Holiday Letter 2011

2011 Holiday Season

After the 2010 we had it was hard to imagine that 2011 could be better, but this year has been filled with just as much excitement as the last one. We both could barely keep up with everything happening.

This year started slow until our first anniversary in April. We enjoyed a piano concert by Jim Brickman at the Van Wezel in Sarasota. He spoke of celebrating anniversaries since he had just celebrated 15 years of writing and performing in December. It was a perfect concert to celebrate the occasion. I made Kris an album keepsake that highlighted our early years together and our first year of marriage. It was a wonderful weekend of romance and reminiscing.

The most exciting highlight of 2011 was learning we were expecting our first baby in January 2012. I had suspected for some time that we might be pregnant but was too nervous to test. After two weeks of waiting, we decided to take a home pregnancy test on my 37^th birthday. Even though the line was faint, we were both excited to learn that we were, in fact, pregnant. It was the best present that I could have ever received.

The past couple of months have been quite busy trying to prepare for the baby’s arrival. Thankfully the pregnancy has been uneventful. I did not have much more than slight morning sickness and fatigue the first trimester. It had me out for the count on some days. The second trimester I had more energy and felt like I could get more things done. I tried to take advantage of these bursts of energy to get some cooking done ahead of time. During the third trimester we have been busily trying to get the house and nursery ready. It has been a slow process as fatigue has set in again.

Early in the pregnancy we referred to our little one as Special K since we did not know the gender. Everyone wondered whether our Special K had strawberries or blueberries (girl or boy). Kris had been hoping for a girl while I was hoping for a boy, so one of us was going to be right. We both would have been happy either way. In August, right around 20 weeks, we were happy to learn that we were having a GIRL. We have chosen the name Felicity after my 92-year-old grandmother, Felicidad, who went home to the Philippines shortly before we were married.

This year we enjoyed a babymoon vacation in September. We took a tour of Florida beginning in Naples with the baby shower of our friends Gary and Christine Huber. I was excited for our baby bumps to meet for the first time.  The rest of our vacation consisted of a visit to Mom and Dad Mendoza in Fort Pierce, the Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse in Daytona, the hot spots in St. Augustine and a quick lunch with a good friend in Orlando. Kris climbed all 203 steps to the top of the lighthouse while Mommy and baby visited the different museums on the campus. While in St. Augustine, we visited the Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche and Potter’s Wax Museum. It was nice to have one last getaway before baby girl arrives.

Other family highlights this year include celebrating my parent’s 40^th wedding anniversary, my Mom’s 65^th birthday and the 12^th birthday of my oldest niece Lexy in November. Mom and Dad hosted a nice dinner for family and friends to celebrate. We also welcomed Izabella Anna, the daughter of Kris’ brother Paul and his wife Nicole. Izabella is the 9^th niece and nephew between the both of us. It was wonderful to share the pregnancy experience with Nikki and we are looking forward to the two cousins meeting.

Here we are now at the end of 2011 and the new year is fast approaching. We both are looking forward to meeting our daughter and the many adventures 2012 has in store for us. We cannot wait to share with you all our exciting news of the upcoming year.

We would like to send you and your family the love and blessings of our Lord this holiday season. We hope you find the joy of the Lord this new year and many years to come.

Sending love, joy and peace from our family to yours this holiday season. May the new year bring good health, happiness and prosperity.

With lots of love,

Kris, Eileen Mae and, coming soon, Felicity

Our Christmas 2011 photo

8 1/2 months pregnant

Christmas 2011

Erin go bragh!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Easy "key lime" jell-o pie

 It is not very Irish but it is VERY green!

As our first anniversary quickly approaches, we are celebrating the last few first holidays and seasons.

The last of the first holidays we have left to celebrate are St. Patrick's Day and Easter.Our Easter journey began last week with Ash Wednesday and will conclude just after our first anniversary. Even though Easter falls after our first anniversary this year, it will be our first Easter since we were married the week after Easter last year.

The Lent and the Easter season are my favorite times of the year in the Catholic Church.This is the time of the year when we prepare our hearts for our own resurrection into new life. We begin a process of change in order to cleanse us of our old selves and bring to life a new one on Easter morning with Christ's resurrection on the cross. This has always been a struggle for me to rid myself of old habits and old ways of thinking. I have always been very hard-headed as my mother used to say. I often get stuck in a rut in the ways I do things. Sometimes that rut is a good place to be and I can accomplish a lot but sometimes that rut is just that... a rut. I find myself stuck and going nowhere. I want to continue in the ruts that are working and make changes in areas that are not working so well.

Last year's Lenten season was a double season of change for me. It was not only the 40 days to prepare for Easter and the resurrection of Christ but it was also my LAST 40 days as a single woman. It was the hardest season of change for me. I was not only making changes to grow in my faith but I was also making changes in my vocation. I was about to take on a new role and I had to really prepare myself to take on this new role. I did not know what to expect. I just knew I had to prepare. I knew it was going to be the one of the biggest change I was ever going to make in my life. I wanted to be ready. I knew that there was no turning back after we said "I do" so I had to certain that I was ready to take that long walk to meet the man of my dreams. I knew that the journey I was about to go on was not just the one day but a lifetime.

With this and every Lenten season to come as we approach our anniversary, I hope to use this time to continue my preparation for a lifelong journey with Kris. I will strive to cleanse my old self and my old habits in order to be a new wife on Easter morning and on our anniversary.

First Holidays

One of the difficult things to figure out during marriage is how to divide our time between both families for the holidays. There are a couple of really big holidays during the last few months of the year that give us a great opportunity to spend time with family. But it is hard to divide our time between two different families when our family is spread pretty far across Florida. Even harder when our schedule only gives us a day or so off to celebrate holidays with family. Someone has to be at the paper to make sure those after holiday sale ads make it to your driveway Thanksgiving and Christmas morning.

This year Kris was able to get both Thanksgiving day and Christmas day off from work. With only one day off for the holidays, it was easy to decide where to go for the holidays. All of Kris' family lives within 20 minutes of one another and only about 45 minutes from us. Having just one day off gives us a perfect chance to spend time with them and be able to make it home all in the same day. The hard part is with only one day off we cannot make it to see both sides of the family. Since my family is spread across three different parts of the state more than an hour away from us, it is more difficult to visit each of them. We try to visit them all when we have a day or two off but that does not happen very often.

Unfortunately, our Thanksgiving plans did not go as well as we planned. A few unexpected events changed our family plans for Thanksgiving but we still managed to spend a little time with Kris' parents as well as his sister and her family. We were happy to see the kids and how much they had grown over the last year.

Annika - age 3

Minnie Annika

Twins Ella & Owen - age 9 months

Ella - age 9 months

Owen - age 9 months

We spent our first Christmas with Kris' family.The day started off with cookies and punch at Mom and Dad's to open our Christmas gifts. We were happy to receive many gifts to add to our display in our china cabinet. One of my favorite gifts was a picture Dad painted of our first house on a stained piece of wood. I was so surprised to see it that it almost made me cry. Dad even put our name and address on the corner. It matches well with the wooden plates Kris received of the homes that the family lived in during his childhood. It is a very touching piece and for now it completes our set of paintings of the homes. For dinner, we went over to Hannah and Olli's for a real German dinner. We enjoyed a perfectly cooked pot roast with a delicious sauce, mashed and scalloped potatoes, sweet potato and carrot casserole, and a salad. After all that food, we were so full there was no room for dessert. It was nice to spend with friends and family this Christmas. We got to see how much Ella and Owen have grown since we had seen them last just a month before. Both babies were able to crawl around. They had fun with their new toys but had even more fun with the the balls of wrapping paper. I am so amazed how tall Annika is getting. At almost 4 years of age, she stands almost half as tall as me. Pretty soon I will be looking down at her.

The painting of our first home

Aunt Eileen was making animal noises with Annika

Uncle Kris and Owen

Aunt Eileen and Owen

Owen was sitting up straight and tall...

...but he loved playing ball with Uncle Kris.

Uncle Kris had a great time too while Ella looked on

Owen thought the wrapping paper was a lot of fun.

Annika was so sad to see us go

The holidays have been great with family. We look forward to next year's holidays and all the fun with the children. We look forward to time spent with both sides of the family next year.

Holiday letter 2010

2010 Holiday Season

Brief summary of 2009

May 2009: Engaged
September 2009: Set April 10, 2010 as the wedding day.
October 2009: Vacationed to New Orleans, LA.
December 2009: Shoulder surgery, Purchased their first home

Highlights from 2010

April 2010: Wedding and honeymoon to Rome, Grandma Rosa’s 90th birthday
May 2010: First family gathering at our new home
July 2010: Became godparents to Ella and Owen Neumann.
August 2010: John and Sharon's 40th Wedding Anniversary
September 2010: Labor Day barbecue, Vacation to Savannah, GA
October 2010: Victor and Charry’s 39th Wedding Anniversary
November 2010: Mexico cruise

This has been a very busy year for both of us. With a wedding in April and keeping up with a new home, this year has been full of more excitement than either one of us have had in both our lifetimes.

The end of 2009 kept us both so busy that it spilled over into 2010. We ended 2009 with the purchase of our first home and much needed shoulder repair for me. This complicated the start of 2010 and made planning a wedding more difficult than either of us expected. Since we moved the wedding from August to April and surgery was in December, it was necessary to hire a wedding planner to be my extra hands and feet all over Orlando. Thank God for our wedding planner, Shannon Humphrey. She made it easy to balance work, physical therapy, and our new home with planning our wedding.

I counted the early days of 2010 until our wedding, and it came upon us very quickly. After nine years together, we finally were married on April 10, 2010 at Holy Family Catholic Church in Orlando. Father Kenny Aquino officiated our traditional Catholic Filipino wedding. Our reception was at held Mystic Dunes Resort in Celebration, FL. After I made the big move, we spent a week in Rome for our honeymoon. We enjoyed visiting the Vatican and all the sights throughout Rome despite a small volcano eruption in Iceland that affected most of the airports in Europe during our stay. Fortunately, we did not experience any delays in our return flight home. After our return home, Grandma Rosa celebrated her 90th birthday, and my parents held a double celebration for both of us. We enjoyed greeting family and friends as newlyweds for the first time.

In May, Kris’ brother Paul and I celebrated our birthdays on the same day. Paul turned 29 while I celebrated 29 again for the eighth time. This was our first gathering in our new home. We did not think we would have our house ready. We still had a lot to unpack, and we only had three short weeks to prepare after the excitement from the wedding died down. We managed to pull off a successful party for fifteen people including a toddler and twin babies.

In July, we became godparents to Kris’ sister’s twins Ella Christina and Owen Christopher who were born January 2010. They are the first godchildren for both of us, and we now have five nieces and three nephews between the two of us.

We hosted our second family gathering in our new home on Labor Day. The family barbecue turned out to be a big success. We managed to fit 20 adults, 4 kids, and the twins in our new home with enough places to sit and enough food for everyone. We even had leftovers for all to take home. Everyone had a great time and we received many compliments from all that attended. 

We are blessed between both of our parents there is almost 80 years of marriage experience. They have provided us with an excellent example of marriage. They have had their difficulties, but they have managed to stay together. They give credit to their faith and trust in God. In August, Kris’ Mom and Dad celebrated 40 years of wedded bliss. We hosted an anniversary dinner at Gigi’s Italian restaurant in St. Petersburg for family and friends. I made them a small scrapbook showing just a brief history of the last 40 years. In October, my Mom and Dad celebrated 39 years of wedded bliss. Mom and Dad enjoyed a weekend in Orlando remembering their own day by attending a wedding of the daughter of close family friends.

Besides our honeymoon to Rome, we enjoyed two other vacations. Our first vacation was a three-day trip to Savannah, GA in September. We saw the tallest lighthouse in Georgia in Tybee Island. We rode the trolley around Savannah to see the historical sights. We even ate lunch at Paula Deen’s famous restaurant, Lady and Sons.

Our second vacation was in November. Neither of us had ever been on a cruise, and Kris was looking forward to a vacation where he did not have to drive. This was the perfect opportunity. We enjoyed a 5-day cruise to Costa Maya and Cozumel, Mexico. We saw the Mayan ruins at Kohunlich in Costa Maya. We climbed to the top of a few of the ruins. I was able to climb to the top of two of the ruins, while Kris enjoyed climbing to the top of couple more. I could definitely tell the steps were steeper than the 138 Spanish Steps in Rome. We enjoyed a walking tour and shopping in Cozumel. It was a nice relaxing time for both of us.

Here we are now at the end of 2010 and a new year is fast approaching. We both are looking forward to the many adventures 2011 has in store for us. We cannot wait to share with you all our exciting news of the upcoming year.

We would like to send you and your family the love and blessings of our Lord this holiday season. We hope you find the joy of the Lord this new year and many years to come.

With lots of love,
Kris and Eileen Mae

Our 2010 Christmas photo card -- for family and friends

Our 2010 Christmas photo card -- for local friends

Thanksgiving: A Year Full of Thanks

This Thanksgiving I was looking back on 2010 and all the previous Thanksgivings that Kris and I have been together. I can honestly say that this year has been the best year we have ever had. There has been so much that we are thankful for this year. The great things that happened this year started to happen even before the year ever began. Even probably before 2009 even began. I made personal changes way back in 2008 that eventually lead to the many changes that happened in 2010. Life was getting better and better with each new year but I did not think that life would ever be this good.

I am so thankful for everyone who has been a part of our amazing journey so far -- for those who were a part of our past and helped us to get here, for those who are a part of our present and help us to remember the good times and the bad, and for those who will be a part of our future and will help us continue along on this journey. Thank you for being a part of our past, present, and future. We look forward to many more Thanksgivings to share with our family and friends. We are truly blessed to have each one of you in our lives.

I hope that this streak of good blessings continues on for many more years to come. We have had a blessed first Thanksgiving with family and looking forward to many more blessings that 2011 will bring.

Fishes & loaves

Matthew 14:13-21

God is so good. All the time.

Today we had a packed house. Kris and I wondered how we were going to get everyone to fit in our 1400 sq ft house. The last time we had a gathering at our home, we had 12 adults, 1 kid, and the twins and thought there was "just enough room" for everyone to fit comfortably. Today the plan was for 20 adults, 4 kids, and the twins. We barely had enough seats for everyone. We had one less adult and one less kid show up and had "just enough room" for everyone and more than enough food (with leftovers to take home for everyone and at least one container of food for us. probably about 5 containers total) It didn't look or feel too crowded. It was just enough and an awesome gathering. Everyone had a GREAT time and it started at 11am and ended right at 2pm just as we had planned with a few (my parents and cousin) chatting until 3pm. We got a lot of great compliments from everyone. Even though we stressed and worked until the last minute to get things cleaned and organized for the guests, it all worked out perfectly and without a hitch. I am always so amazed by the turnout (guests and overall)

The gathering was for not just his family or just my family but for a mix of both our families. Having just recently been married, our families have not had a chance to really get together. Today was such a nice mix and everyone got along just great. Everyone was talking, laughing, and sharing. The kids enjoyed each other and played well together. Considering the rocky road Kris and I experienced early in our relationship, this is a very pleasant surprise. My Mom has always been concerned about the blending our our two families if we should ever get married or if we continue to stay together. Our families have blended so well that my in-laws enjoy my parent's company as much as they do ours (my husband and myself) This has been a welcomed change since our first meeting that I dare to think that that the hearts of all have changed since the beginning of our relationship.

I have been making an extra effort to eliminate the words luck and coincidence from my vocabulary. I am starting to believe that nothing happens by luck or by coincidence. Luck is not luck but a blessing and gift from God. Coincidence is not coincidence but a God-incidence. I know that sometimes I say "I just can't do this alone" but really what I am saying is "Lord, I can't do this alone. So I will do what I can and You do the rest."

Our God is so good that even when we think we are lacking or inadequate, He makes everything perfect according to His plan. It is so true that God does not call the qualified but qualifies the called.