I went into my bedroom, where Alaethia’s watching Ni-Hao Kai-Lan and Emily’s sleeping, and Alaethia asked me, “Mom? When can I grow up?”

I smile and tell her, “Never!”

She says, “Mom, please! I need to go to school!”

I tell her, “You’ll grow up, slowly. And you’ll go to school in a year.”

She says, “Good. And then I can say bad words?”

I laugh and say, “No! You can’t say bad words till…you’re ALL grown up. Like me.” –because I’m sure she was thinking Hey! But you say bad words!

And after thinking it over a bit she says, “Okay. And when I grow up I can reach the snacks in top shelves, too.” She’s too funny! I wonder what else goes through that little 3-year-old mind of hers!

I don’t know what gave me the desire to want to actually use and mess with my website (this website that I’ve been paying for and never use, heh), but I downloaded my FTP again and started fixing things here and there. I’m so sad that for some reason (Vista, maybe?) my radio.blog player won’t upload the new music I wanted to put in it. Oh well. I’ll figure it out later, I guess.

Tons has gone on since I last updated. TONS. Big, life-changing, monumental stuff. It’s amazing how much can go on in 3 months. That’s WHY I didn’t really want to update. Not much good happened. I won’t go into detail–because really, I’d like to forget a lot of those things. Lets just say two Saturdays spent with friends (& family) Downtown turned into a complete disaster. Miscommunication & misunderstandings almost caused 2 couples to split up, mine being one of them. It wasn’t really just those two nights in particular that began the domino-effect of problems–everything really began months before but neither of us ever noticed. Or tried not to, in my case.

I’m completely embarrassed that those who follow me on Facebook were witness to some of the drama. These past three months have shown me that sometimes some friends can be closer than family (SOME), family can turn their back on you at the drop of a hat and people you thought you knew–well, you realize you still have a lot to learn about them. I realized who my true friends were. I realized that my comfortable little life could have quickly been swept from under me, even though I never did anything to make that so.

It was just a strange and crazy 3 months. My birthday didn’t feel like my birthday. We went to IKEA, which was a trip we were super excited about & bought some pretty awesome stuff–but the happiness was short-lived when we ended up getting into an argument there. I was on the verge of divorce by Mother’s Day. (I was going to try and avoid mentioning that, but it’s part of my history so I guess I should.) By the end of May, Mario and I were reconciling. By the first week of June, Mario was leaving to training for 3 months. He was gone for only 2 weeks and I realized I missed him like crazy. I wished the past 3 months could have been rewound and we could have spent those months loving each other and spending time together with the kids. The kids didn’t really notice much; well, the younger 3. Eenan did and even tearfully asked me once while Mario and I were separated if our family was breaking apart. I told him no, that we were working on it, not to worry. And thankfully, we did.

In all my years on this planet, and all the years Mario and I were together I never, ever thought we would get to the point we were at. I never understood how people could be together for so long and then *boom*, they split up. I never thought it would happen to us in a million years. I’m just glad we could come out of that. We still have a lot to work on, but I’m glad we can help each other and do it together.

I don’t know if it was something in the water, the alignment of the stars/planets, but SOMETHING caused just about every couple I know to fight and split up; most splits were over petty things. That’s what was most frustrating: witnessing all these things and knowing it all could have been prevented somehow.

We got to take a little trip to Del Rio, TX while Mario was getting ready to leave. Took the kids for tours around the city and took in the beautiful scenery & old buildings. Took them to the Whitehead Memorial Museum, which they surprisingly enjoyed. We even got a chance to visit Lake Amistad–gorgeous, gorgeous lake!

And since Mario’s been back and while he’s looking for a new job we’ve been cooking together, watching movies almost every night and spending time with the kiddos, like in the old days. I’m so grateful for Jorge and Maggie, who adopted me while Mario was gone LOL. He was only gone 2 weeks but it felt like months. They came over Sunday night and it’s official: Maggie and Jorge are expecting!! We are all, of course, hoping it’s a girl!

Adan, Aide & their kiddos moved to Dallas and I miss her terribly, as Alaethia misses her Best Fwend Bellie :(. She became one of my best friends in recent months and I miss her so much!

Our newest home improvement project is the kitchen! We’ve gotten a spiffy black countertop installed and purchased a few new cabinets. Next is picking our wall paint and sanding all the existing cabinets down and painting them white. I CAN’T WAIT to see everything done!

I’m still, somewhat, doing my workouts. We were supposed to finish our round of P90X on the 28th of June, but we stopped the week of May 17th, then started again 3 weeks later, only to do 1 week of P90X and start on Insanity at the beginning of this week. Mario, John and I went jogging on Sunday and, as I suspected, got majorly painful shin splints. So I was already injured Day 1 of Insanity (which was the Fit Test, and only 20 minutes). Yesterday’s workout was Plyometrics & I further injured myself, not to mention the agonizing soreness in my calves. I couldn’t even walk this morning so I let the guys know I wasn’t going. I found out later we weren’t going to end up working out anyway ’cause our workout partner is out doing work in preparation for the hurricane. Yes, we are waiting for Hurricane Alex to make landfall sometime this evening. Not here, in Mexico, but we’re going to get lots of rain and wind. I just hope it doesn’t flood :(. My bedroom, which leaks from a window when it rains a lot has already started leaking. I just noticed the bottom of my side table is warped :(. I love the rain, but I hate the leaking!!

We’re going to watch a movie before the lights go out LOL. I really do hope everyone’s safe. And I really wish to start updating again! I think it would be better than updating Myspace & Facebook every half hour, heh.

The last time I posted I was a nervous, bumbling wreck…and I was freaking out for nothing!

Well at first it didn’t seem like it. I was home all day Tuesday, the day of the test. Mario was out having a stressful day himself on his day off. I showered, put my wet hair in a pony tail, picked up the boys from school and got home to blow-dry and straighten my hair. And what happens? The power goes out! The first thing I think is, “OMG! The boys’ test is at 6! The light better come back on by then!”

Mom checks at her apartment: no light either. I call Mary to tell her about the problem and she checks with the city. Sure enough, 1,000 customers in the area don’t have power. GREAT! John was working so I couldn’t even go to his house to do my hair there! I was moping for an hour and FINALLY, the light comes back on! I do my hair and then Mario and I go to McDonald’s to get dinner (nuggets for everyone, bleh now that I remember…). Yadira had agreed to watch Emily while we tested so Mom could go watch us test. So I was still getting ready and still had to drop off Emily. Mary went ahead and took the boys to their test a 6, since I was running late and traffic was awful. Once Emily was dropped off, Mario, Mom, Alaethia and I went to the school.

It was around 6:15 and the test hadn’t started yet. I was rushing for nothing, but I was glad we were there and actually acquired seats. I grew more and more nervous as the boys’ test went on. But I told myself to suck it up and just do it. The sparring would supposedly only go on for about 30 seconds. As long as I slid back and kicked once in a while and just generally kept myself from getting hit my arm and knee would be fine.

The boys did excellently. Jaylen remembered to squat more during the Horse Stance and Eenan kicked high. They did great in sparring and broke all their boards. Eenan broke one with a Chito-chagi (sp?), which is a straight up-and-down kick. It took two tries, but he did it! The little girl (who’s Jaylen’s age) that was a blue-advanced going to red belt couldn’t kick one of her boards with the Hetsu. She wasn’t using the correct technique so she kept hitting the board with her ankle repeatedly. I felt so bad for her :(. At least she can execute the Hetsu for the most part; that’s the kick I fell flat on my back trying to do and I’m terrified of doing it now.

Ernesto gave Eenan all A+ and Jaylen got all A+’s except for his punches. But that’s something he can easily work on.

I ran to the pizza place across the street since the light in the bathroom at the school went out. I was so embarrassed but I HAD to go. I ran back when I was done and bought some shin guards since I didn’t want even more bruises up and down my legs. I was so nervous, and it didn’t help that my whole family was there and the place was FULL of spectators. It was the largest audience I’d seen during one of my tests.

So we’re going through the test. Do the basics: horse stance, side punch, low punch all the kicks. I do fine in the one-step sparring and chagiderio. AND THEN it’s time for the sparring part. I fixed the knee pad I’d put on over my welt and bruise, took a deep breath and began to walk to Mario and my stuff so I can put the shin guards on and Ernesto stops me. He asks how my wrist is doing and I tell him that it still hurts and try and turn it and wince. He’s thoughtful as he looks at my wrist and says, “No. I don’t think you should spar. The last thing we need is for you to get even more hurt.” I’m completely shocked and glance over at Luis, who’s got a smirk on his face and probably thinking, “You got lucky!”

I ask Ernesto, “Are you sure?!” I didn’t want to look like a wimp! “I can…keep my arm close and try not to block with this hand.” He says no, but I owe them sparring twice next test. I didn’t know whether that was a good or bad thing LOL.

When the girls are fighting I can’t help but think, ‘Dammit! I could have taken them!’ Oh well. Next time.

The board-breaking is next and I execute all 3 kicks flawlessly. I broke one with a side-kick, which I’d already done before and did well, too. A chito-chagi (straight up-and-down kick) and the last one was a mula (donkey kick where you spin around and kick under your body). I did the mula really well, thank goodness! That’s the one that I was most nervous about!

We get our usual helpful lecture on what we need to work on before we get our belts and then we got our belts. It’s the best feeling :). We took pictures with the group and we get our stuff together and go. I tell Mario how excited I am that I broke the boards so well and can’t WAIT to see the pictures. He says, “Um. I didn’t take video.” WHAT?! I couldn’t believe it! The screen-caps I could have gotten from them would have been so awesome! Oh well. I tried not to be TOO upset.

The guys promised that by next test in June I’d be ready for sparring. Darnit, I better!!