Godparents

Last week Ryan and I got asked to be Godparents for my beautiful baby cousin, Isabella Grace. It was VERY unexpected and we were soo very touched that they even thought of us.

This isn't the first time that I am a god momma, I am Ava Grace's Godmother. My other Aunt and Uncle asked me to be her Godmother when I was in college. It was a great experience, but unfortunately I do not get to see little Ava very often. She was however the little flower girl in my wedding. :) But I do wish I could spend more time with her.

Little Isabella is very special to me. She was born almost exactly 9 months from when my beloved grandma passed away. She, in away was healing for a lot of our family. For whatever reason she is like a little piece of my grandma. Not to mention she is totally adorable and has a great personality already.

I still can't believe they asked US to be her godparents... it is such an honor.

Traditionally, Godparents were given to children in case something happened to their parents. However, nowadays it is a little different. A godparent is supposed to lead by example, being a good Catholic and being there for the child both physically and spiritually. In my opinion a godparent is chosen as a person strong in faith to guide the child through life. I am soo thankful for that... mostly because I feel like my grandma is the one who taught me faith and now I get to pass that on to my grandma's little blessing to us, Isabella.

We can't wait to officially become her Godparents!

Our House

Last Thanksgiving we were trying to gravel our front yard. Our whole goal was to get it finished by Thanksgiving... but we were a little short on our goal. We finished shoveling gravel a couple days before our wedding!
Here were a couple of blogs I wrote last year and earlier this year on our front yard:
http://jaclynwaggoner.blogspot.com/2008/11/yard-work.html
http://jaclynwaggoner.blogspot.com/2009/05/front-yard-finished.html


This year we had our house painted by Thanksgiving!

The whole painting process was actually kind of chaotic. I picked out this beautiful color of paint it was a beige/greenish tint (it sounds ugly but it was very light and pretty). The painter started painting and I went out to peek at it and the paint was the wrong color!!! It was a yellowish color and totally ugly. I was at the paint store 6 times that day.... the lady who owns the paint store totally messed up our paint and tried to add other colors to make it close to the color that I wanted. She ended up making it close... but not. It is a little yellower than I had hoped, but that day I was soo frustrated I just said screw it and let the painter go to town. A couple weeks later (it took awhile because it was soo cold here and the painter was afraid of Bailey) we have a fully painted house.

So I thought I would share some before and after pictures. I found a picture of our house before we even bought it and I also took a picture of it today. :)

BEFORE:




AFTER:

Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I am soo blessed and I have soo many things to be thankful for....

First and foremost I am thankful for my fabulous husband and the great first year of marriage we have had.

I am thankful I have such a loving and caring family and set of friends.

I am thankful I have a job that I actually love!

I am thankful for my beautiful house and my totally adorable animals.

I am thankful for my in laws, especially my sister in laws and brother in law, who make me feel like I am no longer an only child!

And I am thankful I am happy and healthy.

Please take a moment this Thanksgiving to realize all you have and all you should be thankful for. I love you all and hope you have a great holiday!

ANTM FINALE!!

So tonight was the season finale of ANTM! I was very excited to see who would win... BUT I actually didn't care, because I loved both of the girls! Nicole is very very pretty and takes AMAZING pictures. Laura has an adorable personality, a killer walk and also takes amazing photos. BUT only one girl can win.


I knew Nicole had the edge coming in... because she has consistently taken great pictures. However, during the runway I thought Laura rocked it and Nicole did horrible! But the judges looked at the girls overall... and they thought Nicole would be a more versatile model and Laura would do well, but they said they could see her doing well in America, not everywhere.

So who is ANTM?




I must say I was VERY happy for Nicole, but I felt HORRIBLE for Laura. However, I see a bright future ahead of her. She made it to the top 2 on ANTM and I am betting she will not walk away without a contract of some sort!

An a side note, I found it interesting that there were only 3 judges at panel. They could have brought in all sorts of people, Mr.J, that 17 magazine chick, the photog for their shoot... but no... just 3. Maybe it was easier to vote with just 3.

ALSO, Does anyone remember ANTM winner Eva from Cycle 3? She was 5'6. Soo... Nicole is not the shortest ANTM winner. So much for the special short model season...

My favorite line of the show was definately Nicole's, "I am a Dork and I am America's Next Top Model!" :)

Benefit Race

Like I mentioned in my previous blog, the Grants/Milan Racetrack, the Uranium Capital Speedway, (http://www.uraniumcapitalspeedway.com/) is going to have benefit race for The Chavez family. The race will be THIS Saturday, November 21 at 2:00 p.m.


If interested, here is how to get there:

Exit I-40 at exit 79.
Turn North at the Petro truck stop.
Proceed North for 0.2 miles.
Turn left onto old highway 66 (main street through Milan).
Proceed West for 0.2 miles.
Turn Right (North again)on highway 605. The sign will show arrows for Farmington, Chaco Canyon and Cuba.
Proceed North on 605 for 1.7 miles.
Turn right off of 605 at the old Golden Horseshoe club, at the yellow posts. Follow this road to the Race Track.

A Friend in Need

One of my best friend's husband was recently brutally assaulted. My friend Dawn's husband, Santiago was in Las Cruces with some of their good friends for a race. After the race a fight broke out and he jumped in, attempting to help another victim. He ended up getting very hurt, he was knocked to the ground and continually punched and kicked in the head and face. The police were called and they arrested the guy that assaulted him... but there was already a ton of damage done. Santiago needs surgery, a surgery that I imagine is pretty pricey because there are only 2 surgeons that do this surgery in the state of NM. Santiago has a broken nose, a broken septum, a bad concussion, cuts and bruises, and a broken orbital bone that one of his tendons is stuck in.


His family and friends have started a blog with updates on his condition : http://shaggschavez.blogspot.com/

I must say this all just kind of breaks my heart. This family is always soo giving and caring, just really great people. They would do just about anything for their friends and I am lucky enough to have experienced that first hand. I am positive that is why Santiago got assaulted in the first place, because he was trying to help somebody else out. He did not deserve this and his family does not deserve to be going through this.. but they are.

Santiago is a stay at home daddy, with 2 adorable sons, Diego 3 and Niko 5 months. Because of his injuries, he has been unable to take care of his kids and his wife has to stay home. Dawn has been taking a lot of time off of work, unpaid time, to take care of her family.

Fortunately, their good karma has been coming back to them since the assault. A lot of people have been stepping up to help out. Some of their friends have started a donation fund account to help them with their medical expenses. The account is under the name, Santiago Chavez Donation Fund, account number #6376961857 and you can make a donation at any Wells Fargo.

Other people from the racing community are also stepping up. The race track here, in Grants (of all places)has decided they want to put on a race where all the proceeds will go to their family. They are meeting about this event tonight and we should know more information then... so I will update on this later.

ANTM

Wow... I cannot believe there are now 2 girls left and only one more ANTM episode of the season!

Tonight's episode started off with a hula and hip hop dancing challenge... that was kind of entertaining! Erin apparently is a former cheerleader and assumed she would do amazing... but had an awkward solo. Jennifer did pretty good and Laura knows how to shake it... Nicole was soo horrible it was funny! She was soo uncoordinated and robotic... it was like a train wreck, but you just had to stare! Laura ended up winning the challenge AND a trip back to Maui with another girl and she picked Jennifer! I was very glad she won!

The photo shoot was on the beach with waves crashing nearby. Nicole of course rocked it and did amazing. All the other girls seemed to do so so. After the shoot I was thinking that Erin and Nicole would be the top two because Laura and Jennifer's photo shoot just didn't seem to go very well. BUT, at the panel... they picked really bizarre pictures of the girls. Ones that I did not think were well represented of their shoots... but almost made them all close and even. Nicole rocked her shoot, but they picked only a decent picture of her. Laura did not have a good shoot, but they Loved her picture. Weird.

In the end, as I suspected Nicole was called first as one of the top two contenders for America's Next Top Model. I was hoping it would be Laura that was called as the other name. I have liked her since the very beginning... I think she is just adorable and I got a little teary eyed when her name was called! :D

Soo glad Nicole and Laura are the top 2!!!! Yay! I love them both! I do think Nicole is a stronger model than Laura, but Laura has a very adorable personality. It is any girls game now. How they each do from here on out will determine who wins. I am however, concerned for Laura because I know they have another Cover Girl shoot and you know how her last commercial went... May the best girl win! (But I know that whoever doesn't will probably get a good contract anyway. ha!)

Cute pictures

Today we decided to take a little drive up the mountain behind our house. I wanted to go hiking with Bailey, so after church we loaded her up in the Jeep and headed up the mountain. It has been 2 weeks since we had a snow storm and it has been REALLY warm so I didn't think we would find any snow up in the mountain.. but we did! We drove a ways and then hiked awhile until we found a good chunk of snow. Bailey was very excited about this. I forgot my camera, but had my phone and wanted to take some pictures. (Bailey however did not want to have anything to do with the pictures because she wanted to play! lol) Surprisingly, they came out kind of cute... even on my camera phone. Enjoy!

Last Week's ANTM

Last week's ANTM was interesting... in my opinion! (But not as interesting as the previews for this week's show!!!)

There wasn't a lot of down time on the show this week, it started off immediately into a photo challenge... a challenge of jumping off a cliff into the ocean and taking a picture mid air. Everyone jumped facing the camera... looking ackward, except Nicole. She decided to jump and do kind of a profile jump to the camera and her risk paid off, she won the challenge and extra frames in the upcoming photoshoot. Everyone got extra frames except for Erin.

The photoshoot was an underwater photoshoot. The girls were in the ocean and were supposed to go down deep to get a great picture. Quite a few girls had a hard time with this. Laura panicked because (they don't have oceans where she is from lol) she has a fear of drowning or something. BUT, she was able to pull it together for a decent picture. Sundai who also freaked out because of all sorts of different reasons stayed very close to the top and hurt her chances for a good picture. Erin didn't really freak out, but she stayed too close to the top of the ocean, hurting her chances for a great picture. Nicole, as usual excelled and Jennifer did decent.

Elimination was Nicole, Jennifer and Laura rounding out the top three. Sundai and Erin were in the bottom two. And cute little Sundai finally went home. She had a really adorable personality... but just didn't model that great. I think Erin has a lot of potential, but she freaks herself out. She is also bratty and will probably be going home this week.

The catch this week is that not one, but TWO girls are going home! And I have no idea which two it will be! I am thinking it will for sure be Erin. She has been in the bottom 2 for the past 2 or 3 weeks and her head just isn't in it, like she was in the beginning. I think Laura maybe the other option... but I just adore her and don't want to see her leave. Who knows... maybe Jennifer will have a weak shoot and Laura will stay... or maybe Erin will finally shine and Laura and Jennifer will go. I do believe Nicole will for sure be top two. We will just have to stay tuned to find out!

The New York Yankees are World Champions! (I know, I am a couple days late! lol)

It is no secret that I am a huge New York Yankee fan. I am and have been a huge fan my ENTIRE life. My mom and her whole family are from NY and have always been Yankee fans. It is just something that I was born into. I have countless memories watching baseball games with my grandparents, cheering on our favorite baseball team. My godfather (and uncle) is also a huge Yankee fan and it has always been something that we can all just talk about. Whether it be, who is playing good, who is playing bad or who might they trade... we rarely talk about Steinbrenner and the money involved with the Yankees. It is more of the team that we care about, a team that is like a family dynamic, a dynamic that we have felt bonded to for decades. My Uncle has a framed picture in his office… He was on the front page of his local NY paper for catching a fly ball at Yankee Stadium when he was a kid and getting it autographed... Being a Fan is just in my blood.

Now I know there are A LOT of Yankee haters out there. I mean A LOT. And actually, I understand it. They have the highest payroll in the major leagues… by A LOT. Everyone says that they buy champions. Well, to some extent… they buy the players. But, you can’t BUY a champion. From 2000 on the Yankee’s payroll spiked, yet… they weren’t winning. To me that is proof that you can’t buy a championship. This year their payroll is actually down from last year and this is the first time they have won the World Series in 9 years. Yes, they have a lot of money, yes they have the highest payroll… but no you cannot buy championships. I know… I am biased because I LOVE the Yankees. I do understand though, all the other teams who don't have money feel like there is no hope. The 9 years without a world champion from the team with the highest payroll in the Major League should be hope enough... in my opinion, that money doesn't mean a thing.

I was going to comment on the crap that people talk to me, but I just don't care that much. :) The most important thing is... to all the people that enjoyed telling me that the Yankees weren't going to win the World Series... They did. (And it was Amazing! :) )

ANTM (last wednesday)

Last Wednesday my CW channel that shows ANTM wasn't working. It just said the channel was unavailable... during the entire ANTM episode! Grrr.... Fortunately... I searched for it on my Direct TV guide and found it replaying Friday night. :) My parents were visiting this weekend so I just got the opportunity to watch it... and boy am I glad I didn't miss it!

This week Tyra sent the girls overseas... well kind of.. to Hawaii!! They are on Maui and have this insanely beautiful Hawaiian mansion. Their first day there they had surfing lessons and then a photo shoot challenge, while surfing! I was pretty surprised of their surfing abilities... I mean I guess I thought a lot of them would be very uncoordinated, but they were all able to stand up on the surf board and look pretty good while doing it! Erin ended up winning the surfing challenge and she definitely deserved it. She didn't even look like she was surfing, she just looked very posed on the surf board and modeled the whole time!

Then they had a photo shoot at a sugarcane factory and Tyra was their photographer. This was actually a controversial photo shoot... they had to be two mixed ethnicity's... portraying all the different ethnicity's that came to work at the sugarcane factory and then had babies. Yeah... it is a pretty lame idea, but the pictures came out really neat.

Most of the girls had to have darker skin tones so it was very interesting to see the girls transform into, almost a completely different person. If you missed the show... I would recommend taking a peak at their pictures :


http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/album.php?aid=120785&id=8816160747&ref=mf


Quite a few of the girls really struggled, Jennifer, Laura, Erin and Britney all had a hard time. However, after some coaxing from Tyra some of them snapped out of it.

Nicole ended up having the best photograph... by far. Jennifer, Laura and Sundai all were called next, leaving Erin and Britney in the bottom two.

Britney was very stiff this shoot, because she wanted to be very poised. Erin was also stiff and kind of freaked out because she was intimidated by Tyra... BUT Erin has consistently had better pictures, so Britney went home... with a warning to Erin to not beat herself up so much.

I am glad that Britney went home... I was not a fan.

Next week is a bikini photo shoot on a cliff off of the ocean. They made it seem like a deadly cliff in the previews.. but I don't think anyone will die.

Soccer

Saturday was our very last game for the AYSO soccer season. I had a really good time coaching this year. At first I was nervous... I work Saturdays and couldn't make all of their games AND it was a U-14 soccer team (13 and 14 year olds..scary). But MOST of the kids were really good kids and that made the season really fun. Unfortunately, we were the last team in our division and got dealt a handful of players that didn't have a lot of experience. Fortunately, it was a fun coaching experience and quite the challenge.

I must say I am very proud of our players, they have come a very long way from the beginning of the season and it is soo nice to have seen all of their progress. We started off the season loosing every single game... by A LOT! The past 3 weeks my kiddos have really started playing like a team and the games started getting closer and closer. We ended the season tying the best team in the league (4-4) and then beating the second best team in the league (5-2)!!! If that isn't progress... I don't know what is! lol

Congrats to my soccer team on working hard all season to end it successfully! (pictures to follow)