Good morning and Happy April Fool's Day!!  Oh the memories of all the pranks that Mike pulled on Jenna and Jeff when they were growing up.  Fun stuff!  Can you believe it is April?  Wow.....time is flying!!  This is the last school day and then we start spring break tomorrow.....YIPPEE!!!  It will be a fun day with the kids today.  I think they are just as ready for a break as the staff is. 

Wanted to give you all a little update on my friend Bill Cartwright.  In case you hadn't heard yet he has brain cancer.  They have found two tumors.  I talked to his sweet daughter Brenda yesterday and it looks like they will be doing the gamma knife procedure on him too.  I don't know everything yet or when it is going to take place but the family is so thankful for your prayers for Bill.  He is a strong man and I know that with all of our prayers, support and encouragement he will get through this too.  Please remember to keep his sweet wife Donna in your prayers too for strength.

Sincerely and from the bottom of my heart I want to thank you all for being able to come to you with prayer requests.  It is not only appreciated by me but by so many others.  Isn't it truly amazing how God works? I so believe in the POWER of prayer!!  By the way......you know I am already praying......so if there are any prayer requests right now please let me know.  leslie@mgilbert.net

Got to throw in a picture of Tyler.  This is the little flying monkey on my knees flying him around.  Love play time with him! 

I went out to dinner last night for closing ceremonies with some friends and we ate filet mignon.  Laughed a lot and had a great time!  Thanks girls!!  Birth month celebrations are  now officially over.   Ha! Ha! 

I want to wish my friend Caryn Rubio a very "Happy Birthday" today!!  Have a fun day Caryn!!!

If you are up to reading one more interpretation of the Easter story read in your bible John, chapters 19, 20 and 21.

Have a super day everyone!!  Today is another gift from God and He is so Good!!!  Thank you God for your perfect timing!

Did you do a baby book for your kids?  I did and am so thankful that I have it.  I look at them frequently now that Tyler is here.  Great....great memories!  I also did school years memory books too.  I made sure that I took a picture of Jen and Jeff with their teachers every year through 6th grade. That is besides all the scrapbooks I did.  My book shelves are full!  :)

Good morning!!  First and foremost this morning I would like to ask you all to pray for someone who is near and dear to my heart, Bill Cartwright.  He is having some real serious health issues again.  He is in a hospital right now in San Diego.  Please keep his whole family in your prayers too.  I will update you when I can.  Brenda.....if you get a chance to update us please do.  We love you Bill!  You can do this.....I have no doubt in my mind that you can.....we are all behind you 100%.

Well this is the end of celebrations for birth month.  What a great time I had.  I am going out tonight for dinner to celebrate closing ceremonies.  lol :)   This month really passed by fast.  Hard to believe that Easter is Sunday.

Tyler turned 5 months old last Sunday.  Here is the picture we took of him next to his 5 candle.  What a big boy he is getting to be and such a sweetheart.  He really is the happiest little guy! 

 Terrie O......what a wonderful visit yesterday!!!  I could of stayed all evening!!  Had a great time catching up.

If anyone is up to it, read in your bible Luke, chapters 23 and 24.  Yet still another interpretation of the Easter story.

Have a wonderful day everyone!!  Today is another gift from God and He is so Good!!  Thank you God for your daily help.

What does your family have for their Easter dinner?  We are having fried chicken, mash potatos, mac and cheese, etc.......

Good morning!!  Only 3 more school days till spring break!  Yay!!  With the beautiful days that we have been having it is hard to be at work.  Just want to be outside working in my yard.

Last Saturday we also went to some dear family friends of ours, the Verdugo's,  grandson's 1st birthday party. It was Sesame Street themed.  Tyler got to sit on his first bouncey house and got his face painted.  Juli Verdugo had the patience of a saint doing Tyler's face.  He kept turning to look at the paint brush.  lol.  It was really cool because it is one of Jenna's friends that she went to kindergarten with, (Diana's son).  Several of her friends from high school were there as well as their babies.  It is so awesome to sit there with my friends and watch our kids being parents.  Aaaahhhhh the joys of being a grandparent. Thank you Verdugo/Vargas Family........we had a great time at baby Ernie's birthday party!  Here are a couple of pics from Saturday.This is Tyler with mommy showing off his painted face. 
Here he is sitting on the bouncy house.  He wasn't quite too sure what to think of it.

 Terrie O.......so do you have the rest of this week off and spring break? So sorry that I didn't get back to you last night.  Will call you today. I know you.......you will go, go ,go.....so try hard to pick up a good book and get some rest in too.  Have to plan a play date in there somewhere.  :)

Good luck Angel Linda on all of your tests today!!

Kimberly Phillips.....forgot to tell you that we heard Alan's band Saturday night at the Relay For Life walk.  They were so good!  They played some real fun upbeat songs to keep everyone going!  Tell Alan that I loved it!

Denise Rogers......love your Easter tradition with your hubby!  I think I would like to do that too!  (if you missed what she does look at yesterday's comment from her).  So cool!

Have a terrific day everyone!!  Today is another gift from God and He is so Good!!  Thank you God for making us aware of the needs that are around us.  Give us strength to help when we need to and can.

If you are up to another challenge....read chapter's 15-16 in the book of Mark in your bible.  Another interpretation of the Easter story.  Only takes a few minutes.

Do you do Easter baskets for your kids??  I still do!!  Ha! Ha!  Now I get to do one for Tyler!

Good Monday morning!!!  How was everyone's weekend?  Wasn't the weather just gorgeous this weekend?  Well it was if you lived in the Imperial Valley.......how was everyone else's weather?  Has spring sprung everywhere?  What a busy weekend we had!

I had the wonderful opportunity to walk in the American Cancer's Relay For Life walk on Saturday night and on Sunday morning.  I walked the final lap for the cancer survivors.  I got very teary eyed walking that lap.  I was thanking God for the incredible and hard journey that got me there and for being alive and well.  I was overwhelmed also with emotion because I was doing this final lap pushing the stroller with Tyler in it.  What a moment in life that was for me. I am so thankful for that little guy.  Thank you God for me being a walking miracle and to be able to show everyone how strong you are when we are weak and for your miraculous healing power.  I can't begin to thank my friend Carmen Canalez enough for all she did for our team in this walk.  She and her husband Richard worked tirelessly putting this together and being there the whole 24 hours plus.  I also want to thank all of the sweet people who bought luminares in honor of me.  Walking around the track last night and seeing 1500+ luminares all lit was a beautiful sight.  In the stands they lit up the word HOPE and then CURE.  You just had to be there to experience it.  Awesome!  Here are a few pictures of the walk.

This beautiful woman is Carmen Canalez.  Doesn't she look great for being up for more than 24 hours?

  Here I am with Jenna and friends during the victory lap and pushing my sweet little Goobie in his stroller.

 And here is a picture of one of the luminares that someone so sweetly made for me.

Yesterday was also Palm Sunday.  I can't believe that Easter is this Sunday!  I am ready though.  Only 4 more school days and then we are off for 10 days!  WooHoo......spring break.....here we come.  Did I tell you that I will have Tyler during the days that Jenna works during spring break?  Yay!!!  Very excited about that too.

Hope that everyone gets a chance this week to reflect on what Easter is about.  I have a challenge for you all.  Get your bible out and read from the book of Matthew, chapters 27 and 28. It will only take a couple of minutes.  I will have a new challenge tomorrow.  I just want everyone to be reminded about the wonderful story of Easter. 

Have a marvelous Monday everyone!!  Today is another gift from God and He is so Good!!  

Does your family do the tradition of dying Easter eggs?  Yep.....we sure do.  Even make a competition out of it. 

Good Saturday morning!!  Wow......what a day that I had yesterday!  IT WAS AWESOME!!!!  I need to say a HUGE "Thank You" to everyone out there that made not only my birthday great but the whole month of March fun for me too! Believe it or not I will still be celebrating until "closing ceremonies" on March 31st.  A group of my friends are taking me out that night.  Looking forward to that too.  I had the most wonderful day yesterday.  The whole day made me smile!!  Thank you for the tons of Happy Birthday wishes on Facebook, e-mails, text messages, phone calls and the ton of bithday cards that I received!  I appreciate you all taking the time to do that.

Here are a few of the many pictures that were took last night.  My family....Tyler was a sleepy head. 

Me and Jeff laughing. 

Jenna and me. 

 I wanted to fill you in on how my days went at Hoag this week.  On Tuesday they had to do a bunch of tests.  When I told my sister that it felt like they took half of my blood out I wasn't kidding.  They took 10.....yes 10 vials of blood from me.  Not little vials either......big ol test tube size!  YUCK!  I really don't know what they do with all of that but the nurse was even joking that I wasn't going to have any left.  Then Mike and I pretty much cruised around the rest of the day and had a super nice dinner at a place called Don The Beachcomber's.  If you are ever in Newport Beach you must eat there.  The food was very good!  Service was excellent.  Atmosphere was so fun......exotic, tiki like. 

Wednesday was just a fun relaxing day for the both of us.  Did all sorts of things and ended the night with going to Medieval Times.  Had sooooo much fun there.  Food is so good too.  Oh we ate a ton while we were gone.  Thursday I just had to go back to the hospital so they could read my skin tests and then we were back on the road home.  By the way.....my skin did react some this time to the skin test.  That is a good thing though.  Means my body is identifying the vaccine stuff.  (That is the easiest way to say it) lol.

Today I am hanging out with Monica, Jenna and Tyler.  Then I am off to another birthday party.  Tonight I am participating in the American Cancer Society Relay For Life at Southwest High School.  What an honor it is to be able to walk in that with a bunch of my friends.  Tomorrow morning I will be walking the Cancer survivors victory lap.  I think that will be very emotional for me.  I will take some pics of the event and share them with you  and tell you more about it next week.

I want to wish a very "Happy Anniversary" to my mother and father-in-law, Frank and Jodi tomorrow!  Have a fun day you two!

Have a really nice weekend!!  I will be back here on Monday!  Today is another gift from God and He is so Good!!!  Thank you God for love!

What are you up to this weekend?  Anyone else doing the cancer walk?