Our Time Spent in Mira Loma

On our way to and from Mexico we stopped in Mira Loma to spend time with our friends and family there. It was a little chaotic this time with so many people, my sister-in-law recovering from surgery and so many new baby animals on the rancho. None the less it was a great time. 

Susie has two bulldogs who were both pregnant. Talk about delicate dogs, they had to be inseminated and have c-sections. Here's one of the five pups. 

Kitten and puppy keeping each other warm. 

I love how social food is. Everyone helps in some way and we eat some damn good food with great conversation.

Huge Pizza

 Jaime preparing the salsa

 Crab

 I'm always down to try mysterious things. No one would tell me what was in this until I ate it. Apparently it was crab brains and other nasty body parts. It was spicy and delicious.

This fried fish was so good, I would've eaten more than one, but I had to leave enough for everyone else. 

Jose pouring water for Magaly to make corn tortillas. She added cilantro to the masa, something I've never seen before, it gave it a good flavor. 

My mother-in-law and her friend. I've never seen her laugh so hysterically. I wasn't fast enough to record them laughing, but here they are making tortillas. 

Jose's best friend Chris stopped by with costillistas

Menudo simmering for breakfast before we head back to Utah.

One thing I really like about California is how heavily saturated it is with Mexican culture. There are so many local specialty shops and the paletero drives buy selling popsicles and snacks. 

Kids are so funny. Leah got sick of the littles ones, kicked them out of her playhouse and made this note for the door. Janeece, in the most serious voice, asked me if Leah was going to get a spanking because she really needs one. It made me LOL. 

We celebrated Jaime's 60th birthday. 

California Trip

We planned on making a trip to Cali over President's Day weekend. Jose ended up leaving a week earlier so he could be there for his best friend Chris's birthday. I flew in on my birthday. I had three days there and we drove home the fourth. It felt way too short, but relaxing to get away from the cold. 

Birthday lunch

Jimmy loves guns

Leah loves BBW

We went to Kat Von D's Wonderland

Venice Beach

Jose combing Leah's hair 

Such a cute guy

Lani

River & Jose

Sake shots with Natalie

It always sucks saying good bye. I had a good time with my family & friends. The kids all downloaded Google Hangouts so we can keep in touch. It's been sweet receiving their little messages and video calls. 

My Valentine

This Valentine's Day was extra exciting because I hadn't seen my husband in over a week and I got to fly out and meet him in California. I was nervous and excited, full of butterflies as I got off of the plane and searched for him. 

We had lunch in the sunshine

and I played love songs for him. 

Our Florida/Bahamas Vacation

What a vacation we had! We started out in Fort Lauderdale, cruised to The Bahamas, then ended in Orlando. I wrote about how I was nervous for vacation, but it turned out better than I ever imagined. I truly enjoyed the time I spent with my husband, we had to work as a team as we navigated in a new place and planned out different things to do. Even when frustrating things came up we didn’t fight, we just went with the flow. Vacation was definitely a time for us to reconnect, laugh and have fun again without the daily routine.

Our vacation package included the hotel stays, the cruise, a rental car, and food vouchers for every meal. That good husband of mine let me choose the car. We drove around in a Fiat, because when would we ever have the chance again? It was fun to zip around in, but definitely tiny.

You can read about the fishing trip we took while in Fort Lauderdale. We spent a little time in West Palm Beach. Our tour guide Frank said the area is known for being able to grow anything. He showed us a lot of trees and plants that people have brought to the area.

One night we went out to see Star Trek, not the most exciting thing, but we really enjoy going to the movies so it was fun for us. We spent time napping, snacking and watching TV, things I don’t usually do at home.

Friday we boarded the cruise ship. I was a little nervous because I never found our passports, luckly our birth certificates were enough to get us through. From what I heard this was a dump of a cruise compared to the major cruises, but for our first experience we had an enjoyable time. The second night we were feeling a little sea sick during our fancy dinner so we retreated back to our cabin to try and get a grip. Not sure if we could handle a 7 day cruise.

On the island we went to the Taino Resort where we spent most of the time in the pool because my husband doesn’t like swimming in salt water. There was a swim up bar inside a cave where we had a fun time drinking and chatting with other vacationers.

Our last stop was in Orlando, it’s a big tourist area so there was plenty to do. We went to the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum and saw some strange things, like a Michael Jackson cockroach. Tuesday we went to Islands of Adventures so I could go to Hogwarts. Jose wasn’t really excited about going, but he just wants to see me happy. I know he ended up really enjoying the HP rides, even if he won’t admit it. We had lunch at The Three Broomsticks along with a butterbeer and a hogs head brew. We were tired and our feet hurt by the end of the day. I can’t imagine going with kids, sounds miserable, but maybe their joy makes it more bearable.

It’s good to be home in our own bed with our kitty cat. I love the time we spent making memories together.  We played hard, now it’s time to come back and work hard until our next big adventure.