Dinner at Bruxie, All Kinds Of Fun Ensued.

New Year's Resolution #3: Plan more dinner dates with friends.

I didn't waste time--we had our first dinner date a couple of weekends ago with our friends Amberie and Sam at Bruxie, where they make delicious waffle sandwiches. Our stomachs were content and our hearts were happy because we got to spend time with this fantastic couple and their 6-month-old, William. Let's not talk about how Clarke is almost 10 months old and is smaller than his little buddy W...genetics, ugh. Sorry, Clarke! ;) Cheers to dinner with friends! It's like spending time with family away from home.

Christmas Advent Calendar: Day 8

We were originally going ice skating, but then we were invited to an Ugly Christmas Sweater party at Franco's school-friend's house. We bought our ugly sweaters at Goodwill, set up a babysitter, and had us some delicious dinner and fun with fellow classmates. Yup. Much more fun than paying too much to ice skate in a tiny fake rink in the middle of Southern California.

{instagram: @anniecastrejon}

Autumn-Themed Outdoor Dinner Party

Mike & Nichole

Kristen & Joel

Andy & Levi

Husband Franco & Me

I've wanted to start monthly, rotating, themed dinner parties with some friends for a while now, but never took the initiative to plan one. Finally, while talking about it with my friend Nichole in August, I committed to host the first one at the end of September. I designed invitations, letting the elegant gold script font set the tone for the rest of the party. Nichole and I pinterest-ed our ideas and put them all together at what I call a dinner party success!

 The conversation was lively. The food was delicious. The night was magical. We caught up with old friends, and made new ones. It was a night to remember and I look forward to repeating it!

Dinner Party Details:

Invitations: 

      Designed by me.

Where: 

      Right outside our triplex building in our long cement driveway. It was a perfect location for it since it was close to our front door--to ferry the warm food in and out--and the weather was just right. (I wish we had thought to remove the trash cans so they wouldn't be in the background of the top picture...)

Decor:

      I rented the white folding chairs and two white rectangle tablecloths from one of the many inexpensive party rental places here in Pomona. We used two folding tables and put them together to form one long table. Everything else on the table came from my party decoration collection, from the milk glass vases to the mason jars to the bamboo place mats my friend brought me from Thailand. Nichole put the finishing touches by adding the bejeweled napkin rings, the "Love" tags on the jars, the battery-powered candles, and the pine cones. I bought the plates, flatware, and napkins from Target. The stripey straws are from Garnish.

Centerpieces: The big bouquet of flowers is from Trader Joe's. I grouped different colorful vegetables for the other centerpieces, a less expensive and useful alternative to flowers. And I got to cook with them afterwards.

Food:

    appetizers // 

      -amazing bruschetta (by Nichole)

      -greek olives

      -brie & crackers garnished with fresh figs

      -ham

    drinks //

      -Izze sodas

      -homemade lemonade

    main dishes //

      -rosemary & thyme roasted chicken

      -roasted fingerling potatoes

      -steamed haricot verts

      -strawberry spinach salad with vinaigrette (by Nichole)

    dessert //

      -strawberry popovers (prepared by Kristen)

      -ice cream cones (by Mike & Nichole)

Photography by Mike and Nichole

all food was prepared by me, with help from the other guests. for most of the recipes, see my pinterest board "dinner parties."

*Thank you, Mike & Nichole, Joel & Kristen, Levi & Andy, and Franco for coming and helping out! Hope you had as much fun as we did. xo

A Name...

Jonathan Clarke Castrejon was blessed last Sunday here in Chino Hills. We were very fortunate to have most of our family there, as well as a few friends. Baby cried during the blessing, but it didn't retract from the sweet spirit that was there as Franco blessed our first child. Clarke, as we're going to call him, is already an integral part of our family and we're incredibly lucky to have him! He doesn't recognize it right now, but we feel the love and joy our family and friends have for him every day! Thank you for choosing to come into our family, baby Clarke!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easter Snippets from Instagram.

Hope your Easter was special!

I'm nervous to travel farther out than my county area being that I'm now what they call "full-term" and baby boy could arrive any day! (Not that I'm expecting him to come early but it would be nice if he did.) So we had planned to spend Easter Sunday just the two of us. But then my family decided to make the trek to us so we got to enjoy them for a short but wonderful day!

Snippets of our Easter Sunday:
01. sunflowers make everything brighter!
02. my three siblings (minus Charlie) reading a little before dinner
03. my mom busy in the kitchen
04. dinner: fish tacos, deviled eggs, salad, fresh guacamole & chips, and matzo ball soup! Yum!
05. our friends the Jensen's moved back to southern California and visited us with their two girls. We're so happy to have them closeby again.
06. pardon my casual dress (I changed right after church)--me, boy, & grandma Julia

Have a great week!

Rewind: Back To School, Ring The Bell. I Can Tell That We Are Gonna Be Friends.

In the next little while, I will be "rewinding" a bit to post about events which occurred in the past 6 months or so. Bear with me while I catch up! 

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Rewind: Western University: The Early Months

September & October 2011 

First years get to do vision screenings!

Franco's first patient!

Franco's caption: "Having fun with optics."
My caption: "What a dork." ;)

Franco & classmates doing vision screenings at an elementary school

What a relaxed doctor he'll make.

Out to lunch with a bunch of his classmates!

Nichole & I cheering our husbands on at a WUCO basketball tournament against SCCO, their rival school in Fullerton.

They got third place! Not too shabby.

Franco is loving optometry school. He made it through the first semester, and now he's more than halfway done with the second! I'm so proud of him. He spends most of his time at lectures, which sometimes he elects to watch at home since they video tape them and post them online. I don't even know how much he reads and studies; it amounts to over 60 hours a week, except Sundays. Kudos to those who have such a determined attention span (says the lady who has trouble remembering what happened this morning...or twenty minutes ago).

Something that really helps is having such a supportive and close-knit relationship with his classmates. They joke around, help each other out, and encourage each other through everything. I've met a lot of the students in his class and they are truly great people! Western really is the perfect school for us. I'm glad Franco has a support group besides me that cares about him and wants to see him succeed.

Back in the beginning of October, WUCO played a basketball tournament against SCCO, their rival school in Fullerton. Franco's "dream team" almost won second place--it was an intense game that went into four overtimes, I think. Oh, well. We'll get them next year!

One Pregnancy Post A Week: Le Belly Fotos.

 

 

I told myself I wouldn't take or post pictures of my weekly pregnancy progress--the self-shot photos of me standing in front of a door/closet/window/wall would not be flattering...so I was happy and grateful when Nichole, a fellow WUCO wife and friend, offered to take some pictures of my little 6 month belly at the Santa Monica Pier. These are some of my favorites, though Nichole posted a few more on her blog. As it was an impromptu shoot, I'm glad I at least wore something that matched!

p.s. the sunset was as beautiful as it looks. And this was during the middle of January...I just love southern California.

Previous Pregnancy Posts

The Last Little Bit Of Summer.

I have had no desire to blog these past couple of weeks. Funny, because I thought that working from home and having virtually nothing else to do during the day would give me ample time to do it. But when it's 107° outside and the pool is right there calling your name, you wouldn't have any desire to stay cooped up in front of a computer all day either.

I do spend a lot of time on the computer, but it's mostly to edit pictures I've taken with my sis-in-law's borrowed Canon 40D & lenses (she is so nice to let me borrow it until I find my own camera, I'm so picky!). If I won't make time to share individual posts with you about each outing, at least I'll share a few pictures.

The first pictures are from the weekly local farmer's market when I went last week with my friend Brianne and her son. Lincoln loved the splash pad and it made for some cute pictures!

My brothers & sister came out last week for a few days, one last shindig before school started. We went to Downtown Disney to eat some heavenly beignet's and then cooled down inside the Grand California Hotel's lobby. We spent the rest of their stay at the pool, at the shops, and watching Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix.

I've taken a couple of day trips to new places with new friends, too, like a really cool park in Irvine that has a mini train station. How cute is that?

Have a fun and sunny Labor Day weekend! I'm going to try to convince Franco that 87° really isn't that hot so we can finally go to Disneyland on Monday. Cross your fingers for me! (Though if it doesn't work out, I'm still holding out for October 10, Columbus Day.)