Been a long day..

So I been so busy with work as we have some upcoming huge marketing events and special visitors coming to the office, that I have not had time to blog really today.

It is the end of the day and I am getting ready to go home. Holly and I carpool every Friday.

It has been such a hectic crazy week we decided it is a good day to stop for a little happy hour.

So It's off to Happy hour folks!

Have a great weekend!

Just have to VENT..the time has come

The time has finally come for Gabe and I to finally move from this tiny stale old apartment.
It seems to be right in the nick of time too. We just got some horrible neighbors this past February and for lack of better words they are bringing the Ghetto into what was once a quiet little historical neighborhood.
The new neighbors hang out on the porch all day, smoke weed in the front yard, listen to loud music, hoot and holler at the women walking by to go to the corner store, let their kids go off and do what ever they want (which is usually loitering in my carport)and I just cannot take that anymore.
They always have shady looking characters coming in and out of their place too. Ever since they moved in the houses in the neighborhood have been getting robbed and they even had to lock down Parker's school (which is on the corner from our block) to hunt for a robbery suspect in the neighborhood.

Speaking of the loitering kids, I pull up yesterday home from work and 4 boys are just walking up and down my driveway and Parker is not out there playing with them..and his razor scooter is outside by my garage in the back. One of the kids (after he saw me bringing in groceries and begging for me to open the bag of sunchips he saw in my bag so he can have some as he has a bag of chips in his hand) they were first of all playing in our carport with Parker's basketball hoop and ball while no one was home like it is a friggen park, One was hanging from the hoop and the other throws the ball over the fence..Gabe tells them to get lost they can't be hanging out while no one is home, then one takes Parker's razor scooter and goes to a friends house a couple blocks away and never brings the scooter back. Just basically stole it. Didn't ask to borrow..just took it from Parker (he said). So frustrating!

Besides the unsavory neighbors there is also the upstairs neighbor who has two boys that are both hyperactive and all the do is jump up and down and scream and yell and my windows are constantly shaking and the apartment is always trembling with noise. I mean almost nightly I have to walk upstairs and tell them to please keep it down and it works...for 5 Minutes!! You would think the parent would have some sort of consideration for the people that live below them.

Only two more months of it though. It will be a big change for us. A much needed change. Finally a backyard for the kids, and their own bedrooms, Two bathrooms, and just more much needed space! It also lights a fire underneath our butts to get rid of Clutter. I know we will have to be more thrifty with our money as far as less dining out, less shopping for stuff we really don't need, less trips and club night events but that is perfectly fine by me!
I much rather have a comfortable place to call home.

C'mon July 1st!! I am so ready!

I have Kitties!

so late last night I heard little crying kitten sounds under my couch.
Peep had her kitties. We had gotten a voucher to have her fixed in the mail but I discovered she already looked like she was pregnant and I could not have her go through a spay in that condition. I think she only had 3 kitties since she is extremely a tiny midget cat.

Luckily I already know some possible homes for the little ones. Once they are weaned Peep is off to get spayed.

Anyway to celebrate I am posting a couple cute kitty photos of random cats..(none of them are mine)

Tickle tickle tickle

Precious little sweater

How could you resist a face like that.

Beware of Cat!!

It was a fun weekend filled with drinks and friends. Friday night I made a ton of Pasta and had some friends over for dinner and wine. Sean and Julia, Jesse and Hilarie with their 2 year old Allister and Holly came to have dinner. After awhile for wine Dave and Edina and Andy and Davina and kids all came over as well. It was nice cause all the kids played together and had a good time and we all listened to music and had nice convo and full bellies. I took pictures but I was fart'n around with my camera Saturday and accidentally deleted all the photos..Major bummer!

Earlier in the day Saturday Andy came by to pick up the boys since they stayed over last night and when he came to pick them up he brought his Dog over..Yeah I never thought my cats really cared to much about dogs.
I have had this doormat for ever..Love it.

See Peaceful cat..let's Ava torment her from time to time..I always have to keep a watchful eye

Calm Cat

Evil cat! This is when the dog was over

I have NEVER Seen her this pissed before...she is pretty spooky looking

She is a Bengal Mix cat. Bengals are Hybrids usually mixed with Abyssinian and part Asian Leopard cat. Her Mother was a show cat and I bought her from a breeder and was wanting to show her as well. I didn't have her fixed but she was an escape artist and did get out a few times and got pregnant. She finally got fixed but it was not hard to get rid of her kittens. Some of the kittens came out looking like pure breeds. However Jeep was her last litter and they didn't come out with great markings but the body confirmations are much like a Bengal and the personalities for sure.

I really love my cats and they are all very good pets. As wild as they can appear they are very gentle beasts!

Earth Day Everyday

It was a nice earth day yesterday. I wish I could have had a day off to give something back such as beach clean up or plant a tree. We always contribute though such as keeping the lights low , recycling, we tried composting a few times (kinda hard in a apartment). Since we practice staying green throughout the year we celebrated in another way...we Ate green!
We are big meat eaters in our house but for a "Green" day we had Garden Burgers for dinner.
See I like Garden burgers..I love the taste. I eat them from time to time but trying to get the Hubby and the Kids to eat it..meh..that's another story. I cooked the patty and sauteed some mushrooms with the patty. I used whole Wheat buns and sliced avocado,romaine lettuce, tomatoes, onions and sliced American cheese.
Gabe was Skeptical but he savored every bite. He said it was much better then he expected it to be. In fact he had 2!!

Parker on the other hand..he did not care for it at all. Gabe ended up making him a regular meat hamburger. We gave Ava Parker's garden burger and she loved it. She was eating it so fast though she started choking and spit up a bunch of it that was chewed and stuck in her throat on to the floor.

The cats were really quick to act though ..needless to say they had garden burgers too for dinner.

Reading Is Fun

Ava has been so into Books that she could care less about pretty much everything else...except for one loan lamp shade that has been retired to the rubbish bin do to tricky little fingers.
This book has flaps and everytime she opens a flap she says Peek a Boo...it sounds more like BAA BOOO

Good night puppy is one of her faves

She loves pop up books too but completely destroyed one I got her..luckily I found it at a thrift store and it was only 50 cents.

She has this other book that is a favorite and it has different animals and it talks about the different kisses they give..for example it has a cat and it reads the Cat has Scratchy Kisses and it has a sand paper tongue you can feel. The dog has sticky kisses and it has a sticky tongue to touch. She loves those touch and feel books too.

Needless to say we been having lots of good quality reading time around thee ol McCaffrey household lately!

Should I go or Should I stay??

Tiki Oasis 10 is this August and I refuse to miss it yet another year. For about 6 years I been trying to go to this and I never do. It is like the biggest tiki fest in Southern California and I always see pictures and get so pissed that I was not there. Anyway it is on the weekend of Ava's Birthday but I am still debating if I should go or not.

I booked my room already at the Crowne Plaza Resort where they have the festival at. I got a Large two Queen Bed room poolside with a view of the stage where all the shows will be held.

For Thursday check in to Sunday check out the room rate is a whopping 500.00 + bill.

Gabe and I will hopefully be splitting the room though with Josh and Vickie.

I really love the whole tiki look of the place. It kinda reminds me of a whole resort of the place that Gabe and I got married at.

Here is someones view over the Atrium. Check out the KOI!!

I guess I will purchase my passes for the event this coming paycheck. I better start saving though cause now that we are moving and our rent is more expensive then what we pay now I really got to start budgeting and have money put aside for these big events.

The major bummer is that it happens to be the weekend of Ava's 2nd birthday.

We will probably have a small quaint party for her at our new house we will be living in.

Guess I better start saving for that too.

Dress Up

This morning when I was getting ready to leave for work I found Ava walking around in my shoes.
It was pretty funny

Gabe said all she needs is a hat so he brought one out and she put it on.

Yeah..may take a while for these to fit her

These WERE the shoes I was going to wear today but when I tried to take them from her she started crying so today I wore flats. Funny baby..she loves playing dress up!

Girls Getaway

The gal pals and i been talking for the longest time especially when we do our girls night to take a overnight stay somewhere and just do a girls sort of weekender...well talk is cheap and so we finally did it!

Thelma and I kept saying let's do it and we asked our other girls to come out but no one was able to afford it at the time so it look like at first that it was just Thelma and Myself. We talk to Toni and she said to count her in as well. Anyway I knew if I didn't book that room we were probably not gonna go so I booked it and there was no turning back.

Our first of hopefully more girl weekend getaways was a trip to Solvang to do some wine tasting. Thelma had never been before so it was exciting to see what she was going to think of it.

Thelma and Toni all met at my place at 7:30am Saturday morning and Thelma drove us up to the country. Thelma came with Starbucks in hand for us three and it was the perfect start of a interesting and terribly fun trip!

We got to Solvang about 10:30 am and we were all hungry and knew we better get some food in our tummy's before a whole day of tasting wine so we went to Paula's Pancake house and had a good ol fashioned country breakfast then it was off to the vineyards!
Our first vineyard we went to was Buttonwood. The first of the wines we tried were the whites and the whites were being served out in their back garden area. There was beautiful Irises there.

The 3 of us in the garden at Buttonwood

We went inside where they were serving the reds.

I had to bring out my wine journal at the first place...We had a free coupon for the Fess Parker Vineyard so we hoped back in the car and headed down the country road to Fess Parker

Fess Parker Vineyards. The place was huge and beautiful. I enjoyed pretty much every wine I had there. We took our red tastings outside and walked around the grounds for awhile and sat under a big tree. (Thelma has those pictures)

After Fess Parker it was close to 2 pm and we headed back to Solvang and check in our room then go walk around the town and do more tastings. Our first stop Presidio. I enjoyed everything there as well that I tasted. After Presidio we went to Lucas & Llewellyn where I am a member at and we all got to taste pretty much anything we wanted to for free. By this point we were all feeling pretty good.

We walked over to madonlina where I am a member there as well but first we had to pose next to the infamous clog shoe. Then proceeded with our tasting.

After that tasting we did some shopping. Thelma tried on this very cute headband with the most sparkly decoration on it. We told her she had to buy it!

Toni and I trying on big floppy hats. After shopping we had dinner then headed over to Alisal Cellars where we did more tastings.

We met some wine makers there that all stopped by and they were pretty funny guys and they let us taste some of the bottles they brought over from the Vintner's Festival that they were at earlier in the day. It was nighttime at this point and Toni went back to the room cause she was tired and could not drink anymore.

Thelma and I stayed to watch a funk band that was going to play at the cellar and we danced and had a glass of wine. We headed back to the hotel room and went to end the night by hanging out in the hot tub. It was a long eventful day.

The next day we got up and checked out of the room and had breakfast. We went to purchase some wines and then wanted to checkout the last wine room we had a free coupon for. This place was great. It was like this rockabilly wine room that had a private lounge area and a place where bands could play. The labels they put on their wines are really cool retro style labels and all the wines were very good.

They had rat pack pictures and pictures from the movie swingers. I of course had to join this wine club and Toni did as well. Check out their Site..Sort This Out Cellars

I love their glasses. I cannot wait to go back and introduce some more of my friends to this wine.

After we did our tasting there we hit the road back to home so we would not get bad traffic which we did not thankfully. We left close to 1pm and got home about 3:30.

We made a pit stop at a park in Santa Barbara Over looking the ocean. This Huge Seagull sat beside me. I had to take a picture of him.

All in all it was a fantastic trip and I cannot wait to go back.

TGIF..seriously

Seriously I am so glad it is Friday. Last night's show at club Nokia was Off the Hook but I am paying the price today for those sneaky tiki drinks at Trader Vic's ( Note to Self : The Big Kahuna has more booze in it then I taste..only get one)

Gabe and I went up with Chris and Holly and we got there early to find ofcourse good parking and dibs on good seats. Since our dinner reservations were not until 5:30 and we had time to kill and went to some bar at this very old hotel that I cannot remember the name .
We met up with some friends

Chris and Gabe..don't they look just so thrilled

Christan was the Two Tone Queen for the evening!

Best Harem in the house!

My Dapper Hubby

This was my first of a few Big Kahuna's at Trader Vic's! Yep ..it's on fire..Should have been the first warning to stay away ) Mondo in the back ground ..oooooo fire!! Damn you Arnold..I swear every time i try and take a picture of him ..it's of him blocking his face!

Mark getting lucky with the gals

All us gals after a few drinky's. After meeting up with more and more friends in the lounge..dusk was upon us and it was time to go to the concert

The band was so incredible...I danced my butt off!..I feel the pain today

I so wish I could see them play again but it is probably unlikely that they will ever play out here again...Bummer..........They did do all the songs from the video I posted yesterday and many more of their hits.