Puerto Vallarta

So for my Spring Break, since my thesis was finished and I had a credit on Mexicana Airlines I needed to use up, I decided to take a trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It was so beautiful and the weather was perfect! My friend Jason and I rented a condo at the Holiday Inn resort and it was perfect!!! We got to enjoy all the amenities of the resort and the condo was right on the beach with a balcony overlooking the bay! I loved just waking up each morning and sitting on the balcony eating breakfast.

View from our balcony

We went on a zipline tour at the set of Predator, a 1980's movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Here I am on the zipline, it was so fun, there were 12 ziplines we went on over a river and through the forests. It was so beautiful.

Night view, didn't come out too good but it was beautiful.

Down on Malecon Blvd. there were very different looking bronze sculptures, I think they may have been sea gods or something.

View from our balcony. The beach and pool we got to spend our lazy time at.

Beautiful view of Bandaras Bay from our balcony.

These were some crazy Mexicans who climbed to the tops of this huge pole and then dropped off attached to ropes, swinging all the way down and playing music.

I had lots of fun and if you want to check out some more of my pictures go to my Picasa Web Album.

Lobby Days in Sacramento

So I had one of the best learning experiences ever! I was able to travel with about 125 of my fellow peers from the Social Work department at CSULB to Sacramento, CA to lobby to our legislators at the capitol. What an amazing experience to be empowered and motivated to work towards progress and better policies that will better serve the people in our communities. The bills we advocated for were on foster care, elder care, budget cuts, and mental health services for youth. We also had the opportunity to rally on the capitol steps and hear from 7 legislators who support our work as social workers. This experience taught me so much about the importance of policy and especially of voting. Enjoy the pictures below.

Here are all of us from CSULB on the steps of the capitol after the rally.

Over 1,000 social workers from 20+ schools in California rallying on the capitol steps.

CSULB School of Social Work

Some friends from school (Jenn, Me, Shay, Alicia)

Great picture with the capitol in the background.

We had a pizza dinner and the pizza was HUGE!!! The slices were so long it didn't fit on the plate.

Some signs we made for the rally, and my face in the bottom right corner.

Showing off our creative signs!

Walking around Sacramento I saw a few gold bears and couldn't help but jump up on one!

Well, the experience was amazing and of course there are tons more pictures than I could post. If you would like to see more just go to our Lobby Days Photo Album.

Girls Night

So I have come to love my girls nights.....for those of you who know me well this is very unusual. I usually never get along with girls and hate spending time with just girls especially doing girly things. Well, I guess as I have aged I have learned to love girls and it helps that I have made and kept some of the best girlfriends ever from childhood! This girls night we decided to make these really cute and simple scripture carriers. It is a simple sewing project made from just ribbon and a placemat and I even sewed a little....I know surprise! We also made some delicious spinach and chicken lasagna and homemade mint ice cream with grasshopper cookies. We had a very satisfying feast!

Jenn was the pro so she helped us all. Here she is teaching Lynsey how to do it.

We all thought Lynsey's turned out the cutest with buttons and everything!

Once again, Jenn the pro is at it again helping Heather.

Here is Jenn sewing in the ribbon for my little bag, I really did sew the actual bag part I just didn't get a picture of it.

So cute, here is my finished bag and I showed it off at church and everyone loved it.

Thanks Jenn, we couldn't have done it without you!!!
Love all you girls!

Tagged by my friend Jenn....love you!

Rules:
1. go to the my pictures site on your computer
2. go to your sixth file
3. go to your sixth picture
4. blog about it
5. tag 6 people

So here is the picture. I am on the rock trying to help Lynsey and Jenessa on so we can take a cute picture together. We took the day with a group of like 10 girls and went hiking up in Trabuco Canyon on the Holy Jim trail. It was a great day!!!

I don't feel like tagging anyone, if you want to participate just say I tagged you if you have never been tagged.

Too cute to not post!

These kids are my life!! I love them so much!!!! Elsie and Joshua are adjusting to having a new baby at home. Elsie had a really hard time and wouldn't even look at mom or the baby the first day. Joshua adjusted much better since he has been through this already with his little sister. However, he does have a fear his parents will leave and not come back since they had to leave in the middle of the night to go to the hospital and the kids woke up to an Aunt instead of mommy and daddy! Everyone is doing great and we all love baby Jacob!!!

Joshua makes the cutest faces, we didn't even know he could raise one eyebrow until we took this picture. Such talent!

Elsie is our drama queen, and this is the cutest picture ever!

Me with baby Jacob, it always amazes me how little they all start out.

Already a loving big brother!

Caught with his eyes open!

Jacob Rex Sohm, my newest Nephew

Here are pictures of baby Jacob Rex. He is adorable and I so tiny I can't believe it. He has a cleft lip but nothing a little cosmetic surgery can't fix. He is still cute as ever and I am so grateful to have him healthy and his mother (my sister) healthy as well. The other two kids (Joshua and Elsie) are having quite a hard time adjusting. Especially Elsie, she wouldn't even look at the baby for the first couple hours. Adjustment to change is great!

See his little cleft lip.

Happy and healthy baby and momma!

Proud daddy! He was such a trooper, he got only 4 hours of sleep in the 48 hours Sharese was in the hospital.

Baby Jacob Rex Sohm

So I babysat for my sister 2 days ago while she went for her last check up before she has the baby. My parents and her husband were planning on going out of town for the upcoming weekend so she wanted to see how close to potentially having the baby she was before she let them all leave. The doctor gave her a 10% chance of having the baby this weekend so our parents left for their trip to Utah and her husband was planning to leave Friday. Thursday night (last night) I get a call from her husband at 12:13am that he needs a someone to come over, Sharese is having contractions. They make it to the hospital and an hour later sweet little Jacob Rex comes to bless our lives, beautiful and healthy. He does have a slight cleft lip, but not a cleft pallet so it is only a small deformity of his lip, thank goodness. Mom and baby are doing great and healthy as can be! Unfortunately, I am on babysitting duty this afternoon and can't take the other little Sohm's to visit the new baby because they both have colds. :( Sharese is expected to come home tomorrow with Jacob and my parents are cutting their trip short and thank goodness Jacob came last night and not tonight after her husband left, I would have been the one to take her to the hospital and witness things I don't think I could survive. I am so happy to have a new nephew and will post pictures soon!!!