Christmas Adventures

Lots to catch up on, since I've been out of contact with the technological world for the week we were in Mexico.  So...here's the news for now, however it might require multiple posts.  

It all began Christmas Eve.  We were packing, cleaning as much of the house as we could, and I heard a ruckus above my head.  I had been telling Ricardo that I thought we had squirrels in our attic (yes, again), so he put the live animal trap up in the attic to see if it was so.  And Lo and behold, there came a great noise the next day!  We caught a fat one!  So glad we heard it before we left home for a week.  Ricardo drove Mr. Squirrel a few miles away (so as not to find it's way back into our home) and we'll check for others this week. 

Not too shabby-looking...he's obviously been feasting on all the good insulation and other material in our attic.

We went to a lovely Christmas Eve service at St. Luke, and Ricardo played with the zoom lens for our new toy, since he was running the sound from the back of the church.  These are pictures taken from the farthest away point of the church--not bad!

During the opening prelude

George and Jim Angle in "Interview with a Shepherd"....hilarious!  Lee put it perfectly when he said it just gets better every year!

A little crooked, but Ricardo managed to get the whole chancel in a shot.  And yes, I am playing in the bell choir.  Such a church geek!  It was mostly an "I'm part of the ministry team and need to be supportive" effort, (Lee's up there too, he's the one on the end who looks like he's about to whomp the other guy in the head with a giant bell).

After the service, we bundled into our car to begin our overnight drive to El Paso, TX and then across the border to Juarez, Mexico.  No pictures of that trip...because really, there is nothing in the middle of Texas.  We arrived, and the next day Ricardo and I practiced our tamal-making skills.  We learned how to make tamales last year, but decided we wanted another go at it with supervision before we try it on our own.

I mixed the masa...

Ricardo put the chiles on to boil...

And started washing the corn husks...(longest part of the process--this took forever)

My suegra (mother-in-law) and I stacking the tamales in the pot to steam...

Yum!

Other random highlights from our visit: Cesar (best man from our wedding, for those of you who remember) stopped by to see us briefly! It was fun to see him again, I think the last time we saw him was at his wedding.

Ricardo and Cesar together, so cute!

This is how we entertained ourselves while in El Paso, trying to learn Guitar Hero. This is Juan on drums and my suegro, Domingo on guitar.

Another post with more adventures coming soon!

New Toy

It's here, it's here!  We're gonna shoot our eyes out!  

True, Christmas is here. Or Christmas Eve, but that's close enough for celebrating!  Our new camera arrived on Monday, which is actually the day we celebrated Thanksgiving!  Need some explanations?

We traveled to Florida for Thanksgiving, so I just bought a turkey when they were cheap and had it in our freezer for when we had the time and ganas* to do our own Thanksgiving.  (*the desire, longing, and energy for).  That turned out to be last Monday.  We're both done with our semesters, feeling vacation-y, and decided to invite some friends and give it a go!  

Turkey turned out okay, stuffing was stuffingish, mashed potatoes and cranberries were terrific, and appo' pie for dessert.  Wine (sparkling cider for me) and fresh baked bread...and now a fridge full of leftovers we've enjoyed the past few days.

During dinner though, the UPS truck arrived, Mr. UPS rang our doorbell, and Ricardo dashed to the door (well, he started to, but he tried to leave his napkin on his chair, and halfway to the door he realized it had fallen to the floor, so he returned to pick UP his napkin, put it on his chair, and THEN go answer the door--

he's cute, huh?)  

So, we're learning this new toy, playing with taking some pictures, and here's the first post with some experimental pictures!  I'll try to post another one tonight, when we're all dressed up for Christmas eve service.  

First pictures...I probably could have at least put on some makeup, but Oh well.  

Remember our bathroom building project? It's been going full-time lately, and getting done. Mostly Ricardo's work (I'm iffy about being around paint fumes too much these days), and he's been pulling late nights to get it done. It's looking beautiful, no?

Playing with the rapid-fire feature of the camera...I tried to change my face fast enough for the camera, but couldn't do it.  It eventually was taking pictures of the transitions and we have duplicates of the same face.  Pretty amazing!

My "buster keaton" face.  Ricardo does it better. 

Yeah...so those aren't attractive, but let me say, this was so much fun!  We're going to enjoy this!  I don't know what happened to the picture we took of Katie and Jason (our dinner guests--just like when my sisters and I were kids, we were each allowed to invite one friend.  Ricardo and Jason talked math all evening, and Katie and I talked about everything else!)  I'll ask Ricardo when he wakes up.  Maybe we'll even post a baby bump picture! It's a little more prominent now...

But in case we get sidetracked by the festivities and don't return to the blog, Happy Christmas to you all! 

P.S.  My favorite memory from this Christmas so far is this: Ricardo's gotten much more accepting of my Christmas extremism.  He put up the lights this year, and we even got a Christmas tree--but the best is, he's started to pick up on some of the Christmas music that I listen to pretty much non-stop these days.  He'll walk around the house whistling, or singing some his newly acquired songs...and the other day I caught him singing:

"Snoopy, the snowman, da da da da da de da"

TOOO much fun!  I mentioned to him that snoopy wasn't a snowman, and his response? 

"Well, they're the same color!"  

Best Christmas yet!

It's in the air...

Christmas! I love it.  But today it was mid-70's (no bueno), so no coat, scarf, gloves, hat, mittens...in fact, I was getting too hot in my long sleeved shirt today.

There is a cold front coming though--just in time for Live Nativity, when we have to be outside for roughly 3 hours in the evening for 3 days in a row.  But it'll feel like winter, so it'll be perfect!

Last wednesday was Gingerbread house night--my favorite youth activity.  The youth get more creative and elaborate every year!  

Some attempted to build their house with just frosting and grahams

Others waited in line for the glue guns!

Ricardo and I tried a gingerbread Nativity scene.  My favorite is the gummy bear Angel in the back...

Not bad at all for their first attempt (ever) at gingerbread house building!

And some of those youth are just loaded with skills...

I also went down to Houston at the end of last week to help mom with some Christmas projects.  It was terrific to spend time with mom and daddy and puppies! This one's Frango. She's a feisty one.

Rise and shine--and ready for Christmas!

One of our projects--melting chocolate and dipping spoons. Yummy!

Baby Bump

So...I'm 17.5 weeks along, and still no baby bump.  At least nothing obvious that would make people ask if I was pregnant, or when I was due.  

I am still more like "Pudgy Calia" than "Preggy Calia". 

Of course, this is not a huge problem.  While I don't like to be pudgy, I'm fine with gaining only the weight that absolutely NEEDS to be gained. Dr's happy, so I'm happy.

However, last Saturday Ricardo and I were at a Christmas Cookie Exchange party where there were 5 pregnant women!  So of course, we gathered to take a picture, (next year's picture will be with all the babies!), but I'm due last out of all of us!  One's due next month, 2 in March, 1 in April, and me in May.  I'm the only one who didn't look pregnant in the picture!

4 who look pregnant and one who's not there yet!

So, later that night we went to get our Christmas tree!  Our very first one ever!  We found a lovely one, and it makes our house smell all Christmas-y.  We also bought lights, since we only have some lights for the outside, and we decided to get the more expensive, but lower-energy and longer-lasting LED kind of lights.  

Uh...mistake.

We put them on the tree, and while we had purchased the string of lights with the smallest bulbs possible, they were still rather large, and spaced a little too far apart.  And when we plugged them in, in our dark room (because our living room has no lights!) they were brighter than neon, fluorescents, and sonic lightening combined.  

They were so bright, we couldn't see the ornaments, or the tree for that matter!  It was the ugliest tree ever.  So, we decided to take everything off, return the LED lights and go back to the cheap kind that burn out every year.  Maybe in a few years LED will be up to par--we'll just wait for the newer developments in the energy-saving Christmas decoration category.  

After we decorated the tree (for the second time) on Monday night, we took a picture--so here's me at 17.5 weeks trying to stick out my tummy so I actually look pregnant in the picture. Since our digital camera broke (September), the photo quality in this blog has gone down...I do what I can with my iphone camera, but this was just not the right lighting for it to work well.  We're working on getting a new camera sometime in the near future, especially with baby on the way, so there will be good pictures again eventually! 

By the way, as of last Friday, I am DONE with all the work for my Master's Degree! So I've been doing a little bit (very little bit) of housecleaning, a lot of Christmas cookie baking, watching some movies, knitting, and starting to feel like I need to be more productive. Tomorrow I'll drive down to Houston for a few days to help mom with some of her Christmas to-do list. Ricardo still has finals to give and grade for his students, so he'll stay here, poor guy. I'm excited to see mom and dad and PUPPIES!

The Giving of Thanks

Last week Ricardo and I went to Florida to spend time with a couple of Ricardo's old high school friends.  We flew in to Orlando from Texas, Fernando and Brisa flew in from Michigan, and Marco and Jacquie hosted us at their home!  We mostly ate (a LOT) and walked (a LOT), since there were lots of sights to see...and talked a lot, and the guys played a lot of playstation.  

First time at the Atlantic Ocean? 

The guys!  Ricardo, Marco, & Fernando

Brisa and I trying to show off our baby bumps.  It's still a little early to show, but we're pretending!  She's due about 2 weeks before I am. 

I do this in every beach we go to.

Fernando and Brisa!

Marco, Jacquie & Bianca!

3 years married & so in love!

Baby belly (I'm giving it a little help) at 16 weeks!

Mini-Mission Trip

I just got back a few hours ago...I'm wiped! But it was a great weekend, and I'm stinkin' proud of our youth group. They did such a good job and worked hard all the whole time. Here are some pictures...probably a lot of them, actually.

We started out making Apple Pies on Friday night.

It's a tradition...and a fundraiser for the youth.

1.5 hours, and 45 pies later...

And then on Saturday it was wake up early (after a late night--lights out was 12:00am, but by the time I got stuff cleaned up and made it to bed it was 1:30) to go WORK!  We built a wheelchair ramp (and raked the yard), organized the garage, and did some more work on the labyrinth the youth built a year ago.  

Did I mention it was early?  And FREEZING?

It was loads of fun though, and I enjoyed it and all of them.  But I was really glad to come home, shower, and know that I get to sleep in my own bed tonight.  

Other news? Ricardo got home tonight from Washington D.C. (math conference),  Katie (who's wonderful) helped me maternity clothes shop, which was a very good thing...I needed to start looking for clothes that fit better!  I'm guessing that in another few weeks I'll suddenly be visibly pregnant.  When it happens, I'll be sure to post pictures.

Good night to you all...I'll post again, probably after Thanksgiving, though it might have to wait until after Finals.  Sigh.