Thursday, November 29, 2012

Summering in Oregon: Cannon Beach

 
 
 
 



 
 
 
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You don't always get this lucky on the Oregon Coast, but this time we were there the weather was gorgeous.  Eva had never been daring enough to get into the water, but this time around something went nuts in her.  She kept dragging her Nana into the ocean with her.  I couldn't get her to stop and her Nana was willing, so I suppose it was a good combo.  She had so much fun with her!

We spent the time there with Cathryn and John as well.  Aunt Cydnie, Grandma Patti and Emmett showed up too for a couple hours and the kids had fun running around with Emmett trying to catch, well, whatever he was looking for.

I decided this time around that I could literally die at the beach.  Morbid, I know, but I can't get over how peaceful and beautiful the beach is.  And my kids are happy there too, so it makes for a win-win, I tell you.  

Still catching up...Eva's 6th Birthday












My baby celebrated her 6th birthday this year!  6th!?  I don't even know how that happened.  We celebrated her birthday many times like this lucky girl always does.  The truth is she expects nothing less than three birthdays.  I should remind her of how when I was a kid my brother, Ricky and I always shared a birthday.  Which, I can't really blame my parents since we were March 16th and March 25th.  But I am pretty sure, this little girl would have nothing of that!  So let's see.  We had a friend party.  I took her to Trompo Magico and brought the entire party in our Radio Flyer.  It was a sight to see.  They actually stopped me at the door telling me that it wasn't in their policy to let food into the museum.  To which I had to remind them, that I had been doing it for years, and no one had stopped me before.  I wasn't going to let anyone ruin all my hard work.  Well, it worked and got my little party in.  Her friend's moms and my good friends now too, were kind enough to join me along with Anjane and Kylee.  Even though Eva didn't really want anything to do with her little buddy, who is actually Elijah's age, at the time, it was nice to have them both there.  Because the truth is, when the girls her age aren't around, she has no problem playing with little three year olds!

We also had a family party on her actual day.  We went to Peter Piper pizza and then did some cupcakes and icecream that night.  We had some friends over and our neighbor Martha.  My kids love her!  She has been nothing but good to my family.  Every once in a while she brings me free tortillas too and I, in return bring her sweets, which I know she doesn't really care for but I know her kids LOVE.

Then back when we made it to Oregon a couple weeks later she had a party there too.  That party has always been my way to get all my buddies under the same roof every year.  We have done it since Eva had her first birthday.  It is always fun to see how my friend's families have evolved over the years.  My parents, since we have moved to Mexico, have been gracious enough to host every year.  We did a hawaiian theme this year, and with the help of a couple of my friends, we provided all the entertainment.  It was a great party!










This is for you Eva...

Eva, you are one special girl.  I don't even know where to begin.  The truth is you are starting, slowly, to become the slightest, so ever, independent.  I can trust you to get up in the morning with your little brother on Saturdays and turn on the tv, and pour yourselves some cereal.  If I didn't know any better I might even trust you two alone.  But of course I know better.  You can be the sweetest, big sister when you want to be.  But you can also be a little feisty and not so nice to your brother too.  But when you play well, you play really well.  You like to build houses with your brother and play house with him too.  You dominate the Ipad and have him sit next to you and watch you play, and every once in a while you sneak him in a turn.  You LOVE to color and draw.  Often when I send you off to play, that is your choice activity.  You learned to ride your bike!  Once you realized you could do it, you just took off.  Like most things for you, you do things at your own pace.

Not sure when or how it happened, but you don't like fish.  When you were little you used to chow down on cocktail shrimp.  I think you would die if we gave them to you now.  But we still make you eat a little bit at a time anyway.  You aren't much of a breakfast person in the morning.  You take after me really.  But overall, if it isn't fish, you like my cooking and you eat pretty well too.

You are getting the grasp of reading.  You still need fluency practice, but you are slowly getting it.  All in Spanish of course, but it is still cute to get all those little notes you like to leave your dad and I.  In fact, your dad takes a picture of every note you write him on his desk.  We love you for your kind spirit.

Your English and Spanish are great too!  You dominate both languages beautifully.  You even have a little Mexican accent, like a real native speaker, that I never had.  You know when you need to speak in Spanish and when in English and to your brother, well, we still are trying to break you out of the habit of mixing both languages like your mommy did to Elijah in a desperate attempt to get him to talk.  

You still have all your teeth in your mouth.  They are pretty cemented in there.  You are showing signs of molars, but that's about it.

You are becoming quite the little dancer.  You make sure to have your toes pointed anytime to you really thinking about it.  You like to have little performances in the living room.  They usually entail cranking up the keyboard music in the living room while you dance around.  You sure are growing like a weed.

You rarely like to be alone.  And, I think that's why you don't like to play alone, because it requires being by yourself and you would rather be with someone.  And that makes you who you are.  We love you to pieces little girly!!

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Celebrating the 4th of July ...in Mexico







Only because I want these pictures on my blog, I am willing to post about 4th of July!  Seriously, who does that??  I suppose I do.  This year we were able to spend the day celebrating at a friend's house here in Mexico.  It is so strange to wake up knowing that to nobody else, except Americans that might be here on July 4th, see it as a special day.  I got the family as festive as they would let me, sporting some red, white and blue and went to a potluck.

We enjoyed good conversation and some fireworks that were literally bought from a blind man in an alley!  Who would of thought?  But, it was sure nice to have them to make the day feel like Independence day.  My kids are still scared of the sparklers and the loud sounds they make, but they did enjoy them from afar.

One day soon, we will get to enjoy the 4th in the states and I bet when that day comes I will say, "Remember when we celebrated in Mexico..."  I suppose that's how life is.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Kinder Graduation

Eva with Miss Julia, the Tiny Town director/principal
Miss Linda, Eva's music coordinator
Eva graduated from kindergarten this June.  At Tiny Town, they went all out.  They had us rent the full cap and gown attire.  A little overboard for a five year old graduation, but she still looked darn cute!  That morning of her graduation was very stressful for me.  Since we live further away we planned that we should give ourselves at least 45 minutes to get there.  Well, that didn't happen.  We ended up leaving with 40 minutes to get there but even that wasn't enough.  With traffic being so bad in Guadalajara, we should have given ourselves one hour.  The performance was set to start at 9 in the morning and we were pulling up at 9:05ish.  I was worried that we were going to miss the beginning of the graduation and that we were going to be sitting way in the back of the auditorium, but none of those things happened.  We made it with plenty of time, and, we scored seats pretty close to the front.

At Tiny Town they have a tradition at her school where the kids that graduate have a ring placed around their neck when they call their name.  Eva loved her little ring.  They did a dance number and sang sad Spanish songs about drawing a closure to their year and I couldn't help but tear up.  In fact, as Eva walked up to the stage with her graduation attire I had this flash forward moment where I could imagine my baby down the road at her high school graduation.  It really is scary how fast time flies by.

Although Eva was sad that the school year was over, she is looking forward to new adventures at her new school.  She will of course miss her teachers, she loves them, and her little friends, but thankfully, I made myself good friends with their moms and we will see each other often.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Eva's Dance Recital

At UAG, Matthew's school, they have a neat art program where the kids can sign up for dance classes.  They have polynesian, flamenco, jazz, ballet folklorico, but we just do plain ol' ballet.  For 1500 pesos, or around 100 dollars when the dollar is doing real good, we get to go for the entire semester on Mondays and Wednesdays.  Not bad if you ask me.  Anyway, in June she had her ballet recital.  She is a cute little dancer.  In fact, lately she has been busting out the ballet moves she saw the older girls do during the practice recital and she has some good coordination/balancing skills.  And everything she does she does with a pointed toe.  They danced two short dances.  Eva is one of the older girls in her group and you could tell.  She also appeared to be one of the more mature ones.  You could see her in the dance telling the other girls what to do.  I always love to watch Eva dance.  
 She's always really excited for recital days because she get's to wear a little bit of my make-up.
 Eva's in the pink with her pointed toe.  

 Elijah was excited to give his sister her bouquet of flowers.  
At UAG, Matthew's school, they have a neat art program where the kids can sign up for dance classes.  They have polynesian, flamenco, jazz, ballet folklorico, but we just do plain ol' ballet.  For 1500 pesos, or around 100 dollars when the dollar is doing real good, we get to go for the entire semester on Mondays and Wednesdays.  Not bad if you ask me.  Anyway, in June she had her ballet recital.  She is a cute little dancer.  In fact, lately she has been busting out the ballet moves she saw the older girls do during the practice recital and she has some good coordination/balancing skills.  And everything she does she does with a pointed toe.  They danced two short dances.  Eva is one of the older girls in her group and you could tell.  She also appeared to be one of the more mature ones.  You could see her in the dance telling the other girls what to do.  I always love to watch Eva dance.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Mexico Part 32: Our Home

We've moved into our new home here in Mexico since end of March and I am finally getting around to posting some pics of the place.  We live in Zapopan outside of the "nicer" area.  You really can tell a significant different from our old area to our new area.  In fact, I feel like I live in "real" Mexico now.  We are still safe where we are and I feel like the kids have a new freedom here.  We live on a flat road, which makes bike riding more fun and we can actually get some usage out of our radio flyer.  We live inside a gated community with guards.  However, once you come into the coto, we live within another gated community.  It sounds confusing but basically, even though we live in a huge neighborhood, we still can enjoy the perks of living in a small neighborhood.  If that makes any sense.  I don't ever lock my car or front door, and my neighbors, especially the ones to the right of us when you look directly at the house are the nicest people ever.  Their daughter is even our babysitter.  There are only ten houses in our gated neighborhood.  I was told that these were the model homes for the entire community of homes here.  It has three bedrooms, two and a half baths, a small backyard, and a "den" at the top of the stairs.  The storage isn't that great here but we are managing.  One of the things I love about my new neighborhood is that we are only five minutes away from church and Eva's school starting in the fall will only be one minute away!  After driving a total of almost two hours to take Eva to school and pick her up, I CAN NOT wait!
When we first saw the house it was painted a faded yellow.  Actually, I was the only one to ever see our house until the move in date when Matthew finally saw it.  I can't believe he trusted me.  Anyway, once we moved in we realized they painted it BRIGHT orange.  At first we are kind of freaking out, but then I decided to embrace it.  We live in Mexico.  How cool is it that we can say we live in an orange house!?
Our neighborhood
 Living Room
 Dining Room and Kitchen
This gives you the general idea of the layout when you walk in the door.  We have a tiny yard in the back.  
 The playroom that is right next to the yard in the downstairs portion of the house.
The upstairs leads to this den.  We don't use this space too much except for my desk, laundry and River's bed.  As you walk up the stairs you have the kid's room to your immediate left, the bathroom, our room straight ahead and Matthew's study/my sewing room to your right.
 The catch all room.  But, it has the softest carpet :)  Matthew spends all his time in this hot room.  
 The Master Bedroom
The room where the kids sleep.  I need to do something about the decorating.  Elijah sleeps in a VERY girly room.  

Well, there you have it.  Nothing spectacular but I have finally realized something with this move.  This is home.  Oregon has now become the place where we vacation and visit mam and pap, and nana and grandpa.  I have realized that home is where my little family is.  I feel blessed to be able to live together here in Mexico on our crazy adventure.  It has brought us closer as a family and we have made some amazing friends.