Happy New Year

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future - Jeremiah 29:11

♥

My absolute favorite verse in the Bible. Always hopeful that as we seek Him, He will guide us in our lives. Which then results in Romans 8:28- "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

2013 was good to us and I look forward to what 2014 has in store!

 It's that time of year to make resolutions... what is your resolution? I don't know about you but I tend to fail at mine hahaha! Mostly because I get discouraged and or things in life get in the way and I get off track. I hope to not fail this year. Most everyone I know wants to eat healthy, exercise, be more organized, spend less, save more $.. etc., which I want/plan to do as well and think is good to be that way.. however I also think that being spiritually healthy and having a relationship with my God is much more important (to me), which leads to my New Years Resolution.. I want to read the Bible every day. Yes, I already read my Bible but not every day like I should. I want to make it a point to read it every day. I'm excited to see what the Lord has in store for me to learn!  I plan on starting with the book of Revelations. Ive never fully understood it and I want to delve deeper into it. It is a book of hope of what's to come!  Justin has a study Bible and I plan on reading that to learn more. I highly encourage you to join me !

May the Lord bless you in the New Year and I wish you happiness and joy!!

Christmas 2013

 Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday Jesus!



We hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas!!! 

Vegas

 We went to cousin Eric & Marie Masten's Wedding the weekend before Christmas. It was a lot of fun. Neat thing was they got married at Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel, the same Chapel Justin and I got married at! It was great to see all the Drake side family!

Luker had been sick the week before and here he is still recouping

It's been months since seeing baby Rylee! She's such a doll and so full of life and has an adorable personality! She LOVED Luke and rolled around on the floor with him and played cars with him. She's just so precious! She turned one on Dec 30th! Happy Birthday little beauty! 

Cousin Eric and his new wife Marie at the reception cutting their cake

with cousin Dakota

at the Bellagio about to watch the spectacular water show

And ofcourse its a must to go visit the Bass Pro Shop!! Only the best store for boys and men ever!! We also went bowling and Vince took the boys to see the movie Walking with Dinosaurs. They loved that. It was a really nice vacation! 

ASU Christmas Work Party 2013

We were chosen to host the Air Support Units Christmas Party. We had a great time! I only took a couple photos, should of taken more. Here we are gathered around doing the white elephant gift exchange. What a blast. The best part of the night! 

this guy is hilarious. My cheeks were killing me from laughing so much! Kevin is definitely the clown of the unit. 

Overall a successful and fun time! Looking forward to next years party!

The Birthday Boy

 Luke's birthday fell on Thanksgiving this year! He turned 8 years old! We did a little celebrating with just us and then had friends over during the weekend.

He loves everything Hot Wheels 

♫♪ Happy Birthday to Luke ♪♫

This game is actually pretty hard to play but so much fun!

He thought this card was hilarious from "Uncle" John Humecky

He had a great time and loved all his gifts. He was so spoiled! Happy Birthday Bugs! We love you !



Home ♥ Sweet ♥ Home

After looking for over a year we finally bought a home that I love ♥ We looked at an awful lot of houses and I'm sure we drove our realtor nuts! ha! But, I immediately fell in love with this house when I walked in. It has that cozy feeling that I pictured holidays, family gatherings and making wonderful memories with our boys in this home.  If you know the Bakersfield market you know its a fight to purchase a house. It was a long battle to get it but we got it!! God truly blessed us. We absolutely LOVE our neighbors. Good Christian people. It's a nice quiet neighborhood, well, besides the neighbor lady who lives behind us who seems to enjoy waking us up at 2am with her booming music. We are in the process of getting it through her head you don't be rude like that by getting her acquainted with the PoPo every time she does it. 

We moved in in the beginning of November. It's 4 Bedrooms (well the 4th is the office, its a bit small) the bedrooms are huge which the boys LOVE! 2 Baths, Approx 2200 sqft, a decent landscaped back yard, comes with a jacuzzi but not sure we will use it, a nice size kitchen, big living room and decent size family room with gas fireplace (which i love) We would of preferred a 3 car garage but can't always get what you want so we plan to put a shop in in the back yard one day for all Justins wood shop tools and motorcycle.  We are super excited and we have plenty of projects lined up for the future of what we want to do to slowly update and make it ours. It was built in 93' so we have lots to do to update. But that's the fun part! We are accepting donations if you would like to help us out! hahahaha! just kidding! Now to get going on decorating, painting and all the fun stuff I've been waiting to do for a long time! Soon it shall slowly become the way we want :) 

Law Enforcement Day

 Saturday Oct 19th was Law Enforcement Day at Beech Park in downtown Bakersfield. Justin worked it. He and a Pilot flew the Patrol Helicopter to the park and let people come check it out and ask questions and take picts. Kern County Fire Department, BPD, Sheriff and CHP were all there with booths set up and all the fun departments with in the law enforcement agencies, such as: Bomb Squad, SWAT, Coroners, Air Support Unit, Off Road Team (guys from Ridgecrest came, was good to see them) and the K9 Unit

The Sheriff Department set up a scenario where a K9 officer pulled over a bad guy and the bad guy ran and they set the K9 dog after him and attacked him. Then the Huey flew in and the SWAT team repelled down and took over and cleared the car making sure there were no more bad guys. The public loved it! They cheered them on and thought it was awesome! Videos are posted below

Matt checking out the CHP motor unit

Law Enforcement Day Videos. I accidentally posted them wrong. First video is Justin leaving the Park (end of the day)  And the Second Video is the Footage of the Huey bringing in the SWAT team.

Catch Up

Hello friends and family! Boy its been a while since I've updated our family blog! Its been a whirlwind of a Summer and now its Fall! Where has the time gone! Let me catch you up where we left off... In June I got a job as an Administrative Assistant working for Brian Rice Construction. I work full time. Its a neat lil job. I work at the Model home and I do a lil bit of everything. I get to help the clients pick out their color selections for what they want in their home and design. And i do a bit of office stuff with insurance and calling the subs and lining them up for the job. Lots more but that's the jist. I enjoy it :) Justin is still busy in the Air Support Unit tracking down bad guys etc :) Matthew and Luke are busy with school and after school activities. Matthew is in the 6th grade and Luker in 2nd grade! They were very blessed getting awesome teachers!
  I broke my camera while on vacation in Mammoth when we went hiking. I'm bummed :( so the photos are taken with my phone. I hope you are doing well and that you enjoy the update of our family life ~!! Blessings to you and hope you have a lovely Autumn season! Time for Pumpkin everything hahahah!!! So happy its time for cooler weather !

NOR after school sports

 Matthew is playing flag foot ball for NOR after school sports for his school Bimat. He's on the 6th grade Hoosiers and he is LOVING it!! Today was his first game and he got MVP player of the game! He scored 3 touch downs and played receiver and caught alot of throws! It was sooo much fun watching! His team won 35-12 ! Woop Woop! I'm a proud momma cheering on this stud!

Looking foward to watching a great season! Bye Bye Weekends! ha!

Sacramento, California

 Went to Sacramento last weekend for cousin Lauren's Wedding!! We had a blast! Such a gorgeous wedding! It poured rain all day! I know its not ideal wedding weather but boy was it beautiful! Lauren looked stunning and David her groom looked handsome! We danced the night away (literally) !! We didn't want the party to end!

 With the flower girl, cousin Genevieve, aka Icicle :) haha!! she told them they are to call her Icicle! She is hilarious!! Too funny!

Cheers!! (Sparkling cider)

 The next day we took the boys to the State Capitol! I haven't been here since I was in the 4th grade! It was so neat to see it again! 

First we visited the Peace Officer Memorial. So sad :( Thankful to the LE's who put their life on the line to keep us safe!

Tribute

What a beautiful building!!

In front of the Governor's office

State Assembly

Senate

I could of stayed for hours looking around but we only had one hour of parking. What a great day!! We did not want to go home! It was a very fun and eventful weekend! I could live in Sac!!

Ventura, California

  Day trip to Ventura Harbor and Santa Barbara Pier to celebrate our 13th ♥ Anniversary!!

Matthew was off having a blast camping with Lee and Cheryl,Uncle Tim and family so he didn't go with us.

 Rented a lil boat to cruise around the harbor and look at all the awesome houses and boats people own. It was sunny and beautiful then all of a sudden the marine layer blew in and it was freezing cold!!

 Such a rough life

Collage of Luker having fun at the beach eating ice cream. After ice cream we went to Santa Barbara Pier and went to a little museum they had. Luker tried the virtual fishing game and it was actually hard! They made it like it was real! Justin had to hold the pole because it flew out of his hands at first haha! We ate dinner at an awesome restaurant called Chucks Waterfront Grill! 

End of Santa Barbara Pier :) 

That was a really fun day !!!