Category: Photos

This weather is putting a damper on my mood and making me sleepy and lazy. That, or it’s almost THAT TIME.

Let’s go backwards, shall we? I’m waiting for dinner to finish cooking Jorge to get home at the moment. I made a new sauce for the baked chicken I was making and it was SO GOOD. I used a 10.5 oz can of cream of chicken, 1/2 of that can of milk, 2 stalks (is that what they’re called?) of chives, 1 stalk of celery, about a little less than a handful of cilantro and half a serrano pepper and pureed them all together. I wanna grab some tortilla chips and just eat the rest of it O_O. I would have posted a picture of it, but it came out blurry and looked weird .

I cleaned the girls room from top to bottom and reorganized the closet. Sally and Quentin had come over and I made spaghetti and turkey meatballs while we caught up on the past 2 weeks. Prior to that I cleaned up the living room, sorted (more) laundry, cleared the dining table and had just gotten started on the kitchen counters.

Mario has the kiddos this weekend (probably another reason why I’m this way). I got to see them in the morning for a bit when I met him (and his mother) to give him Emily’s eardrops. I miss them all :(!

I asked the boys what they’d like for breakfast, eggs or cereal. They picked cereal, of course LOL. I made breakfast for myself: egg whites and yellow & orange peppers, cilantro, onion, tomato.

And hazelnut coffee that mom so nicely brewed for me when I woke up at 10am. Yes. 10am.

I’d fallen asleep the night before at 9:30pm or 10pm. With Ruffles on the sofa. I woke up just as Jorge was snapping a photo LOL.

I’d made baked fish (this time for all of us, heh) for dinner with a side of green bean casserole. Jorge installed a new camera lens on my Evo. Now I can take clear pics again :)! And I got a new cover for my phone so I won’t scratch it again…

I kept myself busy when I got home from work. It’s quiet and I get so bored without the kiddos here. So I cleaned till it was time to start making dinner, before Jorge got home with his boys. I had an observer:

Friday was a long, cold day. Kinda boring. Except for when we had almond cream cake from Sweet & Tasty for the boss’ birthday. Before that there was a tad bit of drama. Before that the day started out kinda crappy.

Mario’s weekend started on Thursday night. His mother came and picked up the girls, of course. I was happy I got to see my boys. My God, how I miss them :(.

I was just about to start baking some fish when we decided to go to on a little date to Kumori :). I still made dinner for Mom and then my babe and I got ready to go.

It was great and we had some laughs :). We got home and watched our DVR’d American Idols and then went to sleep :).

Thursday, after I picked up Aly from school, I picked up Mom and Emmy. They both had doctor’s appointments so we got those out of the way.

Wednesday was spent doing finance-related stuff at work. Got home, chilled with the girls, snapped a pic:

And we met Jorge at Taco Bell, which is what they wanted for dinner :).

Tuesday night was Alaethia’s first Open House :). She didn’t have much work, since she’s only been at this school for a month, but the work she has done is impressive! Even her folder is adorable:

Her teachers have wonderful things to say about her all the time *beams*.

We went grocery shopping right after, all us girls. Got home and made this wonderful dinner with my love (he got home right on time to make shrimp scampi, hehe):

Monday was a day spent in court, brought on by events from the week before.

And that’s that. Somewhat of a summary. I’d have gone into detail but it’s late now. We started watching Netflix movies, first “Limitless”, which was pretty darn good and then “Chaos Theory”, which is an older Ryan Reynolds movie. It was a little sad, comical at times, and had a happy ending. And now I’m sleepy and my love is passed out on the sofa next to me. Good night :).

I went to bed early the night of the 3rd. Jorge and his buddy chilled out on the porch. We were texting back and forth and he kept trying to convince me to go outside, but I was so tired I crashed out on the round sofa with Ruffles, heh. The girls had already gone to bed, but he had the boys get ready for bed. He’s the best !

I woke up completely refreshed, whipped up some banana pancakes (and hazelnut coffee for myself), and fed the kiddos. I paid bills online and then we got ready to go to the Red Mango grand-opening.

We found a parking spot right in front, which was awesome since the place was beyond packed. They gave the kids balloons, we all got free small yogurts of our choice with 2 toppings (was NOT expecting that!), free tiny cupcakes from CC’s Sweets & Tweets next door and I got a t-shirt :D.

We headed back home and the boys stayed with Mom while the girls and I went to the library for a bit. They found a few books at the book sale and we came home. I made lunch for us (deviled eggs and macaroni, their choice, heh) and we ate on the porch and then Jaylen, Aly and I played hotscotch :).

Jorge got home and we ordered Domino’s. We started noticing that it felt really hot in the house. The thermostat said it was 85 degrees . I’d noticed since much earlier, but I figured it was on account of me running around sweeping and doing laundry. We called the landlord and she said she’d try to get ahold of the air-condition guy but we never got a call back. Jorge said, “Screw it! Let’s get a hotel!” So we searched around. We wanted to stay at the beach with all the kiddos, but the Comfort Inn–where we’d stayed the week before–was sold out. Actually, every hotel we tried on South Padre Island was sold out. Stupid Spring Break!

We had planned a trip to the zoo with the kids for the next day, so we figured we’d just stay in Brownsville. We were lucky to get a hotel there; we got the last 2 rooms!

We packed quickly (yet efficiently; of course I made a list and checked it twice) and we left on our little road trip. The kids were amazingly well behaved. I think Mom was the one complaining the most, heh. Jorge and I shared MixOreds and chatted all the way. I love our little trips .

We got to the hotel and the kids all settled in and before long we were all in bed and ready to sleep.

We got up and had breakfast at McDonald’s. Not our first choice, but we’d passed all the restaurants and were almost to the zoo LOL. The kids had fun anyway. They had their breakfasts and then played in the park thing for a bit.

And then we got to the zoo. I was a little sad that the zoo looked less than…appealing. A lot of the animals were gone and it just looked messy and unkempt :(. I didn’t visit it at all last year and it looked worse than in 2010.

But the kids had fun :). Here’s a few pics:

My babe took this one :)!

The kids were tired by the end and so were we LOL. We had a long drive, but we stopped for snacks and listened to music on the way. We had dinner at Denny’s and then we came home and relaxed :). It was a great weekend!

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 :).