Nursery Patrol

Sam and I had nursery duty a couple Sunday's ago, and as you can see Sam has as much fun as the kids do! I must say, he does make a good looking cop! :-) He's gonna be a great dad, because he's just a big kid stuck in a man's body... reminds me of my dad! You probably won't hear from me till Saturday, cuz a good friend of mine is leaving the island so we are having a girls night at the Princess Hotel in downtown Waikiki. Wahoo! Don't worry we behave ourselves. All of our husbands are in the Navy and at one point they were all out to sea at once, so we called ourselves the single wives. It was so nice to have people to hang out with on those lonely nights, and it was also nice to have someone who understood what you were going through. I'll try to remember to take some pictures and post them later. :-)

Mi Abuelo (Grandfather)

My Mom and her Dad
He loves to fish!
The big catch

HOW TO TELL IF YOU'RE DRIVING TOO FAST

Isn't this too funny! Look at the scratches on the seat, and the poor dogs face! :-)

You have to click on the picture to make it larger, so you can get the full effect.

Legacy of Princesses

My Mom made me this costume... I loved it!

Anna & Miriam

Miriam as Sleeping Beauty

Anna as Snow White (she's my mini me)

As you can see royalty runs in the family. I bet you guys didn't know Sam married a princess. :-) Mom the girls are beautiful and I enjoy getting all these pictures, keep 'em coming!

Random thoughts at 1 AM

So, I have been having problems with sleeping. I can be dead tired, but as soon as I get into the bed I just toss and turn and I can't seem to fall asleep. It is so frustrating ! So since I can't sleep, I write. :-) Aren't you all lucky. So here is my day... I went to the chiropractor, went to the commissary (sorry Dad I forgot the toothpicks), and we went to Wal-mart. Thankfully there were no flying beanbag chairs. :-) Then after dinner we took Magnum on a walk, hoping that would help me sleep... no such luck.
Also, I helped Sam study for his interviews tomorrow. He was nominated for Sailor of the quarter, which is kinda like employee of the month but much better. I guess each division nominates someone for position and then they all have to meet with the "big wigs" and they quiz them on everything from Naval history to stuff they learned in boot camp. It's really intense. We went over this list of questions for a couple of hours. So if you think about it PRAY for him! I'll let you know how it goes.
I'm sitting trying to decide if I'm tired enough to actually fall asleep, it's going on 2 am. I think I'll try. Good-night (hopefully)!

Silliness at Wal-mart

When we were in mainland last fall, one of our stops was to visit Sam's family in SC. One night we took Amanda (Sam's sister) out for some quality time together. As you can see below they got themselves into trouble. It's not her fault though, she was influenced by her older brother. :-) Sam and Amanda decided that they were going to "test" out these bean-bag chairs. So they go the the very far end of the isle and then start running! Then they dive, and slide the rest of the way to the other end. Of course I remained the mature one... I only took pictures. :-) Ah yes, those are some good memories. Love ya Amanda!

He's how old?

Amanda's turn... check out the look on her face

At some point Amanda fell backwards in her chair and couldn't get up. :-)

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

Christina with her Papi~ 1987
Sam with his father~ 2005

Sam and I just wanted to give tribute to our fathers, and to let them know we love them! A father is the one who is the leader of a family, and we feel like both of our fathers led our family in the most important way, spiritually. So thank you both for being Godly men.

Love,

Sam & Christina

Like Father like Son

The picture on the bottom is a picture of my dad in the fourth grade... and on the top is my brother Benjamin who is in the fourth grade. The resemblance amazing, isn't it! My little brother is growing up so quickly. Before I know it he'll be a teenager! A teenager who looks and acts like my father... Scary! :-)

My Family!

My Dad, Anna, Mom, Benjamin, & Miriam
Anna, Benjamin, & Miriam at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago

Well, my family went online last night and checked out all my pictures. Miriam was upset that I had no pictures of her on my blog. So Miriam here you go! I just love the bottom picture of the kids at he zoo. In my head I can just hear what each one is saying. Benjamin has got that "Whoa" look on his face, Anna is like "I wanna touch... Daddy get it for me", and Miriam is just spazing out, like normal! I wonder where she gets that from? :-) I'm sorry I missed out on it. Well, it's the weekend and I am so ready for it! I hope everyone's weekend goes well, and I'd love to hear about it. Much love to you all!

Talk about a BIG dog!

This is not a dog it's a horse! I don't remember when I first came across this picture, but it was a while ago. This here is Gibson. He's a three year old Harlequin Great Dane (not a Dalmatian, even though he looks like one) and he holds the record of being the tallest dog in the world. He's as tall as an NBA player! Ellen is 5'7½" and as you can see he's way taller! Just thought this was interesting and I wanted to pass it on. It's amazing what you can learn from the internet! :-)

Sweet Pea

So I've been on an e-bay kick recently, and I found the nursery set I EVENTUALLY want. No this is not my way of telling you guys anything. :-) It's called Sweet Pea from the Grow collection. Isn't it too cute! I love it because it can go for either a girl or a boy. I'm trying to buy small pieces here and there so, when we do start a family I won't be trying to buy all my stuff at once. So if anyone sees this bedding lying around for cheap, let me know! Well, that's all for tonight. I'm going to go cuddle with my husband now. He's on the couch watching Friends. :-) Bye!

Sam's special day

The Birthday Boy!
The cake (actually it's a big brownie... Sam's favorite)

So today was the big day, Sam's birthday! I asked him last night what he wanted for dinner, and his choice... Shepherd's Pie. Now I've never made it before, so I called some friends and went online and found my recipe. According to Sam it was great,(his words not mine!) so that's what I'm going with. :-) We had ourselves a nice quite evening, because Sam has to work tomorrow. So no partying late for us! :-)

Thanks for the e-mail Yesenia and thanks to my family for calling and singing to Sam. He really enjoyed it. :-)

June 12, 2006

Here he is... my birthday boy! I just wanted to take a moment to say I have such a wonderful husband. I am so blessed to have him in my life. Now, I'm not saying everything is always perfect, but he sure knows how to make me laugh. Plus, he is so handy around the house. My dad will attest to that, he is always asking when Sam is coming over... not me, just Sam. (I try not to get to bitter about that) I'm just glad they love him as much (or more) as they love me. Anyway...

Happy 26th Birthday Sam!!!!

Reminiscing

I was looking through some old pictures our church has on its database, and I found this picture of Sam and Anna. (I guess I’m in it too, but I don’t count since I’m not looking at the camera) I think this picture was taken the summer of 2003. Sam and I were “just friends” at this time. (Really, no matter what my Mom says) We were not dating yet, but we did spend a lot of time hanging out together. My friend Keiki had a job that left her with little time to hang out with me, and Sam was just wanting some of my Mother’s food. If you’ve had any of her cooking then you know I’m not kidding. I always joked around with Sam and said he only married me cuz he thought I could cook like my Mom. :-) ANYWAY! It just blows me away to see how tiny Anna was. Time has just flown by! She is growing into such a beautiful young girl. I miss all my siblings very much. It’s so hard for me; especially when I think about the fact that I’m missing them grow up. If I had the money I would try to be there every summer, but alas God has not overly blessed us in that department. So, I guess I have to settle for phone calls, sporadic as they may be, and pictures sent to me via e-mail or my phone. My mom would say it’s my fault because I’m the one who decided to get married… both her and my dad wanted to keep me until I was 35. :-) Well, that’s all for today, thanks for visiting!

Yeah! Our first anniversary card

So this is our first anniversary card (sent through the mail system) from my cousin Yesenia. (My parents forgot!) Her and her family live in Chicago (go Sox's! That's for you Sen) and we love going to visit them.
I was so worried when I first took Sam to meet them cuz in case you hadn't noticed he's a white boy. :-) But my family loves him (and not just because he's handy around the house), which was such a HUGE blessing. I love all my family and I love that we are so close even though we are far apart. We are a typical Latino family... you know big, loud, and tons of fun! :-) And Sam fits right in. So to my family far away, we love you and think about you often. I am so thankful for my wonderful cousins (and their great kids), my wonderful grandparents, and my WONDERFUL Titi Annie. I miss you all!

ps. I also have to give a special thanks to Yesenia for the card, and also for being one of the only ones to make comments on our blog. It just makes my day hearing from you! (really) Thanks Hun!

Sweetheart's

So on top of the boat trip Sam also got me a sweetheart ring. It's two hearts joined together. (I know too mushy) His heart is alexandrite on of his birthstone (pearls are also for June, but that's not very masculine) and my heart is peridot. I always hated my birthstone, because it's such an icky green color... but this one's not bad. I like my gift, I'm not complaining! :-)
Well, for those who are wondering, my sunburn is healing quite nicely. I should be pealing any day now! Hopefully I will be able to sleep on my back tonight. The last couple of nights were not fun for either of us. And speaking of sleep, I better get to bed! I am working at the Church this week. Good-night!

A Day On The Boat

Ok, I guess I should tell all of you about our boating excursion yesterday. :-) For our anniversary Sam got his boating license and took me to the Sand Bar in Kaneohe Bay. Also called Ahu o Laka or "The Sand Bar". This famous area of fine white sand near the center of the bay emerges during low tide, making a unique playground. It's like a beach in the middle of the ocean! It is 60 ft thick and 1.2 mi long. It is about 1 mile offshore. (For those of you who like details) Often, on weekends, boats line up on the downwind side of this bar. Since it was a Monday, we practically had the whole area to ourselves. When we first arrived at 8:30 in the morning, the tide was in, meaning two to three feet of water covered all the sand. We tried to take Magnum out in the water with us (on the boogie board) but he hated the water! He got so scared, and kept swimming back to the boat. So we let him get back into the boat, and Sam and I went exploring. We are only a few feet from the boat when my leg starts stinging. I stopped and asked Sam to look at it but he said nothing was there. So we kept on walking, but after a while I was like, THIS REALLY HURTS!!! So we head back to the boat and on the way we see the cause of my problem... a Portuguese Man-o-war! If you don't know what they are check this link out.(http://www.aloha.com/~lifeguards/portugue.html)
So we get back on the boat and pull up anchor and find ourselves a different spot to snorkel in. While snorkeling we saw tons of sea turtles and beautiful fish. The pictures I put up yesterday were from the digital camera, but we also had an underwater camera with us. Hopefully, I'll get those pictures developed soon cuz I think we have some shots of the turtles. So, we were out on the boat all day, from 8:30am to 4:30 pm. Sam and I both put on sunblock, but we both got burnt to a crisp! I have never been burnt this bad in my life! I am so miserable. I think all the getting in and out of the water washed away all our WATERPROOF sun block. I oughta sue. :-) Other than getting extra crispy, we had such a great time. So now when you guys come visit us (that's an open invitation to everyone) we have some place cool to take you. Now I'm off to put more aloe on my sunburn. (if you have any suggestions please let me know!) Love you all!

Anniversary Pictures

Captain Sam
beautiful view!
This is where we were, out there in the water
Magnum gives "driving" a try
Me before I got burnt!
Our pooped out pup
China man's hat
Sam fell when trying to pull the anchor up, and fell on the coral... Ouch!
The island where they filmed Gilligan's Island
Sam being Sam

Bobble Heads

The top one is the final product, and no that's not marker I etched it all into the wood. Cool huh! The bottom one is the rough draft


So our Pastor at Ohana has this thing... He married us 2 years ago and he doesn't "charge" anything for officiating the ceremony. Well, except for this; his thing is that for every year we are HAPPILY married Sam must pay him a dollar for each year. So come Monday we owe him 2 dollars. Well this year Sam and I came up with our own unique way of paying him back. :-) We took 50 cent rolls and made Sam, Christina, and Magnum bobble heads. Now if you're looking at the picture you might think we are 50 cents short, but we're not! See there are Quarters behind our faces to help support them, and actually Magnum has an extra penny supporting his head. Sam said that's cuz we had a very good year. So here's the run down...
Piece of wood- 45 cents
Change, super glue, and pictures- $7.50
The look on our Pastor's face- PRICELESS!

Magnum

he's got a big head, and a small body... but he's cute!

For those of you who didn't know about Magnum, here is his "story". We adopted him the beginning of April. It was like a movie. (dramatic pause, que the music) Sam wanted to take me to the Humane Society. (It was raining tons!) We were going on 41 days of straight rain, worse than Noah! But that's another long story. So there we are, standing in front of all these cages, soaking wet despite an umbrella. Yes, it was a sight to see. All the dogs were soaking wet, and most were hiding in the back of the kennels where it was dry. But not this little guy, he saw Sam and came running to him, and Sam was like "I want that one" but I was not really feeling it. (cuz you know I was expecting love at first sight) But Sam was adamant about seeing him. So we took him out of the kennel to look at him, and dried him off a little. It was interesting cuz the areas they normally set aside for the "meet and greet" were outside in the rain, so we were stuck in this little bitty room. :-) Anyway, as he (the dog) started drying off and getting used to us, I fell in love (Sam already knew he wanted him) and we took him home that very day! Yeah, totally not ready for a dog but we didn't want him stuck there in the rain for another night. He is such our baby now! He is so good, and his personality is too funny! He's like a little person. I know I keep rambling on about him, but he's like my baby now. :-) He want nameless for a few days, because Sam wanted his to have the right name. He's a small dog, Welsh Corgi, and Sam wanted a manly name to counter that. We tried all sorts of names to see how he would react to them, (think Dodge, Stubby, SnickerDoodle... you get the idea) but we finally settled on Magnum... not Magnum PI, more like Dodge Magnum (the car). See he's so Sam's dog! Well, there you have it, that's how we acquired the newest member to the Porter family.

The Porter's

Welcome family and friends! Sam and I decided this would be a fun way to keep in touch and to share some pictures of us. I hope to hear from you all soon. :-)
This Monday we will be celebrating our 2 year anniversary! I can't believe how fast the time flown by. Thankfully Sam will have leave for two days, so we won't have an experience like last years anniversary. (he was on the submarine, deep in the water) I'm not sure what we will be doing because Sam has been very secretive about the whole thing. I'll let you know how it turns out!
Love you!
Sam, Christina, & Magnum