World Of Color

Tuesday night we took the kiddo's to see World of Color at Disneyland. I cannot express to you how Absolutely AMAZING this show is. It is worth going alone! We were able to sit in the VERY front row so that Gabriella could be away from people, wear our Minnie Ponchos, get soaked and have an absoulutely wonderful time!!!

Visit to the Vegas and So CA!

Hmmm I think I LIKE the way that sounds... but maybe that is just me personally! ;)

Saturday afternoon I drove down to Loma Linda to visit the Paul, Kristi, PJ and Gabriella for the first time since her surgery, With all 3 girls in Tow!!!!

Sunday we had a good old sleepover for the girls, Complete with makeovers, a fashion show, wii and and Tent!

Monday we went to the Splash Pad! Bella wasn't much of fan, but what IS she a fan of these days! The older kids (and moms!) had a blast!

Tuesday we got up and headed to Anaheim! We got there about lunch time and Kristi went and picked up our picnic lunches for World of Color that night! We walked back over to dland park, sanitized a table and dug in. After that we went to see Minnie and the Princess'. I was SO excited for Bella to meet Minnie... as was she... Until she rounded that corner! She was super freaked!! Hmm... I guess we just wait to see when she is a little older! lol After that we checked into our hotel. Rested a bit, Caught the Street Party before eating dinner at Tomorrowland Terrace. One of my FAV places there :) While We ate the girls rocked out to their dance party! :) Then we headed over to CA and the girls shook their groove thang some more at the Glow Fest they have going on over there! Then it was time for WORLD OF COLOR!

Wednesday we slept in... Well everyone but Bella and I did. Then we had lunch at La Brea Bakery in Downtown Disney. I also shopped for some things for Missa and Nic's wedding. :) Then we headed out to Beverly Hills. We got a little side tract ed on the way... We decided to go find Kellan Lutz' (Emmett in Twilight) house. We knew the street because he mentioned it on the Bonnie Hunt show. We found it and were taking a couple pictures when his head popped up from behind the front fence!! Ahh! We screamed a little and drove off. Too chicken to do anything else ;) lol.

From there we headed to Sprinkles Cupcakes and Crumb Bake shop in Beverly hills to have a "cupcake off". We got our competitors and got the kids some dinner and went to a local park to let them run off some steam. Hmm. Sprinkles vs Crumb. EQUAL! just DIFFERENT! There were things I Loved about BOTH. Sadly I left the rest of mine at Kristi's!! :(

All it all it was a wonderful time spend with awesome friends. When we left thursday evening... Lilly started BAWLING, "I'm going to miss them!" :) Little Besties are starting to "get it" more and more. Hopefully we can return soon... Love you so much Vega Family! Thank You for EVERYTHING!!

Gabriella Gets some Celebrity Love!!

As most of you know, I have been an avid "Twilight" fan for a few years now! Kristi and I both share this passion, although it has extended out of just the "Twilight" realm and has followed alot of the actors beyond just their "Twilight" roles. Our favorite male celebrity in particular being Kellan Lutz, aka Emmett. Kristi and I had the opportunity to meet him last year in May when we attended "TwiTour" and it was an awesome experience. He was really an awesome guy! We left with alot of respect for him and our "love" for him just grew!

Now not only do WE have a passion for these movies but so do our little girls... These girls KNOW what Twilight is... They know who Rob, Kristen, Edward, Bella and especially EMMETT are!!

With the onset of Gabriella's condition this year, Kristi was not able to attend TwiTour with me this year. I knew that this was a huge disappointment for Kristi. When I knew this was going to be the case I set out on a mission. I was determined to get SOME sort of attention from Kellan for her, I knew that it wouldn't make up for all of the "crap" that had been going on for lack of a better word, but I knew that if it could bring just a little glimmer of sunshine to her day, that I HAD to try!! I was all prepared to have her picture from last year autographed by him and to try and give him one of my extra "Gabriella Bracelets". He is always big on wearing bracelets, so I figured why not try! Well then I was crushed with the news that due to "scheduling" he would not be giving autographs. DANG it! 

Well I went anyways, Still hoping for something. All to forget the picture and the bracelet in the rush of travelling. I was SO BUMMED. Esp because I ended up going to the brunch with him and could have taken the picture to be signed. I even tried to have the picture faxed to the fed ex center at the hotel. But it was Sunday, so it was closed! I talked to volunteers for Creation and just kept striking out! I was so frustrated. I thought, Well I will talk to him when he sits at our table and explain! Maybe he can do SOMETHING for me! NOPE! I wasn't able to get a single WORD in to him, the other women talked so much! Sigh. 

So I went home defeated.... Then he got a twitter. :) (evil grin) I didn't want to be one of those annoying fan girls... but this was for a good cause. Someone needs to bring some cheer to this little girl and to my dearest friend! And someone needs to help spread the words about CHD!!! So my master plan began to tweet him every time he tweeted. I figured he would get the hint eventually! I was starting to lose hope. I mean the guy does have almost 121,000 followers. 

THEN... This afternoon. My phone went off w a mobile alert of a tweet he sent. I hadn't bugged him in a while so I thought what the heck....

 @kellanlutz Please Shout out to @gabriellasheart 5yr old fan who had a heart transplant at Loma Linda Monday Night and is Recovering!!!

almost immediately my phone went off again:

kellanlutz @GabriellasHeart Bless your precious new heart! You are so loved! Wish you a quick and painless recovery!

AAAAHHHHH!!! Now that may not seem like alot to some people... But to ME and esp to KRISTI.... I know that made her YEAR!!! And it was worth every single second I spent practically stalking this guy! Lol!!! He really is an amazing celebrity to his fans. I don't know that he would ever read this but the joy that I saw in the picture Kristi sent me today of Gabriella was priceless and the reaction that I got from Kristi when she saw that tweet from him was AWESOME!! I can't thank him enough for that! Its the little things... its the things that take our minds off of reality and just let us have a little bit of FUN for a second that make life worth living!! That make us want to FIGHT!! That encourage us! So thank you Mr. Kellan Lutz for that encouragement!! God Bless You!

On Twitter: http://twitter.com/kellanlutz/status/14516670245

Saving Lives

Please take the time to jump over to my best friend Kristi's blog Gabriella's Heart to read this awesome post about Children and Organ Donation. As you know her 5 year old Daughter Gabriella is waiting for a heart transplant. This is something that is so so important to really think about if you are a parent! April was National Donate Life month and its NEVER too late to register!!!

Making the organ donation decision for a child

Twicon 2010

Yep it was that time of year again!! Twicon! For those of you that aren't "Twihards" just move on because you are going to hear alot of fan-girling in this post!

Last year Bestie and I had our first experience with Twicon and it was needless to say awesome! Sadly Kristi didn't get to come with me again this year and I was way sad!! But next year we are going to do it up! Wifey, Missa got to come this year and it was her first experience with the world of Twilight outside of our midnight showings haha... boy was she in for a surprise.

We flew into LAX about 10am on Friday morning the 12Th and checked into our hotel where the convention was being held. We quickly realized that we had forgotten some much needed essentials so we set out to try and find some stores nearby. After discovering that wasn't going to happen we discovered that we could catch a trolley shuttle to a mall in Santa Monica that would serve our needs. So after checking out the vendor room... And having our first encounter with "Blow up Rob".. Yes you heard me correctly. We set out for the mall. We got our needs and had lunch at Olive Garden where we got invited to Hermosa Beach by our waiter (yes we still have it girls lol) and then headed back. We made it back to catch the end of Justin Chon and who was hilarious! We then headed back to the room and napped before we had cake for my sister in law Kayla's birthday in the lobby! After that we checked out the Karaoke with Tinsel Korey who was adorable!

Saturday was filled with wolf pack goodness!!! Chaske Spenser (Sam), Kiowa Gordon (Embry), and Alex Meraz (Paul). They were all great!! Chaske was huge, and just sweet like a teddy bear, Kiowa was such a normal kid and brought his band "2 shay" with him... total screamer band that sucked lol. And Paul was a total ladies man/sweetie! He brought his artwork with him which was awesome! We also got to meet Charlie Bewley- Demetri of the Volturi! He was the most unexpected surprise! We hadn't previously purchased a photo op with him but he was SO awesome and charming that I ran out and bought one in the middle of his q&a!! We got our autographs with everyone and then headed to get a bite to eat before we got ready for the Volturi Vampire Ball. We were a little late and I guess we missed everyone except for Chaske and Kiowa. We danced for a bit and hung out and watched two guys that crashed the party take over the dance floor lol.

Sunday- :D The day I had been waiting for! Eek! First up was our picture with Kellan. I couldn't believe the difference in Security from the days before! They had ropes setup at the end of the hall so you couldn't get by unless you had a photop ticket. They had Latices's setup so you couldn't even look in the room if you walked by! Then someone came down the line and said that the actor had requested no hugs. Ha. He was totally cool and down to earth just like he was last year. He was definitely giving hugs so I asked if he would give me a hug as good as he did last year and he answered "Of course!! I've been Practicing!!" and squeezed me! :D He definitely knows how to treat his fans! There were just 2 bodyguards staring me down!! After that we got to get right back in line for our picture with Him AND Peter Facinelli! Yay! Then we got to sit there and listen to them talk for a good hour and 1/2 before we got to go to our lunch with them. Peter and I got to chat for a second about our similarity about having 3 girls which was cool and he was a total awesome guy!

One of the most awesome things about the weekend was learning what a devout Christian Kellan is. Its not something that you hear ANY of the media publishing which is really disappointing to me. He totally talked about how his favorite band last year was Skillet. And he hit on it again in the q&a this year by mentioning how his favorite music to listen to is Christian. And he just finished reading "Boundaries in Dating". He encouraged everyone to read this and stated that its changed his life. When we got him alone at our table he was first asked about his "see through shirt" that he wore and he joked about how he forgets that in certain lights it appears sheer and he wore it to church a few weeks ago and people were saying stuff to his mom :) Then that brought up the subject of the book. He started telling us about reading boundaries in dating and how he has learned about really bringing God into his relationships and honesty and how he wished that he had learned this stuff a long time ago and he would have saved himself a lot of heartache. He talked about how he was missing church cus it was Sunday and all sorts of stuff. He was just really raw and real and it was really awesome! It has also made me realize how much the media tends to twist around things and makes me sad for these actors.

After lunch we got our autographs with Peter and the weekend was over all too soon! All in all it was fun. It very different than last year from the standpoint that last year was much more relaxed and low key. Which I definitely enjoyed. I saw a lot more "crazies" this year. I would seriously be scared for my life if I were these actors. I would NOT want to do what they do! Some people are REALLY hard core... My friends at home make fun of me for how "obsessed" I am and they really have NOOOOO CLUE!! lol I mean blow up Rob? That had a seat and you changed his clothes everyday? That was just out there in my opinion.... lol I can't even imagine how Robert Pattinson would react if he saw that... I am 100% sure he would run for his life. Lol on that note.... Enjoy our pictures!!!!

Twicon10

Whoa... Spring!? Already!?

Geeeeez!!! Is it Spring already!?!? Where is 2010 going? Cydney tracked off in March for the last time of year round school. Her school will be switching to traditional for the 2010/2011 school year so that will be an interesting transition as Lilly starts kindergarten. We have been super busy as usual! Here are some recent pics of the kids riding their bikes

We took advantage of Cydney being off track and headed down to So.CA to get one more use out of our annual passes at Disneyland before they expire on 4/1. Bella didn't get to make this journey with us as she is at a very "trying" age lol! Missa and Nic tagged along for a few days and little did she know but Nic (with a little help from the Crain clan) was able to pop the big question literally while riding Tower of Terror!! We are all SOO excited for them and can't wait for their big day probably in the fall of 2010! We also hit up Universal Studio's as something different and the girls really enjoyed that! Kristi and Gabriella were also able to meet up with us for a couple days as they are staying in Anaheim for a few days while their transport jet is down in case they get "the call". That was great to catch up even though it wasn't nearly enough time!! The girls (big and small!) had a great time catching up!!

Click on the Box below to View the Pictures from our Trip!

Disneyland3/10

More that we take for granted....

Something was brought to my attention today that I wanted to clear up. In my previous entry I stated "Bestie and family have just moved out of their house and for lack of a better word are "homeless". They are basically living out of the hospital and Ronald McDonald House right now." I wanted to make sure that I didn't give anyone the wrong impression. Kristi and family DO have a place to stay. If you have been keeping up with their story and Kristi's blog.. you know that a plan has been in place for a little while now for them to move in with her mom while they wait to get "The" call from Loma Linda that they have received a heart for PrincessG. So YES They do have a place to live.

I was going to go back into my blog and change the way I wrote it... but I thought it was a good opportunity for me to write about more that we take for granted as my title states. The reason that I wrote "for lack of a better word are "homeless" is because.... essentially... That IS true. This is something that I have been watching my Bestie struggle with for the past few weeks. Quite suddenly her and her husband were faced with a decision on what was best to do for their family. What was Healthiest for BOTH of their Children. Not only for Gabriella but for PJ. Whether it was better to pack up and drag their entire family to Southern CA ... to a place where they know NO one so they can be REALLY close to the hospital.... Or STAY where they are comfortable... familiar and with their family. Stay where it is the healthiest for their children emotionally and contract out a medical transport for when they get the call.

They chose the later.. but that involved some heavy preparation as well. Very quickly they basically sold their entire "Home". They had to decide what was REALLY important in their life and what was REALLY a "necessity" and SELL the rest. Get rid of it! Couches.. Tv's... STUFF. Material things... How many of us would be willing to do that? How many of us would be willing to give up our STUFF?? Now I have had to live with "Parents" before. We lived with Chris' parents for almost 2 years when his dad was ill. While we were there we brought alot of our own stuff... But alot of it went into storage. Even when you have your own stuff it still isn't YOUR "home"! I remember what it was like to MISS MY stuff!!! I couldn't WAIT to get it out of storage. Paul and Kristi didn't just do that.... they purged. I cannot tell you how PROUD I am of them that they have made these sacrifices for their daughter. I KNOW it could not have been easy. Now by no means am I saying that it is "stuff" that makes a house a home.... but it is still HARD to have to make that sacrifice!

So Like I said before.... How much do we take for granted?!

Do we take our children for granted? Do we take their amazing little voices for granted?? Do we take our houses for granted?? I KNOW That I do!! I complain ALLL the time about where I live! JUST today I spent plenty of time complaining. We live on a BUSY BUSY road that they are widening to 4 lanes- CURRENTLY. Today the entire house was shaking.... and they have made it where we can't turn left out of our drive way... we have to go down to the next light and make a u-turn... incredibly annoying. It is an old house and things are constantly falling apart. The widows are single pane... the insulation sucks.... I could go on... But I won't... because you know what?? It is a place to live... and it is cozy and we have made it a HOME. We have made it ours with our Red Paint and our Vintage Mickey Posters!! It is a HOME with our Pencil Marks on the door frame of the office where our daughters have grown the past 3 years that we have lived here. It is a HOME where there are holes in the carpet from where Callie chewed when she was a puppy. For all those things I have learned to be GRATEFUL for. And I have also learned that there is so much that we hold onto that we don't NEED. I was also inspired to PURGE! I'm having a Garage sale on the 10th and getting rid of stuff that we don't need!!

So after talking to both Kristi and Paul today I know that I did not offend them in any way by how I worded what I did.... because essentially they DO feel "homeless". I pray that they can make a "home" out of wherever they are laying their head at night because they have each other. :) I know these next few weeks are going to be SO SO SO hard on them.... Keep Praying!!!

http://www.gabriellasheart.com/