Ring In The New Year!

 We feel so blessed to have spent another year together! It's possible we are more in love than ever. And now we have another little soul with whom to share our everlasting love. Too many blessings to count. 

Happy 2013 to you!

Yuletide With The Castrejons, Part III

Christmas day with my family was so relaxing. We had a handmade Christmas gift exchange, and it was so fun to see the thoughtfulness each family member put into their gifts for the other person. I was able to build my dad a website for his music, and had business cards printed for him to pass out at conventions and shows and stuff. After enjoying a delicious breakfast while listening to Luke 2 (the Christmas story in the Bible), gift-exchanging, and game-playing, we took a quick family portrait because my eldest brother Charlie had to work at Golf-N-Stuff. Boo. But otherwise, it was a beautiful day.

The First Day Of Christmas: Get A Christmas Tree

Well, hello December! Our family is excited to celebrate the season with a new (to us) tradition: an advent calendar of activities throughout the month of December, from now until Christmas. I'll do my best to document and post about our activities each day!

It was Clarke's first time seeing a Christmas tree and when he saw it all lit up, his eyes got huge and he couldn't stop smiling. I think babies especially can feel the spirit of Christmas so strong. The joy is incredibly apparent in their expressions and excitement. I love experiencing things like this because it's as though I'm experiencing it for the first time! Are you doing an advent calendar this year? Or are you following any other traditions with your family?

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: Sweet November.

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: Thanksgiving Break

November 2011

By the middle of November, I was feeling closer to a normal person, having passed the dreaded first trimester. When Thanksgiving break hit, I was ready to make up for some of the things I'd been missing the last few months!

• Disneyland! We had only used our passes twice in the two months we'd had them, so on the day before Thanksgiving we took the whole day off and enjoyed our time at the Magic Kingdom. I think the whole day we only went on a few rides because of the ridiculous lines, but we were also able to do a lot of things we normally don't do because of time.

 

 

 

 

• We had found out the gender of our baby the day before, and naturally, the first people we wanted to tell (besides family) were the Disney princesses! Okay, not really. But they were excited when we told them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Boudin Bakery in California Adventure. You can eat soup out of their heavenly sourdough bread bowl which we'd had a chance to try when we were in San Fran a couple of years before. It's our favorite place to eat when we go. I usually get the clam chowder while Franco loves their broccoli & cheese.

 

 

• I hadn't seen Fantasmic! in a decade or longer, so we braved the crowds and sat waiting for over an hour for the show to start. It was just like I remembered! And right after, it magically started to snow!

 

 

 

• After a full day at Disney, we got home just as my family arrived from Camarillo to spend Thanksgiving day with us. The only thing I requested for my birthday was my mom's chiles rellenos. I ate them like a starving pregnant lady. Which I was.

 

• My siblings made me a homemade cheesecake (my favorite dessert) and I blew out the candles. Happy 25th birthday to me!

 

• We had a surprise visit from my cousins Ed & Rachel who were in town visiting relatives in Redlands, about 45 minutes away, so we had them over for a brunch of Trader Joe's aebleskivers. Then we took a little family picture.

 

It was the best Thanksgiving, and I couldn't have asked for a better birthday!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope you had a happy Valentine's day!

I set my alarm clock earlier than usual (7:30 am. Yes, that's earlier than usual for us) so I could get up and prepare the little surprise I had for Franco. I printed out love notes to Franco, "I love the way...", and attached them to heart balloons I bought the day before. Then I crept back into our bedroom with the bouquet of balloons and let them float to the ceiling above our bed. The noise woke him up, and he smiled as he realized what they were. That was my little "gift" to my Valentine--simple!

We had wheat pancakes, scrambled egg whites, bacon, and a bowl of fruit for breakfast in bed, while watching "The Cutting Edge", a movie we've seen a hundred times! I don't know what happened, but we went back to sleep and didn't get up until noon! It was a perfect morning.



After we got ready for the day, we had a lunch date at In-N-Out (which we hadn't had since October!) and I went to work for a couple of hours. When Franco picked me up and we got home, it took me about half an hour before I noticed something taped to my computer screen. It was a map of our apartment! There was an 'X' marking the spot where our refrigerator sits, and I went to look for whatever it was Franco had hidden there. Franco was smiling and watching as I did this. Inside the freezer, all the way in the back, was a Haagen-Dazs pint of butter pecan ice cream! My favorite! To it was attached another map with another 'X', this time marking the dresser in our bedroom. In it I found a new wireless mouse (I'd been hinting about needing a new one for a few weeks) and a lovely note Franco had written. Somehow, his notes always make me cry, as this one did, so I knew it wasn't because of pregnancy hormones.

Since it was Tuesday, I had a youth activity at church, so Franco decided to come along. I couldn't have asked for a better way to celebrate heart's day. I don't need a fancy dinner, sparkly jewelry, or even a bouquet of flowers. Just give me a day to spend with my love and I'm happy!

Another Beginning.

Happy New Year!

January is here, believe it or not, and we're back in the regular routine of school, work, and normal life. We spent a wonderful Christmas with our families here in California, and then drove to Utah to spend the week after with my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. It was the first trip to Utah where Franco and I were able to have a day just to ourselves to explore--it was awesome!

We had a late lunch in Salt Lake at Gourmandise, a French bakery & restaurant highly recommended by my cousins Ed and Rachel, followed by our first-ever visit inside the beautiful and huge Salt Lake temple. Wow! doesn't even begin to describe the detail in each room, not to mention the endless hallways, stairways, and rooms. We're grateful we could always ask a helpful temple worker which way to go or we very well could still be there trying to find a way out!

Despite the 12-hour-long drives to and from (which should have taken us only 8 hours...) it was a successful and relaxing trip. To our surprise, my family threw me a little baby shower luncheon and our baby boy received so many adorable clothes, blankets, and even some tiny mittens! I'm officially addicted to cute baby clothes. I may or may not have just spent the last few hours hunting for vintage rompers (rompers!) and cardigans on Etsy. It's a curse! But a curse I'm glad to have.

Franco and my mutual goals are simple this year: read the scriptures together daily, attend the temple at least once a month, and prepare our home and our hearts for the third little member of our family coming April 2012. Here's to a fantastical year!

It's Christmas Time!...What?!

Our mini-tree in the living room.

Above it is a crocheted stocking I ventured to make a few weeks ago. 

It's a little wonky but it serves its purpose!

Hi, friends!

I just wanted to pop in and wish you all a Merry Christmas! And a Happy New Year since I probably won't be blogging next week either. Being 800 miles away from home in a very snowy place surrounded by family and friends is probably not the ideal situation to update the blog.

Here's to family, friends, love, peace, joy, and the true Christmas spirit--the Spirit of Christ! See you next year!

love,

Anelieze & Franco

It's A Gray Day But Inside I'm All Sunshine.

Hello, Friday!

Did you have a great week? We did, too. On Tuesday, Franco and I found the best pupuseria in Pomona and I'm still thinking about how good those pupusas were. We ate there in honor of Franco's mom Clara Luz's birthday because she is the best pupusa-maker.(Pupusas are cheesy, fried, and Salvadorian. Need I say more?)

I'm really looking forward to tonight, the weekend, and all next week which will be filled with friends, family, Disneyland, food, traveling, and something else quite exciting which I will share with you later. So let the fun begin! Happy Thanksgiving!

Going Backwards.

I guess I'll start from the most recent happenings and work my way back. I'm tempted to start here and just go forward, but there are events I'd like to include in this blog, even if they happened two, three, or more months ago.

Brief updates about persons involved:

Anelieze: working very part time doing light office work for North American Health Care, Inc. • getting back into the groove of graphic design/photography after a brief sabbatical (or three months of complete laziness, whatever you want to call it) • serving in Young Women's at church as the secretary and loving it • going to Disneyland as often as our schedule and annual passes permit • planning early (or trying to!) for the holidays

Franco: studying morning til night every day (except blessed, relaxing Sunday) at optometry school and home • going to garage sales early Saturday mornings to search for legos • eating, sleeping, and trying to stay sane amidst all of the pressures of medical school; but he's doing great!

For Halloween we dressed up as a cop & robber. I had planned out my costume almost a week in advance, but Franco's was done in an hour and cost a total of $3. We made a great pair =)

Raise Your Joys And Triumphs High.

The centerpiece for this year's Easter dinner was simple: glass jars and vases, fresh flowers, and candles. It wasn't planned, I just grabbed things I saw around the house that worked together and placed them on the table. Add some colorful nametags and you've got a Spring-worthy centerpiece!

I've been working on my photography skills lately, and I practiced a lot on these flowers, can you tell? The last three pictures are what you call "SOOC--or straight out of the camera." This means I did no editing on the files--I downloaded them straight from the memory card to my computer and posted them on the blog. No cropping, no contrast shift, no temperature change...literally straight out of the camera. I hope I can do it more often! 

I've been learning so much about the wonders of digital SLR photography. It's something I've been pretty much teaching myself, and now I know what the difference is between a 50 mm/f1.4 lens and a 50 mm/f1.8! There are many sources I've used to teach myself, and if any of you would like to learn about them, let me know and I'll do a post about it.

Happy Hearts, Love, And Valentine's Day

It's the holiday of red and pink around our home. 

Chocolate roses I made to give as Valentines and a wallet-sized flip book I made for Franco last year. I'm blowing kisses {red hearts} at him as he flips the pages.

Red, pink, and white gumballs in my apothecary jar. Everything I love is in the picture: Franco, Paris, and candy.

Every couple of weeks I write a new scripture or quote on the little chalkboards I made.

Love one another as I have loved you. 

John 13:34

Whether you believe in Valentine's day or not, and whether you have a Valentine in the traditional sense of the word or not, choose to spread the love today with a friend, a family member, or a Valentine-to-be. It can't hurt. =)

The talented April Meservy has a love song called "I Like Mondays" free for download for this week only. And if you still need a card, this one's available for download and print. Happy Monday!