i’m glad for the weekends…i am always. i can sleep later (usually until alex wakes up), laze around in my jammies and enjoy my time with the kids and hubby. my kids can bask in the knowledge that their mommy will be home for two full days. my younger daughter still asks me sometime if i’m going to go to work. i always tell her “No, i’ll rather stay home with you.” that always makes her happy.

this particular morning, i woke up at 5:30am and got some quite time before the kids woke up. i was able to organized all my digital scrapbooking supplies, browse and read some blogs, made breakfast, and think about what i’m going to do later in the morning. so far, this weekend will be a lazy weekend for me. i love those.

i can proudly said that my folders are much neater than before and i can find what i need for the most part. so, between chasing my kids and spending time with them, i was able to scrap a few layouts.

credits: dunia – an easy way template, Honey Designs’ SweetCake kit

credits: Darcy Baldwin Scrapping with Shannon template, Danos Pookie Designs’ Spooked kit

credits: tracie stroud building blocks 3 template and customize me alphas & crystal’s creations’ loves & xoxos kit

credits: scrapping with liz strip template, one little bird abide kit

NOW you see why i simply love love templates???!!! they make my life easier SO much easier and leaves me more time with the kids. i’m positive that my kids love templates almost as much as i do. LOL

on a side note, since i bought my laptop i haven’t really done any backing up. my two external hard drives are hooked up to my desktop and it’s too much of a hassle to uplug it and use it for the laptop. i sorta kept my eyes open for a great deal on a portable drive but nothing really. i mean, there was black friday but i wasn’t keen on being up at 4am, being out in the super cold weather and fight a bunch of people for one.

i did managed to score a WD 640GB portable drive 2.0 USB the other day from dell for about $53 (without coupon including taxes and shipping. it sounds like a great deal and that’s plenty for me right now. this will be my first portable drive so i’m quite excited. not to mention that it’s smaller and usb powered so i don’t have to drag around a power cord.

what a wonderful equation huh?

this is one of my top favorite apps for the captivate. it is really hard for me to read and keep myself up to date on all my favorite stuff. i actually tried about 4 different feed apps on the captivate before i settled on this one. it is very fast, very light and i just love love love it!

i subscribed to all the feeds using google reader and added my reader account to feedjuice. it then pulls every new post from google reader, list them in order of date with the blog name and i pick whichever one i want to read. i can do this without having to be on the computer, anywhere at all. with kids, it is definitely a time saver for me. i know i’ll get every update without trying to remember which is which and when i find a great blog i want to follow, click, it gets added to google reader.

try it out and it just might make you fall in love, again!

http://www.appbrain.com/app/org.robotjuice.feedjuice

i’m still loving my captivate phone! it is such a fun toy…seriously. this is the first smartphone i have and it is neat to play with. amazon had great prices on their phones for upgrades right before thanksgiving that the hubby got one too. two new phones for 1 penny each is not too bad for me.

i have been downloading apps off the Market here and there and have a few favorites. one of my favorite is the google voice that comes standard with all android phones. it’s quite funny that i have never even heard of that before.

what it does is, you sign in using your gmail account, pick a number, any number that is available from google. with that number, you can send text messages, using your existing data (or wifi) plan for free! i don’t text much so i would never pay for text messages but with this feature, i can send as many texts as i want within my data limit. if your friends and families text you back, they’ll have to send it to your google number instead of your cell # so you won’t get charge. the google number forwards everything to your designated number.

you can also choose to dial out using your google voice number as opposed to your cell phone too. i think that would still be using your minutes so i don’t really see the point. you can set up your google voicemail and use that as your cell voice mailbox as oppose to at&t’s. i thought that was really neat. i’m using google’s voicemail box and i really am digging it. google voice can transcript the voicemail messages too if they are clear enough. that way, you can glance at your voicemail to see if it need immediately attention or listen to it later.

i’m sure there are a lot more features to google voice that i don’t know about. i use only the basics, which still offer more options than the default voicemail.

totally recommended! at least give it a try! i think the app have just been approved for the iphones too.

check it out at: http://www.appbrain.com/app/google-voice/com.google.android.apps.googlevoice & http://google.com/voice

It’s that time of the year again and I just want to wish everyone and their love ones a super super happy Thanksgiving!!

I am thankful for every little thing that I have in my life, especially my families and friends. I love you all!
Now, I’m officially off to enjoy Thanksgiving.

It’s been so long since I bought myself a phone. I was just not into the iPhone and the ones I want are too expensive. I had my eyes on the Nokia n95, then the n97, and now on the n900.

I was using James’s old Sony Ericsson and went online to see what Att have. I browsed passed pretty much all the phones when the Captivate captivated my attention. I sort knew what I was liking for, like the minimums that I required etc. The captivate seems to have them. 5 MP camera, 3.5+ screen, video camera, small, thin and just pretty much what the Nokias have.
I did some research and this phones seems to performed quite well. Coming from a regular phone, this thing is just feature-rich all around.

This does all the basic features plus a whole lot more. Android really does…hahaha. Originally I was liking for a physical QWERTY keyboard and that would make the phone thicker. This doesn’t have one but it turns out that I prefer that. The touchscreen is so responsive and coming from someone who doesn’t text at all, I’m pretty good if I do say so myself.

The Android Market have so many applications to download for free too.

I am still discovering my new phone but it has been fun so far and I expect it to be so for some time.

Totally recommended! On a side note, I blogged this post from, you guessed it, the Captivate!

our last full day in hawaii and we were quite anxious to get back to the kids. the night before we decided we were going to do the bike down the haleakala mountain. we were trying to decide between this and a luau. we read a lot of mixed reviews on the luaus and we weren’t so sure we want to be out $225 and not like it. what we do know is that we enjoy biking. so biking it is.

we woke up, ate a few sandwiches, pack a light lunch and off we go. instead of taking the road to hana, there was another road you can take and that takes you to a different part of the mountain it seems.

after we were fitted with a helmet and rain jacket, we were taken by bus up the winding road by the biking company. at 5500 ft elevation, we started our downhill ride all the way back to the bike shop. it was a total of about 23 miles. it was cleared during our drive up. james and i were the last two riders being sent off and by the time it was our turn, the fog had crept in.

a bit of background info, james and i know how to ride bikes but we are not bikers.  so here we are, about to roll down this winding downhill road at about 30 mph while trying hard not to hit the fence and fly over the side of the mountain. either that or hit oncoming traffic. a terrifying thought huh?

i set off first and james waited 10 seconds before he followed me. let me tell you, i seriously have moments where i thought i really was going to just fly off the side or hit oncoming cars. we were really going down fast. there was no need to peddle and you couldn’t apply your breaks fast or you’ll fly over the front. then we had to allow enough space to turn without crossing over to the other lane. all of these plus the fact that the mist / fog was right in your face, wetting your sunglasses and clouding your vision. since the majority of the riders did not have gloves, i felt like i was getting frostbite! my hands were freezing. everything combine together made this a really really fast uncomfortable ride downhill. we couldn’t see anything because of the fog so we didn’t stop long enough to take photos, only to wiped our sunglasses.

after about 10 minutes, i stopped and when james caught up with me, he was thinking of just calling it quits because of all those factors. he also said i was going too fast! i told him i wasn’t peddling, i was just rolling down! he was scared i was going too fast. needless to say, we kept going and when we got to the lavender field, the fog had lifted and now we can see around us. it was beautiful and the air was nice and clean – very relaxing!

we stopped by a lodge to partake of our light snacks, took a few more stops on the way to take photos and just admired everything. i think the company must have loosen the bike chains a bit because you couldn’t peddle long before the chains sort of just slack up on you. i didn’t like that but the good thing was that you had time to look around and not go too fast. i would have liked full power for biking uphill! we had to go up a few roads and i couldn’t peddle all the way up! i’ll start peddling really hard and fast but the bike doesn’t gain momentum!

some parts of the roads were quite bumpy and my behind felt sore afterward. we got back at around 2:30pm. the drive back to lahaina was nice and relaxing after that frantic beginning.

we stopped by this little hole in the wall chinese restaurant and order some to go dishes so we can eat later. we were too tired to sit and eat there. we actually stopped at the thai restaurant a few times after our initial visit but they were always closed! their hours are 11 – 2pm and 5-9pm. we arrived twice between the opening hours and once on a sunday (their closed day). it was really unfortunate as we would have really love to eat there again.

after eating at the hotel, we packed and clean what we can in the room and just think of the flight the next day before we can see our kids again. it was wonderful to think by this time tomorrow we’ll be close to home.

the next morning, our flight left at 9:45am to oahu. our 2nd leg of the flight didn’t leave until almost 1pm. we didn’t get home until after 10pm. i was so happy to finally be knocking on my door again. when they opened the door to welcomed us, my little guy was still up and eating. jaelynn got up from the couch to hugged us and told me she was sick that day. faith gave me a hug too. alex kept looking at james and me like we were total strangers and it sort of broke my heart. he didn’t smile at us at all and just kept eating. i talked and talked to him and after about 5 minutes, he raised his arms and gave me a smile. i lifted him into my arms and boy, my world felt alright again.

it didn’t take long before everyone started talking at once and it was wonderful how all those noise just sound so right! i did miss maui but definitely not as much as i miss my kids.

today we walked over to the other side of kaanapali beach (aka black rock) to snorkel. the beach here is right in front of the sheraton hotel and there were a lot more people. there were so many fishes here and if you’re lucky, you can catch a turtle here and there. because of that, it was very very crowded. i preferred the beach in front of the royal lahaina more. a bit more serene for some reason.

later in the afternoon, we went over to front street where most of all the shops and tourists were. we walked around for a bit and then went to thai chef for lunch. it’s been a while since we’d been to a thai restaurant so we were really looking forward to some spicy food. it’s always spicy food for us. james ordered the mongolian beef while i ordered the wide stir fried noodles. we asked them to make it spicy. when the dishes came, they look absolutely delicious! and spicy?? oh yea!  man, these were some of the spiciest dishes we ever had at a restaurant. they really know spicy! it was just so good. it really cleared up our sinuses…not that they needed any clearing up. if you’re ever in maui, please, give thai chef and kobi a try. you’ll love them!

you can tell, we really really love food…LOL. make it spicy and it’s even better!

we walked around some more and then returned to the hotel and just lounge on the balcony and around the beach. really relaxing!

on the 4th day, we started the day with breakfast at moose’s located on front street. they served some huge breakfast platter. a lot of food make james and i happy.

now that our tummies were happy, we decided to go exploring on the wailea side of maui. our first stop were the shops at wailea. we had a lot of fun window shopping and just checking everything out.

next was ulua beach, which was only a few blocks from the shops. the waves were a bit higher than at kaanapali beach. it was also a bit windier. i didn’t take a dip but james did while i walked from one side of the beach to the other. it was very nice here but not as sunny. it was kind of overcast on this day.

we drove over to kihei for a late lunch at an all you can eat chinese buffet. we took our gps with us and this thing comes in handy when we want to search for a certain type of restaurant, ie: chinese, thai, all you can eat, etc. loved it!

we got back to the hotel and james took a dip in the hotel pool while i did some reading on my kindle. so nice!! maui is really gorgeous!

on the 6th day, we again started out in front street. we had breakfast again at moose’s. their food are just great! this time, we walked through a bunch of art galleries and saw some really nice art work!

maui weather is hot, humid, and stuffy. you feel like you need to take a shower a few times a day here. you’re just sweating and sticky after each outing. or maybe it’s only me…okay TMI. sorry.

we need to cool down a bit so we stopped by this place called paradise-something for some crepe ice cream. i had a orange creamsicle and james had the coconut. we thought they’re just regular ice cream but it was huge! they’re like a meal! the guy was so nice and he decorated our crepes prettily in case we wanted to take pictures. LOL we told him we did!

afterwards, back to the hotel to lounge around. by this time, we were missing the kids so badly! i stayed up on the night of my birthday because i was missing my kids so much! i cried to think how far away i was from them on my birthday. since it was just us, we missed all the craziness that comes with kids! now we tell ourselves if we take a vacation without the kids in the future, we’ll only go for 4-5 days.