Category: MLV

Inner Battle

I’m going to have to start making some changes. I don’t even know where to start.

I finally got to see Maggie and catch up with her after a month last night. She and Jorge came over to have some drinks with us and she told me all about her trip to San Antonio with her new boss. She’s doing fabulously at this new job and I’m so glad, too. She’s at the perfect place to help her already budding talent grow.

We talked till 3am (and it felt like it was still too soon for them to leave LOL). After Mario and I spent some time alone together (the baby was up with us late, too, since she didn’t seem to want to miss anything) we went to bed at 4am. Needless to say we didn’t wake up till noon. Well, the girls and I did. Thank God for Mary who drops the boys off for us in the morning!

I figured today would be the 2nd to the last or the last day of this cold/cough. Instead of feeling better I’ve felt shaky, dizzy and nauseous all day. At first I thought it was because I woke up so late and it threw me off, or because I hadn’t drank coffee in a week & a half, hence the jitteriness but I felt like that all day.

Mario and I picked up the boys while Mom watched the girls, then came back to drop off the boys so Mario and I could run some errands. We paid Mario’s speeding ticket ($149 down the drain, thank you) and I finally got Emily’s birth certificate. We looked for a new power supply at Radio Shack for the modem but Adan called him and said he had an extra one and would fix the internet for us (it wasn’t working). As we were leaving the store we saw a guy selling elote en vaso (corn in a cup) and Mario wanted some. As the guy starts preparing the cup, I nudge Mario and whisper, “The mayo’s not cold!” It was just there, out in the heat. I asked the man, in Spanish, if it was safe to eat and he said yes, he’d just made one before ours but he always kept it in a cooler with ice. He opens a cooler full of ice and shows us the indentation where the mayo usually rests. I feel a little better about it and order one, too. I was relieved to see him Germ-x’ing as well.

We went to Walmart for groceries because I’d been sick and hadn’t done the shopping during the weekend. We were even out of TP, which NEVER happens LOL.

On the way home I started feeling really nauseous. I started cursing the elote en vaso because I felt exactly the way I did last Monday when I got sick after Taekwondo.

Mom wanted to order a Botana so we went on a search for a Mexican restaurant down Tom Gill. Both of the restaurants on the street were closed. So we ordered from El Pato and came home to unload the groceries. Eenan’s helping me put stuff away and he double takes as he sees the gigantic love bite Mario left on me. 12 years with that man and he still thinks it’s hilarious to do that. I feel so embarrassed with those darn things! Anyway, Eenan double takes and says, “MOM! What happened to your neck!” I blurt out, “Your dad scratched me.” I closed my eyes and prayed he wouldn’t ask anything else, but of course he asks, “How did he scratch you like THAT?!”

I say, “I don’t know–get me that bag of cans.” Thankfully he left it at that, but he looked mighty suspicious.

Mario and I went to pick up the Botana after I was done. I was shaking and on the verge of puking by the time we got back. I couldn’t even smell the food, I was so nauseous. I tell Mario, “I think I’m starting to have problems with my glucose again,” and he says, “Um, yeah. I told you.”

I find my glucose meter and—as much as I hate to—checked my sugar. It was at 71 when I’d just had a whole cup of corn an hour earlier, which is really starchy and makes Mom’s sugar go through the roof. Everyone forced me to eat even though I couldn’t stand the nausea, but about half an hour after eating I started to feel better. John came over and ate with us and made me laugh, so that made me feel better, too; got my mind off of everything.

I’m going to have to get on the “Diabetic Diet” that I was following May 2008. I had to eat 6 small meals instead of 3 regular ones, or actually 3 small meals and 3 snacks in between. The only thing that worries me is Taekwondo. Because of all this I’m probably only going to go the remainder of the month. It makes my blood sugar drop A LOT and I don’t want to have an episode ever again like I did last week.

After dinner Mario went to Adan’s to get the modem fixed and I watched Biggest Loser while the boys played their handhelds (they’re excited that Mario found some…thing for their DS’s). When it was time for them to shower and go to bed for school I came to the bedroom with Emily and she happily played in her playpen while I cleaned up the bedroom. Alaethia watched The Wizard of Oz in her room.

My bedroom was a freaking mess; crap everywhere from all over the house that we didn’t know where else to put. So I got laundry, trash, closet and garage sale piles going on. I’m hoping to have a garage sale soon, but with this heat and spontaneous rainy weather we’ll see how that goes.

I watched the VMA’s, finally, while I cleaned. The Michael Jackson tribute was amazing! I was emotional the whole time. When the awards first aired on Sunday I saw Twitterworld going crazy about something Kanye did to Taylor Swift. He’s such an idiot, I swear. Why the heck didn’t a bodyguard or security or something tackle him to the ground? I think it was so gracious and awesome of Beyonce to give Taylor her moment. I got emotional during that part, too. This period of mine needs to come soon, for real. I’ve been a ball of absolute hormones since I’m…15 days late. No, people, I’m not pregnant! My cycle just goes completely wonky when I start a new workout routine. From doing absolutely nothing (well, not really, I was doing the treadmill) to TAEKWONDO my body REALLY freaked the hell out!!

Plan for tomorrow: finish up the bedroom. I need to get my bookcase dusted, books reorganized, side table cleared off and the closet organized. Everything that belongs in it is in it but all over the floor. Looks like the closet barfed. I blame that mostly on Mario who messes with the wires he’s got up there and decides to throw my boxes and hangers everywhere and doesn’t put them back. Hmph.

Oh yeah, and I’ve got to get the girls’ closet cleaned out. They’ve got tons of clothes they’ve grown out of.

I’m hoping I’ll get to make it to Taekwondo tomorrow. I feel lazy and gross going a week and a half without doing anything physical. I’m worried that’ll become a problem once I stop going to Taekwondo but now that I know what the workout is (and that I have to do it for an hour as opposed to 30 minutes like I was doing before) I think I’ll be alright.

OMG and I have to mention that Emily started making “a face”. She gets really happy and starts smiling all big with her eyes all crinkled up. Cutest thing EVER. I actually caught all these silly expressions on camera so I’ll hopefully get those up soon :).

I’m babbling now. Obviously time for bed.

Feeling My Age…Or Older Perhaps

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.

Emily & her newly pierced ears!! Poor baby was hysterical :(.

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!!

A Day at the Beach

I did it again Friday morning (the 17th of July); I turned the darn alarm off and thank goodness I woke up when I did or else Mario would have been LATE. He woke up with just enough time to get dressed.

I lazied around and then got ready to go to McAllen. Mary was still off that day so we were going to meet Mario for lunch. It was already passed 12:30 so I texted him and he told me he wasn’t going to be able to have lunch with us since he was working on a Jeep and was going to end up having a late lunch. Oh well :(. We took off, went to the bank and all that jazz and then met at Taco Bell.

The kiddos ate well, including Alaethia even though she didn’t finish her whole taco. I’ll take what I can get with my picky girl, though. I was taken by surprise when one of the cashiers said he knew Mario and that he was family of Mario’s boss. I thought he looked familiar.

We didn’t get a chance to see Gramma that day since Noelia was coming over to get her nails done by Maggie and just as we were leaving Taco Bell she called that she was at the house. Uh-oh. I took Mario some food and then we came straight home. I tidied up while Noelia held Emily and the rest of the kiddos lounged around I the living room. By the time I knew it, it was 4pm and I had to get the boys ready for TaeKwonDo and Maggie still wasn’t here. It was when we were at the Dojo that she let me know she was getting her light set up at her house so she wouldn’t make it. They’re finally moving back to their house! I’m just sad that they won’t be as close and we won’t be able to chill out all the time like we used to :(.

I was really hoping to get back and have Margaritas with the girls, but oh well. Since Noelia wasn’t getting her nails done she went to the Dojo to see the boys in action. They’re doing extremely well now that they’ve been separated. Luis, their instructor, is incredibly patient. He does a great job with the kiddos, even with the little hyper boy that’s always jumping around LOL. Eenan’s class is joined by the Yellow Belts on Fridays but each group still got their individual attention. Eenan has the first half of his White Belt Form down pat! He was so proud of himself that for the first time since they started going to class he seemed excited about Karate. He even said, “I’m going to get my Yellow Belt by the end of this month!” I hope so :).

We got home and Mary tells me to pack because we’re going to the beach, along with Andy and Noelia, the next day. I’m sort of not really feeling it, because Mario’s got a sale going on at work and I knew he wouldn’t be able to go. I hate going places when he doesn’t go. Not only do I feel guilty, but I feel…unsafe. But I start packing anyway; the kids’ swimming suits, including one for Emily, aw. I am in no shape (literally) to wear a bathing suit, so I just got some shorts and a tank together and another set for afterwards. At least I could work on tanning my arms and legs.

Mario was tired from work (my poor love) and I had to be in bed early so I surfed the web and he watched TV and then we all got ready for bed. I went to bed around 12:30-1am, which was still really late. I woke up around 3:30 with this excruciating pain in my ear, jaw and gums. My stupid Wisdom tooth. I couldn’t go back to sleep from the pain and conceding that I was going to have to get the darn tooth (or perhaps teeth) removed much sooner than I’d planned. I had two options:

The first: get my passport and get the tooth/teeth removed in Mexico and spend about $400 doing everything. The downside to that was probably getting an infection and my whole mouth becoming gangrened and loosing all my teeth or something awful like that.

The second: suck it up and give Elda a call and find out if her office does monthly payments. I’d get it done here and I’d most likely have a safe/clean extraction. The downside: spending a few thousand bucks, I’m sure.

So I thought about my teeth and then I tried to stop thinking about my teeth because when I dream of teeth people die (those who’ve been visiting me long enough know I’m SO telling the truth).

I started thinking about how Mario wasn’t going to go and started getting bad feelings about the whole trip and was already planning to tell Mary we weren’t going. I don’t know how to swim, so as much as I love the ocean, I’m terrified of deep water. I’m even more terrified that one of the kids’ll go too deep and get swept by the current and I can’t reach them. All these creepy thoughts went through my mind.

Then finally, around 5:30 I fell asleep, only to be woken up by Emily at 7 for a feeding. I went back to sleep for about half an hour and then got up to call Mom and take a shower. I got the last of the things packed up, made Mario breakfast and then got the girls dressed and ready. Mario left to work and I felt a pang of guilt/fear. But I willed myself to push the bad feelings away and to just have a good time. It was Emily’s very first trip to the beach, after all.

We packed all our stuff and kids in Elda’s truck, which we were borrowing since all of us didn’t fit in m Equinox or Mary’s Sentra. We stopped for breakfast at Burger King where I spotted a beautiful hummingbird!

Hummingbird

Of course we were moving and in the truck so I couldn’t get a very good picture.

We met Andy and Noelia at their apartment and then we all drove to Walmart where they were getting some stuff. We were off on our hour 1/2 drive after that and since I didn’t sleep very well I kept nodding off. It felt like we arrived in 20 minutes to me LOL.

It was around 10 or 11am and it was already scalding hot outside. Gotta love South Texas weather, not. We got all our junk off and found a huge umbrella to rent. We slathered sun block all over the kids first, then ourselves. Mary helped me since I was holding Emily and then I passed her to Noelia so I could finish up.

The older kiddos started off with sand castles of course. I just sat and watched them and held Emily. She was hungry so I fed her and then she started nestling herself against me to fall asleep.

My Oldest Three

It was nerve wracking keeping an eye on all three kids once the boys started getting brave enough to dip themselves in the cold ocean and Alaethia played in the sand. I passed Emily on to Mom and she and Mary took turns with her while I stayed with the other kids. There were so many people!

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Noelia and Andy took the boys to the first and second sand bars and Andy taught them to use the boogie board. I took pics from the shore while I watched Alaethia making sand castles. I was, again, nervous as heck watching them out there but I knew Andy and Noelia would keep an eye on the boys.

Alaethia picked shells with Mary while I sat with Emily, who’d fallen asleep and was all sprawled out on a chair LOL. She looked so cute. Somewhere around here we ate sandwiches and then Andy convinced me to go out to the 1st sandbar with them to pick shells and be with the kids. I went for Alaethia after a while and she behaved amazingly. I was afraid she’d try and jump into the water on her own but she was too busy looking for shells. I found my very first live sand dollar! I had no idea the little guys were a reddish-pink color!

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I went back several times to dump our shell collections into the bigger sand pail. Andy found several hermit crabs for the kids! I totally intended on bringing them home and looking for info on saltwater hermit crabs. We have the land ones, but I imagine their diet and habitat are much different!

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Mary told me to tell the rest that we’d be leaving soon. I said okay, and relayed the message. While I was walking back I saw a family huddled around each other looking at something. I snooped to see what it was and they showed me their handfuls of sand dollars! They told us to sit where they were and look for them. The kiddos all stayed on the sandbar while Andy, Noelia and I dug our hands into the sand and unearthed tons of little sand dollars. It was a breeding ground for them, but most of them were already dead :(. Andy told me how to bleach them to make them into those white sand dollars we see at the shops. I’m totally going to scrapbook them!

We went back to our umbrella and started putting all our stuff away after that. Mom didn’t get in the water or the sand at all so she stayed in the truck waiting while we got the girls washed up. Mary’d accidentally bought a pack of bad water bottles (they tasted like plastic) so we washed the girls with those and left them in the car with Mom while Mary, Noelia, Andy, the boys and me went to shower and change.

It took the guys a good half hour to get in and change, and that’s because they didn’t even have a line to wait in. It took us–I’m not kidding you–an hour and a half to get through the line and finish up. Didn’t help that the 2 girls in front of us ended up letting 3 more relatives cut in! I was so mad I asked them if they were all going to go into a stall together and they say, “Oh no, of course not!” And I proceed to tell them how cutting isn’t cool and how unfair it was to everyone else that they let them in. They gave the excuse that it was their first time “here”. Um, too bad. It’s rude in general to do that. So they ended up letting us go through, buahaha.

It felt good to wash off all that salt and sand. I was SO SUNBURNED! I didn’t reapply sun block half-way through our time out there and neither did Andy, so we looked like lobsters LOL. We went to the gift shop in Los Fresnos.

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Since it was such a last-minute trip and I was on a budget, the boys each got a cute message in a bottle with sand and fake gold in them. I got Mario some alligator and ostrich jerky (yum!) and got a sponge, extra shells and a little hut for my hermies back at home.

It felt like forever before we got home and when we finally did it felt so good to be here. The kids had such a blast! We were going to go over to Jorge and Maggie’s that night but I was so sleepy and sunburnt that we just stayed home and chilled out here.