My Thanksgiving!

I am so thankful for my friends and family!

I had a fantastic weekend with my family and friends.  I could def. have not asked for a more enjoyable weekend.  My sister and I traveled from house to house to visit our parents, family and friends.  Thursday, we spent it with Granny, Mom and Bobby.  We ordered a WEGMANS Thanksgiving!  This year we decided that Mom should get a year off and either we make the meal, go out to eat or order out.  Wegmans it was!  How could we go wrong?  It was quite tasty.  However, nothing beats mom's green bean casserole and her awesome seven layer salad, but we will eat it again later down the road.  Eli and I can also learn mom's recipe and make it ourselves one year!

Eli and I enjoy visiting with our friends over the holidays.  With Eli's busy schedule in the Fellows program there were many people to catch up with.  Eli finally got to meet little Vito!  How exciting!  We also jumped over to the Hixson's house and played Taboo with them.  The game is def fun with loads of people and the whole Hixson family was there enjoying the game of boys vs. girls!  Guess who won, GIRLS!  We love winning!

Friday we spent the whole day running around with our brothers and watching Harry Potter.  Eli and I were debating to take Lucas to go see the latest movie and finally concluded it would be too rough and scary for him.  Lucas has had nightmares before and it is awful to shake them out.  Once it is on DVD it might be easier for him, because we can fast forward the scarier parts if needed.

Papi made awesome empandas with yuca.  We ate so much.  I have probably put on about 20 lbs this past weekend for sure.  My jeans were fitting snug this morning!  Papi also played his guitar while we watched the movie, but we are so used to this that we can drain it out at times.  LOL, he is good, but he loves to be with us and play his guitar even if we are asleep or watching movies!

My brothers are growing up so fast.  It is such a blessing they live so close now so that we can watch them grow up.  I love spending time with them, because I know the awkward stage is near and they might not enjoy it as much, even though I hope they do.  I def. look forward to seeing them on Christmas morning opening their presents.

No holiday weekend should be missing out on game night at the Gunnings!  I love competition, as most of you know.  A few nights before, I lost in two games of scrabble.  One was a practice round, because GG's cousin D was visiting and I had never played with him before.  The second I was really tired... However, our friend Kelly ended up winning both games!  This was a bit sad...  but I have won plenty before, I will make my comeback for sure!!

About two months ago, we went to Paul and Abby's and played an awesome cut throat game of monopoly...  Abby won that night, it was cool, we were cool with that win... Well, it was time for a re-match this past weekend!  We started the game at about 7:15 pm and the game ended at like 11:30 pm...  GUESS WHO WON???

ME!

I needed this win guys, I NEEDED IT!

Overall had a blast of a Thanksgiving holiday and like my GG says, "it takes a village to make a family".  I would not trade any of the people in my life for anything!  To top it off I got to see Harry Potter 7 Part 1 again, it was even better the second time around!!!

Photos and iTunes

Well, luckily I was able to recover my photos, THANK GOD.  When I was trying to save my 2010, apparently, most of them transferred over, therefore I was able to recover the 2010 pictures.  Good grief.  That was basically my largest concern, so I am very thankful they were recovered.  For those of you who do not know me very well, I am the historian for my family and friends.  Their lives would not exist if it were not for me.

SAD EVA, SAD MAC

Now it is a waiting game for my purchased iTunes to be recovered.  I called Apple customer service and nice and patiently asked what I could do.  Of course, customer service can not help you with this problem.  When it rains it pours!  I had to go through the apple.com website and submit an e-mail explaining my stupidity and how I did not back up my iTunes files correctly, and that I would love, Love, LOVE for them to help me to recover my purchased iTunes from the last year.  In addition, I included how from now on I will, I promise I will back up correctly using, Time Machine.  Since, I am an amazing customer and I have never had any problems with apple before, hopefully they will work with me and send them to me.

As I hung up the phone I went to hook up my iPod Touch to listen to, and guess what....

IT DOES NOT WORK

Called customer service AGAIN, because this is a hardware issue...  sure enough they can not help me with this because it would not reboot by pressing the top or circle button simultaneously, therefore I need to take it in to the "GENIUSES" at the apple store, who are the ones that told me my hard drvie was DEAD.  Could this get any better?

Moral of the story, what do customer service people really do?

Again, I am very happy my pictures are saved, that would have been worse, but I still want the iTunes back because I paid good money for my DUGGARS and music!

New Hard Drive

FML!

The last two days have been very traumatic for me.  I had some issues with my 1 year old MAC.  :(

Two days ago I was browsing the web, minding my own business as I normally do when I get off work.  I downloaded the new Duggars show and curled up and watched the 30 min length new episode.  After it was complete, I did some minor face booking, when the colored wheel started to spin... the one where it is loading something and the computer needs a minute.  The wheel continued for about 5 minutes and I thought that was a rather excessive amount of time for the cute little wheel to be spinning.

I was unable to force quit through Firefox because I could not get the finger/arrow guy back.  So I turned in off manually, which means that I used my adorable cute finger and turned off my computer by pressing down the power button....  AH!

I then waited a few moments and turned it back on and I could hear, "I think I can, I think I can...", coming from the wheels of the hard drive.  It went back to normal...  I then continued to e-mail and blah blah blah and sure enough that UGLY colored wheel came back on 20 minutes later!!!!!

I called it a night, after I manually shut it off again.  It was crazy!  I had also just downloaded the new GLEE songs from this previous weeks episode, which were awesome!!! In hindsight, I should have only manually shut it off once and ran over to the apple store...

Friday I had to work, but came home and turned in on, this time I was thinking, I might as well try and start backing up the pictures from 2010 before I lose anything.  I have been trying to be good about backing up my picture folders from my computer, not my iTunes for whatever reason, but I do not use the time machine...  again, now I know.  It turned on long enough for me to download the more updated photos, except I downloaded the 2009 folder instead of 2010.... BAH!  User error.  After I realized this it was already in the midst, I figured I would just do it afterward.  Finally, I got 2010 going and saving to my external hard drive when right smack in the middle that DAMN colored wheel pops out and it was all over...  from that moment on, blue screen city...  blue screen later that night after Harry Potter and blue screen again this morning.

I made a 7 pm appointment with the Genius Bar at the Apple store at Fair Oaks, and they proceeded to tell me, YOUR HARD DRIVE IS DEAD.

I was so close to dying...  my warranty time frame is over, OF COURSE!  So I most def. thought I was screwed.  But, I worked my charm and batted my eyes, to a man who might not swing my way, but because I am cute and sweet, he replaced my hard drive for free as if I was under warranty.

It is still too late to actually extend with the apple care package crap, but I am so grateful that I did not have to fork over a hefty amount to replace it.  However, lesson learned, I will, and I mean it, I will use this time machine crap...  I just have to figure it out!

Lazy Vicks Sunday

I have literally been in my room all day long except for the 45 minute Target outing I had with GG for NyQuil.  My allergies are acting up like crazy.

I LOVE THIS RIGHT NOW

With all the Vito excitement I have been a few times to visit the most adorable little man in my life right now.  However, the down side is that I am allergic to his brothers, Titus and Pudgee (the four legged ones).  Poor Natasha and Berto have been so exhausted they are trying to get in their flow of parenthood, so they cannot vacuum every time I come over.  They do have an awesome vacuum by the way, last week I did not sneeze as much.  Typically, once I sneeze it is hard to stop and if I do it back to back like two days in a row it gets worse.  My own fault, BUT VITO IS SO CUTE.  Anyways, I know once things smooth over it will be better.  My mom says I should just get the shot, but that cost money and I don't want to get shot once a week.

NyQuil reminds me of my Granny, because it is made by Vicks and puts a nice thick coat of AWESOMENESS down your throat.  My Granny just LOVES Vicks and she applies the Rubbing Vicks in her nose nightly before she goes to bed so she can "breathe", to be honest it works magic and I have the rubbing one right by my bed as well.  When I need to "breathe" clearly at night, I don't hesitate, I rub that jazz up there too for a good nights sleep!

This Lazy Sunday, I have stayed in bed and read my book (which I have been reading for two months and have yet to finish) for about 5 mins then passed out.  Woke up and caught up on some correspondence, planning for Amber's wedding.  I also finished my laundry.  I had some DayQuil left over from my stay-vacation with the Gunnings, threw a gulp back and in moments I was out like a light again.  This stuff is magic!  I do feel a bit better, however, I will keep the tissue box close tonight and take the NyQuil again tonight.  Cross your fingers these sneezes go away!

My Godson, Vito is HERE!

Welcome to the world Victor Roberto Valencia!  Watch out world, Victor is going to be amazing and make his mark in this world :).  A while ago Natasha and I were talking about his name and decided that Victor Roberto was such a huge name for a baby.  Vi- Victor, to- Roberto= VITO!  Since then we have been talking about what will Vito look like.  Well finally on November 9, 2010 at 9:57 pm, Vito came into the world, eyes wide open!

The day before Vito was born I had the best sleep of the year!  As you know I have recently been using a night guard, and I have still had some tension in my jaw most mornings with this thousand dollar contraption.  A week ago my cousin Trish recommend I sleep on my back with my head propped on two pillows.  She too has a night guard and said that sleeping in this position has helped her.  I have been attempting to do this for the last week.  I am more comfortable on my side or stomach, but finally the night before Vito was born I had the best sleep EVER and no tension in my jaw the morning of the 9th.  Woke up that morning and ate a great breakfast, no rushing to get out the door.  I had a staff meeting that I thought started at 9 am to find out it started at 10 am.  Things were going well and then....

TEXT MESSAGES:

Natasha- 8:52 am
"I think my water broke... Maybe"

Eva- 8:54 am
"OMG"

NO ANSWER

"You want me to head over?"
"Tasha call me before I leave for work"

Phone call from Natasha...

"I am heading over to the hospital with my mom.  We are going to check and see if my water really broke."

WOW!  So I was pumped as you can tell!!  I knew that I had to go to this meeting.  Natasha knew I requested off work so I could be with her and Berto at the hospital, because I am the GODMOTHER!  As soon as I heard the confirmation of the water breaking I headed straight over.

It felt like forever, but Natasha and I played UNO and Canasta as we waited to see what would happen next.  This helped keep her mind off things but not for the whole time.  Contractions were coming one right after another for her once they gave her the pitocin... and it was a trying time from there on.  Hours and hours later, Little Buddy came out after chillin' in the canal for sometime.  Vito is def. night owl.  His daddy likes to call it Vito's Happy Hour!!