A Long Overdue Post!

The weather down in the valley has been so gloomy! It's given me no motivation to post at all! lol. Right now we're getting lots of rain from Tropical Storm Arlene.

This is what it looks like outside right now [06/30 - 4PM]

This past weekend we [the little sister, our dad and myself] took a trip up to Helotes, TX to surprise the older sister!! Her birthday was on Saturday [06/25]. We got to have family time and just hang around at their house :)

I asked Tina the golden question "Cake or death!?"

Confused? Watch this!!

 

I love Eddie Izzard! So funny!!

She being the rebel she is, chose cookies instead of cake. 

Here is my awesome nephew Jack helping me make the cookies for his momma. We made her some oatmeal, cranberry with pecan cookies. Some of the cookies even had pieces of dried pineapple chunks, per Tina's request. Sadly, this was the only pic I took of the cookie making :( but they were delicious!

We had a BBQ that evening, and I also made Pico-de-gallo with chunks of avocado. It wasn't too spicy, and oh so good! That bowl is huge and this picture was taken after everyone had already dug into it :)

Jack got to hang out with some friends of his, and did some crafts.

Meet "Santa Washington"

It was a short weekend :( I love going, but I always hate to leave.

My Weekend & Conversations with Jack

Friday went down as usual - go to work, go home and cook dinner, get ready to go to JAAS [night club] for "Banda night". My Danny is in this group, they're pretty great and I'm totally not being biased here. Personally, before - I couldn't really care less about this type of music, but hearing it on the speakers from a recording and watching it live is pretty different. I actually kind of like it now, although I am still learning the songs. One of these days I'll get a video recording to share on here.

Saturday, we slept in. And I mean it we slept in! We didn't get up from bed till almost 2 PM. And then we just relocated to the living room and watched tv. What couch potatoes, huh?! Close to 4 PM we took our car to a mechanic to get a radiator flush and while that was going on we went to Target to go buy a present for our nephew Jadon, for his 3rd Birthday! We then returned to the apartment where we continued to bum some more. Danny had 2 gigs lined up with the banda later that night, and then had a series of little gigs lined up with a little group to do "Mother's Day Serenades" throught the wee hours of the morning through Mother's Day. Danny got back from his banda gigs at about 3AM and then we loaded up the car and drove to the mid-valley so he could go off and do the serenades. I got to my dad's house just after 4AM.

Sunday Audrey [younger sister] and I got to see Christina[older sister] and Jack [nephew]! They'd driven down to go see her Grandmother for Mother's Day. Our mom was unavailable for Mother's Day; she's off on some month long road trip with her husband, and she also does not have a cell phone. So we went to breakfast :)

Conversation on the way to Breakfast:
Jack: "Where are we going??"
[Sister's]: "Jose's Cafecito"
Jack: [PAUSE] ... "I don't know Spanish!"


Christina then began to tell us how Jack knows a little bit of Spanish, he just forgets that he knows. One time she'd asked him to bring her something, and she said "Gracias", which means Thank you - and Jack replied "De nada", which means Your Welcome. Basic stuff, yes - but he knows. I remember he was counting 1-10 in Spanish when he was maybe 4 years old, he'd learned in day care. Now he can count to 15, and I told him that was great!

During breakfast:

Jack: [to me] "How old are you?"
Me: "How old do you think I am? - WAIT! Don't answer that!" [I didn't want to hear some outrageous number, lol] "I'm twenty-three"
Jack: [to Audrey] "So you're twenty-...."
Audrey: [interupting Jack] "Twenty-one"
Jack: [to Audrey] "So then you have 2 more years before you have to be married!"

Christina then began to tell Jack that Audrey didn't have to get married if she didn't want to, she was still very young. I was just sitting there laughing my face off, this kid throws me sometimes with the stuff he says!

Jack: "But then she will be single. And a lonely, loner - all alone."

O.o

All this from my 8 + 3/4 year old nephew!


After breakfast we continued talking about words in Spanish, and on the ride back to my dad's Jack wanted to eat a mint he had in the car but Christina told him he could have it later after they ate lunch. Of course he wanted it right then and there, so Audrey then proceeded to tell him that he could eat it - if he could say breakfast in Spanish. [it's "desayuno"]

I helped him as much I could. I told him the first 2 letters were "de", a couple letters in the middle were "ay" and the last two were "no". Of course he never answered, but then some time goes by and he then asks me how to spell "Audrey", so I tell him. And curiously, I looked over to see what he was doing. He was messing around on his iTouch, with his notepad app.

He wrote: "Today Audrey made me say breakfast in Spanish."

Seriously, he blows my mind away sometimes!!

Weekend Recap!

Yesterday was fairly busy - we all woke up insanely early for a Saturday. There were a couple of errands we wanted to get done, and some that had to be done morning/mid-morning: like go to the bank.

For breakfast I made the hubby oatmeal while he got ready for work, no big challenge there! lol. And for the first time ever, I poached eggs! I youtube'd it so I could see someone else do it and so that I could get an idea of what I needed to do. It was very easy and was pretty tasty. I had 2 with some wheat toast.

Then we were off!

Errands to accomplish:

1.Close my old bank account.

This didn't take long at all. The line was at the drive-thru banking. While we were waiting an elderly man who came in about 5 minutes after us just began to talk to us. Poor guy, he'd just lost his wife and had gotten a letter in the mail about $5,000 having been deposited into his account. He was there to see if it was true and how it came to be. I think it must've been recent, his wife's death - he was almost in tears talking about her. He said they'd had a great, long ride together. I thought it was so sweet the way he was talking about her.

2. Deliver Glee - Road to Sectionals to my cousin Victoria. 

Yes we have this on DVD already. We're hooked! I love the Acafellas' episode with Josh Groban. He was funny in the season finale too! But not my cousin Victoria finally got into it, she said the Gaga episode got her.  

3. Head to Best Buy to use a gift certificate we earned through their Reward Zone program.

Best Buy gave us Flyleaf's cd :)

4. Go to BB&B to exchange a coffee maker we bought and a pizza pan for some other things.

What I love about BB&B is if you use their 20% off coupon to purchase something, and then later you want to exchange it - they'll give you the full purchase price's worth in store credit! A couple of weeks ago we went to buy a coffee maker and a coffee bean grinder because Danny wanted them and we didn't recieve those as wedding presents .. and we had gift cards .. and coupons that were about to expire.  I'm not a big coffee drinker, I drink coffee occasionally. But anyway, just this past week we got a belated wedding gift from one of my dad's ex-coworkers. It was a really nice coffee maker. It totally kicked our little one's butt! So we kept it :) In exchange I got some kitchen storage containers, for like pasta and flour, etc. A fleece throw, because you just never know. And a nylon whisk :) Exciting stuff huh? lol.

5. LUNCH!

For the first time ever, my sister Audrey and I went to try McAllister's! It was delicious!

^^^ Our panini's :-)

And the sweet tea, AWESOME! lol. I'm pretty picky on the tea. I hate the instant stuff - it's gotta be brewed. And sometimes, someplaces overdo it on the sugar. I mean yeah, "sweet" tea but I don't like for it to taste like sugar. Gosh. lol.

6. Make a pit stop at Pier 1 on the way home.

It was right there on the way home, so how could we not just stop in and take a look around! :) ANd of course, we found lots of things  we wanted to bring home with us. I don't know why we torture ourselves like that ... we were then inspired to suddenly go on the search for a cookie jar. We looked there, but no such luck. So then we went by Hobby Lobby, which was on the opposite side of town ... and didn't buy a cookie jar, but instead I got some more scrapbooking supplies! I was lured in by their annoucement that they had a table with special discontinued pages - 10 for $1.00! How could I not pass that up! So I got some letter stickers, more glue, my special bargained pages, and a package of scraps. A blog on that [scrapbooking] coming soon.

7. Rent a movie!

Redbox is our go-to for this. It's fast, convenient and cheap! My sister and I rented Young Victoria. I really enjoyed it a lot, more than I initially thought I would.

Today is Sunday and I've been up since 6:45 AM! I went to the park with my sister where I walked/jogged/ran 2 miles. I know thats not a lot, but I'm just getting back into it. It was certainly hot enough, but luckily there was a bit of a breeze. I made us some breakfast and then bathed 3/4 of the dogs. Now I'm just gonna relax the rest of the day and enjoy what's left of my weekend.

Meatball hoagies for dinner :-)

Weekend Recap!

Friday concluded with some delicious grilled chicken sandwiches and homemade french fries. Although I don't think those are good points towards my diet . .. and we were still all under the weather and on our way to recovery. After I ate it hit me how exhausted I really was. Mind you I was sick all last week, and that plus a full stomach will pretty much equal a nice nap. I'm pretty sure I made it through Armored. And I know I have no idea how Terminator Salvation ended . ... lol. So that was Friday.


On Saturday we left to begin a day full of last minute wedding errands! Danny and I had just gotten paid and were determined to pay everything else we hadn't paid yet. First was the caterer. We get to the restaurant only to find out that we overbudgeted for it! Well not in so many words, but what I mean to say is that the remained balance was $100 less than we expected. So that was a good beginning. .

Audrey and I then left to McAllen to go pay the florist, and take the address of the day-of pickup for the limo to the company. We picked up some Quiznos (a couple of sammies - yum!) and then headed back to Donna to meet at my Godmother's house to work on the centerpieces for the tables! It was a productive afternoon! And I really think they're gonna look great! But I suck and forgot to take a picture yet again! :(

Just after 3PM we headed back to Edinburg to go to the salon for a hair trial appointment for the wedding day! LOL. A couple of the stylists misunderstood and thought I was getting married that day. Silly. I think it went pretty well. I didn't really know what I wanted, and I still kinda don't, but I had my little sis there with me and she would never say it looked good if it didn't. More to come on that later! After that we went to go make the final payments on the cakes and then to pick up Audrey's shoes. Unfortunately we made it to the bridal boutique just after they'd closed! :( So that was gonna have to wait.

We then left to HEB to pick up a couple of items Danny and I will need for this weekend, and some ingrediants for dinner. We wanted to have grilled chicken wraps - or as my dad likes to call it "chicken tacos", although they look more like burritos than tacos . . .


On Sunday Danny had to be at Best Buy by 8AM for a meeting and then didn't go into work until 2. So we met up at church. It was a good service. Then we went to go waste come time looking around Pier 1. I am lucky that I have a guy that loves to shop! Even if it's window shopping! So we were in there and of course I think we need 1 of everything in there, sometimes 2 of them. Most of the things I want are dishes, glasses, bakeware/cookware, etc. And Danny's response is the same all the time: "Don't you already have one of those!" Which is probably true . . . but not for all I know :)

We parted ways at about 1:20 and then I came back home and vegged out on the couch for a couple of hours. Around 5 we left to meet my mom for a little dinner and then returned home. I was determined to put away all my clean clothes and while doing that, clear out an entire dresser (about 6 drawers) for Danny. I was successful! And you know what?! He hasn't even used them! He still insisted on putting his things in one of my drawers! lol. I guess it will come with time.


Now we're down to the week of the wedding! It's this Saturday. This weekend! I can't wait :-)