Whoa! Talk about abandonment! My last public blog post on here was from October 2016! Holy cow! A lot has definitely happened in the past two years... one major one: We now have TWO kids!! I really did try to keep up with this blog to document Tristan's first year, but as usual, life happens. I got all the way up to Tristan's 10th month before I stopped blogging. I found out I was pregnant with my second on November 4, 2016... and I think thats when I decided I was not going to have anytime to sit down and do this religiously! I sort of, kind of regret not keeping up with this or even vlogging, I wish I had continued to vlog, I still occasionally get messages asking when Im going to start again, tbh, no clue.  It would be nice if I can get back to it cuz its usually one of the few only tools we can constantly go back down memory lane on. I mean I have photos and videos stored, but thats it. They are stored and tucked away for us to forget about. Anyway, I'm back on here, I can't promise I'll be back as much as I was before, but when I do have the time, which Ive had plenty of down time the past few days, and thats why I'm here now. Both kids are napping, house is tidy, laundry is done... almost.

A not so quick recap:

November 2016: I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. SURPRISE! We were not expecting or planning on having children close in age, we wanted a 3 year gap, but we can't turn blessings away. So we embraced it and geared up to become parents to 2 under 2. I remember taking the pregnancy test and I was like "im not, its all in my head" that thing turned positive the second my pee touched it, like "eh, wrong! Youre totally pregnant!" John was at work when I took the test, he was in for a surprise when he came home! One of Tristans first words were "baby" btw, so we blame him for jinxing us! Lol!

December 2016: HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY, TRISTAN EZRA!! Yup, we celebrated his first year of life in Virginia and San Diego. His actual birthday was spent in Virginia and we flew to San Diego the next day. His birthday theme was "Where the Wild Things Are" and my sister helped make my vision come to life. My parents and Father in law had food catered and we celebrated at a recreation park hall. I went all out, cuz ya know, Im Filipino, and first birthdays are a pretty big deal. Lol! Tristan had a blast, im sure and theres plenty of photos to remind him of it!



We also went on our first Disneyland trip as a family as part of Tristan's birthday gift from us! Unfortunately, Tristan and I both had the tummy flu, luckily he was better by the time we got there. I, on the other hand, was not. Being 11.5 weeks pregnant with a tummy flu was not a good combo! I still pushed myself to enjoy it and it worked for the first half of the day, by dinnertime I was out of commission. But i didnt wanna end the fun so early, so we rented a wheel chair and they pushed me around! Lol! Now thats how you do Disney! We got good seats/view of the parade and fireworks! Lmao! Oh! We also asked Mickey to help us announce our pregnancy! We announced it on Christmas, (of course, right? what better day!? Ha!) and now the rest of the world knew our secret!




We stayed in San Diego til February. So we got to celebrate my sister, Dad and Mom's birthday all together. However, John had to fly back to Virginia the day after Christmas so we rang in the New Year like any other long distance relationship in the 21st century, via Face Time!

February 2017: My sister made the move out east!! She made the decision to move to the east coast a few months before this and followed suit! She became our 3rd floor housemate! Haha! She came out to explore and to experience life outside of San Diego and to help me out once baby girl was born. We got in several bitchy sister arguments, but thats typical of us, I was so glad to have her here and so were the kids! They love Sisi and was super sad to see her go when she did! Aside from my sister moving, we also found out the gender of our baby this month: It's A GIRL! We were over joyed and couldn't believe we were going to have one of each!



Anything after this was sort of a blur. John had sea trials and was gone for weeks at a time every month! It was tiring having to say "welcome back! Oh wait.. youre leaving again? ok see ya!" This whole ordeal lasted for over a year! With a bunch of schedule changes in between. I was over it. Aside from this, I had my baby shower in May. Oh! I forgot to mention, one of my best girlfriends and I were pregnant at the same time! Our kids are 4 weeks apart! What are the odds right? She was having a boy, and I girl. Her oldest is a girl, and mine is a boy. We now label our youngest 'the twins' hahaha!






June 2017: Welcome to the world, AMELIA CASSIDY (June 23, 2017) this might be where my recap ends, cuz anything after this was just me running after my toddler with a newborn locked on my boobs 24/7. All. Day. Everyday! Kidding aside, Amelia was the sweetest addition to our little tribe! She was what i referred to as a 'dream baby!' Slept through the night, I would have to wake her up to nurse her during the middle of the night feeds and diaper changes. She wasn't very needy, except when hungry, duh. But other than that, easy baby. Its what's making me say "lets have one more!" We do want one more, in like 2-3 years.





July 2017: DIRTY 30.. ok it wasn't so dirty, but I celebrated my 30th birthday. Nothing big, just spent some family time. Brunch, afternoon at the beach, and then dinner out with friends. I had to head back home right away because I was breastfeeding!



My parents also flew in a week after Amelia was born. My mom stayed for 3 weeks and we went on a family trip to Charlottesville, saw caverns and took them around Monticello. My dad stayed for 3 months! Bless his heart! Best grandpa ever! He was a lot of help considering John was gone majority of the time after I gave birth to Amelia.




August 2017: CHIEF SEASON! We got the news while John was underway! I didnt realize results came out until a friend texted me. John called to share the news and I was so so proud of him! He was so bummed about not making it the following year (his first try!), so this news was certainly a boost for him! The next 6 weeks after that call was basically John existing in our life, but always missing. If that makes sense? The ship got back from underway 2 weeks after the results, and from there it was straight into season as they had a lot of catching up. So he was home, but his mind was always somewhere else. Chief season took a lot out of him!

September 2017: PINNING!! 6 weeks of chief season was finally coming to an end! And on his 29th birthday, we got to pin him his anchors! It was one of my proudest moment as a military wife, to watch him march in his Khaki's (we hadn't seen him in over 36 hours) was a feeling I can't explain! So so proud of our Chief! We also got to attend our very first Khaki Ball!



December 2017: Amelia's first Christmas! My parents flew in again for the Holidays, and we finally got to take them to New York! It was also Amelia and Tristan's first time in the city and it was super freakin cold!! I'm not a fan of the cold, or the heat. Idk how Ive survived the east coast all these years! Haha!

So thats that for 2017! I'll have to continue on another blog post because this is extremely lengthy! Im sure whoever is reading this now is probably bored to death! My apologies! The recap is for my reading purposes for the future! :P