Category: Events

Saturday, June 9th

I managed to sleep in a little, till about 9am; despite Jorge’s SUPER LOUD alarm blaring for 15 minutes straight, even after several slightly stubbly (heh) kisses on the cheek, forehead and lips while he got ready. Aw. I wish I could just keep him with me on a Saturday morning .

I could have slept more, but I had too many errands to run and didn’t want to be rushing at the last minute, like I usually am. So I made myself some coffee (fat free creamer and Splenda–bleh. I’m trying to cut down on sugar since I haven’t been feeling very well and don’t want a repeat of 2008.) and some egg whites with a slice of chopped up turkey breast. I had Jessica’s baby shower to attend at 3 and then Jorge and I were going to have a big dinner, so I was going to keep my calories down as much as possible throughout the day.

I showered and did my girl thing; redid my toenails, flat-ironed my hair, etc. Got ready and went to the bank with Mom, then to my other bank, then to Old Navy to get Jess’ baby a few things and some jeans for Jorge for Father’s Day. We were making excellent time. We visited Gramma after that. She’s doing much better, thank God. She’d had an X-ray and the preliminary results showed that she was developing pneumonia again :(. The last time she had pneumonia she was in the hospital for weeks and very, scarily ill. But she’s taking her medication and she’s moving around in her wheelchair during the day and doing physical therapy a little bit. I’m glad the nurses finally paid attention; her coughs would turn into pneumonia before because she didn’t want to to get out of bed and they’d listen to her .

Mom stayed with her and told me to pick her up after I left the baby shower. I came home to change my shoes and rushed to Jessica’s. After getting lost for a few minutes I ended up at the right place, heh. We chitchatted and I got straight to helping her with the 8-layer dips, guacamole, the garlic bread and other things here and there. She was going all-out and feeding us WELL. She even made these super cute drinks:

I totally want to make these. With some Sparking peach champagne or Moscato!

People were having trouble finding Jess’ house and she was getting shaky from being on her feet and cooking all day so we all made her sit to eat. I had one of the dips, a few chips and a skewer of bacon-wrapped chicken. Everything was so good! Totally gonna have to make those. I’m thinking of throwing a dinner party, maybe before she has her baby and before Carmen leaves to her new station in Virginia. We’ll have another mini-reunion :).

It was already going to be 5:30. The baby shower was till 7, but since Jorge and I had to take off to Brownsville by 6, I had to leave early :(. She served me a plate of the main dish–lasagna and garlic bread–and I got ready to leave. As I said my good-byes her mom says, “We need to do this again!” And then she looks at Jess’ belly and said, “Wait.” I said, “Yes, again. Under different circumstances!” LOL

I miss my babies like crazy. I spoke to them while I was on my way to pick Mom. It was brief, and Jaylen was, er, on the toilet when he was talking to me LOL, so that was a short chat.

Jorge was already home; showered and taking a nap. The poor thing had a dramatic day at work. They were almost done with a project when one of his employees made a huge mistake and they had to clean it all up. Luckily, it was all done and he got out early like he’d planned to.

We got our things together and headed to Brownsville. I spent the drive untangling my gold chains, stupid things! But we chitchatted and had a relaxing drive. We got to the restaurant and got out seats since we were on the list, but they charged us for the boxing bracelets. And then there was another misunderstanding, but Jorge explained that his friend was the owner and then it dawned on them that, YES! They did tell us you were coming! And the night went smoothly from there :).

Jorge updated his status on Facebook, which made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside :).

It felt nice to just get away for a bit. We quite literally pigged out. I joked, “See what happens when you deprive yourself?” 😛

This was a mango Margarita. One of the best I’ve had:

This was a tamarindo Margarita. It was good, but you could only drink so much because it was so sour!

This was dinner. I brought more than half home LOL.

Aaaaand I ate ALL of this one:

Cut down on who’s sugar intake?!

Oh. My. God. Beef O’Brady’s in Brownsville. Every darn thing was super tasty. Totally recommend.

It was hard for me to stay awake after that brownie. I was sugar-crashing hardcore. But I did pay attention to the fight and OMG…what a rip-off. Had we paid for it (our bracelets were refunded and we transferred it to the waiter as his tip), I woulda been angry. Jorge called it. He said they were setting up Pacquiao for failure so Mayweather would step in and say Ok, now I wanna fight. Sucks that his sons were present for the very first time and saw their dad lose .

We got in the car, Jorge was driving. Since we were both getting sleepy we blared Phillip Phillips and Elise Testone full blast and sang our hearts out :). I love that :).

We got home, changed into PJs and sat in the garage until this old lady started nodding off. I got ready for bed and he watched TV till he fell asleep; his nightly ritual :). Awesome day, indeed!

Leave it to WordPress to completely disregard what “Save Draft” means. Darn thing didn’t save my almost-finished entry!!

Ok. So, starting over. This has been quite a month of blessings :).

Started off the month celebrating Alaethia’s 5th birthday party. It was a cold and drizzly weekend, but I should have known better as her birthdays have all been during that type of weather. The kids couldn’t even enjoy the awesome moonjump Michelle’s dad hooked us up with. But at least they got to jump in there for a little while when it dried up the next day.

We had court just a few days later. I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve regained custody of my little lady, Alaethia . Those who follow me on Facebook were witness to my happiness :). It’s a dream come true! We’ve seamlessly fallen into a great routine. (Another plus is that I’ve lost 5 pounds since I started taking my lunch earlier to pick her up from school since I’m not eating at restaurants everyday, heh.) I can honestly say I FEEL like a mother again–I mean, I’ve had my Emmy, but getting Aly ready for school, getting updates from her teachers, dropping her off and picking her up, it’s just wonderful :*). I’d gone a year and a half without taking my kiddos to school :(. I’ve sincerely missed it.

I’m so thankful to Jorge, Mom, John and Sally for their unending love and support. And so grateful to my bosses for being so understanding with everything going on, even when I had an event coming up. I feel genuinely humbled by the love and generosity that surrounds me ♥!

Dina, Briana and the kids visited and Dina stayed with us :). It was fun watching shows and just catching up :).

A few days later it was Valentine’s Day. We hadn’t really made plans, but my love surprised me with reservations at Pappadeaux!

We got out of work, I picked up a few things for the girls, gave them their medicines since they were getting over a cold and made sure they were good before we left.

We sat outside the few minutes we waited for our table to be ready, listening to the wonderful singer who sounded like she was playing right off my iTouch LOL. She sang two of my favorite Adele songs and Norah Jones. It was great just being with my babe and spending time together. We’d had a hectic month so far and it was nice to just relax with each other and EAT, heh.

We had our usual fried alligator, some awesome shrimp dip, and oysters on the half shell which I LOVED! Jorge was quite pleased that I liked them, too :).

I can’t even remember what entrees we had, but OMG they were delicious. And we had New York style cheesecake for dessert. Lordy. I’m drooling just THINKING about it!

We had such an amazing night. We checked on the girls when we got home and they were sound asleep. We sat outside on the porch and reflected on the amazing day and year that we’ve had :D.

A week later, on Saturday, Sally and John came over. Sally and I took turns making waffles for the kiddos. For lunch, ’cause we’re awesome like that!

Sunday, we woke up from sleeping in. Yeah, right. The latest we can sleep in is 9am :P. We snuggled in bed before getting up to start the day. I had my eyes closed and opened them to find him sweetly staring at me. I cover my face and whine, “Baby! My hair is everywhere and I probably look terrible!” He laughs and says, “Oh, baby. It’s been 10 years, you don’t have to worry about that anymore.” I giggle and say, “10 years?! Silly!”

We got up and got menudo and barbacoa tacos from Taqueria 7 Hermanas, one of my exhibitors who just so happen to be really close by. We ate and then went to Home Depot to get spotlights and got the sudden urge to start a little flowerbed. We had all our supplies and, although we didn’t exactly know what we were doing, we got working straightaway. I’m so proud of our work!

Our yard is looking so nice!

All week was spent doing Food Festival related stuff. It was an INSANE week, but when it came down to it, I was so proud of the event! Since we did a few things differently this year, we have a few things on our “things to change” list, but all-in-all, it was great! Mario took my kiddos (it was his night with them) and my love took his boys and they had a great time! Jorgie got to celebrate his birthday there :). I was so glad they had fun. I was debating whether I should post the video of the event or not, but heck, why not?

It was my little Emmos’ birthday on Friday, the 24th! We snuggled her with kisses in the morning and I let her know I’d be home after lunch.

It was strange returning to work on Friday and although we were busy with finances and other things having to do with the event, it was calm! Roda and I worked on the tally sheets and media surveys and I was out by noon. I picked up Emily’s gifts and she opened them when I got home. My babe had taken the day and was working on the last of the home-automation stuff he wanted to do. The girls and I took Mom to her lab appointment and then we got home and sang Happy Birthday :)! I got a great deal on her cake from Sweet and Tasty (another exhibitor, heh).

We spent the rest of the day playing and just being together ♥. we’re planning something special for Emily & Jorgie’s birthdays. I wanted to go with the whole moonjump thing but who knows how this crazy weather is going to be.

Mario picked the girls up when he got out of work that evening. Jorge and I had no idea what to do with ourselves in such a quiet house, which is usually the case when the kiddos aren’t here. I had a few gift cards from my exhibitors so I asked him what he thought about having dinner somewhere. He thought it was a great idea. Our first choice was closed so we went to our second, which was Hooters LOL. I was a little skeptical since the last time I’d been there was in 2008, when I was unknowingly pregnant with Emily and I’d had fried pickles and felt extremely nauseous, heh. But we had some this time and I was fine!

The next day we sorta slept in (yes, no kiddos and we still couldn’t manage to sleep in! We showered, cleaned up a bit, packed, went to the bank and stopped at Starbucks for some drinks. We’d been making plans for a month with Michelle & EZ to go to the beach, but the weather was just being uncooperative. Jorge and I, spontaneous as we are, decided we were going anyway :).

We talked about anything and everything on the way over there, it was a great :). Our first stop when we got there was lunch at Daddy’s, Jorge’s favorite place on the island. The food was so darn good. We’d been eating so much fried stuff I was sure I’d gained the 5 pounds I’d managed to lose!

We had TONS of food leftover so we packed it up (and had it for dinner at the hotel, heh). Speaking of, that was next on our to-do list: finding a hotel.

We got a great deal on a great room. We rested and then went for a chilly walk on the beach. I’d never been to the beach when it’s cold, it was nice :). I’d also never in my life seen so many jellyfish at one time or these weird clay balls. Poor Portuguese Man-o-War jellies :(.

We got to the hotel and ate dinner and then got ready to go to Louie’s Backyard to watch the UFC fight. I hadn’t had a Margarita in forever and ordered two of the best strawberry ones I’ve ever had! We also ordered these addictive quesadillas, which they messed up and brought us a whole other plate of LOL.

I have to say I had a great night’s sleep considering that I wasn’t in my own bed. Woke up refreshed! We had breakfast at the hotel and checked out. We drove around a while thinking of what to do next. The day was gorgeous so we decided to go to the beach for a while. We changed into our bathing suits in the van, which was quite a feat but we did it, heh.

We collected some shells and got back in the van and drove down the strip. We had an impulsive idea to go and do something crazy, but after thinking about it for a bit we decided we wanted to accomplish this when we were better prepared. So instead, we went to Pier 19 to have lunch. Courtesy of the restaurant :).

And after lunch, we went on a bay fishing trip! Also courtesy of the company ;).

I’m not crazy about my appearance in this pic, what with me being makeupless and my hair being frazzled by the humidity but I loved this trip and I want to remember it &hearts!

Dolphins! I caught them just barely, as they were going back under water.

We didn’t catch a darn thing LOL. We kept getting bites, but nothing got hooked. Well, I’d hooked a catfish…that quickly jumped back in the water! Apparently you don’t have as much luck fishing after a cold front . Now we know for next time. Because there will be one :).

So. I haven’t posted an entry in pretty much: forever. Again, I blame the social networking sites. And the fact that every time I seem to open up WordPress a child needs something, the cat’s climbing my legs (more on that later), the husband’s calling or I feel guilty being in front of the computer and not with the babies, heh.

I’ve been sick just about this whole darn week, first with a stomach bug or something related to my blood sugar–I don’t know which one–and now I’ve caught the cold that’s been skipping from kid to kid. GREAT.

Thank God Mom’s here to help me with the girls. Alaethia’s pretty much independent, only needing to be put in the high chair for meals or assistance in the bathroom, but Emily still completely needs someone so it’s tough being sick. Thankfully this is one of the only times I’ve been sick since she was born, but my gosh, I hope this is it for the rest of the YEAR.

I guess I shall emphasize:

I started going to Taekwondo about…3 weeks ago. Norma, Aaron’s mom (Jaylen’s best friend’s mom), had been trying to convince me to go since two weeks before that. I finally decided to give it a try. The first week I went Wednesday night and Friday night. And my God. I hadn’t been that sore since…ever! I’d hurt in places I didn’t even know I could hurt!

Norma didn’t go that first Friday night, and I asked Maggie if she’d go with me but at the last minute she had a client stay late. I was already at the building by the time I found out so I braved being the only girl and went on my own. Luckily there was another girl there that night; unluckily she was an 18-yr-old champion Black Belt LOL. I felt mediocre compared to her, but I was there to exercise so I didn’t let it get to me. It was weird that, until I told her, she thought I was younger than her. That made me feel a little better, heh.

We had a bar-b-q for Noelia’s birthday that Saturday. We chilled out till late evening. The lights went out and you could hear kids screaming randomly throughout both houses LOL. We collected all of them, brought them to my living room and Mario and I began lighting candles everywhere. See? I told him all those scented candles would come in handy!!

We went outside and chilled out under the party porch. Emily was feeling sickly & NEEDS to be in the air conditioning or else she throws a fit. She wasn’t a happy camper. She began a screaming fit that caused us all to go bananas. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. It was a mixture of developing a diaper rash, being hot and being sleepy. When the lights and air came back on we dipped her in the bath and she fell right to sleep!

We went to town the next day. I saved $12.50 at Target by using a whole heckload of coupons they sent me! Right after that we went to Walmart for grocery shopping and…piercing Emily’s ears! I’d been meaning to do it since she was 4 months old (she’s 6 months now for those who don’t know), but something kept coming up. Mom wanted to get them done for her like she did Alaethia’s, so did. We met Yadira, Tommy and the kiddos at Walmart and Angela got her ears re-pierced too. She went first. Emily went next and my heart almost thumped out of my chest when I held her on my lap. Yazmin snapped away with my camera for me. The girl sanitized and put the little earring gun to her ear and she was fine…until I whispered, “She didn’t cry!” And all hell broke loose LOL. Poor baby couldn’t stop. By the time she’d calmed down enough to get the other ear done a crowd had formed to witness what was happening to the poor baby LOL.

She calmed down and seemed like nothing ever even happened once we started walking around the store and shopping. Thank goodness. I felt like an awful mother LOL. But at least we got it over with, and before her Baptism, too.

We spent the whole first week of September’s evenings at Taekwondo practice because the belt test would be that Saturday. The boys were doing magnificently; they were totally ready except for a few tiny things they had to work on. I, on the other hand, was NOT getting the darn form! I couldn’t understand why we had to turn the way we were, or why we were doing this block or that punch. I felt like an idiot and I just wanted to quit.

Didn’t help that Monday night, while getting out of my extremely high (well, for me) van, I hurt my darn left foot! So I couldn’t kick as well as I had been just the week before. Mario went to see me that night and I felt shy and embarrassed LOL. He said I was doing really well, though!

By the time Wednesday came around my left foot was still hurting and since I couldn’t balance very well on it, I wasn’t kicking (pi-chagis) correctly with my right foot and was hurting my toes! But the workouts were really intense. I’m not very big on running, because I have boobs of course, but I like the type of workouts we do. You work everything out. I wasn’t going to weigh myself till Saturday, because I’d weighed myself the Saturday before (weighed 130.5), but I couldn’t wait. I weighed 126.5! I hadn’t weighed anything in the 120s since before I had Emily and right after I did (but gained a lot back, unfortunately)!!

So that was my new motivation to keep going. Ever since I’d started Taekwondo I began really watching what I ate, because I kept telling myself I worked out too hard (REALLY HARD) to fuck it all up by stuffing my face with everything I saw.

I remembered taking video of the boys with Ernesto, the older teacher, when he taught them the white belt form step-by-step, number-by-number. And I found it! I studied it and within 30 minutes I learned it!!! I wasn’t a failure; just needed to understand the rhyme and rhythm behind it!

I was so ready to show off my form that night and when it came down to it, I messed up a step LOL. I just get nervous. Which is why I decided I wasn’t ready to take the test that Saturday. Norma’d been going 4 weeks already and she was ready. The only crappy thing was I didn’t want to be the only adult white belt left!

Oh, I forgot to mention: that Tuesday Mario and I finally went to the credit union to get a personal loan out to consolidate (on our own) our credit card bills. We were paying up the ass a month for them, especially now that every single one had upped the interest rate a month before Obama’s new law goes into effect. It was becoming ridiculous. It took some doing, but in the end we’re paying about half a month for 4 years now, fixed rate and everything. I feel so…liberated!! No more credit cards for us. It was the stupidest thing we’ve done as a married couple to rack up those darn things. From now on, if we don’t have the money for it, we’re not buying it!! Except for Home Depot…we always need that one! And it’s easy to pay off!

Since we didn’t have practice Friday I took the afternoon to pay off all the bills that could be done at the stores. I even ended up finding two size 8 red polos for the boys. I returned two of the medium ones they didn’t like because they were too long.

We had Annie’s sister’s (Marci’s) baby shower to go to on Saturday. We got to chit-chat with Annie, eat and then had to run and pick up the boys on time to get them to the belt test. I was so nervous for them! Poor Eenan was really nervous. He kept putting his hands in his face and even asked for a bathroom break. They did really well, though, I was so proud! They even had to break a board at the end of the test, which took all of us by surprise! Jaylen did a Chito-chagi kick (a straight up and down kick) and broke it. Eenan did an open-palm punch and broke it. It was amamzing! I wish I had the pics up to show you guys! I’ll post them here when I get the chance.

I started feeling like I could do the test, too, but there was no way I’d get to talk to anyone about it. I began to feel silly because I was actually becoming a little emotional about not testing LOL. Jaylen had gone over to Norma’s to play with Aaron so I went to pick him up and her hubby told me I should inquire about testing. I couldn’t do it, though. I quickly made dinner (enchiladas) and went to see Norma test. I totally could have done it!! The yellow belts testing for yellow advanced had to spar and I got a little scared when one of my former students was sparring and kicked another kid in the teeth! It chipped his tooth; sounded like someone had snapped a twig or something. I’m not so sure I want to be doing that part…

Andy and Noelia came over Sunday morning. Andy was going hunting with Mario’s uncles and Noelia, Mary, Mario, the kiddos and I actually went to church on Sunday. Well, the girls stayed with Mom. We’re going to try and start going every Sunday. Mario came to me one day and told me he’d like to try, and I’ve always wanted to so we’re going through with it. Mario had some work to do, but I went to the movies with Emily, the boys, Mary and Noelia to watch Aliens in the Attic. I actually enjoyed it much more than I thought I would! Alaethia had a fun day of shopping with Mom, Elda and her mom LOL.

Monday was another normal day. Mary went with us to the boys’ Taekwondo where I asked Luis about possibly testing during the week for my yellow belt. He said sure, we’d practice that night and if I was ready maybe I could take the test the next day. Awesome!

He taught the boys the yellow belt form that night. Jaylen, who’s much more eager about learning Taekwondo that Eenan, wanted to watch the video I’d recorded of them doing the form so I found it and everyone watched him practice. He learned it! I realized it was 7:30 and got in to take a shower really quick. No time for dinner, but I felt good enough to wait till after practice. Big mistake. We were doing Moola kicks, which require you to spin and I was dizzy halfway through class! I was grateful when we got our water break and stuffed half a granola bar in my mouth. I didn’t feel any better by the end of class. Couldn’t even finish doing the lunges or jumping jacks–so embarrassing. I took a seat and tried to collect myself. The room was spinning and turning colors and I was shaking like a leaf. A chihuahua’s actually what I imagined myself like that night, LOL.

I got into the car and sat there, shaking, for 10 minutes, until I saw that just about everyone was leaving the dojo. I don’t know how I drove home, but I did. I just wanted to get home and rest, but Eenan couldn’t find his backpack anywhere so we searched and searched. It was nowhere to be found. We got ready for bed and I just didn’t feel good. Sure enough, an hour after I laid down I started vomiting. Like there was no tomorrow. And other unpleasant things. I did so 3 times during the night, which is crazy because it takes A LOT for me to throw up.

I couldn’t keep anything down, not even water or Gatorade. I still don’t know what the heck happened. Food poisoning? My sugar being too low? A stomach bug? I don’t know. But it was awful.

I felt horrible the entire next day. Thank God Mario was off work. He had a lot to do that day though, so he wasn’t around very much. Mom was thankfully here to help me with the girls. Luis had also called to set up a test time for me, which would be the next morning but I told him I just couldn’t. Maybe next week?

I’m not even sure I want to go back. I got scared. If this did have something to do with my sugar, I don’t want to have another episode like that AGAIN. And this is the 3rd time I go to Taekwondo without eating before. But we’ll see. I’ll finish off the month, maybe test. I definitely don’t want to get into sparring, especially with the guys! Call me a chicken or what have you but I have enough problems with my teeth without having them be knocked out. And my 4 children need their mother in one piece. I just wanted to lose some weight!!

The next day was Mary’s birthday and we went to Andy and Noelia’s to celebrate. I’d kept down some crackers and a Ramen noodles so I figured it was ok to eat. Well, I ATE. Shrimp, corn on the cob, steak and chocolate cake I’d made. Needless to say I felt gross the entire next day, but I didn’t get sick at all, thank goodness. I just couldn’t eat till the evening because I was nauseous.

It’s been raining like crazy lately and with rain comes power outages, all the time. We had a thunderstorm that day that brought along with it a power outage and power surge that shorted the modem’s power supply, the HDMI cable, Alaethia’s TV, our phone and our DVD player! Thank GOD my laptop was okay!

I felt well enough to go to the store with Mom and walk down the block with Emily to take a picture of a rainbow we’d seen. I ate chili and that went well so glad that’s over!

And then I woke up this morning with a damn cold!! Emily’d gotten sick a few nights ago and the three other kiddos already had colds so it was bound to happen with my immune system being so weak right now. I’ve got tissues stuffed up my nose as I type this. Not really how I imagined spending my Friday night, but beggars can’t be choosers *shrug*. At least I’m not puking!!