Infinite Faith

My new tattoo. Since my husband at the age of 38 was dx'd with prostate cancer and had a successful surgery and 6 months post prostatectomy remains cancer free I have eternal faith in the lord that he will let us grow old and grey together and enjoy our children growing up, and having grandbabies, and many, many, many years of marriage under our belts.

♥Lisa♥

Brown Recluse

I was putting shoes in our closet and looked up and saw this.click on it and you can see the fiddle on its back.
I hit it with a shoe. I hope I killed it, cause I couldn't find it.

♥Lisa♥

WW- Ben and Billy Dean

Talk about perks! Ben got to sit and chat with Billy Dean for about a half an hour, then Billy Dean went on stage and after the concert he got to take a pic with him.

I ♥ Billy Dean and his music.

More WW go here.

♥Lisa♥

12 Years Ago

Ben and I met :) Tina and I went dancing at the Cowboy Boogie in Anaheim, Ca and Ben asked me to dance.

Here we are at Knott's Berry Farm. You can see part of Thomas' head. Gabe took the pic.

Here we are at my BIL's graduation from the LAPD academy. I had to call in sick to work, they wouldn't let me have the day off.

Awwww, we were so cute back then. And so YOUNG! lol. We hit it of right from the start. We both wanted lots of kids and liked the same things. We married 8 1/2 months later. Though it took longer to get our family started than we expected, we did pretty good. 5 kids altogether, would have loved 6 but darn pregnancy isn't so easy!

ETA- ok, im editing to add Tina's favorite part. you'll have to go read last yrs part.


♥Lisa♥

Bens Bday cake- yum

Ben told me that I'm not to do anything for his birthday and not to tell the kids because then they would want to do something and buy him stuff. His bday isn't until the 28th and he has to work. Soooooo, on Monday I emailed my local baker ( I know her) and told her what I wanted and to not say anything to Ben if she happens to see him :) Ben had Friday and Saturday off and it worked out great because he worked over time thurs night. So thursday after school I took the kids to pick out somethings for daddy and that they better not say A THING or they wouldn't get a piece of cake(it worked). On Fri I took the kids to school while he slept. Which made it easy for me to pick up the cake without him.

When Ben was sleeping I quickly decorated the table, brought out his present from hidding and waited for him and the younger two to wake up.

Ben was surprised when he got up and the sucky thing was that we had to wait until the evening before eating the cake!!!
We picked the kids up from school early, went for my MRI, ate dinner at Coltons (i was starved and Kaitlen had a free meal thing from school), then we came home and finally got to eat that yummy cake.

side notes- yes I know his present was warpped in pink paper. It was all i had. And yes I know the razorback looks more pink than red especially by the pink box :)

His cake- It's a Razorback cop and its actually on a road, lol. How cute is that?? She did a great job.

♥Lisa♥

Name this bad girl!!

Ok, Ben got a Smith & Wesson M&P 15 for the SWAT team. I think she deserves a name, don't you? Ben has no idea I'm doing this and he will probably pee his pants (if he was a girl) when he sees this.
So. Should she have a hot, sexy name? A strong, girthy female name? or what? A dingy blond name, lol (sorry any blonds out there) Gay male name?
Just leave any and all names in the comment section. Nothings off limits.

Made Ben a twitter account and page

ok, Ben can't stand computers and only uses them because he has to at work. I've made him a Myspace page and he sometimes uses it. I made him a blog because I really think you all would enjoy what he has to say, but he doesn't blog on there. So now I made him a Twitter account. He seemed kinda intrigued by twitter. So we'll see if it take with him. Now the stuff on his twitter page I have twitted for him. He just tells me to keep tweeting it. LOL.

Now for the SWAT pic. Their department will be starting a SWAT team. They will also be getting two police dogs. I think some of the officers have gone to the SWAT school and Ben and the rest will be going in Oct?? IDR. So Ben and the guys are very excited.

This and That and Kennedy!

First- Prayers for sweet Kennedy. She is a sickie one right now. She is staying over night in the hospital to get her back on track. When she gets sick her body does it up real good and it becomes mission impossible to keep her out of the hospital. Pray she feels better fast.

+++++++++++++

Found out today that Kaitlen's Softball team is going to be called the Ladybugs. Which is good. Last year they were the Sluggers and this yr Ben got the FOP to sponsor the team so the shirt would have said Sluggers with the FOP logo underneath it (Fraternal Order of Police). Made me giggle when i thought about it.

+++++++++++++

Bens working a Lil' Wayne concert. That outta be a blast.

+++++++++++++

Bens taking us out to dinner tomorrow. Yeah, I don't have to cook!! I don't remember where we are going.

Tell me...

Does this go on in your house??

I'm getting the dinner plates ready (yes Tina, putting every ones food on every ones plate, lol)

It goes something like this...

Ben: Everyone be quiet and listen..... then he rips a very loud fart

Cody: (without missing a beat) Can you say it again? I didn't hear you.

everyone laughs

WTH? This is in the kitchen, at dinner time.

Couples questions

♥ Fill it out and let's learn about you and your better half!

♥ What are your middle names?
Mine: Ann
His:Todd

♥ How long have you been together?
together- 11 yrs 9 months, Married- 11 yrs 1 month
We knew each other for 8 months before getting married

♥ How long did you know each other before you started dating?
pretty much the night we met

♥ Who asked who out?
Well, I guess he asked me out to dinner. It was on a tues his RDO and we ate at Don Joses

♥Who said I love you first?
He remembers it, i don't, but it was me

♥ How old are each of you?
I am 34
he is 36

♥ Who's siblings do/did you see the most?
His

♥ Do you have any children together?
Yes, 3 boys 2 girls

♥ What about pets?
Some barn cats and PITA dogs

♥ Did you go to the same schools?
nope, He went to La Serna and i went to Westminster High

♥ Are you from the same hometown?
Nope, but close. He grew up in Whittier, ca and i grew up in Westminster, ca.

♥ Who is the smartest?
me :)

♥ Who is the most sensitive?
IDK, he's pretty sensitive

♥ Where do you eat out most as a couple?
well as a family it would be the mexican place in town.

♥ Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?
we've never traveled without the kids, so from Cali to Arkansas.

♥ Who has the craziest ex?
He did. She passed away a couple yrs ago.

♥ Who has the worst temper?
Me

♥ Who does the cooking?
Mostly me.

♥Who is the most social?
He is. He knows fricken everybody

♥ Who is the neat-freak?
Neither!!!!

♥ Who is the most stubborn?
me, hands down

♥ Who wakes up earlier?
Ben, but in my defense im up till 1 or 2 am

♥ Where was your first date?
to dinner at Don Joses

♥Who has the bigger family?
I think we are pretty tied with that.

♥Do you get flowers often?
um, once or twice a yr. Which is enough.

♥ Who do you spend the holidays with?
Bens brother and fam, our nephew, friends

♥ Who is more jealous?
him

♥ Who sings better?
Him.

♥Who does/did the laundry?
both

♥ Who’s better with the computer?
me.

♥ Who drives when you are together?
him

♥ Who picks where you go to dinner?
well we start naming off place until we all agree

♥ Who is the first one to admit when they’re wrong?
ben

♥ Who named your pet?
We named our own. We got two dogs for valentines day 98, Bessie and Hauss

♥ Who wears the pants in the relationship?
Him

♥ Who has more tattoos?
Me, I have two. He has none.

♥ Who eats more sweets?
HIM!

♥ Who cries more?
Me


I'm so bad. I forgot to say i got this from Renee.

Sports

We went to sign Matthew and Kaitlen up for softball and T-ball today. We were under the assumption that if you were eligible for Kindergarten in the fall that you can be on the team. WRONGO.... That's not it. Matthew would have had to turn 5 by the end of April. Bahhh, i was so bummed about it and i had even pumped Matthew up about ! grrrrr. So we *HaPpIlY* explained to M that we are going to watch K play and help he out and then next time he'll get to be on a team. The PLUS side about this is Ben should be on days by then and can coach!!!!

After sign ups we went over to Kaitlen's cheer. That is always so much fun. Five kindergarten girls shouting chants and cheers. They are a very good group of cheerleaders.

Thennnn, we headed to the mall to watch a Karate demo of a place we have been looking at for the kids and ben. The kids were very excited, even Cody! I believe Kaitlen is going to excel at it. So we get a two week trail and if we like it it's only 120. a month for the family. Not bad at all. They do Kenpo jujitsu, MMA.. the whole mixed martial arts- like UFC. and other stuff that i can't pronounce.
For Cody we are hoping this improves his coordination and for him to see himself physically acheive goals and be reconized for it, for all the work he's done. I am very pround of code because he never wanted to do any sports and he is actually excited out it. Matthew and kaiten?? would have jumped up on stage if they were aloud to :)

I have something to share about Cody. Maybe tomorrow.

Husband Meme

I stole this from Renee because that's how i am...

Husband Tag

1. Where did you meet? At the Cowboy Boogie in Anaheim Cali, May 2, 1997

2. How long did you date before you got married? 8 1/2 months- that also happens to be the length of time we knew each other, LOL.

3. How long have you been married? Just had our 11th anniversary in Jan.

4. What does he do that surprises you? calls and tell me to come meet him for lunch.

5. What is your favorite feature of his? his eyes

6. What is your favorite quality of his? He's very caring

7. Does he have a nickname for you? nope

8. What is his favorite color? doesn't have one

9. What is his favorite food? Japanese, but since we can't get good Japanese here it's Filipino. I'd say Korean too but you can't get good Korean here either.

10. What is his favorite sport? Football and UFC

11. When and where was your first kiss? May 2, 1997 on the dance floor at the Cowboy Boogie :)

12. What is your favorite thing to do as a couple? im sorry, are you asking me something that doesn't include kids??? IDK what that is, lol. we are simple. Hold hands while we run into the grocery store and Thomas is in the car with the kids.

13. Do you have any children? 5.. one know it all teen, one 9 y/o that knows it all, one 6 y/o that adores all her girlfriends at school, a little social butterfly. One 4 y/o that is hell on wheels and a sweetie too. one 2 y/o that turned 16 like 2 months ago!! but boy o boy, she is as funny as they come.

14. Does he have a hidden talent? OMG, he can imitate people to a tee. One time he had me cracking up so bad at my drs office because he copied him as soon as he left the room. lol, you could pee your pants.

15. How old is he? 36

16. Who said I love you first? i don't remember it, but it was me.

17. What’s his favorite type of music? Country

18. What do you admire most about him? so many things. His dedication to our family.

19. Do you think he will read this? Yep, Probably on Sunday


HUSBAND MEME

1. He’s sitting in front of the TV: MASH reruns, UFC, History Channel, those Supermax prison/ gang shows things

2. You’re out to eat. What kind of dressing does he get on his salad?Blue Cheese

3. What is one food he doesn’t like? veggies??

4. You go out to the bar. What does he order? ok, can't remember the last time we went to a bar, but it would be a beer. I think it was Dave and Busters in Cali when Cody was a baby. Dave and Buster would go good here.

5. Where did he go to high school? La Serna High, Whittier Ca

6. What size shoe does he wear? Depends on the brand of shoe, but 13-14

7. If he was to collect anything, what would it be? Guns

8. What is his favorite type of sandwich? A cheeseburger from In-N-Out..... im stealing this answer from Renee

9. What would the Husband eat every day if he could? Rice, but i don't cook it every day.

10. What is his favorite cereal? anything with tons of sugar on it

11. What would he never wear? pretty safe to say low rise jeans, lol

12. What is his favorite sports team? ok, before moving to Ark, it was the 49's but he has since ditched the NFL and it's USC :) He's a college freak now.

13. Who is his best friend? ME! seriously

14. What is something you do that he wishes you wouldn’t do? procrastinate

15. How many states has he lived in? Two

16. What is his heritage? Filipino and White

17. You bake him a cake for his birthday; what kind is it? Yes, normally white on white. If im really nice I'll make the butter cream frosting. If im really lucky it's my SIL making the cake.

18. Did he play sports in high school? yes Football and track

19. What could he spend hours doing? NOTHING, He can't sit still for that long. He is all over the place. up, down, in the house, out side the house. If we are at home to long he thinks of something he has to get from the store.............

Forgotten pics

I always seem to forget i take pics with my cell.
I forget what day we hung out at the PD during the Ice Storm during Ben's shift.
Could have been day 2 cause I didn't bring my camera.
We were actually at the substation.

Thomas catching up online.....

What do you do when daddy is out on a call??
draw him pictures and put them up on his monitor!!

and what kind of pics do you draw your cop dad?? pig pics, lol. I laughed when I saw it and Kaitlen kept asking what i was laughing at.
It's a pool, a pig, and a girl in a swimsuit. :)

Abbie sitting on the Segway.

Matthew, just after robbing a bank, lol. ok, that is not a real gun. It is a model for their training stuff.

2012, What do you think?

Several months back Ben asked me what i know about 2012. I told him that the Mayan calendar ends and something about the end of the Earth.
So today i log into Myspace and there is an advertisement for a lottery to survive after the cataclysmic events that are to happen on Dec 12, 2012. I thought are you kidding me??

What do you think/believe about 2012??

I told Ben that the guy in charge of making the calendar got sick of being the "calender guy" and said screw it, if they (the future) can't figure out what comes after Dec 12, 2012 then they don't deserve the use of a calendar. ;)


ETA- That site i linked earlier said Dec 12th, but that didn't ring right with me, but hay, they said with 94% accuracy so i typed it anyway. NOW from everything i've read and watched before the date the Winter Solstice, Dec 21st....... what i didn't know is its suppose to happen at a specific time 11:11am.
Did you know 11:11 has a meaning?? it does...

Ice Storm 2009

Tues just as Ben left for work, so around noon, we lost power. We knew Monday that the kids wouldn't have school on tues. Most schools got out early on Monday anyway because of freezing rain. My 3 school kids had physicals that mid morning and by the time we were all done at the dr's there was no need to take them to school as some were already closing...

Ben made it to and from work. Don't ask me how....

There was a nice thick window of ice on our car windows, lol.

This is our dirt road...

looking into one of our fields from the dirt road.

the poor twig...

Matthew in a winter wonder land

trippy huh?

our paved road...

the kids were crawling through the ice bushes and the ice and twigs would just snap, snap, snap...

rwarhhh

Cody is so funny.

It did snow, but then all the snow froze into ice and the kids couldn't even play in the snow.

Thomas took this pic from the car. Not sure where this is at.

The road we take the kids to and from school on.

school road still...

and again

again...

and again, lol

The first day/night without power was pretty awesome. It sparkled outside. We had the den blocked off with a blanket and had a fire in the fireplace. I brought our King size mattress into the den and a ton of blankets and pillows. Sat all cozy on the couch and popped open a beer (cant let that get warm, lol) and text Ben and told him the only thing missing was him.
Day 2, honeymoon was over, lol. Actually day 2,3,4 all blend into each other. But i had the same system down. Get everything done while it was daylight and light candles and entertain kids for several hours until bedtime.
Ben had Fri and Sat off and we ran around town Fri and let the kids burn off energy by walking around sears and Target, lol.
Friday night was the first night ben was home and once the sunset he was all antsy pantsy and at 8o'clock decided it was bedtime, lol. though we did have an hour of some funny story telling time. At 10:30 he wakes me to tell me our outside light is on. That meant power to our area was restored but no one had come to our house and put back the wires that went down in the storm. So today was our mission to find a truck from OUR electric company. We found one truck and he told us to go to X road and you'll come to a dirt road and your guy should be down there. Would you believe we head down this dirt road and eventually find our guy. Ben told him what was going on with our house and he said he'd see what he could do and when we got home today WE HAD POWER TO OUR HOUSE!!! he did a quick fix because obviously our order number hadn't come up and he'll have to come back to redo it and to also re hookup power to our garage and barn. So the only reason we have power is because we spent an hour hunting down our electric guy! and Joe!! thank you so much!!

I will say we were alot more fortunate than others. 1) We have a fireplace. 2) we got to take hot showers at the PD everyday and we were also more than welcome to sleep there too as they had gotten a ton of cots for the police families. We really didn't mind sleeping at home it was just more comfortable that way. Besides Abbie ended up with another stomach bug and was puking again. no fun cleaning puke by candle light.

ETA- I am assuming school will be open on Monday. i hope. I've been at home for 9 days with all the kids. Trying to keep them entertained these last 5 days has been challenging.

Ice Skating

♥Kaitlen and Meme♥

Kaitlen, Meme and Delani

Kaitlen had a blast skating. Ben did a great job getting pics while on the ice, lol. Which he found out was a big no-no there.