What’s Up Wednesday!

Julie Gimeno

3 years ago

I’m so excited to link up with Sheaffer & Shay!

This post is where I will tell you about a variety of things about what we are up to, what we are cooking, what we are looking forward to, etc.

This post that will come out on the last Wednesday of each month. I hope you enjoy it!

1 | What we’re eating this week

Beef Burrito Bowl with Cauliflower Rice

Green Chile Turkey over Quinoa

I’ve been enjoying all the protein smoothies lately…

Chocolate Zucchini Bread Smoothie

2 | WHAT I’M REMINISCING ABOUT

Tilly

This was my cat Tilly, my first baby! I reminisce about her often, I miss her. It’s been 4 years since the day she left my life. I am just now starting to feel like I can open my heart to getting another pet. I rescued her from a shelter when I lived in Tucson, AZ and was attending UofA. I talked the shelter into letting me take her even though she was only 4 weeks old, she fit in the palm of my hand. She was the coolest most friendly cat; she gave cats a good name. I had to put her down in 2017 and it was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, it broke my heart.

There will never be a more awesome cat than Tilly. I remember when I went to the shelter to go pick out a kitten, she was trying to squeeze herself through the cage to try to get to me. She was so playful and loving, we picked each other, and she was the best sidekick. I would put her in my hoody and take her to my sorority and my friends’ houses. She would sit on my shoulder while I put on my makeup and she handled all the people coming in and out of our quad-plex in college like a champ. She always joined the party when I was in college and then moved with me so many times until I found Jason. Jason became her dad, and we were a family before we had our boys. I’m glad our boys got to meet her but bummed they didn’t get to see her in her glory days. I miss her.

3 | WHAT I’M LOVING

Tyler’s new and improved bedroom…you can read about it HERE.

We also updated Luke’s bedroom, you can read about it HERE.

4 | WHAT WE’VE BEEN UP TO

Attending Luke’s sports games

After dinner family walks

Mother’s Day!

Adults-Only Trip to Cabo

Celebrating my Birthday!

I’m doing a recap of my birthday this Friday for Friday Favorites…stay tuned for the details!

5 | WHAT I’M DREADING

Nothing at the moment, YAY! Life is full and busy such a welcome change compared to this time last year. I want to soak up all the end of the year school activities and I’m ready to have a fun summer with my boys!

6 | WHAT I’M WORKING ON

A couple of things…. first, we are working on our backyard! Jason finally busted out the power washer I gifted him over a year ago, lol. Our ground in our backyard needed it so bad. Very pleased with the results and it was easy to use.

Power Washer

Before

After

Painting the exterior of our home

Next, I met with a few painters to get quotes on painting the exterior of our home. We made a decision and I got it scheduled! The bad news is they are very booked and the painting won’t begin until late August. In the meantime, we need to determine the paint colors…the plan is to drive around our neighborhood and see what we like because we know the existing colors on homes have already been approved by the association. It’s a little tricky in figuring out colors because we have a red-tile roof, so it needs to mesh. I’m pretty sure we are going to go with a muted white with a dark trim like espresso. Always open to suggestions…

Front of our house

Back of our house

Need to hire a carpenter that does wood work

When you start one home project, chances are it will lead to another project…we need to fix a bunch of these Eaves. And I’m pretty sure we are just going to remove them.

Eaves are these wood sections that come out from our home. I guess the builder was trying to go for a certain look. Unfortunately due to them being flat on top, when it rains the water pours right down onto them and over time it rots the wood. How fun is this project?!?! Bottom line we need to repair or replace them prior to painting. At least I’ve got time since the painting won’t begin for almost 3 months, lol.

Making Playroom more functional

Lastly, I’m working on the playroom, we need it to be more functional. When the boys have friends over they’re all over our family room. The first goal is to move the gaming consoles to be connected to the tv in the playroom. Second goal, remove the couch in the playroom, it has become a hazard and takes up too much space. I already scheduled it to be picked up! Third goal, move kid items in my bedroom to the playroom. We have a rather large train table in our bedroom that I’m tired of staring at and can’t wait to move it out and into where it belongs, the playroom. This will allow me to finally have furniture in the right places in our bedroom. Lastly, instead of purchasing another couch for the playroom, I decided to go with oversized bean bags for the kids to chill in when playing games. I just purchased THESE!! I’m so excited to execute my new vision for the playroom and our master bedroom. I’m ready for a functional playroom that works better for this season of life.

7 | WHAT I’M EXCITED ABOUT

SUMMER

We’re SO ready to say goodbye to this school year! I appreciate all the hard work of the teachers and administrators, they’ve done a great job in keeping our schools in our district open since September. But it has been a strange year, especially for Luke. He’s the one that has had to wear a mask 7 hours a day, including while playing outside. He’s ready to be done with this temporary normal and to put this year behind him, and I don’t blame him one bit.

I have 3 camps scheduled for Luke this summer, football, basketball and a nighttime VBS camp at church. Tyler will be doing the VBS camp and a camp with his preschool, I’m so excited he gets to be with his preschool teacher one last time for a fun week!

I have finally scheduled Luke’s birthday party which proved to be a challenge!! It was a challenge not only due to people being out of town for summer vacations, BUT the majority of gaming trucks went out of business and didn’t make it through the pandemic. The demand is there for them so I’m sure more gaming trucks will reopen their doors again. It took some effort, but I got it scheduled and it’s on the books, BUT it’s 2 months after his actual birthday, lol!! He has been wanting a game truck party for a couple years now, so we are thrilled to make this wish come true for him this summer.

Lastly, we have our Florida family coming to stay with us at the end of June and we are so excited to make some memories together, especially because this visit was cancelled last summer. I’ve been a busy bee planning out our summer, and I feel so happy and blessed this summer is going to be fun times with family and friends! You only have so many summers with your kids, so I like to make them count!

8 | WHAT ELSE IS NEW?

Breakfast with my good friend Meagan!

I recently went to breakfast at Ellie’s Table with my friend Meagan in downtown San Juan Capistrano. It’s a cute place, it was nice sitting outside on the patio and the avocado toast was delicious!

I’m still working with a blog consultant to help me with some back-end projects. I’m excited to tell you about it soon. I’m also starting to work on a gift guide for Father’s Day, keep your eye out for it! Other than that I’ve covered most of what’s going on with the Gimeno Family!

9 | WHAT I’M WATCHING \ READING

What I’m watching…

We are on the third season of The Crown and we’re enjoying it!

We like superhero shows and this one is pretty intense. It was created by the same people that made The Walking Dead so at times I have to cover my eyes, if you know what I mean but it’s a good show!

I’m still watching This Is Us and I love it! It makes me cry, laugh and gives me all the feels.

Theses ladies are entertaining and I just started watching this seasons The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

What I’m Reading…

Love Centered Parenting by Crystal Paine

I’m enjoying reading this parenting book alongside my morning coffee. It’s written with a Christian perspective but even if you aren’t very religious there are lots of great takeaways. Plus, Crystal is a blogging mentor of mine, you should go check out her blog, The Money Saving Mom.

10 | WHAT I’M LISTENING TO

I’ve been catching up on episodes of this podcast…it’s a great one to listen to mama’s!

11 | WHAT I’M WEARING

Steve Madden Greece Gold Sandals

Brown Platform Sandal’s from Nordstrom’s! Great deal only $42!!

Madewell Whisper Cotton Stripe Crewneck T-shirt!

Caslon Flutter Sleeve Cotton Blend Tee

Madewell Whisper Cotton Rib Crewneck T-shirt

12 | WHAT I’M DOING THIS WEEKEND

This weekend we have our good friend, Jorge staying with us!

Jason has known Jorge since Elementary school. Jorge is one of my best friends and he’s one of those amazing human beings that you are grateful to have in your life. Jorge is moving to Florida this Sunday and it’s a huge loss for us. Before he leaves, he’s staying with us from Wednesday-Sunday, and we are thankful for this time with him. He’s SO good to our boys, like genuinely loves and cares about them! Our boys are lucky to have someone like Jorge in their life. The good news is we visit Florida often due to Jason’s family living there so at least we will still see him a couple times a year but not nearly as often as we are used to or would like. This is the second good friend of ours to move out of state this year and it’s one of those hard things because good friends are like family and you never want them to move away. We’re happy to have this time with him these next few days!

13 | WHAT I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO NEXT MONTH

EVERYTHING!! LOL!

Next month my first baby, Luke will be turning double digits, WHAT?!?! The big 1-0 years old! I know you hear this often but you blink and they are 10, seriously! Luke has become so mature this past year and our conversations blow my mind to see how his brain is evolving and how his wheels are always turning. He wants to know so much of how the world works and runs and he is just so smart. I’m so proud of Luke and the young man he is growing into just wish I could slow down time per usual.

Luke is turning 10 years old!

I will never tire of this boy and his beautiful smile that lights up our world! So excited to celebrate him next month!

I’m looking forward to Luke attending the Matt Leinart Flag Football camp so he can keep working on his skills. I’m taking Tyler to Pretend City and he has been asking all year when it’s opening back up. They’ve opened some new exhibits, it’s a children’s museum. Let’s see…I’m cashing in on my Mother’s Day gift and spending the day with my bestie, Kelly in Newport going to lunch and getting a facial, YES!!!!

We have plans to hang out with our besties, Megan & Cole and are having a family sleepover with them. We can’t wait to shower Jason with love on Father’s Day. We have Jason’s good friend Jon Scully from college and his family coming to stay with us for 3 nights. I have my cousin Blake, his wife, Leah’s baby shower that was majorly delayed due to Covid and I finally get to meet their son, Bennett! And the month ends with Jason’s parents coming into town followed by his brother Christian and my partner in crime, my sister-in-law, Dana and my three nieces coming to stay with us for a week!!!! There is so much fun happening and I’m going to see so many friends and family that I haven’t seen in a year and it’s going to be amazing!!!

Thanks for reading along today, if you made it this far I’m impressed, it was a LONG post! I hope you have lots of fun times ahead on your horizon too! Have a great rest of the month!