Sandoogans' Log

  Two years ago I took this picture outside of the Marie Calendar's on Washington Blvd. I remember feeling excited and in disbelief that it was finally happening. We were finally on our way to becoming home owners. I must have looked like a weirdo taking a picture of this sign. I didn't care. I was so happy, nervous and scared. It felt like a dream. It didn't feel real at all.  I wasn't too familiar with Whittier, truth be told I'm still not. I pretty much only knew Rio Hondo, uptown and the Greenway Trail. That's pretty much it. The little I knew I remember loving. I always thought Whittier was a cute, quaint city. I never imagined myself living here. I'm not knocking it by any means whatsoever. Maybe at the time I felt it was far, or something.  I guess, somehow, it was meant to be for us to end up here. I freaking love it so much, so far. There's so much to do here. Whittier is HUGE. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with how much I want to try, and see, an...

  My birthday shoutout to Bolonee. Today is Bolonee’s birthday. I’ve know this guys since we were in 4th grade. That was my last year Stanford Elementary before we moved and I had to go to a completely brand new school: San Miguel. When I say new, I mean built from the ground up. I remember being so impressed by how beautiful it was when I first set foot on it. I didn’t see Bolonee again until we were in jr high. We became best buds. I’m happy that we’re still in touch, and close friends, till this day. We’re both family folk now. Sometimes I still trip out on how we’re adults now, and have kids who are our age when we started kicking it. I remember in high school after being inspired by the movie My Best Friend’s Wedding, we said if we weren’t married by the time we were 28 we’d get married. Thank god for both of us it didn’t come to those extremes. That would have been the ultimate sacrifice haha! 

  Sir Pugsley came into our lives last month. It was quite serendipitous the way everything came about. We had been looking and going through several rescue shelters trying to adopt, but weren't having any luck. It had gotten stressful, and heartbreaking after awhile. I had given up hope, and stopped looking.  It was actually my sister that told me about Pugsley. It seriously happened from one day to another. It was all very fast, and felt very meant. I didn't tell the girls about Pugsley because I wanted to surprise them. It was so sweet seeing their reactions when they first saw their new pup, especially Adele's. She didn't know what to make of this walking stuffed animal.  Sami has done a great job of watching after Pugsley, so far. Sometimes she'll get distracted and forget to feed him at his scheduled time. We try to feed him around the same time each day. Emma is Pugsley's protector. She'll get extremely upset if anyone raises their voice at him. She d...

Sami placing her horchata order. Horchata craving satisfied. Super cute coffee truck. Last Friday I was scrolling through instagram, and one of the many food accounts that I follow (I should seriously start unfollowing some), Don Abel's Churros, popped up on my feed. I had been wanting to try them out for quite sometime, but with the pandemic, and the kids, and laziness, I never really got around to it. I finally decided that now is the time to give this spot a try. I asked Sami if she was down to go with me on a churro run, she was. She's usually always down to go on last minute errands with me, even if it's just a curbside pick up, which it usually is. She asked if there was gonna be other food trucks because she was in the mood for some horchata, I said yes, and off we went.  The original spot was off of Pioneer and Washington, but it was relocated to Pioneer High school. I thought there was going to be a lot more food trucks, but then again, I really didn't walk aro...

We managed to take family pictures last year. I am a couple months shy of having blogged one year ago. I wasn't really feeling it to be quite honest, with the pandemic and all. Even if I was feeling it, there wasn't much to say. I didn't exactly venture out a lot last year. I was home the majority of the time with my family. I wasn't working much in the beginning, and when I finally started working again, it was very sporadic.  That being said, I must confess I didn't completely hate 2020. I'm not denying it was a tough year with many obstacles because it was. But it was also a great year in some other aspects. I got to be home with the girls, I got to be with Adele her full first year (and then some), I got to spend time with Mr. A, and we finally got our house! These are things that I'm extremely grateful for. Everything pretty much happened right when we moved in, no joke. We moved in, two weeks later, everything shuts down. I was just happy being in our ...

Adele . So, it turns out I'm a tad late with this blog. I had totally forgotten about it until I logged into post the Christmas card one; and there it was in my drafts. I didn't even end up posting that one either. I know I've gotten bad with my blogging, but I feel I've gotten way worse now. Things have also been crazy since April of last year. I was pregnant and ended up being placed on bed rest because my pregnancy became high risk. Although I felt physically fine, I wasn't. My doctor advised me to keep my activity to a minimal, no lifting anything heavier than 5 pounds, no walking (other than around the house), no stress, no nothing! I think it brought me down because I was stuck at home. My only outings were going to my million doctor appts. It got to the point where I looked forward to those because it meant leaving the house.  Those infinite appointments ended up working out because they were able to see that my amniotic fluid was low. They weren...

This was gonna be the year that we were gonna take family pictures and send out Christmas cards. We use to send out regular Christmas cards every year, not sure why we stopped. I think most people throw them out, us included. We do keep the pictures ones though. I love seeing how much the kids change throughout the years. Maybe next year I'll finally start the tradition of family picture Christmas cards, but for now here's an impromptu picture of the girls meeting Santa. As you can see, Emma looks starstruck, Sami like an experienced big sister and Adele like she's over it. Wishing you all a merry Christmas!