The End of Summer 2009

As the summer comes to a close, I felt the need to post the remaining pictures from our last visit to the beach. I was really hoping to get 1 more day in before we travel to Calif the beginning of Oct, but I don't think it's gonna happen. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

A lot of changes have come into my life this past year. There are also some huge changes coming up, mainly the move of Taryn and her family. Needless to say it is heart breaking, as Taryn and I have never been apart. We have always lived together or in the same vicinity and seen each other frequently. Her husband Dan is an awesome son-in-law and has his hands full with her! Logan is such a sweet baby and I'm not going to get to know him like I know Brayden. Brayden has my heart and this is going to be extremely difficult for me.

Last Sunday when they came to pick Brayden up from spending the weekend with Grandmommy & Grandaddy Tim, Taryn & Dan brought us a gift. I was sitting there eating lunch before having to scoot off to work. Tim took the box out of the pretty yellow bag and unwrapped the tissue paper around it. It was a digital photo frame! Not just your ordinary digital photo frame. This one had options to put music on it, add borders, put different pictures into files, holding about 1600 photos. Taryn quickly plugged it in, grabbed the remote, pressed a couple buttons and there it was...a song she had uploaded and pictures of Brayden, Logan, some of Taryn & Dan fading in and out. I immediately began to cry. There was no containing the emotion no matter how hard I tried. This really made it hit home that they are leaving. I have yet to play that digital photo frame again, but I know that I will. I just need time to process all of this.

So enough with the sadness of this post, lets get on to the pictures!

Just your typical day with snow white soft sand and the clear warm emerald green waters of the Gulf.

Brayden met a freind...no we don't know this lady but he seems to be carrying on quite a conversation with her.

Tim and I enjoying the sun and all that comes with the beach. We both love this place, it has a lot of meaning for several different reasons.

Really, if you want to know how Brayden likes the beach, this video says it all. Be sure to watch his tongue wagging the whole time! To cute for words!

Alex just hanging out at waters edge.


A little change of subject but I couldn't leave it out. Brayden feels the need to be covered by every sofa pillow available when he comes to our house. Amazingly enough he fell asleep.

My friend Wendi and I. She is from Calif and we used to be Girl Scout leaders with our friend Debbie for 6 years straight. We had some great times. She was here for her daughter Sarah's wedding. Sarah is my surrogate daughter, she is staying put for a couple of years.

Well thats it this time around. I'm going to make a concious effort to keep this updated more often. I will have tons of pics from our trip to CA. We leave in 2 weeks and I just can't wait!

Lorinda's Birthday

So yes, I had another birthday on July 17th. It was like any ordinary friday, went to work early, get off early, Taryn brings Brayden to my work and he goes home with me for the weekend.

Well, Taryn did come, with Sarah too and both kids. Sarah got out of the car to give me a hug and then whips this scarf off her neck and blind folds me. She demands my keys for my car and shoves me in Taryn's car. We take a short drive, I'm led out and then blind fold off. Wala, what is it? We are at a smoothie place. Ok, cool. I can go for a smoothie right about now. We go in, order, try to control Brayden from walking around with one flip flop on and then I mention that it will soon be time for Brayden to eat dinner so we better get to gettin'. Ok, we go out, I need Brayden's booster car seat, Taryn has me come to her car to get it and again I am blind folded and shoved in her car. They tell me, "you didn't think we were that cheap did you?". So we are off again.

Now if you have ever ridden with Taryn, you are no doubt a white knuckler. And here I am blind folded, I feel brakes several times, whipping to another lane, etc. I tell her I'm feeling dizzy without my sence of sight. She says were almost there. She stops and gets me out, Sarah meets us there. Off comes the blind fold and we are at my hair salon! Oh yeah! This is great! I've been wanting to get my hair done for a while and it is just never in the budget lately. I needed a trim and color BAD! I went in and sat down in that chair and at that very point I told Carrie, get rid of it, its yuk, I need a cut, use your creative freedom. I cut it off, not completely but a lot to me. It was tired, getting frizzy, I needed a change. After all I start a new job in 2 weeks!


I like the lighter color, the shaggy ends, that it takes years off my face. I have felt like a new person this past week. Thank you so much Taryn & Daniel!! You helped me feel like a new person!

Half way through my hair appt. Tim showed up in a shirt and tie, and yes pants too. He waited for me, gave me some roses and a sweet card and took me for an awesome Thai dinner. Sarah and Katie E. gave me some great things for my hair and skin care too. It was a great day :)

On the note of the new job, I will now be driving 4 miles round trip instead of 30 and got a $2 an hour raise plus have the potential to make commission. I will be working out of the local hospital with a company that has a contract with them. I'm happy for that, God does good work :)

Random Summer Shots with Brayden

Brayden in his new back yard, Taryn and Dan moved back on base to wait until they leave permanently on Sept 1st for Beale AFB in No. Calif.

Helping Tim sweep after helping (watching & running around) Tim mow the lawn.

Holding baby brother Logan. Logan seems to be saying "I just pooped my pants".

The boy loves to play in the mud. He gets his pail, fills it with water from his pool, and takes it to the corner of the flower bed. He pours it in and makes a big nasty mud puddle that he apparently loves to sit in and throw rocks in so that the mud splashes up on him. He loves to do this every time he comes over to my house.

The climb...

The slide...wait for it..

The landing, hilarious look on his face!

Helping Great Grandma Hutchison water plants. He enjoyed this so much.

4th of July at The Beach

We had a busy day on July 4th. We decided we would go to the beach, but early so we didn't get caught in the crowd. Then we planned to join the church pic-nic in the late afternoon and after that our next door neighbor was having a big BBQ and fire works.


Loving the water, Brayden had such a great time. He is so easy to take to the beach now. He stays right at the water edge and doesn't wander off. He loves to be taken out in the water and will occassionaly come up to us while we are sitting in our chairs and try to nudge us out so we will take him.



The kids had such a great time, including the Big Kids :)

Better watch out Hasslehoff! Haha!

Alex and Tim buried Katie. She loved it!

More water fun with waves and all. The water is 80 something and feels great. It was so nice and clear that day.

A little snack time on the boardwalk before we headed home. We had some Italian Ice and warm pretzels.

Tim and Alex posing with the beautiful Gulf in the background.

All in all it was a great time at the beach. We got there before 9am and left before noon when the swamp of people were arriving for the holiday. It was perfect!

A Special Day in the Life of Lorinda

On May 17, 2009 I was baptized. This was one of the greatest decisions I have ever made. I am growing as a Christian and loving every minute of it. I may not understand so much at the infant stage I am in, but I am learning more each and every day.


That's not to say that I'm still not Lorinda. Do you know what I mean? I'm still the same silly person you know, but I am trying to live my life to a higher standard now. I am accountable for each and every thing I do and say. I still slip up plenty, but with practice I will do better as each day goes by.


Yep, thats me in that picture below, and I am thrilled to say I am Proud to be a Christian!

Our First Anniversary - May 17, 2009

Happy Anniversary to Us!! Yep, we made it to the one year mark! We attended church and worked our way to the Olive Garden for lunch. That particular place has lots of memories for the both of us. We had dinner there the night Tim proposed. It has been a wonderful year , especially with both of us deciding to take an active life in church. We have made such great friends and learned so much.

This past anniversary year, we went on a fabulous honeymoon to St. Augustine, FL, we both were laid off our jobs, dealt with months of unemployment, found new jobs, gained a new grandson, got in a car accident, began attending church, had speeding tickets (naughty!), drove several trips to Tallahassee and Lake City to retrieve/return Tim's kids, joined a Life Group, had a loss of a family member, and turned 1 year older.

It's been grand and I hope for many many more years of excitment!!

Silly Brayden

Brayden comes over and stays with us almost every weekend. He's so fun to be around, I'm going to miss him so much when he moves to Northern California. This is a video I took of him being silly. May 23, 2009

Tom Menasco - September 3, 1927 - April 14, 2009

A tribute to my father, Thomas M. Menasco. My dad was the most easy going person I have ever met. He gave our family a great life, took us on fabulous travel trips, and I always felt such security growing up.

He was a captain at the Anaheim Fire Department, and proudly served the city for 27 years. He also owned and operated a tour company, Tortuga Express.

I had the pleasure of working for him for 12 years. We had a lot of great times! One thing that dad and I looked forward to each year was the Fire & Police Winter Olympics trip. We always travelled with the group on that one and had a ball. The business started out taking travellers on trips to Matzatlan, Mexico. It grew to be the number 1 ski tour operator in the USA to Western Canada. My dad could sell a haircut to a bald man!

My dad loved traveling to Hawaii. Below in the top left is a pic of him relaxing, which really he didn't do all that much when he went to the islands. He liked to get out and do things, meet people. As you see there are a few photos of my parents throughout the years. The bottom right is a pic from 1980, a white water river rafting trip they went on.

My dad was a wonderful Grandfather. I was a single parent and my kids looked up to my dad as a father figure and a positive male role model. Below are a few pics with my kids at the Orange County Fair, Bret crawling up in a Fire Engine for the first time, and some time at Irvine Park with the animals. Memories I know Bret & Taryn will cherish forever.

The thing I am thankful for most in these recent years, is that my dad got to walk me down the aisle when I was married May 17, 2008. He and my mom were able to travel to Florida, see where I lived, and visit the gorgeous area and beach. I am so blessed he was there to give me away, and be with me on my wedding day.

In closing, I want to wish my dad a Happy Father's Day, because he is truely with Our Father and I can take comfort in that. I miss you dad, you will never be forgotten.

**A note to all - this is the first time I've used a program to make collages, they came out ok but I've had a heck of a time inserting them into this blog post. So please just take it as it is, its the best I could do - hee hee :)

Brayden's Monster Truck 3rd Birthday Bash

So since Brayden's birthday was Feb 17, and Logan was born on Feb 11, Bray's birthday kinda got pushed to the side. Not like he would notice at his age but still we wanted to celebrate at some point. Taryn decided to wait to the end of March when the weather was nicer so she could do a bounce house and invite some new classmates as well. Initially it was set for March 28th.

Well...it poured for 4 days and March 28 being the 4th day! It was a mess around here, rivers overflowed, thunder, lightning, and non-stop rain. We made the decision on Friday to alert everyone we would have it on Sunday, March 29 instead. All the weather forcasts were for sunny skies so we chanced it. Turned out to be a gorgeous day! Sunshine, perfect temp. Not to hot, not to cool. We had it in my backyard since Taryn's is pretty much a slope with no fence.

Here Dan and Tim are blowing up the huge bounce house. It took only a few minutes for this thing to blow up and it ended up being taller than the house!

Brayden was just in awe at this thing growing in his Grandmommy and Grandpa Tim's backyard!

It turned out to be such a nice day, Bray changed into shorts and climbed in with his buddies to be a little jumping bean.

The men, have you ever noticed how they always stand around the BBQ? Tim BBQ'd Hot Dogs for everyone.

The cake was awesome! It really was as good as it looked, delicious choclate...MMMM!

Bray in the bounce house with his buddies...he probably jumped for 3 hours. He had the greatest time! This was such a perfect thing for him. Autistic kids have sensory problems and they love movement. He loves to jump and during therapy he jumps on a small trampoline.

March Birthday's

We have several birthday's in March. Katie, Tim, Taryn and my Mom. We celebrated Tim's, March 8 and Katie's, March 3 on the morning of March 7th. Taryn, March 19, celebrated with her husband, and Mom, March 20, well she is in California so we didn't get to do much with her but we did send her a super cool gardening windchime!

Katie turned 11. Here she is with another Webkins. She has quite the collection going!

She got a few other cool things - as you can see she loves "Camp Rock" as much as the other almost tweens.

This is Tim's "cake". Instead of a traditional cake, we had a yummy raspberry danish at breakfast.

Ok so here is Tim being as silly as possible and blowing out the candles on his birthday danish. Now I cannot help pointing out that delicious bacon on the table. Mmmmm...B A C O N !!

Brayden Goes To School

Well I have been out of the loop for a while and have many blogs to catch up on. My computer was on the fritz so lets just see if memory of the last couple of months serves.

Brayden started school in the middle of February. It is a Pre-KD class which is for special needs children. We were excited for him, but also apprehensive. Mom got him all ready for school and both Grandmommy and Grandpa Tim were there for the send off.

So here he is cheesing for the camera...he has no idea what is in store for him.

A little giggle time with Grandpa Tim

Outside to wait for the bus with his backpack on. Now he really didn't like to put that on but we snapped a pic before he wigged out. Now he LOVES his backpack and in the morning mom gets him dressed and he runs to get his backpack and puts it on cause he knows he's goin' to school!

Mom handing Bray to the bus aide. He takes the bus every day right from his driveway. There is a driver and an aide. He has a booster seat and gets strapped in. This looks like torture but actually he ended up not crying a bit after she put him in his seat and he just looked all around out his window. He now LOVES his bus rides!

He looks so sad :( Mom and Grandmommy cried when that bus left. But all in all it is such a great experience for Brayden and he's learning so much. Now taking him out to the bus is like old news. He hops right on and is ready to go :)

Now this is his daily ritual...waiting for his bus, with backpack on and no struggles.

They took school pictures of the kids in March. As far as we know, no one was notified, they just came home in Brayden's backpack with request for payment. Anyhow, since they were the first ever she bought them. I have no idea how they got him to sit still and do whatever kind of smile that is...or get him to sit still period!

Marriage Retreat 2009

Tim and I went on a Marriage Retreat with our Church this weekend. It was a super nice place to stay and we learned a lot in a super fun way. So many of our friends from church were there and that also made it a great experience.

This is the view from our room balcony. That is the Gulf of Mexico out there. It's so gorgeous!! Every time I see it, it's like I'm seeing it for the first time because I'm so in awe.

Here I am before the Friday night part of the conference. I got off work early and we grabbed some Subway sandwiches and drinks and headed to the resort. We were able to enjoy our room and the balcony with its awesome view for a few hours before we headed down stairs to the meeting room. Once there we grabbed a table and sat with some of our friends. First thing they did was pass around a roll of toilet paper. They said take as much as you like. I took 4 squares and Tim took 6. Then they passed around a microphone and you had to introduce your spouse to everyone with facts - 1 for every sheet of toilet paper you took. It was fun, sometimes corny and a good way to get to know people.

Here is Tim, he's a pretty happy guy. The conference that evening had these HUGE cookies. We had a break after the toilet paper game and so we grabbed a couple and some coffee and settled in for a lesson.

Here we are Saturday after the morning conference. They fed us a super yummy buffet breakfast of strangled eggs, biscuits and gravy, bacon and danishes. They picked 3 couples for the Newlywed Game and yup we got picked! We almost won, it was a tie and we had to pick a number between 1 and 10. We lost but we got a cool CD consolation prize. It was all in fun although I would have loved to win that Fireproof video!

All in all it was a great time and we will be back next year! We hung out on the hotels boardwalk for a while and snapped these photos. Then we took off not to long down the road and stopped at Mary's work - Tim's mom. This was her last day...EVER! She is officially retired now. She deserves it! We took her to lunch at "Cheeseburger In Paradise", a place all about Jimmy Buffet.

Tomorrow we have church and Tim and I are on Nursery duty. We are taking Brayden with us as usual and needless to say we will be exhausted when we get home!

What a GREAT weekend!!!