Fall's Beauties!

So this is another belated blog, from last month. I went home to WI the end of Sept./beginning of Oct. I went at the prime time! I was getting pretty homesick for fall and sick of being at home so much. What a treat to go home and see the leaves change! I also got to help my sis, Belle, with Homecoming activities at school. I spent tons of time with my Mother! The trip, overall, was wonderful and was sooo needed. I felt very rejuvenated and lively by the time I came home again! Thanks Mom and Dad for spending time with me!

The first several pictures are from walking around the lake in Oconomowoc. This is one of my family's favorite things to do. It was my Mother's birthday this day, and this is what she requested to do. It was a lovely day!

The first pics are a stop-off along the walk. This is La Belle Cemetery, where my grandfather (Poppy) was buried. I always consider this one of the most peaceful places on Earth and have several loving memories of it when I visited it as a young girl.

The next pics are along the walk around the lake.

Yay!! A football game.

We didn't stay long, as we had to run a few errands, but I was so craving a good American football game. This is Oregon High School's homecoming game and we beat our rivalry from Stoughton!

Before the game was the local homecoming parade. My beautiful sister, Belle, was on the cheerleading float and I drove my Dad's car for some of the homecoming court!

Belle at the homecoming pep rally. Poor Belle was bombarded with hoots and hollers from Ryan and my Dad. This sort of thing embarrassed the crap out of me in high school, but I admit that it's great support! Go Belle!!

Belle is the one in the back, being held up!

This had to be my favorite moment while I was home. Dad, Mom, and I went to the lake in Madison and sat out on the pier, talking.

Man, did I love that time with them! Here are some pics!

I love these two!!

While driving back from some garage sales, Mom and I stopped at a farm and picked out some fall squash to decorate with and to eat! Not a big fan of eating this stuff, but they are neat to look at!

I absolutely loved being home! It made me excited to move back!

Not really into the belly shots, but due to the family and friends requests... here you go peeps. Not too much to look at, just looking wider. Only week 16 here. I have gotten a lot bigger the past three weeks! Ill post another one soon... er than later:)

Happy Halloween!

Around mid September, I got worried about the holidays. I know that

living overseas during the holidays is never quite as good as when

you are in your homeland. So to cure that loneliness, I decided

to follow suit after my Mother (like she did in Nicaragua) and do extra fun festivities

to fill the void.

For Halloween, I decided to make my own party. I discovered something interesting

about myself as I planned this party too... I enjoy planning

and making parties but then when the hour of the party arrives, I am already over it.

So let me explain.

I have been planning for this Halloween party since September where

I spent hours creating a menu, finding crafts to do to decorate my house,

discovering the perfect eerie music

and thinking up games.

I think I gave Martha Stewart's website an extra 100 hits this month.

I decked out my house in cobwebs,

old looking curtains, fake mice, glow-in-the-dark eyes, the works, to make it

look like a haunted house. I spent hours working on cutouts and hand-made invitations.

Then I spent several

days before the day of, making carameled apples as party favors,

baking everything from scratch and even making floating hands for

Dead Man's punch. I figured out a matching costume with Fronk and everything else. I

have to say I actually enjoyed most of this, but the real reward

came a couple hours before the party when everything was finished. You can't tell

from the pictures, but I must say that it turned out pretty rad.

Then, an hour before the party, I decided that I didn't really want to have

it anymore. I just wanted to eat my food and sit under my black light in peace, listening to horror music.

Oh well, the party went on. and I spent the rest of the night running around playing host.

I had a handful of teenagers come over, as I

figured they would most appreciate the party, not being able to go to late night

Halloween clubs

or doing any of the trick or treating.

Here are a few pics of the evening...

Just starting to get the party started.

It was a costume-only party. I forget how little teenagers like to dress-up. But, I admit that I do remember the days when all you want to do is put on overalls, say you're a farmer and call it a night.

Some came out pretty decked out though. Mirna, below, had one of my favorite costumes. Dressed neck to foot, she

was covered in gauze and other medical taping. Very fun mummy!

Pretend Ryan is a greek turned to stone and not a dead angel. I was Medusa. Never a good sign when you have to explain your costume. Oh well.

Game time! My favorite game, not pictured, was trick-or-treat Fear Factor. You can find

so many great things at the butcher, here in Mexico, for this game.

Ryan rolled trick first and kicked off the game eating "dragon" (chicken) foot soup.

haha. I was nice

enough to let him eat the soup around the foot, instead of eating the foot:)

Here are pics of a couple other games.

It was so fun watching Ryan getting into the games. It was like the kid came out in him!

Yum, food. Here are a couple of fun treats I came up with.

Turds on a platter....

and bloody worms!

It was so fun coming up with this stuff. I really did love getting it all ready.

The night was fun too and after a decent clean-up,

my house is back to normal!!

Happy Halloween!

Celebrating Mexico's 200 Years!

Last month, here in Mexico, the 200th Independence Day was celebrated. Bicentenario, as they fondly referred to it, was a big deal where they had been planning and having celebrations for Mexico's Independence in various cities across the country all year long! (that was a mouthful, sorry!) The largest celebration, was of course, in DF (Mexico City). Though, Queretaro does play an important role in the country's liberation. Queretaro is a larger, colonial city, where peace treaties were signed and later where the Mexican Constitution was signed. Therefore, we had our own festivities as well!

Thursday night, the 16th of September, is the "kick-off" to the Mexican Independence festivities. At eleven o'clock at night, every body screams out "Viva Mexico" several times and is formally called "La Grita". Prior to the grita this year, we went to our ward's dinner. It was a potluck where each member brought some kind of Mexican dish to contribute. I didn't dare attempt anything Mexican in the wake of such talented chef's, so I brought Sprite:). Needless to say the food was delicious. The following pictures are at the dinner with some of our favorite ward members!

Below is me with two of my Young Women, Stephanie and Mirna!

Ryan excited to be eating some delicious Mexican food!

Another YW, Jenny, who came home from Benemerito

(the Church's "high school" in DF. It sort of reminds me of a mini BYU).

The next morning, on Friday, we woke up and headed down town to a parade. We waited nearly an hour for the parade to make it down to the end, where we were waiting. We had fun waiting with Violet as she kept trudging back and forth in a dirty puddle. awesome. When the parade finally made it down, I was shocked that 90% of the parade were different groups of students from different schools, marching. Yup, no clowns or floats at this parade my friends. Puro students! oh yes and some military with the latest and greatest at the end.

Below, Violet and I are waiting for the parade to pass by!

(Violet does great with crowds, so we continue to expose her as much as we can to make her friendly and unafraid.

We are also pretty proud of our dog, so you will see her a lot in the rest of this post!)

The students marching ... in uniform, ahhh I would overheat!

At the end of the parade Ryan found a sweet tank...

Later that night we went to Centro, where the philharmonic symphony of Queretaro was playing outside in a plaza. It was packed and so we didn't stay as long as I would have liked. I love listening to the live symphony! The music was played to a narrative of the Mexican Independence saga, with actors acting out the battles and scenes.

Ryan and I got a little tired of standing so we went to another plaza and enjoyed the dancing water fountain.

And of course, we had to try one of the many vendors that had conglomerated down town for the festivities. Nothing like a homemade churro straight from Mexico (it was filled with cajeta (a type of caramel made from goat milk)). mmm.

The next day we headed out to the park. For those of you who don't know, going to the park is one of my most favorite things to do, especially with Fronk. It's peaceful, beautiful, and a great place just to sit and talk. Below is one of our favorite parks to take Violet to, as there are not many people and lots of natural boundaries, we are able to let her run free a little.

and the dog pictures come full force!!

The next series of pictures are some of my favorites! Fronk loves to indulge Violet in long sessions of fetch.

Sometimes they have stare downs as Violet contemplates giving up the ball for another round of fetch

Also, sometimes Violet loses track of where the ball went!

She knows that jumping up most definitely does not speed up fetch! Sometimes she just can't help herself.

Fronk got creative with the camera:)

and this is where the fetch games end... Violet spied a small family on a picnic blanket not too far off. She is never aggressive with strangers, rather she gets really excited and tends to jump up. For people who don't know her, this normally scares the crap out of them. Ryan ran after her and this is her being "dragged" back to her leash.

She is extremely friendly and for the most part a pretty good dog! (aside from jumping up and the fact that she still mouths a little)

And what good weekend wouldn't be complete without a round of bowling? sigh. I have never been good but when the extra slick floors threw off Ryan's curve ball, I pulled in a pretty tight second!

and...

ba dah ba dah ba dah, ba dat's all folks! well, for this post anyways!

Odd

So I flew into Madison, WI yesterday afternoon.
Traveling while nauseous and pregnant just isnt pretty. (Ill spare the details). After a 3 hour bus ride at 2 am and catching a flight at 6:30 am, I found myself in the Dallas airport rummaging for food. McDonalds breakfast menu sounded terrible so I went to Starbucks to buy a Naked juice for $5. I was robbed.
Then I headed to wait at my gate. The flight wasn't scheduled to take off for another hour so I got comfy in my chair and started one of my favorite airport past times, people watching. The funny thing was that all the most interesting people would come stop at my gate. This has happened several times in the past as well; you find the most interesting people on your flights to Madison, WI.
I don't mean to down WI and in fact I absolutely love the down-to-earth personalities, but I can't help but admit that sometimes I find odd people on these flights.
The first woman that caught my eye and by far the most entertaining subject was a girl, early to mid twenties. She came waltzing up in a fascinating gettup. It went as follows... top to bottom... a black buret atop a lovely crimped har/straightened bang hair-do, a pearl, imitation vintage choker necklace, a black evening dress, a single black glove on one hand and shiny black go go boots. Huh.
After seeing such an interesting gettup that ended up sitting across from me, I decided to stop looking beyond my gate. The next lady I noticed sitting nearby was a woman with a back packers back pack on. Nothing that out of the ordinary right? But, then she turned around wearing an old black knit sweater with cats stiched on the front. Back pack, fine. Sweater, not my cup of tea, but to each their own. BUT, what is the likely hood of finding both pieces in the same ensemble?!
Another lady came up with a McDonalds sandwhich in hand. I watched her as she opened the carton and examined her purchase. She proceeded disecting the thing, first taking off the lettuce, the tomato, and then the bun. She ended with peeling off the bacon and dropping the slice in her mouth, licked her mayonnaise fingers and then tackled the patty. That's all she ate, oh and some more mayo. For one getting so easily nauseous, had to look away.
I mean, I think my husband likes those parts the best too, but it was just too much that early in the morning.
I realy don't have anything against any of these individuals, just am interested and quite surprised in their individuality.
Heres to another interesting morning in an airport!
U rah rah Wisconsin!

I Shouldn't Have Gotten Out Of Bed!

I am actually writing about that fateful Wednesday, two days ago. (It's a bit of a long story)

The morning actually started off okay. I woke up early and headed to the UVM clinic where I shadow/volunteer in physician consultations from 8-11. I actually volunteered for one of my favorite doctors, Dr. Tinoco, who is a general practitioner. The morning was great except that I was exhausted and I kept propping my head up with my hand. I think she noticed I was tired, cause at 11 am on the dot I announced it was time for me to go (which is unusual on it's own, since I enjoy staying an hour or two longer out of interest) and her response was "get some rest".

Well, I got in the car and to my great dismay, the stinking car started acting up. The ride home was quite unnerving as our car randomly jolted and threatened to turn itself off. A problem we had had a month ago and a week at the mechanics only seemed to give a temp fix. So after holding my breath almost the entire car ride home I miraculously pulled into my driveway.

Then I got home and fixed a snack. Strangely, when I opened the fridge, the light was out. I wondered if it just burnt out and thought nothing of it (though how often do fridge lights burn out!?). I ate my snack and went about my business. Then I noticed that the microwave clock was out, the lights wouldn't turn on.... hmm, coincidence, I think not. Well, obviously the power went out. Well, I figured the electricity was out in the city. Since this happened in Nicaragua all the time in my childhood, I didn't worry about it.

Of course my phone was just about out of battery and with it's last juice I quickly called Ryan to tell him that I would pick him up at the bus station at 3pm (he took a bus to Mexico City that morning for meetings). So, I patiently read a book (as there is not much else to do around my house without electricity) until 3. I got back into the breaking down car and gassed the sucker as best I could to get it to go. After several minutes of potential whiplash, I picked up Ryan and told him about the issues the car was giving. I don't think he realized how bad the car was cause he still wanted to run errands. Haha, that didn't last. Two blocks later and after stopping on the way to pay the electric bill, we again miraculously pulled into the driveway.

As soon as I pulled up to the house I realized that I forgot to ask surveillance why the power was out. After mentioning this Ryan said that it might be off because we were three days late on the bill. Three days, come on, that's ridiculous. He called up the electric company and sure enough, they turn it off after one late day! It gets better, it takes three days to process the payment (which we had just made minutes ago), and then it would be another 24 hours until they came to turn it on! What about the fridge!? So much for that Costco run with all the frozen food we made just two days ago! Thankfully, they told us that we could repay it at their office and then it would be just a 24 hour wait.

Well the crappy part, is now we don't have a car to go to this special office. Ryan called the mechanic and told us to bring it by in an hour (ps, the mechanic lives across town!). So we decided to stop by the special office on the way to the mechanics (which wasn't really on the way anyways). So Ryan and I piled in the car and the entire time to the office I kept having panic attacks that the car would break down mid traffic. Well we made it, but guess what? Ryan forgot the bill and the workers wouldn't look up our account number unless we had a special number found on the front of our house! So, we could no longer pay the bill at the special office. At this point I just started giving up on the day.

So then we trekked our way across town (on highways, where you go fast) as the car gave out every other five seconds, and I am not exaggerating in the least! It was a very quiet ride, you know those moments when everybody is completely stressed out and doesn't dare make conversation. It wasn't until we pulled up to the mechanics that my heart rate lowered and I could unclench my hands from the seat. The mechanic was flabbergasted and after an hour suggested we take it to the dealership. Oh no, I was not about to get back into that thing, so I opted for a taxi and we could worry about it in the morning.

So we went home, and of course Mutual is Wednesday nights, so we walked to church (just a couple miles away) after we got back. Sweet Ryan "dropped" me off and then walked the extra several miles there and back to the special offices where he was finally able to pay the electric bill.

In the morning Ryan somehow got the car to the dealership and by the afternoon we had the car back, with a very minimal bill (in the end, all it was, was a cable that needed to be replaced).

Back at home the electricity was still out and after packing ice in the fridge tried waiting patiently. When we called the company after our 24 hours were up, some idiot claimed to have come by and reconnected the electricity. Lies. So then we had to wait another 24 hours for the techs to come by again. Joy.

Well, at 12 pm today, they reconnected the electricity. Just 48 hours, lots of melted ice cream, and 2 camp-like nights with candles and flashlights later!

Vive Mexico!

Who knew!?

Okay, so last week I finally found me some popsicle molds. For anybody looking, just cut to the chase and go to Target! I spent way too much time trying to search for just the right ones!

Anyways, I have been wanting to make homemade popsicles for months now. Especially cause I love them and it is about $4 for six of em here. I am sick of the high fructose, over-priced suckers! Yay, to healthy homemade ones!

So anyways, I have had this plum smoothie popsicle recipe since last summer and finally decided to make them last night with Ryan. Long story short, the recipe called for 1 tsp corn syrup (which was divided between 12 popsicles), which I did not have. So I dragged Ryan into the fun and we went to Wal-mart to buy a bottle of corn syrup. The shocking part of this story comes next.

When I found the corn syrup selection all three of the different brands had babies on the front and advertised that corn syrup was great for babies! (Huh?) It says that you can pour it on their cereal and in their milk (just a couple of examples found on the back of the bottle!). It did say that the corn syrup was fortified with two B vitamins! Don't think that this would be my number one source, or even number 50 source for these B vitamins!

Okay, what the!?!?!

.... (five mins later)

Ohhhhhhh.

Okay, apparently it acts as a diuretic! I went searching for a pic to post and stumbled across that info...

Well, just for anybody who is curious the Mayo Clinic doesn't actually recommend this remedy and suggested more water, fruit juice (such as prune juice) and baby food.

Well, this was a very successful post! baha!

Guess you learn something new everyday. I suppose this post can't be too much in vain... it has info for the Mom's out there!