I'm baaaaaaaccccckkkkkkkk!

Wow! I can't believe it's been 2 years since I last blogged! Time sure does fly! There's many things that have changed since I last blogged, including my purpose for blogging. Before, I went from giving updates on my crazy life, to blogging about the Love Dare. I really enjoyed that journey, but once it was over, I lost my direction and got wrapped up in readjusting my life. Today, I feel I am in a more stable place. We have downsized our businesses, meaning we only have 2 restaurants now! I am thrilled for this! We have Gourmet Italia, Alex's first restaurant in America. GI has been open for 11 years. Alex has evolved that restaurant into the most incredible place around... for me, one of the best restaurants I've EVER been to! It has out of this world food, amazing and comfortable atmosphere and Awlex's passion and enery that is untouchable! Almost 4 years ago we opened our pizzeria/deli, Spuntino. This is my baby! it's casual, quirky and FUN! Not to mention offers the BEST pizza and the same great quality Italian food as Gourmet. It's known as the "Italian Cheers". You can find me there often throughout the week and always on every other Tuesday when it's Wine & Grub night! Outside of the restuarant business, I celebrated the 5 Star Celebration of Stars of the Valley, Charity for Charity's big annual event that honors 2 beneficiaries from the Valley and fulfills wishes for them. With a team of several of my closest friends, we put our "friend time" into making a difference in our community! We were beside ourselves when Inland Empire Magazine contacted us and asked us to do a photo shoot at South Coast Winery and they would provide the make up and hair... we were to bring gowns and jewelry! Without knowing what their plan or angle was, we had a blast feeling like "models" for a day. Weeks later, the owner of the magazine contacted me and asked if we would be willing to do a "signing" to autograph the magazine article/photos.. that she was excited for us to see it! Of course we agreed and contacted lots of our faithful friends to show up at the Collective in Old Town Temecula. When we arrived and saw the article, we were FLOORED! We had FULL page photos of all of us and a 2 page spread of the group shot! They called us "The Real Women of Temecula" and wrote a very special article about what our purpose was and Stars of the Valley! We were personally honored and touched, but every one of us hopes that this article will bring attention and more support to our organzation and help us to help more individuals in our community! AND NOW... if you followed me when I was doing the Love Dare, you may be wondering how my modern day "Ricky and Lucy" marriage is going? Well, no doubt we are still holding up to the comparison to Ricky and Lucy! That is definitely what keeps our life exciting! We both struggle with coming from different worlds, but as time goes on, it seems that we are beginning to appreciate and enjoy the differences. Some things we stand our ground on, but other things, we are learning to actually enjoy being different from one another. We will be married 10 years next February and we have been through more then some couple go through in a lifetime. Merging two cultures and two different upbringings AFTER having children makes it interesting to raise the children. Makes it FUN too! Lastly, I have a new project that I'm working on! I can't wait to share it with you... but I'm going to wait until another blog to do so... it's something I am very excited about!!! Since I am just trying to bring you all up to speed, I won't detail today.. but from here on out I will share the fun and funny of our lives... as well as anything else interesting that I come across on a daily basis. Life is interesting in my world... just you wait and see.....