Category: Family

So I just realized I totally published a draft of this post instead of saving it as a draft. Out of practice much??

Anyway, Summer 2015 unfortunately came and went in the blink of an eye.

We didn’t travel much because we’re saving money. Add to that: school shopping for the girls. Then our dryer crapped out (it lived a long life), and then Jorge’s car battery died. But such is life. I’m just truly glad we were able to bounce back from all that instantly!

We did have a trip to the zoo. Julien said he’d never been there so it was a must. The zoo isn’t as…lively as I remember it, but the kids still had fun. And there was a Dinosaur exhibit so Julien loved that :).

We had the Food Truck Park Block Party in June. The kids weren’t home that weekend so it was a welcome distraction. I was getting over the only cold I managed to get this year so I slept a good 3 hours before going in to work that Saturday.

I told myself I would take pics with my co-workers, but we didn’t get a chance AT ALL. It was madness, but a huge success. We were so busy I didn’t even get to snap a photo of the event, so I stole some from the internets.

It was so packed and crazy!!

My goal was to do something fun with the kids at least once a week, and trips to Ben and Jerry’s are always a treat (literally!) and one of my favorite things to do with the kiddos. They love it :).

And although we never got to visit the water park in Pharr, we visited the Splash Park nearby.

The girls did a lot of cooking. I mean tons. Emily could probably make French Toast all on her own, sans the actual cooking on her own part. She’s pretty good at flipping them, though!

Even Jaylen, Justin and Jorgie would get in on the action. Eenan helps stir once in a while, heh.

Fourth of July was a huge hit :). Jorge and I had gone over one weekend while the kiddos were with the other parents to help Javi with the yard so, you know, the place wouldn’t catch fire from the fireworks. We saw some pretty amazing things while we were out there, 2 of them being:

Dina, Briana and the kids were here for the 4th and Javi was hosting us at his house. We visited Gramma (4th of July is her birthday!) and hung out with her a while before going to Javi’s.

The whole family was there and it was the best!

It was a great time :).

We had a family trip to the beach on July 18th. It was something we’d planned in advance, but we like to procrastinate so the actual PLANNING part didn’t happen till that morning, so of course, everyone was running late.

We stopped for breakfast:

And we had 2 stops at Walmart because we couldn’t find flip-flops in the boys’ sizes. Once we arrived at the beach, got settled, popped up the tent and got allllll the kids slathered in sunblock, everyone had a great time.

After several hours at the beach, we all decided to get going. I love the beach, I just loathe the getting cleaned up part. There are always so many people at the bathrooms. We decided last-minute we’d rent a room and stay overnight. The kids, of course, weren’t happy because they left all their electronics at home, but they got over it and were happy to rest before dinner at Senor Donkey. The kids had their own suite attached to our master bedroom, so it was awesome and we were all comfortable.

We had to stop by the one market on the island to get some contacts solution for me and then we chilled out before we went to bed. I usually can’t sleep at hotels, but I slept like a rock!

We had a great time! Hopefully we can really plan ahead next year and make a week out of it!

We seem to have crammed our “going-out” nights into the last week of Summer. We’re comfortable with just being home most of the time, but we figured it was our last hurrah before a busy school year began again.

After a great weekend of French-toast-making, Lilo-and-Stitch-watching, banana-bread-baking weekend, the kiddos were off with their other parents for the final week of summer :(.

My boss, Gerry, EZ and I had done a photo-shoot the week before for Santa Fe Steakhouse. The owner invited us to try out their new drinks and appetizer menu that Monday so I picked up my love after work and we met everyone at the restaurant. Everything was amazing!

We got done there and went straight to McAllen Food Park to get some skewers from La Caravane. I didn’t even get a photo ’cause we were THAT hungry.

We got home and made a joke about going out. And then we decided, you know what, why not go out?? So we convinced John to quit being a hermit (he’d been going through some stuff) and the 3 of us went to Suerte Bar and Grill downtown. We’d never been there, but I follow them on Instagram and LOVE the photos of their drinks and the decor is just right up my alley!

The work week went by, which also consisted of appointments for Mom. Jorge got a call from Briana, who was terribly sick with Strep and fever and couldn’t see a doctor. He got one of his co-workers to bring some antibiotics from Reynosa and we made a quick road trip to Austin that Saturday to drop them off.

We’d kept it quiet and surprised Dina when we got there :). Jorge had let Joe know we would be in town so we met up with him on 6th Street and he gave us a tour. He took us to the “tamer” part of 6th St.

I’m an old lady, so we didn’t stay out long, and plus, Jorge was tired from the long drive. I was happy to crash out when we got back to Dina’s.

The next morning we lazied around and then got ready for lunch at Chuy’s. Briana already sounded 100x better, thank goodness.

It was hatch chile week and I made the mistake of ordering hatch chile enchiladas! They looked delicious, but were so hot my mouth was on FIRE.

We made a trip to the mall that contained a Hallmark store, which was a little far, but my love is the best and always goes above and beyond for me <3. We ended up finding the Rainbow Brite Itty Bittys!

And then it was time to drop everyone off and rush home to pick up the girls since the next day was the first day of school! So we cranked up the music and karaoke’d our way home to these beauties:

I’ve been dreading/excited about this event simultaneously. It’s one of my favorites, but the work it takes to get everyone on the same page and the fear that some won’t even arrive drives me to a headache, neck pain and is enough to make my chin break out.

Something I’m working on this year is not stressing about work (as much) and not working from home.

So I didn’t work on my lists or correspondence to my vendors or layouts or anything during the Christmas or New Year’s breaks. Usually, I’d stay up the night before set-up till almost midnight making sure the layout was perfect, just to change the whole thing the next morning when people cancelled or when my boss looked it over.

Today, I worked on my emails and layout at work, got it done as best as possible and printed everything else I’d need. Then my boss and I had a quick lunch at Johnny Rockets.

I was sad to find out they got rid of my favorite grilled cheese bacon sandwich, but this BLT sufficed :).

We went straight to the exhibit hall afterwards and the parking/unloading was exhausting on it’s own.  (A vendor had a friend drop off a “few things” to us yesterday but they ended up being a literal truckload!)

We had a line of people waiting to register when we got inside and it was about an hour of hustle and bustle. I still remember my first time during this event 4 years ago–the adrenaline and nerves are still exactly the same!

Things changed even more than I thought they would regarding the layout, but if all goes well and everyone pending shows up tomorrow, then we’re right at the number we were hoping for.
My boss and Alexis and I took turns going out to the floor to see what the vendors brought. Most of my favorite people are here, thank goodness. The lady who does those awesome miniatures from pasta de maiz has so many cute Catrinas!

When she told me to pick mine last year I kept telling her I’d “be right back” at her booth but I was always busy! By the time I did go back she sold out of all the ones I liked. (Didn’t stop me from picking a few others hehe.) She called me over tonight as soon as she set up and I chose these ^_^.

We closed up shop at 7pm and were out a little before 7:30pm. I called the boys to check how their 1st day back at school  went and Jaylen gave me a rundown of his day. We were on Facebook messenger last night working on one of his projects since he didn’t work on it during the break and they were back at Mario’s. He told me about how his PS4 seemed to have just died, too.

Speaking of dying, our poor old (Va)cuum fishy died yesterday. RIP, buddy :(.

The girls enjoyed their last day of freedom with Jenny and the girls, so they were thrilled :). They got to go to Bounce, watched “Annie” and played and ate pizza at Jenny’s. Gotta plan something for them when I’m not so darn busy :(.

I got home, got updates on everyone’s day, changed and then made dinner (Emily helped. And John washed the lettuce lol) while I spoke to Eenan.

I forgot he was supposed to continue his “grounding” for failing a class once school started again but he reminded me, ha.

Got the girls ready for bed since tomorrow is their first day back. I’m now relaxing with Jorge and trying my hardest to leave that layout and vendor list in my work bag, heh. Wish us all luck tomorrow!