SUMMER IS FINALLY HERE!!!!

2 days ago summer finally arrived! ALELUYA!!! but guess what.... now it's too cold.
In the last 2 days the temperature changed about 18 degrees. It's hot, it's gorgeous and it feels like Acapulco. Because we had such a long stretch of cold weather the skin really feels the bite of the sun, I am already tanned.

Last week I went to Whislter for a few days and came back all bruised up, with a very swollen ankle and red like a lobster. Went river kayaking...so much fun! and the sun was OUT thought the breeze was cool, my legs and arms looked raw. At night it was cold. I also went mountain biking and had a major freak out, so I got off the bike and stepped onto the ground but it wasn't solid, it was a bed of dry leaves and I twisted my ankle good! It popped and it hurt. I ignored it of course, but the following night it got hugh and purple.

On Sunday we went to the Jazz Festival at the David Lam park, it was a perfect evening of dancing, listening to music, seeing crazy people and watching Carlo play, yell, scream, dance, cheer and clap. He is so much fun to go out with!

Summer in Vancouver, that's what we all live for in this city. I hope it lasts for more than a couple of weeks, though I hope it's a little cooler!!

PLAY TIME !!!!

I spend as much time as I can with Carlo. That child is the funniest, cutest kid on earth. It's true that kids keep people young. We play a lot, doing silly things, he is not big enough yet to ride on my back, inevitable he holds on to my hair and I feel like a real horse. The thing is that...it hurts!!



He likes to have a blankie in his mouth, I guess is his "coco", and when he is teething we assume it sooths his gums. Anyway, lately he likes to share his "trapo", yuck! but that day Bea and I stole it from him, the little guy couldn't believe it.

ROBIN HOODA or ROBINA HOOD??

Several weeks ago I went to an archery class. It was a lot of fun, it's hard. My arrows found places that nobody had reached before....HAHAHA, very talented, but as the evening progressed so did my aim. I was able to shoot about 6 arrows in pretty close to the bull's eye and one was just outside, so not bad for an archer wanna be.

There is an archery club in Richmond, I am hoping to take the elves there sometime. It's a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon, particularly when it's cold, raining and miserable, which has been the topic of this town for the last several weeks. I NEED THE SUN!!!

PILLULLIS FIRST B-DAY!!!!

he really doesn't like any kind of hat on his head!

I put the table cloth that my mom embroidered for us and was at all our bday parties

Feb 1. Pillu turned 1 .... I can't believe how fast time goes. I can't believe how this little guy came and changed our lives forever...for the better! He's delightful, and handful at times but when he does those little baby giggles, extends the little arms to greet me or tries and tries again to stand, well, I'm mush, what can I say. They came back from Chile on the 31 and Carlos bday was on the first, so I was so happy to throw him his first bday bash.

I invited Bea's girlfriends and their kiddies in the early afternoon. We had snacks, and chocolate cup cakes. I had 8 little kids (all just turned 1) at my place, the rugrats crawling around, it was a bit surreal I have to admit. But it was really nice. I really like kids that age, they are so funny.

Carlito was born into a party so he had fun. He liked the candle and the duckies on the cup cakes. It is cute. He was cute. I love parties so I hope the enanos let me do this every year if I can.


After the "mom's" party, I had an adult party. First party I have at my place. It was cool to have our friends to come and celebrate Carlito. But the poor guy didn't last very long. He went to sleep, and well, he didn't go back home after the party, way to go baby!

GOSH!! THIS WAS SOOOOO SPOOKY

This morning, around 4 I woke up with a bad stomach ache (had McDonalds for dinner, go figure!). I got up and was walking around and had a sal de uvas picot. I was walking around and sat down to read because I was wide awake. I was listening to some music, and thinking about my next class. Around 5:45 I went back to bed to make myself fall asleep. So I turned the lights off, the radio, closed my book, fixed my pony tale and there I was concentrating to fall asleep, I was thinking to do some meditation ....
as I was thinking "i want to sleep, i want to sleep" I felt 2 hands grabbing me by the ankles, I heard and felt breathing very close too face, a hand fixing my hair and the radio was turned on.

I FREAKED OUT. I thought that for sure I was going to be killed, that someone was in my bedroom. I didn't move or anything mainly because I was frozen! Then the radio turned off and I finished freaking out. I sweated like if I had been doing 30 hours of kickboxing.

At about 7 am I was able to move and got up. There was nothing there, nothing was moved, went to check the rest of the depa and everything was normal. I fell asleep again around 8 am.

That is one of the freakiest things that have ever happened to me. I wonder what it was.

CHRISTMAS 2007

This end of year was a bit weird. Many of my friends left for 1, 2 or 3 months on holidays and on top of that the Enanos left as well. They had the nerve to take Pillu from me for 2 months. So I was panicked about the holidays. Lady Juani invited me to spend Xmas with them, so after looking forever for a ticket I found a good deal and went. I needed to go and be with my sisters, to wake up and say good mornign to someone and to have dinner every night at home.

I did NOTHING except watch TV, mall and sleep! now, sleep was the highlight as I've spent so many months sleeping maybe 2 or 3 hours a day, my brain was mush. Then, Cecilia and Eduardo decided to go as well, so we had an impromptu family Christmas. It was a lot of fun, a nice, quite fun. We spent almost every night playing cuban dominoes, we laughed a lot! We ate cookies, and pineapple. Cecilia and Eduardo were so super kind to me, they even took me shopping, WOW!! that was great, thanks cunado! and Piti! Poor Juani and Brad were working everyday, and not sleeping much, with the 3 domino addicts playing until 3-4 in the morning.

It was sunny but cold, in the picture above, it was the only "warm" day

Another cool thing was that we went to visit some friends from many years. We haven't seen them for eons. Our parents were friends. Fedra and her family moved to San Diego after enduring some pretty heavy duty things in Mexico City. It was really, really nice to see them again and to catch up with our lives.

I didn't even go dancing, didn't want to. Last time I was in San Diego I went salsaing and I didn't enjoy it that much, the crowd....well, mmh, lots to be desired.

Ana Laura watches a mexican soap called pasiones. The cast is full of HUNKS! so I watched it, at the beginning I was laughing my head off hearing the tough pirates talking with the typical Mexico City accent of the mouth full of straweberries..... gosh! hard to believe the roles, but after I got used to the sound I got hooked on the soap. They have TIVO so we could watch it whenever.

One day I went with Brad downtown to watch the big balloon parade. It was really cool to see all these humongous ballons and there were the typical american bands playing. That night there was a big game, Texas vs. Phoneix, and the bands were dueling at the end of the parade. It was very fun to watch that.

Oh! it was so cool to see the Star Troopers in the parade, I mean, they protect our galaxy, it's about time that they do their civic duty of parading around...it's real after all! hahaha

So Christmas was all it was meant to be, a time for family, of reflexion and relaxation. I'm so happy I went. Thanks to Jonibonis. Thanks Piti and Eduardo.

Before the enanos left for Chile I gave Carlito his first Christams Gift. I know he won't remember any of this, but I think all gets stored in the memory chip somehow, if not that 's what the pictures are for, don't you think?


For New Year of course I went dancing salsa. I was wearing a strapless dress and at some point my boob came out to say hello.....hahahaha! I guess strapless is not a good salsa dress. There were lots of non-dancers that just go and stand with their drinks at the dance floor, spill the drinks, make the floor sticky so we can't dance and it ruins the shoes....other than that it was a really fun party and it was nice to start the year again with my friends and dancing as I just love it. So new year, new day, new everything. I'm happy that this year it's over, again. I hope 2008is way better.

SEATTLE SALSA CONGRESS

Yes, there is such thing as a SALSA CONGRESS!!!

There are salsa congresses all over the world, the next big one is in Acapulco. This year the Vancouver congress was cancelled, apparently the whole thing is a big mafia...surprise surprise, so they had it in Seattle, and my friend Irena and I went. Of course we had to go, we are addicts, you see??

It started on Thursday but we didn't go until Friday after work. We arrived to Seattle around 9:30, checked in, had showers and headed to watch the shows. During the four days there were performances from teams from NY, Puerto Rico, Mexico, several places in California, Vancouver and Washington. Some of the shows were simply outstanding and some were poor, but still I can appreciate the effort and the guts to stand there in front of an audience to dance. Some of the customs were soooooo pretty and sexy, and some well....let's say that there were some boobs coming out to say hellloooooo! HAHAHA, poor girls, but they should wear a bra or body tape.

We danced until 4 in the morning. I danced with several new guys, and well, struggled a bit but was able to follow most of the time, some of these guys were amazing leads and tons of fun. Saturday, at the perfomrances, I saw about 4 of them, performing!!! I'm so glad I danced with them before I knew that they were actual professionals, otherwise I would have been to self-conscious. I'm also glad that I didn't "correct" them....LOL, better to smile and look pretty.

It is so much fun to dance with the super advanced guys. That's the best way to improve, learn and loosen up. Unfortunately in Vancouver I don't dance w/those guys very often, they never ask...I guess I'm not good enough.... arggh, that is so sucky, but well, that's what it is. In a way I understand, it's more fun to dance w/people at your level or better, but at the end of the day nobody gets good unless you do it, right?? so I guess those stuck up advanced dancers that only dance w/advanced girls have forgotten that at some point they also sucked!!

Saturday we took workshops all day, about 6 hours of dancing, then we rested and danced again until 4 am. On Sunday, we went shopping and then danced until 2 am.

There were a lot of people from Vancouver, so I got to dance with some of my friends as well. Met a few people and mostly got inspired by some incredibly talented dancers. One couple in particular were simply amazing. I'll see if I can find some video clip of them and post it. Mexican guy, israely girl from California.

The workshops were tough, taught by dancers from NY, puerto rico, cuba, and california. Most of the classes were On2 (I have learnt salsa On1 - that is the count, on one the emphasis is on 1/3/5/7, on 2 on the even numbers, On2 is usually for Mambo). So learning routines on2 is confusing like hell, because all the steps are mirrored. So it was very challenging and also frustrating, but it's good to try new things.

We had some excellent styling classes. I want to focus more on that. I still suck, but I'm much better than a year ago for sure. I need dance shoes! nothing fits thought, my "tamal" feet are really problematic, though I am glad I have them, hihihi.

It was a very fun weekend, tiring, my feet are definite hamburgers, I'm in desperate need of a good foot massage.

I will start planning to look to the Italian Salsa Congress, rumor says that it is one of the best in the world....and well.....dancing salsa and bachata with the hot italian guys....mmhhh, I guess that alone will make it the best!

WORK EXPERIENCE ANYONE?

I was reading my Raul's blog and I got an idea for this post. I've always done a million different things so here we go, starting from my earlier memory of making a buck.

a) I've sold things since I was 6 - my first merchandise were GRASSHOPPERS. Even then I knew the value of design in the business world: I took a shoe box and "designed" it so it would be "attractive" to the boys that were paying $1 per grasshopper so they could give them to the girls.....HAHAHA, I don't remember what story I told them about them. I've sold oranges, candies, tortas, purse hooks, you name it.

b) I've taught: math + physics tutoring, when I was hired during secondary school summers by one of my teachers; aerobics at the Echegaray Spa Lady during high school summers; and design since 1999 at the uni where I studied and now doing some corporate training workshops, not bad. I like teaching.

c) Office stuff: was a secretary during the first year of my first business, 2x making $22 p/h very good for 100 years ago. For a couple of years I worked as an interpreter and translator...the money was very good. During college I worked at the Library shelving books 3x week 7-9 am.

d) Other: have babysat, cleaned houses, painted houses

e) Design: the last 15 years design has been my primary job, from silly things to some really good corporate work.

So I guess all my life the same themes keep repeating. I start things, I create things and HECK~ I sell things......mmmhhh....... I can't believe I got away w/being an interpreter...I don't even have a ticket...HAHAHA


so i want to hear anybody telling me that I don't work......