Here are some pics of Puerto Rico

This was a great trip to Puerto Rico

This was in Old San Juan, the streets are paved in colored brick and has been preserved with the old Spaniard touch.This was in the city of Ponce, there is an old fire house that they have turned into a musem.

My Grandfather, my Dad, Me, and Marcus.

We were visiting my Grandmothers side of the family.

This is on the northwest corner of Pueto Rico. The waves were much bigger because of an oncoming storm and this is on the Atlantic side where the currents are different.

This was our first day there, we were traveling from the airport to my parents house. We stopped at this small beach and let the kids run around and with the sun setting it was amazing.

This was one of the times at the beach. The kids loved the beach and thought it was the best.

Puerto Rico !!

Well we got back from Puerto Rico a couple of weeks ago and I must say this time of year is a great time to go. The weather was great, 80's and little humidity and great rain showers, which we don't get a lot of here in Texas, so that was nice to see. The food was great, especially the bread from the bakery, something that is just not the same here. It was nice to see the family both my parents and sister and her family; it was also nice to see my Grandparents and Aunts and Uncle and cousin and all the extended family. Folks I haven't seen in a long time. Marcus and Annabella did great with meeting all the family. For those who don't know Annabella is shy as all get out and it is not Marcus' favorite thing, and in Puerto Rico, or at least my family, they are very touchy feely with hugs and kisses, somthing my kids are not used to here in the States. They did well, especially Marcus it was funny because when it was time to meet someone new, he knew exactly what he was supposed to do. He walked up and let whom ever hug and kiss and touch his face; however, he had this look on his face that was priceless. It was that of I don't want to do this but I know I have to. It was the best ever. You could just see it in his eyes.

We went to the beach and played in the water and beach and built sand castles and the kids loved finding shells and all sorts of things.

It is way past my bed time now so I will get pics posted in a couple of days.

Relay For Life

Hey everybody!!

I have embarked for the first time ever to be a team captain for the upcoming Relay For Life here in the San Antonio Northeast region. My team name is McRamos' and I am excited to do this. I'v wanted to do this for sometime and now it seemed right. I have been able to establish my team name and now I am reaching out in many ways to gain team members and donations. I am using my blog to keep everybody informed of the progress that is going on with the team and how, if anybody, that is not close by to donate to the cause.

Here are some facts about what Relay for life is about.

* Relay for Life is an opportunity for the raising of money for the American Cancer Society.

* The mission of the American Cancer Society is to eliminate cancer as a major health problem.

* The ACS is the largest private source of cancer research funding, donating $2.7 billion for cancer research since 1847 and funding 38 Nobel Prize Laureates.

* In 1985, the first Relay for Life event was held and raised $27,000.

* Since then more the $1.5 billion has been raised.

So here is your opportunity to reach out and donate to the American Cancer Society through my team. Here is how it works.

1. Go to the Relay for Life web site. WWW.relayforlife.org/northeastsanantoniotx

2. Click on DONATE

3. Either click on SEARCH FOR PARICIPANT and type in DEREK RAMOS or
click on SEARCH FOR TEAM and type in McRamos'.

4. If you choose to donate under my name you will see a picture that is obviously not me, I can't get the picture to change. click on DONATE.

5. Follow the instructions to donate. If you do it through this web site there is a minimum of $10.00. If you prefer not to do it over the web site but you want to donate, I understand I don't like to do payments over the internet either. send me an email (mailto:derek.ramos@sbcglobal.net)%20 and we can arrange some other way.

6. If you want to donate to the team just choose the McRamos' and follow the same instructions.

So there you go for those near and far. Please join me and my team in our efforts to raise money for the American Cancer Society. The blog will be updated with accomplishments and pictures as we make progress then look for a posting on the Relay for Life event in May.

Thanks again.

Merry Christmas

Well another year has gone by, crazy huh? Another year in San Antonio Tx. Not that we don't like it here, we just want to see what else is out there. We are still living on base, but we moved to another unit because of renovations. We like living on base , it is quiet and my commute to work is five mins and that is with the morning rush. So here is the updown on everyone for the year.

Marcus - Boy oh Boy oh Boy, is he ever a boy. He is a lot of fun even though it takes a little bribing to get him to change his underwear. He started the year off in pre-kinder and was having a good time. Right before Thanksgiving Emily decided to pull the kids out and home school them. I think he enjoys it more becasue hegets more of a challenge. Marcus has become the comedian in the family, you never know what is going to come out of his mouth and when it does it is hilarious. There was one time we were playing a game for family home evening that involved acting out animals. The animals that he came up with and acted out was the funniest thing ever. Marcus loves his hot wheels cars and monster trucks.

Annabella - We went through a rough year with her. There were things that we had to work through to help her behavior; however, now at the end of the year she has gotten much better and is much more enjoyable to be around. We are grateful that we were able find out what was going on and able to help her through it. It is an ever changing process and all we can say is "can't wait for the teenage years." Part of the problem was schoolso that is when Emily decided to try homeschooling and it has made a world of difference in a lot of ways. Before, she would be so shy and self conscious that she would not vounteer for anything. Now she was raising her hand in and wants to do talks in primary. It was been wonderful. Not where she needs to be totally but from where she was at a few months ago she has come a long way. Annabella has lost so many teeth this year I can't even keep count. She hates to lose her teeth, so bad that she freaks out completely. But when it is out she's all better. Crazy funny. Annabella loves her dolls and teddy bears and she has a great imagination when it comes to drawing and art. I think she is going to be an artsy fartsy girl.

Emily - Emily had a rough year with her health. The year started off with a couple of trips to the emergency room with pain in her chest. The ER docs said she was not dying so they sent her home and followed up with the military docs. They could not figure out what was going on and they poked and prodded and agter many specialists, nobody could figure out what was going on. It had gotten so bad that she could not function to take care of the kids even so that we had to have friends take the kids in the morning and after school till I got off of work and then I would have to come home and take care of everyting from dinner to laundry to everything. Not that I am complaining but that is how bad it had gotten with how she was feeling. We are eternally gratefull to all our friends that helped with watching the kids and meals. Thank you. After some time on doctor was able to get her on a med that took the pain away, but it never answered the question on what was causing the pain and still today we don't know, we just know that the pain is goine and life was getting somewhat back to normal. After our three week road trip to Washington her back and hip doctor called and said she is going to need minor back surgery. So she went in got it done and is slowly recovering from that. The doc was also able to give her a coupel of shots in the hip to correct some issures that had risen. So over all she is haning in there. She takes it day to day, some days she feels fine and others not so well. She takes it in strides. Other than the health issures that has really kept her from doing a lot she has really dedicated herself to helping Annabella through the issures she ahs been having and taking care of the rest of us. She such a great mom and wife, we are lucky to have her.

Derek - As for me, I am just going along taking care of Emily when she is not feeling well and the kids and so forth. Iam three classes away from finishing my degree in Homeland Security. I cannot wait till it is over. Work is going well I ahve been blessed with great leadershopa nd suprevisors to train me and mold me into a great Airman. I was also bless with a promotion, which comes if February. (Emily is writing now) We, Emily and the Kids, are grateful to have great husband and dad in our lives! Derek took an Airman Leadership course this summer and earned two out of three awards for academic achievement and leadership! He truly earned those awards!

Well Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I hope everone has a great holiday season and a great new year.

Take care,

The Ramos'

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everybody! Here are some pics from our crazy busy Halloween day. The day started off with my 9-10 yrs old Flag Football game. Unfortunatually we lost, but that is another story, we then went to the kids fall festival. The kids had a blast. Shortly after the fall festival we headed to the church, as all crazy mormons do, and attended the Trunk O Treat. It was nice to some old faces that we havn't seen in awhile. Marcus dressed up as Optimus Prime and Annabella was some sort of butterfly princess fairy thing. The costums were made up of things around the house because we went to the store to pick out new costums and all we got was whining and crying, so we said "forget it, You want to be something for Halloween, than find something at home." That was that Hallween day the kids went up stairs got some old stuff and put together their costumes. Emily painted faces and all turned out good. Emily also came up with my costume (See below). It was funny everybody thought it was pretty darn funny. Emily didn't dress up, she was just happy to be able to go out. After the Trunk O Treat we went to houses here on base and this was our first time as a family we were able to go out and Trick O Treat together. One year Emily was recovering from surgery, the next year Annabella got the flu, then the nex year I was gone on military business and finally this year we got to go. It was a blast and I know we had so much fun. It was fun to see how much fun the kids were having. It was a moment that you want to keep forever. Anyways, Hope everyone was safe and had fun. See ya'll at Thanksgiving.

Mt Rainer Grand Canyon

Mt Rainer Good Morning,

I believe in my last post I stated that it would be about October or November before was going to get any post done. Well here it is 25 Oct 2009 and I am writing my post. Let me tell you that it has been a wild and crazy few months scince getting back from our road trip.

To start, a few day after we got back Emily had a doctors appt for her hips and after getting test done for her back also we found out that she was going to need back surgery. Now the doctor offered to do less evasive surgury where he would go in with a needle to relieve the pressure that the disc were causing rather than opening her up and do in that way. We decided to do that, so a couple of days later she went into the hopital and had the procedure done that took a few hours. After a few weeks she was feeling better; however, was unable to really do anything that would cause the back to be injured, which means no lifting and working out and that kind of thing, which leads me into the next adventure.

A couple of weeks after Emily's surgurey we recieved a call from the base housing letting us know that we were going to have to move into a different unit on base. We knew that it was coming; however, we were told it was going to be in Oct when it was going to happen, but here it was Aug-Sept when it was going down. To add to the crazyness, we had decided awhile ago to move ourselves because we had the opportunity to make a few buck doing it our selves. We are close to paying off our all out debt so we figured this would help. Anyways, after Emily's surgury we realized that she was not going to be able to help pack or move, So I was going to have to do it by myself. Now we still had the opportuinity to have the Air Force move us, but we really could use the money so we went for it. I figured if we wanted to get out of debt I would have to work hard for it, and boy did I ever. It was not fun at all. So I took two weeks off and started to pack, I got a lot packed and Emily helped out where she could. Then came Wednesday night, I called the housing folks and asked them that we were for sure going to get the key tomarrow, she said, "yes, everything is in order." Than the next day at 4:00 in the after noon I recieved a phone call from the same lady, "I am sorry but the place is not going to be ready." ......................I had no idea what to say. Then she tells me that she wants to put us in a hotel for 5-6 days. I told her no. There was no way we were going to leave and stay in a hotel, I told her either she finds a new place that we can move into tomarrow or we are not moving. She called me back with another place. Whew!! thats's over, now comes the move.

Back ground information, it has not rained here in south Texas in over a year, well guess what it did the day that I was to move, RAINED. Unbelieveable, but I made it work. I got all the boxes and small things moved and then some folks from church came and helped me move the big items. Emily felt bad she couldn't help, but we needed her to get better. So it has taken us longer to get unpacked than packed. I hate moving and I will not do it myself anytime soon.

School started a couple of weeks later for the kids. Annabella is in the 1st grade and Marcus in Kindergarden. They are having fun, Annabella started off rough but she is getting better. She has seperation aniexty and other issues that we are work through. The kids are doing good though

My school is almost done, once finished with my current class I will have three classes left. So excited.

I am helping coach a flag football team. The kids are 9-10 years old. It is a blast I can't wait till next year when Marcus can play. We, the team, have won our first game and then came back and won our second game in a row. The kids are excited and are playing well together now and playing there parts. So much fun.

Now that the weather is cooling off we are looking forward to getting out and going on our adventures on Saturdays. Well I am off and here are some pictures from our trip to Washington.

Ready to go

Well, not much to report, summer started just like for everybody else, and not much going on. We are preparing for the big summer vacation. Road Trip from San Antonio Tx to Seattle Wa. We have been preparing for this trip for a long time and we are only a week away. We are so excited for this, we need a huge break from Tx and life and just want to get away for a bit. So keep an eye out in Aug. or Sept (okay who am I fooling Oct or Nov) anyways I got some great ideas for movies and such so keep an eye out.

Take care

Ramos'