It's been a while...

It has been a WHILE since I've been here... I just wanted to stop by and say hi to anybody who is still listening...

Married life is still as wonderful as they say it is! Cory and I just celebrated our one year anniversary of getting ENGAGED! Cory surprised me and set up a dinner and a show to celebrate what was the start of our blissful lives together. We ate at Scott's Seafood (DELISH) and saw Spam-A-Lot at the Orange Country Performing Arts. It was a wonderful evening, we had the BEST time... and then, we saw the end of the Angels game in extra innings... 13 innings, you all saw it... Nuff said.

TODAY is Game 3 of the ALCS... Angels vs. Yankees... It is the first home game of the series. Angels are down 2-0. We have tickets... it's a day game, so Cory and I got into work early so that we could leave at 11:00am and head to Angels Stadium. I'm not gonna lie... I couldn't sleep last night. I'm not sure if it was the bear sawing logs next to me in bed... OR... the fact that I can't get the last 3 or 4 Angels errors out of my mind... OR... some morbid combination of the two. Either way... I did not get good sleep last night. SO, it would be in the Angels best interest, and any Yankee fan in a arms reach of me, that the Angels BLOW the Spankees out of the park for the next FOUR games!

Please Rally Monkey, don't let our boys commit any more RIDONKULOUS errors!!!

Brace Face Lives!

So, I've been trying to hide it for a little while, but am over it, and am just coming out...
Hi, my name is Annaliza, and I am a 32-year-old married woman with braces.

For whatever asinine, juvenile reason, I wanted braces as an adolescent. I saw most of my friends getting them, saw the coordinating colored rubber bands, and thought, "WOW... how cute are my friends with their shiny, silver braces, and HOT PINK rubber bands - I WANT!" BIZARRE - I mean, isn't that the time that we are all struggling with our identity? How would a mouth full of enough metal to pick up magnets help that? What were we thinking???

Obviously, getting older, you start to value the fact that you never had to wear them... that you took care of your teeth, that you were blessed with straight pearly whites, and that you never had to deal with snapping rubber bands and forgetting to take the wax off of your braces before eating. You never imagine that you would hear those words, "Invisalign won't work for you, you have to wear braces." When my dentist referred me to Dr. Carter to talk about my dental implant in the WAY back of my mouth... braces never entered my mind. I never figured that there would be an pre-work that needed to be done... who me?

I remember this day vividly... all of two weeks ago. I was naively walking into an ORTHODONTIST'S office (not sure why that didn't tip me off), thinking that he was gonna take a look at my grill and tell me that I just needed the implant in the way back and I'd be good to go... set up the appointment, maybe try and coax some teeth whitening out of him, and BAM, I'm a new woman! Another tip off, should have been when they made me watch this video on ways to correct your smile and bite. Huh? So, I watched it... somewhat entertaining at best. Whatever, right? So, then Dr. Carter makes me sit in the chair. You know, the one where you feel like you're going to slide down, head first at any moment, and the dentist's tools will somehow jab into the roof of your mouth as your dentist and some dental hygenist try to save you from certain death... of sliding off the chair. I sat in the chair, opened wide... oooh, did you know that they now make bubble gum scented gloves... cuz that makes your positively horrific dental experience so unforgettable. He continued to poke around at my teeth, pushing them around, seeing how my gums would bounce back (I have healthy gums apparently)...all this time, I'm thinking "If the word 'braces' escapes his mouth, so help me!" Sure enough... "well Annaliza, I think we're gonna need to put some braces on your bottom teeth." No joke, first words out of my mouth - "Do I qualify for Invisalign? If not, how much are the clear braces? What are issues if I don't get them at all?" Luckily, he didn't tell me that I needed them on both the bottom and top and that I couldn't at least have clear ones, or I may have used the dental tools as weapons. As we went through "the plan", I began to sweat. Not only do I have to be a 32-year-old nerd with braces, but GEEDEEMIT, they are EXPENSIVE! Again, THANK GOD, I'm not getting both top and bottom! I think Dr. Carter noticed my uneasyness because he later told the coordinator to give me the clear braces for free... then he proceeds to tell me that I only have to have them on for 4 to 8 months (best/worst case)... god bless him.

Cut to 2 weeks ago... I'm in that same chair. Whoopdeedoo! The place the CLEAR brackets on, they start to add the wire, and my orthodontist reminds me that this will be a Love/Hate relationship. Then... he tightened the first wire... ok, not so bad, WHATEVER. Then... he tightens the next set... HOLY CRAPBALLS. It felt like my teeth were crunching in on each other and that they were going to rip themselves out to save themselves! Then the braces were all in and Dr. Carter realized that I would also need a retainer because one of the braces was in such a place that would not allow me to close my mouth all the way. So, after putting the braces on, I had to do another impression so that they could mold my retainer. The cool thing about that was I got to pick the design of the retainer. No surprise... I got Winnie The Pooh on it! Heehee!

For the first few days, I couldn't chew at all and my front teeth were very tender. You really never realize HOW you use your individual teeth (incisors, molars, etc) until you can't use them any more. I basically had to take all food and place it in the VERY back and chew it for a minimal amount then attempt to swallow. And all of this caused lots of pain... but I dealt... a girl's gotta eat, right? A week past, and things weren't too bad. A few more days, and I was ALMOST back to being able to eat normal foods again. But OH, the annoyance of having to floss. I floss religiously. I will never go through root scaling ever again!!! Do you know how to floss when you have braces? It's an irritating, painstakingly, tedious job that HAS to be done. With braces, flossing has gone from a quick and painless 2 minute process, to a 5-10 minute chore that causes soreness for a few hours. Hm! =(

So, this morning... I had my appointment at 8am. I was to get my retainer that would fit the back teeth that couldn't take the braces because of their location. I was excited to see what this retainer would look like, but not excited about having to wear it all day, every day, and only getting to take it out during mealtime. Dr. Carter came out and began the process of fitting the retainer in my tiny mouth. This task proved to be convoluted and agonizing... as with every snap in and snap out, it felt as if he was trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, all within the small confines of my mouth. When he finally grinded things down and bent things in, the fit seemed to work, but BOY was it excrutiating. He said that it's not supposed to hurt. Pressure yes, pain no.

The more he looked at it, the less he liked the idea... and finally realized that the only thing that would work... would be the original plan. To place the brackets on the back teeth and place a "Power Chain" to pull the worst bent tooth over, then adjust the bracket after that... HOWEVER, in the meantime, because of how the brackets fit, I will not be able to close my mouth all the way to chew. It is LIQUID DIET CITY for yours truly. I mean, I was TRYING to get back to the gym to lose weight... well, at least I've got the "how to" answered. Dr. Carter says that it should only be like this for 3-4 weeks... (sigh)

So, today, I've had a cup of tea, half a cup of soup, and a smoothie from Juice It Up. Cory is on his way to the store as we speak to buy me some broth of any kind, mash potatoes, and stuff to make smoothies... Needless to say, my stomach has been growling all day - if you saw my Facebook status... It sounds like I swallowed Chewbacca and he is now trying to get out!!!

Anyone got any other suggestions of what I can eat?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!!!!

Everybody stop and wish my Pops (aka - Dad, Tito Eddie, Mr. Victoria, Mahal) a FANTABULOUS...



My dad is celebrating his 58th birthday this year... doesn't look a day over 40 if you ask me...

LOVE YOU DADDY!!!

V is for VICTORIA

As a woman... you dream about the day that you will walk down the aisle, in the gorgeous white gown, with the vibrant flowers, people smiling, slowly making your way to the love of you life, and to say "I do"... You never really think about the day that you'll have to endure the lines at the Social Security office and the DMV to change your name. At least, I never did!

But, here we are. It's been almost 3 months since the glorious day where I went from Annaliza Guico Victoria to Annaliza Victoria Smith. The time elapsed has nothing to do with a non-desire to change my name... I really have been busy at work and unable to leave to spend my afternoon in lines.

Alas, yesterday, my husband, Mr. Cory Smith, asked me, "Are you ever gonna change your name?" So, today it is! My boss is traveling on business, I've got most of my projects moving along, my payroll girl keeps asking when she can change my name on my paycheck and buy my new name plate and business cards... and if I don't get this done before our first anniversary, there won't be a first anniversary to celebrate... HAHAHA! Cory is gonna come with me... we're gonna make a lunch date out of it... awwww.

Anyhoo... so this is it folks. The last day you can refer to me as Annaliza Victoria. I mean come on, it's my family name, I've lived with it for the past (almost) 33 years... and, let's face it... it sounds cooler. =) I will always be a Victoria at heart, but now I am a Smith.

Or as Cory likes to call my... Lil Smitty...

CONGRATS TO MR. & MRS. NORRMAN!!!

I just want to give a big shout out to the new Mr. & Mrs. Norrman!
CONGRATS MARCY & ANDERS!
They had a GORGEOUS wedding in San Diego this past weekend. Not only was it heartwarming to see two people so in love tie the knot... it was awesome to see Lily as the officiant (fabulous job Lily!)... and it's always the biggest bonus ever to see my SD ladies!

The end of this month is proving to be yet another doozie! Last weekend was the Norrman wedding. This weekend, Ann & Travis are coming into town... more partying. Plus it's Jocelyn's baby shower on Saturday and Kristin's baby shower on Sunday... where have our weekends gone?

And then of course... Next Weekend...



Can't wait for Gwenny and my girls!!!

My first scuba diving injury...

For those of you who haven't seen the picture yet... I have suffered my first scuba injury. No big deal, it looks worse than it really it, but I'm bummed that I can't dive for a few weeks. Even worse, it happend on my first deep dive in Catalina, so I could not continue on to do my wreck dives, and today, I am missing out on diving the Yukon down in San Diego. Cory and Davis went, and I'm super jealous that I had to stay home, BUT... am thankful that mask squeeze is all I got, and nothing worse.

So, how did this happen and what is mask squeeze? Basically mask squeeze is when you don't equalize the pressure in your mask. At deeper depths, and at this case, 98 feet, it turns your mask into a suction cup... pretty much, it's painful, and blood vessels burst in your eye and you're forced to not dive until things clear up. (sadness)

We were in Catalina for our deep and wreck dives. First dive of the day was a deep dive. The plan was to decend to 100ft then to check out how colors change at that depth with less light and then swim up the slight incline, hopefully checking out giant sea bass and bat rays. I was already a little apprehensive about this dive. Just the depth. But I was assured by many other experienced divers, including Cory, that diving at 100ft is no different than diving at 30ft, just the air intake is more at a deeper depth. We geared up and kicked out to the far corner buoy... that was tiring. I was feeling ok, but I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be. Our instructor Sean, descended with the first two divers, Davis and another guy in our class, can't remember his name. Cory and I descended with a Dive Master candidate, Daryl.

As we were descending, I was doing alright. I didn't much care for using the large chain to hold onto as a tactile reference for the descent, but that was part of the dive instructions, so that's what we did. The chain was a bit rough since it was slightly choppy up above with all of the boating activity in the harbor (4th of July weekend). A few times, holding the chain made me dizzy, but when I looked up, it would go away. At about 50-60 feet, I start to have trouble equalizing, so we stopped for a second until I was able to equalize my ears. When I felt comfortable, we started to descend again. I noticed at about 70 feet that there was some pressure on my mask, but for whatever reason, it didn't last long. I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable, but I wanted to push on because I figured that it was just my nerves. As the Dive Master kept asking me if I was ok, I recall that my "ok" back to him was delayed, mostly because I was uncomfy. And then I looked down, and noticed that the first group was at the bottom and we were about 10 feet above them. Within the last 5-10 feet of our descent, I felt a HUGE surge of pressure on my face and began to get disoriented. When we hit the bottom, the whole ocean started spinning and I thought that I was going to throw up. Sean, my instructor, approached me to begin the skills part of the dive, and I'm told that's when he noticed that I was not right. He flashed me the "ok", and I violently shook my head NO (which made me feel worse). I continued to feel like I was spinning out of control. In all of this disorientation, I had no idea that my wonderful, brave husband had noticed that something was wrong almost immediately when we got to the bottom and grabbed my waist, for fear that I would bolt for the top, as a panicked diver would normally do. THANK GOD for our rescue class!!! It was fresh in our minds, and I knew that the last thing I wanted to do is ascend quickly and risk decompression illness. So, as uncomfortable and in pain as I was, I stayed calm and waited for Sean to assess the situation, and hoped that he would take us up as quickly as safely possible. Plus, I remember saying to myself that Sean would kill me if I panicked underwater and that I better stay calm and not race to the top... hahaha! He got a good laugh when I later told him that.

We began our ascent. Again, for a moment, I had no idea that Cory was holding on to me. The only thing that was alleviating the spinning was crushing Sean's hand during the ascent. In fact, he had to take his hand away for a minute to check his computer, and I quickly grabbed it. It's amazing, the feeling that you get, when you can't cry. It's all I wanted to do. I was in so much pain and spinning out of control. And I couldn't cry into my regulator. I remember starting to shake and "blubber" into my regulator. And I remember feeling like I was in a sky diving freefall, spinning the whole time. Weird. I do remember when we were about half way, feeling someone behind me kick, and then I felt slightly calmer knowing that it was Cory holding me the whole time. It felt like FOREVER to get to the top. We hit our 3 minute safety stop at 15ft. I remember Sean signaling to us after 1 minute that he was going to head back down, and I freaked out thinking that he was saying that I had to go back down, and I started to "cry" and shake my head NO. He assured me, not me, just him.

After the LONGEST 3 minutes of my life, we finally surfaced, I spit my regulator out of my mouth and started to cry. My eyes were in SO MUCH PAIN. I couldn't open them, and I started to think that I injured myself worse than I did! Cory inflated our BCs so we were buoyant, then we were instructed to wait while Sean went and got the rest of the group. Cory calmed me down and just talked me through everything and helped me to relax. He said that my eyes were pretty swollen and that we could go to a doctor if I needed to. I did continue to cry. It was painful, no joke. The group finally surfaced... and Sean and Cory towed me in. I remember crying because I had thought that I had ruined the dive for everyone. And of course, everyone assured me to stop apologizing and that was not the case at all. My dive buddies are so understanding! They assisted me out of the water and helped me take my gear off... and that was the end of my diving for the rest of the trip.

We got some ice to make the swelling go down, I took some Tylenol as well. It took a while for my vision to become clear again. As we all retold the story, Sean commended us for staying so calm. He said that, first of all, in all of his diving, he had never seen that happen... of course, I am the fluke accident. And second, how impressed he was that I didn't start bailing for the top once I started to feel uncomfortable. Davis was already at the bottom once I got there, and he said that he saw me shaking my head NO and he was worried with what was going on. Cory said he saw me go kinda limp at the bottom and he said he was worried when Daryl was asking me if I was "ok" and my responses were delayed. Poor hubby... he said he was really worried about me and thought that I had passed out... and the only thing that offered some relief was that he saw the air bubbles coming from my regulator. Sean said that my poor little face looked all scrunched up in my mask and that my eyes look like a boxer's eyes after a huge fight. Yikes.

Anyhoo, so here I am today. We were supposed to go dive the Yukon (a Canadian destroyer that was sunk off the coast of Mission Bay) today. I'm so bummed. Cory and Davis are there as we speak... (sigh). Oh well... again, I am thankful that it was just mask squeeze and nothing major. I suffered burst blood vessels in both eyes, bruising all over my face... apparently I'm going to look like I was in a fight... and lost... haha!



Here are more "FUN" pics to remember my first and LAST mask squeeze experience:

This is me the next day with an ice pack on my face! (Yeah 4th of July)... and we had an Angels game to go to that night.

This is me at Day 3... the bruising is starting...

On a funnier note... yesterday at the Angels game... which, btw, THEY WON! 11-4 against the Orioles... GO ANGELS! In an attempt to catch some toy baseball that they had tossed into the crowd during the 7th inning stretch, I accidentally spilled a small amount of beer on a boy in front of me. I managed to scare the shit out of him and his mother with my eyes while apologizing... I've probably scarred him for life... HA!!!!

Everyone wish me luck on a speedy recovery... I want to get back to diving, but will be safe about my return and not push it.

Happy Two Months... hahahaha!

Can you believe that it's been TWO MONTHS since the best day EVER?!?!
It has been the most amazing two months ever! Marriage really is all that it is cracked up to be! My husband is such a wonderful, passionate, handsome (heehee), loving and adoring man... I am so lucky to have him, and could only hope that I make him just as happy as he makes me. I love you Cory!

We both want to extend a HUGE HEARTFELT THANK YOU to everyone who came to the party at the Smith's house this past Sunday. We had a GREAT time, it was awesome to see all of you, and we are honored that you would all come out to share in this special occasion with us! THANK YOU to the Smith's for hosting such a grand party!

So, not only were we home for our party, but we also had to make our annual trip to the Elmhurst-Roaring Brook Firemen's Picnic. I'm already going through withdrawals. Wings... Pizza Frita... CLAMS... Sausage and Peppers... POTATO CAKES... Perogis... BEER... More Fried Food... MORE CLAMS... MORE WINGS... WINGS... WINGS... WINGS... PIZZA FRITA... I'm dying. There was also a bit of a "show" the last night of the picnic. Nuttin like some beer, jello shots (Thanks Erin!), and a little cold weather to get the party going!!!

And of course, we had a blast catching up with old friends and Mark, Erin, Meghan... and NATHAN AND KASSIDY! I can't get enough of those two! Oh, and lil Morgie too!!!! I finally got to try my first Old Forge Pizza. We ate at Salernos for lunch, but they said that I HAD to try Arcaro and Genell's pizza too... so we bought a tray of white and red and brought it home. YUMM-OOOOOO!!! Can we have some shipped out here please?????

This weekend is 4th of July weekend... and a busy weekend at that. Can't catch a break, huh? We have Friday off from work, which is just FABULOUS for me... short work weeks are the BESTEST! But, we are going to Catalina to finish my advanced dives. I'm doing my Deep Dive and Wreck Dive. I'm a little apprehensive about the Deep Dive, but I'm told that it's all the same except for my air intake... AHHHHH! Then on Saturday, the 4th, we are going to an ANGELS GAME with Jenn and Brie! Can't wait. They will have fireworks afterwards, so should be fun! And then on Sunday, we drive down to San Diego to do our Wreck Dive Specialty... apparently, there is some battleship off the coast of Mission Bay, called the Yukon, and it's amazing to see. We actually get to go inside. I'm a little scared, but will have Cory with me...

Anyhoo... until next time... same bat channel...