A quick little run down


I took a couple day break from blogging without announcing it ~ and I enjoyed it!

I’m working on a couple of special posts ~ one will be posted tomorrow for a very special birthday girl. I’m just jumping in to give a little update on US!

Our trip was wonderful! We spent 9 nights in hotels, one my absolute FAV Little American in Salt Lake City…. talk about gorgeous! We got scared to death by a scary thunder & lightening storm at Water World….. we were split up from each other taking cover, but we are still alive. We all got to go to a dinosaur museum for the first time ~ amazingly cool! We swam, we ate, we drove (a lot!) and almost finished the final book of the Twilight Saga on audio. We watched funny and scary movies, and laughed a lot. We got to visit family, see our possible future home, go see 2 gorgeous temples (including the SLC temple) and had a couple of hot dates with my oh so hot husband. And most importantly I got to see people from my past, people that mean the world to me.

The time away has helped me to clear my mind, refresh my soul, and be happy to get back into my routines. I discovered things I love about my husband, I enjoyed the constant together time, and realized that I am truly happy with my life. I got to be free for a while, and I definitely needed it!

I will be doing our vacation in pictures, but need to finish all of my editing first… so stay tuned!!! And in the meantime enjoy this shot I got of the SLC Temple… it’s is my favorite.

The most BORING Garibay Soup post EVER!

Photobucket

I’m just popping in to say hello… we’re doing quite well. If you don’t follow me on Twitter you might be wondering where the heck I’ve been. Well, I’ve been everywhere. Tonight I lay in the world’s most comfortable bed in Salt Lake City at Little America Hotel. I am planning on being home Tuesday night ~ don’t know how I feel about this yet. On one hand I can’t wait on the other hand reality sucks!

Tomorrow {Just a Motivating Monday} will be posted @ 8:00pm PST as usual. In the meantime I hope all is well with all of you. We’ve really been enjoying our vacation and have a million pictures to go through and upload… including pics of our maybe, possibly new home ~ We’re not rushing into this decision 😉 Above is a pic we took at the Salt Lake Temple today. Gorgeous… absolutely gorgeous.

So, thanks for bearing with me as tumbleweeds have been flying around these parts, but although I’ve wanted to blog… I’ve been having too much fun to blog. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers for a safe travel home. I can’t wait to get back to my addiction. When I get home I’ll have so much to share!

Twitter & Traveling… I’ll be doing twitter while traveling!


Boy these days have been flying! I am leaving for vacation in 2 days and am completely unprepared… I know it will all come together! I’m looking forward to this week’s Works for Me Wednesday to scoop out travel tips w/kids. It’s summer… there has to be some! We are driving from Oregon to Colorado ~ I definitely will be needting tips – so in addition to giving some comment love on my Works for Me Tip below, I would love it if you’d leave some comment love with your best traveling w/kids tip ~ BECAUSE I’M GONNA NEED IT!!!

Lately I’ve found that something works for me that I’m sure works for a lot of people here in the bloggity world. That’s Twitter. I HEART twitter. Believe it or not, I actually kinda boycotted it for a while, because I did not get the point. Who cares if some random person’s kid is watching Elmo…. do you really think I care…. now, YES!

Ways that Twitter works for me:

It is the most AMAZING way to receive prayers ~ especially for your sick baby. When Ella drank her heart medicine I posted a quick tweet asking for prayers and was amazed at the response I got. TONS of people started following me and praying for Ella… and their prayers worked! I am now seeing it happen with baby {Stellan} ~ that baby boy is receiving SO MANY prayers ~ (((HUGS))) to his family. These tweetin’ mamas have always got your back.

It is a way to get people to come and read your blog. I have noticed that ever since I started using twitter I am clicking more on the links people are tweeting than actually reading the blogs in my google reader. I have many, many more readers just from them finding me on twitter. And I have found some of my favorite blogs on twitter as well, and made great bloggin’/twitter friends.

If you want to promote something, it’s a great way! Just tweet about it and ask others to retweet for you!

Besides my blog I use it with my family as well. If something is going on, like the birth of a baby, we can update the progress through twitter… that way everybody is getting to see it. Family gossip also goes well through twitter as well, just make sure the one you’re gossiping about isn’t reading it LOL

It is like your own virtual party. You can peek in and peek out whenever you see fit. I used to be huge on mommy forums, but am now finding I’m more happier hanging out with my tweeple. I don’t feel obligated to always respond or communicate (unless of course it is a direct message or an @anjyldream)

Twitter has become this virtual world, where everyone is joining in to be a part of the new “big” thing online. I can’t believe how much I actually really LOVE twitter…I love it so much that I’m constantly checking my Ubertwitter on my blackberry to stay in the loop ~ and my husband has even joined with me!

The support that you can receive from other’s is amazing. In so many situations I’ve tweeted a question and got a great reply from a complete stranger, and a reply that I actually really appreciated.

Twitter is the new thing that’s working for me. If you’re not a part of twitter I vote that you should be! And once you join you can find me {@anjyldream}

Huge thanks to {Kristen} for hosting Works for Me Wednesday ~ it’s one of the best carnivals out there! There’s nothing us mama’s love more than reading what works for other’s.

If inspiration is something that works for you be sure to follow me on {twitter} or subscribe to my {RSS Feed} so that you are in the {know} on Mondays for my inspirational carnival {Just a Motivating Monday}. It’s my new baby and I hope to see it blossom like Works for Me Wednesday has. Hope to see you back here on Monday!!

Our Family’s New Addition…. and I need advice :)


Here’s Sophie!! She’s such a sweet addition 🙂

What a Sunday. It started for me at 5am waking up to Sophie pooping in her crate…. me not knowing, because it’s dark and letting her walk out of the crate instead of carrying her. It was gross, and made me want to cry, but we dealt with it.

She’s honestly done pretty well today on going to the bathroom outside…. I’m pretty proud! I must say though that dogs have HORRIFIC GAS! EWWWWWWWW!!!!!!! The kids have been having an absolute ball with her. They all run around the house chasing each other and having fun. Ella is hilarious and Jayden is so happy.

So, I’m funny in a way that I don’t like change. I hate it actually, and when you throw something new in the mix I feel kinda down. I’m feeling that way today and I’m not sure if it’s Sophie or if it’s a decision that I think we’re going to make. It actually could be a mixture of the 2.

A while ago I talked about an opportunity that my Grandma had offered us, which you can read about HERE. Basically I just never talked about it with her and made up my mind that it’s not doable. There’s no way in hell that I’m going to live in a *&it hole like Ely for 2 years. Just not happening. Well, she called today saying that she really needs our help, and I know this. I am the manager of this mobile home park there that is her’s, and I know that there are many things that need to get done. Things that I can’t make sure are getting done from Oregon. So, her new proposal is that we come for 6 months. This is a lot better than 2 years and is actually doable. If we leave when Jayden gets out of school then 3 months of that will be summer, in which we can take lots of little vacations with him. I won’t need to actually be in Ely for the entire 6 months, we can do 3 weeks there, 1 week on the road…. or something like that. The next 3 months after his summer break I’ll home school him until we return to Talent.

So, what’s my husband to do about work when this is all over? What are we going to do about insurance since I do have a Cardiac baby? This is why 6 months just might be okay. Gino can take a leave of absence from Home Depot for up to 6 months (I believe this is the max he’s going to check into this). At the end of our journey he will be guaranteed his job back at Home Depot, with no change in position or pay. Nice huh? For insurance we just pay Cobra and we will all remained medically insured.

The Perks?

  1. We get a 6 month vacation from life with guaranteed jobs after we’re done.
  2. Get to live for free
  3. All money I get paid just gets saved up
  4. We get to travel
  5. I get to spend time with my Great-grandma before she passes away
  6. Did I mention we get to travel????
  7. We will get to help my Grandma out in ensuring that the park is running smoothly and looking it’s best.
  8. We’d get to take the kids to the Salt Lake Temple…. Gino definitley needs to see that!
  9. All the above isn’t too bad right?

The Downfalls?

  1. Well, first off I’d be leaving all my friends that I’ve learned to love so much.
  2. I’d be leaving the beauty of Southern Oregon
  3. I would miss out on the first 2 1/2-3 months of my nephew’s life
  4. I’d be in the miserable town of Ely
  5. We’d have to change wards, which is something I really don’t want to do, but I think we’d be okay here. We are a very strong family, we’ve been through it all…. literally, and I know that we can make it through about anything. I know that we can stay strong in the church, and if Gino has issues with it I’ll just stay strong and set the best example I can.
  6. Jayden would miss out on the first month of school…. luckily here they don’t start school until September, so if we came back in October I’d only be homeschooling him for a month.

I think we might do it. We’ve been planning on moving out of this place anyways, since we’re growing out of it. So, in June we can leave and come back in October to a new home…. maybe even one we’ll own 🙂

I had amazing feedback on my last post regarding this topic, and I appreciate it all so much, so I’m begging for some here! Looking at the perks and downfalls, would we be dumb not to do this?

Cardiology Appointment….

Our vacation was nice! I didn’t take a lot of pictures, but I did get a few. I did a couple maternity shots of my sister and there’s some of me with the girls in my family. I’ll post them up this weekend.

The trip was fast. Wednesday we left home for Reno and the next day I was in a seminar for the majority of it. Friday we were on our way to Sacramento so that I could give my sister a baby shower on Saturday then we headed home Sunday. We stopped at Gino’s parents on the way home, but it was really a rush rush rush vacation.

It’s good to be home.

Today was Ella’s pediatrics and cardiology appointments. The cardiology appointment was not a good one. They did the EKG and found that her WPW is STILL there, which I was totally expecting, but what I wasn’t expecting was for her cardiologist to tell me that he wants her to go off of her medication.

I don’t see the point in this. I don’t see why in the world they would want to take her off of something that has done wonders with her. Something that has kept her out of the hospitals and healthy as any other child out there.

I am not too sure on what to do. He told me that if she has any episodes she can go right back on it, but what’s the point of taking her off then?

I’m Okay!!

I have a couple of voice mail’s and emails checking on me…. I didn’t realize it had been so long LOL. Time flies when you’re having fun!

I’m okay. I’ve been on vacation and started it in Reno and arrived in Sacramento today to do my sister’s baby shower tomorrow.

Sunday we’ll be on our way home and will be stopping by Gino’s parents to visit them. Then, I’ll be back to blogging. I had to share this precious picture though, Gino snapped it this morning….

Our trip in pictures and some words



Our trip to California was quick. We had such a fun time though. Friday after Jayden got out of school we took off and got into town around 8:30pm. At 10:30 pm we went to the movies with my sister while my mom watched the kids. We saw that 3D My Bloody Valentine movie – I actually really liked it!

Saturday I picked up my niece Alana so that she could go to the birthday party. She is such a beautiful little girl. I hadn’t seen her since she was 6 weeks old, so it was an amazing reunion. And so fun to watch her and Ella with each other.

We went to Chuck E Cheese for Vani’s 2nd Birthday. Ella was in HEAVEN there! She’d never been to anything like it before, so her eyes lit up and she was having the time of her life. The little smarty pants even figured out that you needed tokens and would take the token and try to put it in the machine.

We finally got a picture of all of the cousins together. This is the first time that they’ve all been together at the same time. Sad it took so long, but we FINALLY got it!!

Then on Sunday morning we woke up early and went to Stockton to see Gino’s mom and little brother, Gabriel. We took them to Arroyo’s, which is probably the best Mexican food I’ve ever had in my life. It was a nice visit. I really do enjoy visiting with his mom.


After lunch on Sunday we headed on our way home, but we had one more stop to make. We were going to do a surprise visit to Gino’s dad and step-mom’s house. We pulled up and they were so happy to see us. We only stayed for a couple hours, then we ventured on our way home and arrived at 9:30pm. And we went straight to bed.



So, it was a quick, but very enjoyable trip.

Going to Cali TOMORROW!

Well, I definitely didn’t expect this, but we had plans on going to Sacramento next weekend, but there’s going to be snow…. and I don’t do driving in snow. So, I called Gino and asked if he’d rather go this weekend and he said yeah. So, he’s playing hookie on Saturday and we’re leaving tomorrow when Jayden gets out of school (Gino gets off work at 2pm).

I’m SO EXCITED to get to go and see my sister and my niece and nephew and my mom. We’re also going to take a trip to Stockton on Sunday and see Gino’s mom and go eat some yummy Mexican food and my favorite Mexican restaurant.

I’ll post lots of pics and some videos when I get back. Keep us in your prayers that we have a safe and happy trip.