Introduction

Welcome to my Mommy Blog.

To start, I'd like to introduce myself, for those who are just acquaintances or friends and not my actual relatives.

My name is Sabrina and I recently celebrated my 33rd birthday.  I've been married to my husband Jason for almost 11 years now. I was born in Upland, CA and raised briefly, by my parents Desiree and Paul Pestel. Their relationship was to say the least, rocky. My mom left when I was probably 4 years old if my memory serves me correctly. It was in her best interest to leave, but when kids are involved, it's always a hard decision to leave.

Although it was nearly 30 years ago, I still remember a lot of what happened. I won't let you relive that, but I'll share the other stuff.

It was probably either late 1985 or very early 1986 when we got new neighbors. They had a little boy about my age (Vernon) and another one (Albert) that was about my sisters’ age (about 2 years younger than I). We immediately became the best of friends.  I think they were the best thing that happened to me during the years while dealing with my parents’ divorce. I didn't want to deal with the fighting of my parents of who got which kid, so I asked to live with my aunt and uncle, who actually lived across the street from my dad and right next door to my 2 new best friends.

I believe the divorce was finally final around 1989. At that time my mom took me from my aunt & uncle's care and made me live with her and her boyfriend, his kids and my little sister. That only lasted about 1/2 of my 4th grade school year and the first half of the school year in the 5th grade.  In the 5th grade, I actually met a new friend (Michelle), but it wouldn't be until the 6th grade that we would become best friends. After that, I moved back with my aunt and uncle. However, again after I finished the 5th grade, I went back with my mom again. I managed to stay put from the 6th grade to the 9th grade, but still, my mom got divorced and I went back to my aunt's again and finished the rest of high school there.

In September of 1998, we lost my grandfather. It was the hardest thing for me to go through at the time. I started college the following January, something my grandfather had looked forward to. I didn't last long though. Working full time and going to school full time was harder than I had expected and it reflected in my grades. I had figured I’d drop out and return when things weren't so crazy and I could actually focus more on school than work.  (Nearly 14 years later, that still hasn't happened)

Fast forward to when I officially met my husband. It was June of 2001 and I had just gotten out of a bad relationship.  I was talking/gossiping with my friend Marlene at work and made a comment to her that there was this guy that I was interested in, but I didn't know what his name was.  I pointed him out to her and she squealed with excitement. She was like “You don’t know who that is?! That’s Josh’s brother Jason. I’m going to call him and tell him that you’re interested in his brother.” I already knew Josh from when I was a summer student at work; I just didn't know he had an older brother. They set up a plan to have me show up at Josh’s son’s 2^nd birthday party in July, where Jason would be. 

We started talking when he got there and continued to talk for several hours and after everyone else had left. I felt an immediate connection to him and although I didn’t want to get hurt again, I opened up to him. I gave him my cell & my house number, hoping that he’d actually call. He did call the next day and we talked for hours. I was already falling for this guy and I barely knew him. That Monday, he didn't show up to work. I was really bummed that I wouldn't get to see him, but he called my work desk. He answered “Is this the girl that I have a really big crush on?” I felt my face turn bright red. He officially asked me out that Wednesday and had our first date on Saturday. We did movies and dinner. It took him almost the entire movie to get the courage to hold my hand.

For my 21^st birthday, he took me to Las Vegas to celebrate. I had already planned on going, but he didn't want me to go alone. We stayed at the Luxor hotel. It was beyond gorgeous and we had so much fun. In December, we got bad news at our work. We had found out that they were closing the office and moving to Colorado. I was offered a relocation package, but he wasn't.  We had talked about where our relationship was going and if we wanted to take the plunge and move together to another state.  On Valentine’s Day, he took me out to dinner and asked me to marry him. I was beyond happy and obviously said yes. It made the moving in together plan better to handle knowing we would eventually be married (and not living in sin).

In May of 2002, the two of us moved to Colorado. It was a huge step for us. Neither of us had been on our own, yet alone on our own in a new state.

We spent the next few months planning our wedding. I really wanted to be married in a church, but the church we looked at in California wanted us to take classes and we couldn't exactly do them while living in a different state. We decided that since we both loved Disneyland, that we would see about having our wedding at one of the hotels. We decided on a date and venue and it was all good.

We got married December 7, 2002 at the Paradise Pier Hotel, in Anaheim, CA.  It was winter theme and of course Disney inspired. Everything was perfect. We spent our honeymoon in Cancun, Mexico.