Happy Thanksgiving!!

Wishing you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving. Have a wonderful day and night with all your love ones.

This year, we are spending it here at home just the 3 of us, as we are all sick with food poisoning. Briana and I have been sick since Monday and George since yesterday. So I will try to make a light bland dinner for the three of us.

Thought I would share some fun facts of Thanksgiving that I found interesting. Enjoy.

*Americans feast on 535 million pounds of turkey on Thanksgiving.

*According the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than 45 million turkeys are cooked and eaten in the United States at Thanksgiving. That number represents one sixth of all the turkeys sold in the U.S. each year!

*Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be our national bird.

*Domesticated turkeys cannot fly, however wild turkeys can fly up to 55 miles per hour over short distances.

*Only male (tom) turkeys gobble. Females make a clicking noise. The famous gobble is actually a seasonal mating call.

*The heaviest turkey ever raised weighed in at 86 pounds – about the size of a German Shepherd! (But turkeys are normally not used as police animals.)

*A turkey under 16 weeks of age is called a fryer. A five to seven month old turkey is called a roaster.

*The Turkey Trot, a ballroom dance in the 1900s, was named for the short, jerky steps of the turkey. It became popular mainly because it was denounced by the Vatican as "suggestive."

*Turkeys are known to spend the night in trees! (Maybe to escape the Thanksgiving table?)

*Turkeys can drown if they look up when it's raining!

*A turkey's field of vision is 270 degrees--one of the main reasons they're able to elude some hunters.

*The average age of the Mayflower passenger was 32. The oldest Mayflower passenger was 64.

*There was no milk, cheese, bread, butter or pumpkin pie at the original Thanksgiving Day feast.

*Contrary to popular belief, the Pilgrims did not have big buckles on their clothing, shoes, or hats.

*Buckles did not come into fashion until the late 1600s – more appropriate for the Salem Witchcraft trial time period.

*The cranberry got its name because the pale pink blossoms on the plant resembled a crane’s head and neck. The name cranberry stuck, eventually becoming cranberry.

*Fresh cranberries are ideal for cranberry sauce. Cranberries of the highest quality will always bounce! (If you try this at home, please wash the cranberries before eating.)

*President Abraham Lincoln established the original date for our National Thanksgiving Day celebration in 1863.

*President Thomas Jefferson scoffed at the idea of establishing a national “Thanksgiving Day.”

*Congress did not declare Thanksgiving a national holiday until 1941.

*The average person consumes 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving Day. (Now that's a lot of turkey!)

Thank you for visiting my pad. {HUGS}

Fire Story

Thank you everyone for all the prayers and thoughts you have said for us. I am happy to say our house is fine. This is something that we will never forget.

Lets start the day of the fire. Saturday November 15th.

I had woke up very early for a Saturday and so did Briana. I was up at 5am and Briana at 6:30 am. We were in the office/bonus room, Briana playing and I was on the the internet. We waited til George got up around 9am. It was a great morning, we were all laying in bed watching cartoons. We decided to go downstairs to get breakfast and get our day going. I was going to wrap my friends/next door neighbor little boys birthday gift for the party in the afternoon. All of sudden, the door bell rings like crazy, it was one of our neighbors advising us to leave now. We were in shock when we saw what was going on. When I opened the blinds from the kitchen to see our backyard, it was full of smoke. Less than a minute later the firemen and policemen were at our door giving us less than 2 minutes to leave. I grabbed Briana and her little stuffed puppy, a suitcase and just throw somethings in there for all three of us, George got Balty (the cat), all of our computers. We left in both cars, our street was full of firetrucks, ambulances and policemen.We meet up by the new Sports Park down the street from us and see what the game plan was. While we were just sitting and watching the flames and smoke around our house, we prayed to God that our house was going to be okay and got the camera to take some pictures, at first George was getting upset with me, til he realized this was my sort of savior, it kept me occupied.

I called my brother-George to let him know what was going on, he lives in Las Vegas and he is our emergency contact. He then called everyone and everyone called us on our cells, offering there home. The only problem with going to any of there homes was they were in Riverside, Corona, Mira Loma, Redlands and all the roads, freeways we had to take to get to them were all shut down. We could of gone to Georges moms house, but it was an hour away and really, we wanted to stay as close to the house as possible. In the late afternoon, we did stay at one of our friends moms house for a few house. She was great and provided us with whatever we wanted. But, she only had a small TV and it was in her bedroom, so we felt a little lost and a little awkward staying there. So we decided it was best for us to go to a hotel where we can see the news and be a little more comfortable. We did not get much sleep, George kept going to the fire area every 2 hours, at one time he went to the house at 2:30am. Briana all night kept saying she wanted to go home, she would not fall asleep, as soon as she did she would wake-up to say she wanted to go home, it just broke my heart more. I just kept tossing and turning and watching the news and at times found myself crying.

Sunday, November 16th --Day 2

We got up, showered, and checked out of the hotel at 10am. My friend, next door neighbor called me to tell me they were heading to the Evacuation Center in Brea. We met up there. We checked in to the American Red Cross and they gave us some information. We met with the La Habra Police Chaplin-Caleb Beller, he gave us all the information about our house and the area. We had a section with our neighbors, we just all sat around and watched the kids play and we watched the news. At lunch time, we were provided with food from the Olive Garden, Pizza Hut, and other local restaurants. Ralphs supermarket provided all the water, sodas, coffee, apple juice, orange, juices. Brea volunteers were great with the kids, they gave them coloring books with crayons, balloons, toys. You name it they provided it to all of us. At around mid afternoon, George was coughing so much more than the other day. I convinced him to have the Red Cross Health doctors check him out. They said he was wheezing a lot and they call his doctor and told George to go see him at Urgent Care. A doctor saw him and told him he now has Asthma and gave home an inhaler.

At around 5pm we were allowed back to our house. We all got up and rushed home. I was so happy to see my home all in one piece. Within less than 5 mins all of our neighbors arrived, we all gather together and just hugged one another and made sure we were alright. This fire was really to close for comfort for all of us. Firefighters pass by every hour to check the hill behind our house and to check up on us. When I saw one of the firetrucks coming toward us, I ran inside and grabbed some things to give to them. We gave them a 5lb bag of coffee to take with them and gave them cold water bottles and thanked them for their services. They were so grateful, we made their day, the guy we gave the coffee to apparently is a coffee addict.....LOL!. I remember the firetruck said Presidio of Monterey, which I have no clue where that is.

When checking around the area and backyard, we realized how close we came to losing our home, winds were up to 50 miles and just one little ember would of destroyed our home and our tract. We are grateful and thankful for all the prayers everyone did for our family and to all the firefighters that came from all over of California. I remember seeing firefighters from the City of El Monte, Glendale, Santa Ana, El Segundo, Lodi, Montery, Stanton, Stanislaus, Carmel Valley, many of them came from Northern California.

At night, I made a nice home cooked meal and we watched the news. I went around the house spraying some Fabreze to get some of the smoke smell from inside the house. We ran the a/c for a long time, recommend by the fire department. We had no phone or DSL connections. After a while, we went to bed.

Monday, November 17th --Day 3

This day, I had mixed emotions one minute full of gratefulness next minute full of anger and sadness. Six years ago today, I lost our baby boy Adrian. I had planned on going to the cemetery this day to place some balloons and flowers. Sadly, I was not able to go. I will go once we get things back to normal. Instead of going to the cemetery, we ended up cleaning up all the ashes and debris from the backyard, wash down the outside of the house, clean the windows and figure out a way to get the smokey smell from inside of the house. We were also trying to get some information from the phone company to see when our lines will be up and running, they told us one of the poles got damaged with the fire and it will take a few more days or worst case scenario until the 24th....OMG! I freaked out, told them we have a home business, so if there is anything they can do would be great. George was able to go to the Community Center and use their WiFi and get some e-mails out to our clients. I was able to leave a outgoing announcement on the companies voicemail advising them of the situation and left our cell numbers for them to contact us.

All through out the day, we would hear and see the firemen come down the street to refuel the truck with water by the fire hydrants. We also saw them cleaning up and checking for any hot spots in the hill behind us. It was a very long day for them.

Tuesday, November 18th --Day 4

A little back to normal, we finally got our phone and DSL lines back up in the late afternoon. Was able to reply to some e-mails and get some work out to our clients. Did some laundry and errands. I did go around the neighborhood to check out the aftermath and was able to take some pictures. The police still has Carbon Canyon closed, only residents can pass by to check their homes. Some homes up in the canyon were damaged or a total lost, my heart goes out to them, many of them are elderly and have lived in their home for well over 20 years. Firefighters are still passing by our street to check up on things and refuel by the fire hydrants.

It has begun, solicitors are all out in full force. Duct cleaners, Air purifier salesmen, Power washers, window cleaners, Fire Restoration companies. Argh!

Well I will leave you for now, we are just exhausted, stressed, have a headache, and i am tired.

I will be back with some pictures.

Presenting The President and Vice President

The polls are closed, the votes are counted, and the verdict is in : Barack Obama will be our 44th President of the United States, and the first African American president in the country's history and Joseph R. Biden, will be the first Roman Catholic Vice President.

With a campaign that focused so much on change, lets what happens now in 2009.

Election Day

Are you ready to be part of history this Election Day? Who will be our next US President.


The 2008 election is the first time in U.S. history that two sitting senators are running against each other for president and the first time an African American is a presidential nominee for a major party-Democrate, as well as the first time both major candidates were born outside the continental United States—Hawaii for Obama and the Pnanama Canal Zone for McCain. Since the Republican nominee for vice-president is a woman, Governor Sarah Palin, the eventual winning ticket is very likely to be historic, as neither an African American nor a female has achieved either office. In addition, the Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, would be the oldest first-term president and the Democratic nominee for Vice-President, Senator Joseph Biden, would be the first Roman Catholic vice president.

Regardless of what party you support or who you are voting for, the most important thing today is to take time to vote.