that and so I feel pretty comfortable saying it, when we first got married we told different stories, hahaha. Jon and I had been talking online for about a month and then we started talking on the phone for about another month before he told his cousin about me. The only thing was that he told his cousin that he had met me thru a friend on one of my trips to Utah and then he told him that I was from Philly. Jon told his cousin how much he liked me and blah blah blah. Since they live in Philly they asked for my number and Jon gave it to them and then calls me and tells me that his cousins want to take me out to dinner to meet me. Mind you his cousin thinks that Jon and I had already met so this was really weird for me but hey I went along for the ride. We made plans and met up at a sushi restaurant near Villanova University. This was the most awkward meal ever!!. They kept on asking question of how Jon and I met and I was totally trying to dodge their questions. Now looking back I am sure they thought I was weird. Anyways the mean ended and I went home and right away Jon called them to find out what they thought and if they thought I was cute, hahaha, he was making sure that I was not some ugly fat chick. So then I move to Utah a month later and we end up getting married that summer and the whole time his cousin is thinking that the story he knows is the real one until a few months later when he had to tell them the truth. They just died laughing. I think the whole family thinks its pretty funny that I met his cousins before I met Jon. Maybe one of these days I will tell you about our sure courtship and engagement cause that's always a good story.

day 9...What am I grateful for...

I am grateful for my brothers. I have 2 brothers, they are Will and Aaron.

There is my brother Will, right now he is serving a mission and he is just the biggest example to me. He has such a strong testimony of the gospel, I told him the other day that I only wish I could have a testimony half as strong as he does. He has really been tested while on his mission, its one thing after another and he still believes in the church and is going strong and is determined to finish his mission. I would be home by now no doubt about it. Before he left for his mission other than my husband he was my best friend, I could always tell him anything and he would listen and never judge me. He knows all my deepest secrets which are not that deep but still.



Then there is my brother Aaron is hilarious he always knows what to say to make me laugh. I always say he is cheap but in reality any time I have needed his help financially he has always been there. I loved having him stay with us for 3 months during the summer. He was so sweet with baby. Also right now he is going thru some difficult time, he was recently diagnosed with myotonic dystrophy which to my understanding is a slow progressing, inherited disease, it is characterized by wasting of the muscles. Sad I know but my brother is such a trooper he really is not letting this get in the way. He still has plans to go on a mission and have a family and do the normal things everyone else does, let me tell you he is the most active person I know. He runs miles and miles a day. He is really determined to fight this. I look up to him so much, I do not think I would be dealing with it as well as he is.



Anyways I really was blessed with some amazing brothers.

Day 8...I forgot to do this yesterday

Oppps! I was just running around all day yesterday and totally forgot to update my blog with what I am thankful. First let me tell you what I have been up to. On Tuesday morning I woke up and my boob was really full which is not uncommon if baby doesn't eat as much before I put him down and then the other feeding that happens at some point during the night. So I got up and went on about my day, after putting baby down for his nap I went down stairs to fold the laundry and as time past by I started to feel worse and worse. My whole body started to hurt and I had chills plus my head was hurting. Immediately I thought that I was coming down with a cold so I started to take some things for it. I came upstairs and took a shower thinking that might make me feel better but no it just got worse and to top it off my boob was hurting so bad. I called Jon and told him to come home early cause I didn't want to be around baby and get him sick so he did and I just slept almost all day. By night time I was feeling horrible so I ended up taking some heavy pain killers which worked wonders I was able to sleep like a baby. Before going to bed my SIL called and I told her my symptoms and she told me that it sounded like it was either a cold or mastitis which sometimes have some of the same symptoms. She told me to wait till the next day to see if it got worse or what. I wake up yesterday and I was feeling totally fine no more symptoms other than my boob hurting. WEIRD!! So now I am thinking maybe its just a clogged duct. Who knows but today I am feeling back to normal. I guess if anything my immune system is in pretty good shape from taking all that vitamin c and other natural stuff.

Ok so its now time for what I am grateful for...yesterday I was grateful for my husband having the day off from work. He was able to help me out with baby while I got some much needed rest since I wasn't feeling all the day back to normal. I think I really do have the best husband in the world. On his only day off from work and what does he do, watch the baby for me to sleep. Yeah I am one lucky girl.

Day 7...I am grateful for...

I am grateful for my cousin Lisseth. She has been there for me since moving to the Ogden, Utah area. She is one of the most giving person I have ever met. For example, this just happened today, I had told her how Baby was in need of some more warm clothes and that I was waiting for Jon to get paid for me to go get some, well today she showed up to my house with 4 new outfits for baby. They were super cute. Also after giving birth she came to my house every single day and would bring me food, help me with baby and with cleaning. Oh and anytime I need a babysitter she let's me know that she will watch him for as long as I want. She is truly amazing. She is the only person I feel safe leaving baby with for hours. I really am lucky to have her as my cousin. I love you Lisseth.