An Attempt at Simplicity

For those of you who know Kevin and I, you'll know that we're clutterbugs. We don't know how to throw things away. Behold my nightstand - terrible, I know:

And when Carolina gets older, goes to school and starts bringing home dozens of art projects, drawings and other schoolwork, well - we could be in some real trouble. So my first post-work project is to get rid of "stuff" - from Prince Fielder bobble head dolls to random magazines to old nail polish, I have my work cut out for me.

It has to get worse before it gets better...

But i'm thankful to have such a helpful assistant in Kevin...

Actually no, he's making things worse, but he's very supportive.  Now that this is out there, I must finish :-)

Playing All Day Long

Watching Carolina the toddler is a real treat. Every waking second she is so genuinely curious, happy and engaged.  I suppose when you have a working environment as colorful and inviting as this, how could you not enjoy your day?

And love taking a morning phone call?

Or taking the baby out to do errands?

Oops, you're forgetting the baby!

Life is fun. Take time to play.

I am Taking a Sabbatical...Indefinitely

I think everyone knows by now that I resigned from my job at Razorfish, which will certainly be a big change for us in 2011. I could no longer bear to be away from my dear Carolina and knew that it was time to move on.

I am dubbing this new phase my sabbatical. We always talk about all the things we would do if we took a year off from our careers, if we had more time,  or if we could do it all over again. Yes, being a stay at home mom is a full time job in itself, but it doesn't mean that we can't have time for ourselves.

So here's to a year of exploring, learning, creating, parenting, growing, traveling, playing, blogging, imagining, simplifying, and much much more. One thing's for sure - we won't be lying around... much :-)

Philippine Holiday Top Five

We ended our 3 week Philippine vacation with upwards of 1000 photos, which we whittled down to a cool 500. Yes, we're clearly still having trouble throwing things out, but I have made de-cluttering our life one of my new year's resolutions. For the sake of simplicity, I put together our top five highlights...

5. The Golf & Pampering: Between the facials, mani-pedis, massages and hot oil treatments, I must have averaged one spa treatment for every two days I was there.

And while the girls got pampered, the boys played golf and had a couple of great rounds (save for the 3 1/2 hour traffic jam coming home from Tagaytay).

4. Family trip to Sumilon: The family was complete -spouses, kids and all and we spent three days on the island of Sumilon. A small island resort, our party of 16 took up the majority of the space - no outsiders, nowhere to go, just chill (and drink and eat). And when you're on a remote island on the other side of the world, how could you not feel completely unplugged?

3. The Carolina and Mariana comedy hour: Between Mariana growling, dancing and laughing, and Carolina toting around purses, cellphones and laptops, the two put on quite the comedy routine.

2. Spending time with family and friends over the holidays: We rarely get to see them, so it was great to catch up with cousins, playing with their kids, spending time with my grandparents, aunts, uncles and seeing good friends over a three week period.

1. Carolina on Christmas morning: My favorite moment of the trip was being with her on Christmas morning, looking festive in her holiday dress and exploring her presents with delight and awe.

Looking forward to 2011

Happy New Year!  We have just returned from a 3 week trip to Manila, Philippines where we spent the holidays with family and friends. 

 We spent most of our vacation time at home with the family, which has given me plenty of opportunities to reflect on the year gone by, and plan for the upcoming one. While 2009 was a year of change (new baby, new city, new jobs), 2010 was one of settling into parenthood, work and life in the California suburbs. We watched Carolina grow, welcomed Mariana into the world, saw Kevin thrive at Salesforce, and Vanessa and I launched RingSpotters.  We were truly blessed this year and we have so much to be thankful for.


One of my bigger regrets (aside from failing to complete the 90 day  P90X extreme fitness program that Kevin and I had been so excited about) is my unsuccessful attempt at properly documenting Carolina's first year and managing our digital life in general. Case and point, my last post on this blog was on October 15th.


Well, all we can do now is look forward to another year of exciting possibilities and I am looking forward to documenting it (more diligently) and sharing it with you this year.