Baby Nathan!

Hope all is well with everyone!

Nathan was born on Sunday, 12/16/07! He is 8 lbs, 6 ounces and 21 1/2 inches.

-glo

It's official! We are homeowners!

Money went out yesterday. Bank account is sad, but we have a home now! Can't move in for at least a couple of months, but still excited! Being married and living at home for 2 years is hard...eesh. Bathroom work will hopefully begin soon. With the help of Thomas, Jon and I have picked out the tile colors, the cabinet color and design, countertop color, sinks, faucets, shower head, etc...it's tougher than it sounds...it's like how many different types of shower heads can there be!?
Anyhow, I'm still at work...Friday is my last day! Woo-hoo! I've been trying to catch up and clean things up a bit.
Oh! This is gross...last week there was a cockroach on my desk at work!! It went into my coffee cup, and I freaked out! I was seriously considering getting someone to kill it for me (I don't kill insects), so I put a pile of paper on top of my cup. The last thing I wanted was for the cockroach to come out of my cup and attack me. So, I forgot all about the cockroach over the Thanksgiving holiday, and when I came back to work, I had dead moldy cockroach in my cup. GROSS. I had to seriously disinfect my cup with hot water, and I poured dishwashing liquid into my cup. EW. It still grosses me out whenever I think about it.

Back to work...

I must say it's hard coming back to work after a 3 day weekend. Anyhow, I can't believe it's been more than a week since I have blogged! Well, I guess that's because nothing interesting has happened. I have been driving EVERYWHERE (well, it feels like everywhere) trying to find furniture. I REALLY wanted this 3 piece sectional from Pottery Barn in suede, but it came out to be like $4K! =( Sad face. So, then I went to Wickes, and found a similar sectional for I think $1,200ish...don't remember. But then I went to Easy Life and found one for $750! BUT...it's smaller, which might be a good thing because our living room isn't that big. So...we'll see what we end up buying...haven't decided yet...

Tea time with some gal pals

Yesterday, Charlene, Cynthia, Jean, Jennifer, and I went to Two A Tea in Glendora for tea and sandwiches. It seems like lately, I've been going to afternoon tea a lot. So much fun! And it's always nice to get together with friends and just chat and catch-up!
On Sunday, I will having afternoon tea and sandwiches again at Julie's Bridal Shower, so I'm looking foward to that, too! =)

The House Hunt is OVER??

Jon and I are excited to let everyone know that we are in escrow! The house is located in the Highland Oaks area of Arcadia (near Foothill and Santa Anita). As most of you know, we have been looking for a LONG TIME and during this time, there have been many disappointments.
We close escrow on 11/27 (it's kinda bad timing because I will be delivering around that time...but we are still happy and excited). It kinda works out because we won't be able to move in for at least a couple of months. So I guess it works out? =)
Some work needs to be done on the home (such as ripping out the carpet, updating the bathrooms, and adding some recessed lighting). And after that is done, we have to order our furniture which will take about 2-3 weeks to arrive. So...unfortunately, we won't be having guests over any time soon, but we look foward to inviting everyone over at some point when we are all settled in. Well...maybe not everyone at the same time. It's a small starter home. =)

THANK YOU!

Family and Friends:
Thank you all for taking the time out of your busy schedules to come to our baby shower. We enjoyed seeing everyone and hope everyone had a good time. We sure did!
Also, many THANKS to all the great gifts! We are so grateful to have such wonderful family and friends! Everything will come in handy! I can't wait to put Nathan in all the clothes and have him play with all the toys!
-Jon & Glo
p.s. I hope everyone ate because we have a lot of Panda leftovers!

California Wildfires...what is the world coming to??

OK, so here is my first blog in my life so if its utterly boring and cheesy, then TOO BAD! :)

So I started my day waking up at 4:45am and leave the house by 5:15am(ish). I hop on the road and my daily ritual of listening to Kevin and Bean or that annoy a$$ Adam Corolla. But today I went with Kevin and Bean. As Lisa May reports on the traffic, I noticed that she mentioned that there were a bunch of road closures and one of which is the toll roads that I take every morning, 241. I was hoping she would say the northbound 241, but to my dismay, it was for both sides. Lisa May didn't seem too bothered by the fact that there were brush fires and what not, so I just went my normal route thinking that maybe when I get closer to the 241, it would be reopened.

I get on the 71 South (moooooooooo!!) and probably a mile before I hit the 91, traffic started and it was definitely busier than normal. After chugging along the 91, I am getting closer to the 241, but lanes getting to that freeway have already been blocked off along with a cop car sitting in between the lanes with its lights twirling. I then used the navigation to help with my route. I knew that I could probably get off on Imperial Highway, make a right, get on the 57 South to make my way to work, but the navi told me to make a left so I did it. After driving a good 15 miles, it wanted me to make a left on some street. "Make a left turn in 500 feet". Turns out there are cops there and they wouldn't let anyone through. I pass that along with a good 5 or 6 other routes that the navi wanted me to go, but they were ALL blocked by officers due to the fires. So, just a few seconds before saying screw it, I'm driving back home...I find an entrance to the 5 freeway and from there it was slow moving to work.

I get to work and do my thing, turns out that a good 75% of the employees were not even going to be in and had issues getting into the office. Our CIOs secretary tells me to go to one of the offices to look at how close the smoke is to us and I took a few snapshots of it. The picture on the very top is the shot I took in my friends office. At around 11am, I end up not wanting to stay since it would probably take me YEARS to get back home so I am about to leave when the company decided to close the facility and have everyone go home. I leave as fast as I can, but there was somewhat of a traffic jam in our parking lot since everyone is going at the same time.
So the last piece of my story is, as I'm driving down Bake street, I notice 6 or 7 MTA buses escorted by several police motorcycles and a few vans all loaded with sheriffs officers. They get on the 5 South as well and I'm thinking, what is going on in there?? Must be some high-profile criminal that they are escorting. So I turn on KFWB 980 (traffic on the 1's), they said that they are moving the prisoners out of some jail that is close to the brush fires.

The arsonist that caused these fires will find himself/herself or themselves in one of those facilities soon enough.

The search continues...

Why is it so hard for Jon and me to find a home? I think it's because of our pickiness and our indecisiveness. The house is too old....the floor plan is weird....there are not enough bathrooms.... the lot is not big enough....we want a pool....it's too expensive. These are some the common complaints coming from the both of us. By now, our friends and family must be tired of hearing this from us. =) Well, anyhow, we just met with our agent, and we just made an offer on yet another house. We are giving the buyer 3 business days to accept our offer or to counteroffer our offer, so we shall see in a couple of days...

Tea time with cousins

On Saturday, my cousins and I went to Chado Tea Room in Old Town Pas for some tea and sandwiches. It was very nice catching up with Stephanie, Julia and Nina, and the food was great! I definitely recommend this place for a girls day out. =)

Whatta dodo bird

Shadow loooooves tennis balls. I caught him trying to steal one.

This arrangement is yummy!

Instead of flowers, Jon sent an Edible Arrangement to my work! This is the first time he's ever sent me one of these, and it's yummeeee! I've been munching on it the whole morning. =)

Can't believe it's been 2 years

For our 2nd wedding anniversary, we went back to the Ritz-Carlton for dinner. After dinner, we decided to walk through the Japanese garden and guess who we saw?! Kavan! Our wedding photographer! What a coincidence...

When should I go on maternity leave?

My due date should be 12-17-07 based on my LMP, but based on Nathan's size, I'm due on 11-28-07. So, today, when I went to my doctor for my checkup, I asked my doc when I should leave work. He suggested the beginning of December. So I guess just because Nathan is big, it doesn't mean that he is due earlier. I suppose that makes sense. He has to be ready! So, now whenever people ask me when I'm due, I don't know what to say. =) I think I'm going to tell my boss that I will take off on 12-1-07 and come back in 3 months.

Oh yea...boo...I need to watch what I eat. Even though I've gained about 25 pounds so far (which is average), my weight gain these past 2 weeks was higher than average, so my doc told me to watch what I eat or else I will be getting a lecture from him the next time I see him (in another 2 weeks). On a lighter note, I did pass my glucose tolerance test. =)

Shad's getting the boot

Once the baby is born, Shad is going to be an outdoor dog. =( He is a big dog and when overly excited, he can potentially be dangerous.

This is a picture of him all nice and comfortable in his crate in the family room on his bolster bed. He's going to hate being outside.

I think we are probably going to have to slowly wean him outside. He'll be fine during the day, but I think he'll have problems during the night. I'm guessing he'll bark and whine non-stop until we come downstairs to get him. Hope the neighbors won't call the Human Society on us like they did with Brandon.

Flu Shot and Bummer

Jon received the flu shot this past Saturday and now the poor guy has a cold! From reading the CDC wesbite, the most the flu shot will cause is a sore throat! He received the dead virus vaccine in the arm instead of the live virus vaccine up the nose. Anyhow, he's now sleeping on the floor on an extra bed we have. It was weird when I found him there in the middle of the night. When I asked him where he found the blanket, he told me he got it from my paren'ts bed. Good thing my parents are in Taiwan!

Work has been going well. With my promotion at the beginning of the month, my workload has increased, but not to the point that I'm totally stressed out. I barely have any OT...coming in at 9:30am, taking a 30 minute lunch, and leaving at 6pm is my day to day schedule. To the right is a picture of my shelf in my office. Those folders are reconciliations that I still have left to review...down from the 769 that I review each month!

Oh yea! To all the Prison Break fans out there...were you just as sad as I was when you found out that the writers killed off Sara! I was so bummed out for the rest of the episode.

Looking for a few good people...

Indymac offered a voluntary severance package last month, and I had one person in my staff take it. Nice deal if you ask me. One month of pay for every year you have worked here. IMO, I can't see myself volunteering to sever myself from my job...well...maybe if it was 12 months of pay! Anyhow, in addition to her leaving, I have one other person transferring to another group. So...I have two open spots. If anyone is looking to work at Indymac Bank or knows of anyone, please foward me their resumes! These are for Senior Analyst positions in the General Accounting department!