Getting Up to Date

What have you been up to for the past month? We’ve been busy, but I haven’t posted much about what we've been doing. When going through our photos, I noticed that I haven’t been taking many photos and most of them are blurry. Yeah, one day I’ll get a good camera!

This is Pedro, his wife Carina and one of their daughters at a party for Pedro who just got back from a year in Afghanistan. It was so great to see them together!


It was good to see friends at the party. Sabrina was holding her little friend Harrison’s hand and walking around, but Elisa had a hard time getting their photo.

Here is Alex with his birthday present, a new bike. He hasn't been able to use it yet thanks to the snow outside. Spring will come eventually and he's looking forward to getting out.

Elisa and 2 of her friends got together at our house to make treats for Dia de logros. (I’m pretty sure it’s still called Achievement Day in English.) I thought it was funny that it took all 3 of them to get the brownies from the bowl into the pan—and yes, that is batter in the pan that was scraped out. The girls wanted to make the brownies by themselves and Elisa makes things with me all the time and has made a few things on her own, so I figured it was safe. They asked me to help spread the brownies out when they finally got it into the pan. I looked at it and mentioned that it looked like it didn’t have any flour in it. They all looked at each other and asked who put the flour in. No one had. So after all that work getting the batter into the pan, they scraped it out, added the flour and put it back in.

After they put the brownies in the oven, they went to the dining room to dip pretzles in chocolate and sprinkles. Sure, it looks calm here, but a bit later they got crazy and I was cleaning green sprinkles from the table and floor for a couple of days! Every time I thought I got it all, more would show up.

How do you know the Almanza kids are at your house?

The Almanzas are our great friends with 3 teenagers and an 8-year old. They all came over for dinner and the teenagers left their shoes like this. I’m not making fun of them. I think it’s awesome that they feel comfortable enough with us to just throw their shoes off and come in. I didn’t take other photos that day, but Sabrina and their 8-year old did and this is the only one that isn’t blurry. Don't you love her dimples?

I took the kids to an art museum family night. They had a sculptor do a demonstration and then a big group of martial artists come do a demonstration, which proved a bit dangerous. A few of them hit pieces of wood, which broke in half. One of them hit his pretty hard and the wood flew directly at a painting, which made one of the museum workers panic. He ran over to the painting and checked it out and talked to the group’s leader while they continued the demo. After they finished, without damaging anything, they had an art project for the kids. Elisa brought her friend with us.

What? I didn’t tell you the kids put on a bit of weight? Sabrina woke up in a strange mood and padded her pajamas. She looked like a Teletubby or a BooBah. Alex and Elisa thought it was funny so they did too. Then they asked me to take a photo and actually asked me to post it on the blog. They’ll be sorry some day!
Just a shot of Sabrina concentrating on the computer.

Here’s a short, unrehearsed video of the kids singing. My camera work needs a lot of work. I don’t get much practice taking videos. I should do it more often. Can you figure out which chin is whose?