Happy Birthday Gaby

So Gaby turned 28 this year.... and to uphold tradition we went to Disneyland!! :) We ended up leaving a little later than we wanted, but the day was perfect..... :) We rode a few rides, ate a churro or two, had some pasta and did some shopping!!! :) The castle still looked amazing!!
churros... YUMMMM!!!! hahaha
I have no idea why the picture above was so dark?? maybe the setting was wrong??
going on Buzz!

Everyone needs a picture with the "official" birthday hat!
hahahaha

we spotted this snowman hat in one of the "markdown" bins!!! I LOVED him.... :)

Lunch at the Pizza port!!! Yummm.... (one of these day's I'll remember to switch the pictures around BEFORE I post them!!!) ;)

Happy Birthday Gaby!

New Year's Eve at the Rose Parade

So at the annual Christmas Party everyone was trying to figure out what to do for New years.... Catalina, Downtown Fullerton, Downtown Long Beach, the Queen Mary.... Those were some of the ideas that people came up with.... I frankly wasn't up for any of them, there was so much going on around me this year that frnakly going out to drink somewhere with MILLIONS of people didn't appeal to me, BUT I did really want to go to the Rose Parade.... Everyone said it would be too cold, too crowded, etc. everyone but Karyn, appearantly she'd always wanted to go too.... so a few days later things had sort of calmed down here and I decided that if she wanted to go, I wanted to go too... and we planned it!!! I almost didn't go though, because a few days before New Years my dad ended up at the hospital again..... But after a lot of discussion with people, my sister, my parents, friends, I decided it would be a good experience..... And what a GREAT experience it was.... We had a GREAT time!!! Thanks again Karyn for getting us the "hookup"..... :) I hope everyone had a Happy New Year! Here are pictures of mine!! Me and Karyn

One of the floats...... The black planes were amazing!
The City of Torrance sponsored this one..... The birds on it were awesome looking!! :)
The float that resembled the rose bowl was AMAZING!!

Look at all the detail......

This butterfly was amazing.... it took the ladies who worked on it 8 hours per wing.... and there are 4 wings here!! I was impressed!

Cal Poly's float was impresive too!!! They used pineapple skins for decoration.... how awesome does it look??

The City of Anaheim had a float too..... it was Amazing as well.... naturally I needed my picture with it..... :)

Then Karyn joined me!!!

and I took another!!! :) It was waaaay chilly out.... can you tell by the gloves???

All of the float builders, on the day of the parade.... They let me put a couple of flowers on the float, to make me official!!! ;)

A cable car!!!

jack came to join the festivities too!!! :)

The University of Ohio cheerleaders on their float!

There was a band who traveled from Guatemala to participate in the parade.... This is all I got from them.... If only I was taller!! ;)

Our float coming down Colorado Blvd..... :)

Here comes the Cornucopia

There was also a flyover in honor of the president of the Rose Parade who had died earlier this year.... he was a retired from the Navy..... The did the missing man formation... if you look closely you can see the "missing" man leaving at the top of the picture!! :)

I hope you enjoyed the pictures..... until next year!!! :)

The annual dorm Christmas Party

So every year we have an annual get-together for Christmas with my "dorm" friends.... It almost got cancelled this year because of everything that's been going on around here! my dad insited that we still do it though... so we did.... :) the turnout was nice, especially on such short notice!!! ;) and it was nice to be able to just "hang" out and eat for a couple of hours!!! :) as usual Charles' white elephant present was the most popular.... I wish I had remembered to take a picture of it!! :) oh well next year! Me and Karyn
Karyn and Joe
Me and Marcela

The girls!! :) until next year!

One of the thing that I look forward to during the holidays is a yearly visit to Disneyland.... They seriously go all out in the decorations, and everthing always looks Amazingly Great!!! :) This year I joined the Fanzo's in the visit!!! We had a Great time as always... Here are some pictures from our adventure, Thanks Jessica for taking these!!! :)

The Castle was Amazing!!! :)

Ella's legs were tired so she got a piggy back ride!! :)
Our first stop was dinner, I tried the chicken apple salad at California adventure for the first time and it was delicious just like Jessica said!! YUMMMM..... and then we treated ourselves to a hot chocolate!! now we're ready for our adventure!! :)

It's a small world!

Sitting on Santa's sleigh!!

The haunted mansion

I LOVE this picture! Ella was telling Mrs. Claus that she had been a good girl!! :)

hahahaha!!!!

Lukey and Bobby were there too..... :) what a great time we had!!! I hope everyone had a delightful holiday season!!! Until next time!! :)

Life is what happens when we're too busy "making plans"....

I feel like the last few weeks I've been on somewhat of a rollercoaster ride....... up, down, up, down..... It hasn't been the easiest ride at all, and the "best" part or should I say the most stressful part is that all of this is happening right around the holidays.... GREAT!!! I have a feeling that this is going to be the year of nontraditional holidays for my family. My dad ended up in the hospital the week of Thanksgiving, so we got to spend Thanksgiving day in a hospital room/waiting room, my brother brought some tostadas and ceviche and my brother-in-law's family sent us some leftover thanksgiving food..... we were all together with my dad though, and really that's all that mattered to us. Thanksgiving marks the official start of Christmas festivities for us, the weekend after we always decorate, we do lights and a tree, and tamales, ALWAYS tamales the weekend after Thanksgiving..... This year everything has been different, there was no tamale making/decorating weekend, and to add to the busyness of the year my sister and her husband moved to a new place and planned a Christmas Party for 3 days after getting the keys, talk about stressful..... that marked the dbeginning of the holiday season, we ended up doing tamales and tree decorations during the week, and then my dad ended up in the hospital again... pheew.... at least we got some decorating done and tamales, that was the most important part for my mom!!! then we were back to the hospital again, for another week..... they let him go home on the monday of Christmas week, and he thought he was feeling better, as did we.... we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day surrounded with family and friends, he seemed to be doing well until right about Christmas Day night, and sure enough yesterday, 2 days after Christmas, we were back to the hospital again, and here we are.... at the beginning of another week long stay at the hospital, I do feel like I got some answers though..... but it's going to be a long process, at least this time we know what to expect and how long it's going to take to "fix" the problem..... but that's a whole other blog!!! :/
It's funny though, yesterday at work I told my friend, isn't it weird that Christmas kinda came and went this year?? I feel like it literaly passed me by, there was no baking of cookies this year, no family was "adopted", which I feel badly about, and although there was holiday related things that I did with my friends, it still doesn't seem like the holiday was here as long as it should of been..... It's weird, but now I have a completely new understanding of people who spend the holidays in hospitals.... who knew..... that while everyone was going to be planning holiday parties and shopping for presents I'd be spending days working and then driving to the hospital.... there were people in there who never got visitors, I felt so sad for them, but at the same time I was "selfishly" grateful that there was people visiting "us", and yes I mean us..... because we were there too!! I also felt grateful that people called and txt messaged just to check in and see how things were going.... And that is what Christmas is all about, caring about one another and being together with those that we love, wether it's in a hospital waiting room or at home, it's really not about all the presents and the baking.... although that REALLY helps!!! ;) so in a nutshell that's how my holidays went..... :) Now I'm ready to bring in a new year full of new beginnings and hopefullya year in which my dad is all better.....

Oh! how the smell of Christmas fills the air!! :)

ahhhhhh..... I can smell it now!!! the fresh smell of cooking tamales!!! At my house the "holiday" season is not necessarily marked by the holiday decorations, it is marked by the succulent smells of freshly baked cookies, and tamale "weekend"!!! Tamale making at my house is usually a two day event, but this year there are were so many other things going on that it turned into a whole weekend event for my mom.... poor lady's exhausted right now, but as she said.... at least the tamales are done!!! YIIIPPPEEE!!! She went back to work this year so we had to work around her weekend off work schedule, which happened to be on the weekend when i had something planned for literally everyday, and my sister did too..... but it all worked out anyway, as with every other year my brother came over to cook the masa on friday night, which allowed him to spend some quality time with my parents..... it's funny he got "given" that job years ago, because the pot my mom cooks the masa in, is SOOOO big and tall that no one used to be able to reach into it to stir it, once it was on the stove.... that is until my sister's husband started helping..... :) so the masa and banana leaves were cooked on friday night, while I was out celebrating a birthday party..... hahaha!!! :) then on saturday my mom woke up early to start cooking the "recado", which is the red sauce that goes with them..... yummmmm.... this has to be my favorite part..... I could probably sit down to a bowl of that with just rice, but since I was at work and then another party I missed my chance this year..... ugh!!! oh well there's always next year!!! :) this morning (sunday) after I got back from watching my friends kids perform a Christmas Play at their church we started putting together the tamales..... here is what the set up looked like.... :) yummm..... the meat my mom uses is Turkey!! other people use different stuff, but I guess we're "picky" here!!! at least that's what I'm told!!! ;) Guatemalan tamales, are wrapped in a banana leaf which gives them a very yummy flavor..... they also have olives, capers, (both of which I pick out before eating) :) and cooked stewed bell peppers, my mom makes these herself.... hence the 2 days needed for tamale making! ;)

the pot of masa!!!
This is what the tamale looked like on the banana leaf before we cooked it..... I know it may not look that appealing, but they're soooo tasty!!! :)

This year my sister got to try her hand at "wrapping" them..... she did very well if I do say so myself!!! We had to wait another hour, for the first batch to cook so we could eat one..... while that was cooking we finished the rest, it gave us motivation, since we knew that as soon as we finished, there would be a steaming hot freshly made tamale waiting for us for dinner..... and let me tell you that I could hardly contain myself when they were done!!!

The finished product, once again, looks kinda weird, my camera phone isn't very good I guess!! :/ oh and pardon my mom's fine china.... if only she knew I had posted this picture on that plate...... hahahaha!!!! :)

Yummmm.... Cranberry Bliss Bars

The holiday season is amongst us...... and with that comes the annual ornament/cookie exchange party.... last year I tried my hand at pecan bites,, which I thought of making again this year, since they were such a hit with everyone last year, that is..... until I stumbled across the recipe for these cranberry bliss bars, a personal favorite from starbucks!!! and they turned out to be as delicious as i expected them to be..... :-D the top picture is the crust/cake part!, it also had fresh cranberries, which I had to chop into small pieces!
the rest of the ingredients!! :)

halfway done!!! :)

finally done, now it just needed to cool, so I could cut them!!

and the final product!!! Allow me to say that they were very tastylicious!!! :) They were so good that I indulged in too many to count!!! hahaha!!