Reader Peter and Camille Kay

I miss my good friends Reade and Camille and one of my ways to see what was going on in their life was by their blog....but they went private and I don't think they got my E-mail address...so if you read this Camille or Reade please send me an invite.... I would love to see what is going on in your life. And....Camille I miss you cutting my hair....ever since I met you, nobody can compare to your talent and ability to make me happy with my hair. I have had 3 very bad haircuts since we have moved away from each other. We miss you and Sandy misses your girls...Molly and Tika!! We will be out in June as you read....I would love to get together and see your family. I still need to meet little Paisley too. Alright my e-mail address is nibaws2@hotmail.com I hope to hear from you...

It's time to seal the deal...

Alright so I guess after almost 4 years of being together.....Travis and I have decided that we like each other enough to seal the deal in the Temple. I am just kidding.... well not about actually getting sealed. We were married by the Bishop of my home ward in Wheatfield Indiana on June 11th 2005 and have not looked back since. So we are going to go through the Salt Lake City Temple on June 11th at 11:00 am. We are both very excited and just wanted everyone to know that it will very soon be official in the way that counts!!! YAY!!!

Where's Grandma....

So we have a lot of traditions with my Fernandez family.....and it all started with my Grandma Narcie. My dad is one of 3 kids and we always as long as I can remember get together on Christmas Eve. Every year plays out pretty much the same too......it goes a little something like this. Now Grandma was not feeling well this Christmas and decided to stay home despite all of our best efforts to get her to the party.

Every year my Uncle Larry makes his amazing Italian sausage and we have our tamales and tacos, deviled eggs ,mashed potatoes and gravy. We also had lasagna and a ham and my Aunt Kathryn made some deliscious funeral potatoes, let me just say there was a ton of food!!! Now after dinner it is a requirement that every person in the house be wearing some kind of head gear...antlers, santa hat, snowflakes, or the bah humbug hat. Once everyone has a hat and is settled in one room.....my cousin David grabs his Guitar or Piano....whichever he decides to bring and we sing every Christmas song known to man before we open our presents. Not just one verse.....every verse of every song!!!! And my Grandma loves it.....but she wasn't there this year (evil laugh) so we only sang half of the songs Woo-Hoo!!!! My nephew Noah performed Rudolph the Red Nosed Reinder too, I will see if I can post that video later....it was so cute.....I loved it!!! After the songs are done we do a gift exchange game between the Girls and then the Boys. Then come the sweaters from my grandma....she sure does know how to find a good sweater. And we ended the evening with my dad saying
" I am going to pack up my sausage and go"
Oh dad...that was the quote of my trip to Indiana...you better believe we gave him a hard time about that at leat he wasn't packing my Uncle Larry's sausage...oh wait he was...hehehe

Oh man do I love the Fernandez Family Traditions.....I can't wait till next year when we can do it all over again. I will say though I would much rather have Grandma there....even if we have to sing every verse of every song. I sure did miss having her there and seeing the joy in her face, having all of the family together and listening to them sing. We may not be a big family but there sure is a lot of love !!!

Feliscia my sis

Theme for this Christmas: Excellent portrayal Josh

My very talented cousin David....who's wife Mary is expecting a baby soon!!!

2nd cousins David and Noah

Which of these does not belong?

Good ol' days...

Every year around Christmas when kids are in town and spirits are high, my mom's family get's together. My mom is one of 12 kids....so as you can imagine we need a pretty good size house to get together in. THANKS AUNT SHARON!!!!! Now when my mom's family meets up there is crazy good food and crazy good fun. I only wish we could get together more often. I can remember the good ol' days before half of them moved to Oklahoma. We would head up to see them almost every weekend after church. Luckily with this visit I got to see the Bailey family...which I haven't seen in about 3 years.....CRAZY!!! They came in from Oklahoma....for a funeral, which is sad and they are in my prayers, but I am happy I finally got to see them. They came to my mom's house the next day and we had boring game of pictionary (only because my dad is a cheater....cough...cough and the totally slautered us!!!!) and an intense game of Catch Phrase. I sure do miss getting to see my family every weekend. My family is constantly changing.....I don't know how long I can keep up with it. Anyways....it was so nice to be able to spend time with everyone and reminisce of the good ol' days.

Sweet cute Jade my little buddy.....Shauna's daughter.....scroll down

Tommy and Matt.....from the Oki crew

Cousin Shauna......from the Oki crew

Aunt Mari....from the Oki crew

Cousin Katie's daughter Gracie

Cousin Caitlin

My cousin Brandy

My cousin Katie and her mom Aunt Sandy

Savanah?.......Savanah?.....

Alright so my sister Savanah is getting Sealed in March at the Chicago Temple and we decided to head up north to do some wedding shopping....try on some dresses, look at some tux ideas and try and narrow down the color scheme. So Savanah, Katie(cousin) and her daughter Gracie, Feliscia and myself headed to Merriville. It was all very exciting except that we left like 4 hours late(BOO). Well Savanah has a tradition of Taking Noah(nephew) and Tanner(Katie's son) to Chucke Cheese on her visits home....so she had this awesome idea that her fiancee could bring them up to meet us when we were done with wedding things...well Savanah found her dress (had them hold it for her) and the boys met us at Chucke Cheese....then Savanah wanted to go and buy her dress right then so she did. Katie, Josh and I entertained the kids for what we thought would be like 20 minutes. The stores are in the same strip mall....well Savanah was there to greet the boys and then she was there to give them a ride home...I will say though I sure did enjoy her tradition....maybe I will even get credit for it.

Tanner and Gracie....he loves his little sis!!!!

Noah and Tanner best buds

Savanah me and Feliscia at David's Bridal....we had the worst associate helping us...she was so bossy and Savanah had pictures of what dress she wanted and the lady didn't even look at them she just did her own thing...but either way Savanah found her dress....YAY!!!!

Savanah, me and Feliscia at the Tux shop

Fun at the Movies

So every time I go home to Indiana I take Cheyenne, a flower girl from my wedding, and Noah, my nephew, to a movie and to McDonalds play place. This time we saw The Tales of Despereaux. My mom went with us and was gracious enough to take some pictures for us while we were waiting. Then just as the movie was starting my brother josh surprised us....he is so clever. After the movie we made an extra stop at Jamba Juice and had some orange dream machines...mmmmmmmmm!!!! Noah and Cheyenne had a blast at McDonalds and I had to peel them away from the play place to get her home at a descent hour.....all in all a great tradition that I plan on carrying on for as long as I can. Well I will have to find something other than the play place in a few years.

Do you like my sweater?

Alright so before we headed out to Indiana....Travis' work had a wonderful Christmas party everyone was supposed to wear ugly sweaters, then we would be judged and there would be a winner announced and a prize. Travis and I got lost on the way to this party and just about everyone was there when we walked in. Much to our surprise we were the only two wearing ugly sweaters although one person did show up after us in a pretty ugly sweater. We had fun at the thrift store picking our sweaters and took some pictures of the best ones. I would see such an ugly sweater and try it on and much to my surprise....I would like them...kinda. What fun.... well one of us won the ugly sweater competition and $20 (both sweaters only cost us $6 awesome)...can you guess who it was. I don't think you will have much trouble!!!!!