My 66th birthday will be this Saturday. Hard to imagine 66!
Last night I went out to dinner with my sister Lisa, my cousin Mary Helen and my sister in law Connie. I wanted them to try a new place I had gone to with my co-workers called Mas Bella Restaurant.
We went on Mariachi Wednesday, they have several themed nights there as you can see from the little mini menu below.
We sat in the bar so we could talk, when you sit in the restaurant where the mariachi is you can't hear yourself think between the patrons talking and the music, but we could hear it playing in the background. Here's a little snippet I took. The sound quality is not great.
We had a great time and the food was great. I had the Chicken Taquitos and they were very good and quite filling, they were off the appetizer menu. Mary Helen and Connie both had the Tacos de Papa which are three crispy, potato filled tacos topped with lettuce, sour cream and pico de gallo, just in case you've never heard of them.
Lisa had her old standby, Enchilada, Taco, Rice and Beans which looked really good, I'll have to try them next time.
My sister in law Connie had brought me a birthday gift, beautiful emerald and teal stemless Rachel Zoe wine glasses with my favorite flying creature, the butterfly. I love them and can't wait to try them!
As we were in the parking lot hugging and saying goodbye one of the Mariachis was just getting into his car and he saw the Happy Birthday bag that I was carrying and he said, "How come you didn't tell us it was your birthday? We would have sang you Mananitas!" So my sister Lisa piped up and said "It's not to late, sing them to her here!" So he did and it was so special and he had such a beautiful voice. A perfect end to a perfect evening.
Here are the lyrics in spanish to Las Mananitas.
Roughly translated...
How beautiful it is the morning
when I come to greet you.
We all come with joy and pleasure to congratulate you.
The Day you were born all the flowers were born,
and at the baptism font the nightingales sang.
Dawn is coming, and the light of day has dawned on us.
Get up, look at the light of day.
Grateful this morning for friends and family and for the blessing to have lived another year.
Day three was a Saturday and the plan for the day was to head to our cousin Norrie's home in Arizona City which as you can see by the map below was a little more than 1 hour away from Copa's home in Phoenix. You can see where cousin Stella lives in the top left corner in Surprise. They are very lucky to all live so close to each other.
Lucy was again our designated driver and it was so nice getting to spend so much time with her. Once we girl cousins grew up and started getting married and having kids we stopped having time to really get together, seeing each other only at wedding, funerals and family reunions. Now as we've gotten older, our kids are off on their own, we have all grown so close and I'm so happy that has happened. Below is a picture of my mom's parents and her siblings, minus Uncle Tino who was missing from this picture and Aunt Eliza who had passed away several years earlier.
L-R: My mom Tomasa, sisters Casimira, Leonor, Herminia, Maria, brother Jesus (brother Tino was missing), sisters Elena, Nicolasa and their mother and father celebrating their 50th Wedding Anniversary, Tomasa and Eustino.
Back to the plan for the day. Norrie had offered to take us to the Tucson Museum of Art and after the museum we were coming back to her home to have dinner with more cousins.
The Tucson Museum of Art was amazing! Aside from seeing all my beautiful family members, this was my favorite thing to have done in Arizona. What made it even more special is that Norrie had not told us that our Aunt Ninfa was coming with us. Aunt Ninfa is the widow of our Uncle Jesus. In the photo above he is the tall man with the black hair in the middle.
At the Museum: L-R Me, Aunt Ninfa, my sister Lisa, our cousins Norrie and Lucy
Aunt Ninfa is an amazing, loving, generous, funny, beautiful woman and big part of many of my childhood memories. She was the first person to ever make me a grilled cheese sandwich and served it with dill pickles...I still eat it that way to this very day. I was so happy that we were going to share this day with her.
Tia Ninfa surrounded by amazing artwork. She is a very devout Catholic and any image of the Virgen Mary is special to her.
We no sooner got there and started walking around when we got in trouble! There are no signs anywhere that you CANNOT TOUCH THE ARTWORK! I won't name names, but a few of us (not me) touched the artwork. Security quickly came and asked us not to. Some of us forgot and continued to do so...that's when a security guard had to start following us. Once she saw that we had learned our lesson she quit following us. At the time I was mortified, I'm a rule follower, but now I can laugh about it.
Aunt Ninfa was very interested in these. I wish I had taken a picture of the sign that said what these are and who the artist was but they appeared to be very old and I'm assuming they are beaded leg coverings for Kachina Dancers. They looked as though they are made from some type of animal hide and beading, they were amazing.
There was a lot of Arizona type art and I will do a separate post with photos of the artwork that I took; in this post I mainly want to post photos of Tia Ninfa and the cousins enjoying the museum.
Tia Ninfa standing in front of another religious piece of artwork. She really loved this one.
Me and Tia Ninfa. I love this lady so much! I really need to remember to take my purse off when I take photos!
My sister Lisa with our Aunt Ninfa. Both so photogenic, loving the look on Tia Ninfa's face in this one.
Lisa taking a picture of me while I took a picture of her. The artwork is canes that have been painted and bent. My favorite thing about this photo is Cousins Lucy and Norrie and Aunt Ninfa behind the wall laughing at us crazy California girls!
Cousin Lucy and my sister Lisa posing in front of photo of Lucille Ball cooking. This was a special piece of artwork for Lucy because of the name and for Lisa because she adored Lucille Ball and the I Love Lucy Show.
Photo of me taken by Lisa in front of the canes. You can see the canes much better in her photo.
Photo taken by Lisa, L-R: Cousin Norrie, Aunt Ninfa, Me and Cousin Lucy
Is she beautiful or what! Tia Ninfa on the ride home, tired but happy!
After we had seen all that we wanted to see at the museum, Norrie took us to a little cafe next door to the museum called Cafe a La Cart. She had planned for us to have lunch there before heading back to her house. What a great idea! We loved it, so cute!
We all decided to have the Chilled Artisan Tomato Soup and Salad. Aunt Ninfa said she just wanted a bowl of soup so I told Lisa who was placing our order, that Aunt Ninfa could have my soup and I just wanted the salad. Lisa didn't feel that was enough food, so she order the Chilaquiles for the table.
When Aunt Ninfa saw the Chilaquiles she said "I want that!" So we told her she had ordered the soup and tried to put the soup in front of her and she said "No, I want that!" We all thought that was hilarious and she could have the world if we could give it to her, so we let her have the Chilaquiles and I have never seen anyone enjoy food as much as she did. It was a joy to watch her eat, she cleaned her plate!
We had a wonderful drive home, it was so nice for me to have someone else drive. Once we got to Norrie's house we helped her get things ready. I was put in charge of making the Sangria! I had never made a Sangria but I found a simple recipe online and I made the best darn Sangria ever, in my humble opinion!
Sangria - wine with fruit. The cookies pictured were purchase at the little Cafe in Tucson and we had leftovers so we cut them in quarters so everyone could enjoy them.
I wish I had taken pictures of the food that Norrie and our cousin Michael had made for us. I know there was Mexican rice and beans and three different types of Enchiladas. The typical red enchilada, a green enchilada with chicken and what they called an Enchilada Sonorense which is a stacked enchilada with layers of meat and cheese, it was delicious with home made tortillas. Michael and Norrie make quite the team!
A few people came and went before we remembered to take a photos. But I'm glad we got this one. L-R: My sister Lisa, Lucy, Me, Cousin Tito holding a bottle, Norrie, Cousin Michael in the yellow shirt, Cousin Tino the Honorable because he's a Judge and seated is Norrie's husband Lacho and her grandbaby who was just amazed by my beauty and only had eyes for me!
We finally headed back to Copa's house, Copa and her daughter Daniella were at the dinner, but they had left prior to the picture. We were tired but happy and so full of delicious food. It was bittersweet to say good-bye to the ones that stayed behind in Arizona City and Eloy. We love you guys!
The next day Lucy, our every faithful and beautiful driver took us back to the airport where we caught our flight and Lisa didn't even need alcohol for the flight home. I'm so grateful we were able to make this trip! Thank you Arizona Family!
Lisa and I are both very early risers, we were awake by 6am but just stayed in bed until we started hearing noises and we knew our cousin was up and about. After coffee she told us the plan for our day.
Our cousin Lydia aka Copa is going through Chemotherapy currently and it really drains her and she needs help to do several of the daily things that the rest of us take for granted. She needed to go back to her daughters house so we had the morning off. Copa let us have use of her car so we drove around Phoenix and hit a couple of stores and then realized we couldn't fit anything in our tiny carry-on so there was no use buying anything or shopping any further. But it was a fun morning and we knew that around 2pm we were meeting back up with Copa and Lucy and heading to Surprise, Arizona where our cousin, Stella lives with her daughter Jessica and granddaughter Roni.
Stella is the daughter of my mom's sister Elena. She moved several years ago from San Diego to Surprise and we had not had a chance to see her new home yet, so we were excited to go there. Lucy was once again our chauffeur and she did a great job. We did have one moment that a guy ran a red light and she had to slam on the brakes...and I thought California drivers were bad!!! We headed out around 4pm just barely missing rush hour as it was a Friday, but we still hit quite a bit of traffic.
Stella's new home is so pretty! I loved her kitchen and I wish I had taken pictures but I was too busy looking at everything. She had planned a simple meal because of course it's very hot to be cooking extravagantly. So we had pizza and salad and margaritas, life doesn't get better than that right? She had some yummy desserts, but I'm trying to cut out sugar and don't even remember what all she had. OH! She also made her super delicious Salsa which we had with Chips. I have never had a better Salsa. I need to remember to ask her for the recipe.
Afterwards we sat around reminiscing about our childhoods and waiting for it to get cooler outside so we could take a nice picture of us all together. It was fun to catch up and to share stories we remembered of our childhood. Stella is older than the rest of us so she has much better memories, plus she is the family historian and keeper of the records. She loves genealogy and is constantly on ancestry.com finding out more information about our family history.
Back row left to right, Me, Cousin Stella and Lisa. Front row Lucy and Copa.
We could have talked all night, but we new we had the trip back to Phoenix, which was about 45 minutes to an hour away. The traffic was much better on the way home. We had a great time on our second day and Lucy, Lisa, Copa and I continued sharing stories until it was time to hit the hay and see what adventures awaited us the next day!
When last I left you guys, I gave you a brief update letting you know my sister Lisa and I were flying off that morning to visit our Arizona family. We were leaving the cool, blissful weather of 105 in Bakersfield CA for the blistering desert that is Phoenix AZ which was 109 when we landed! Many have asked us, "Why would you travel to someplace hotter?" Well...when it's over 100, it's all the same thing...uncomfortable! So one place is as good as another and we were off on an adventure!
Before and After, With makeup before and without after! You can tell we had a great time!
We got to the airport and Lisa who is a worrier by nature anyway was super nervous. She was just talking and talking and jumping from one topic to another and not making much sense. Thank goodness for airport bars, we each had a beer with some chips to settle our nerves. Strictly for medicinal purposes!
Just one beer for the road, or should I say the sky?
Can't let Lisa drink alone, can I?
The boarding and take off went off without a hitch and soon we were in the air. Lisa took the window seat and I had a great description of what she was seeing. We landed at Phoenix and the landing was a little rough, I think we were right over the tires and Lisa yelled out "Oh shit!" We had a family with 2 girls and 1 boy sitting next to us and their eyes got as round as saucers.
We had a hard time navigating the Phoenix Airport...that place is huge. But we finally figured out how to get out of there and our cousin Lucy was there to pick us up and take us to her niece Daniella's house where they hosted a dinner for us. On the driver there, Lucy almost killed us once when she accidentally turned into a one-way street, but she corrected herself at the last minute. I'm only putting that in here because I want to make sure that we all remember so we can kid each other when we're all in the same nursing home! In the photo is Lisa, Lucy and me in red...a few days later. Lucy is the daughter of my moms sister Herminia. Lucy has two sisters, Lydia aka Copa and Herminia aka Minnie.
After dinner we were taken to Lydia aka Copa's house. She had generously invited us to stay in her home in a beautiful guest room where we had everything we could need, even non-slip socks! We were greeted by this sweet boy named Rocky. I fell in love with him the last time we were in Copa's house and I think he remembered me. Just look at those big caramel colored eyes! Who's a good boy?
Rocky
That's the end of our first day in Phoenix, Lisa's first flight. It was time to rest and prepare for the next couple of days.
Just thought I would pop on real quick and do an update.
First of all, I did not purchase the car. Turns out I am in need of a new roof. I was pretty sad about the car, I really loved it, but priorities right? I can always buy a car another day, but if my roof flies away, what am I going to do then.
Second, I have been so busy the past few months since I posted about the car. I started a post to fill everyone in but it's still sitting in my pending file.
Today, in a few hours actually, I am flying to Arizona for a fun trip to visit with my Arizona cousins. As they say, there's no one crazier than the cousins on your momma's side of the family.
It will be my sister Lisa's first time flying, so I'm hoping she loves to fly as much as I do.
Do you remember all the big purchases you've made in your life? I certainly do! My first car, my first home, each of my children because face it, you have to pay for them and they don't come cheap!
But I was young and ignorant when I made those purchases, The best time for making huge decisions when it comes to money is when you are young and ignorant because you have the rest of your life to fix mistakes. Making a big purchase now at the ripe old age of 65 is way more scary! Making it when also considering retirement in a few years just adds fuel the fire.
On March 18 of 2020 I was sent home from my job for the rest of my life! I didn't know it was for the rest of my life, well actually the rest of my work career...but it was and is. Due to Covid I've been a remote worker. When things got a bit back to normal we were offered the opportunity to continue working from home or go back to an office. Considering the fact that I had been commuting back and forth 25 miles one way each day for my job since 1979, I was way more than ready to never commute again...plus I no longer had a car.
My daughter got into a car accident shortly thereafter and while she was not hurt, her car was a mess, so I offered her my car for the money she got selling her car. I didn't know at the time that I was never going back to an office, but I figured when the time came I would just buy a new car, it was time anyway.
Well it's going to be 3-years since I was sent home forever and I still don't have a car. Since my mom lives with my, I've just been using her car, but I don't really go anywhere and when I do I take my mom so it's ok to use her car, or I go with my daughter and we use her car, or I go with my sister and we use her car...so I have not really needed my own car, although I've missed not having one to call my own.
But I'm thinking now that it would be a good idea to buy a car now so that I will have it paid off by the time I retire. It's really a scary decision and it's been keeping me up at night. I know I can afford it and I'll be able to make the payments and the increase in insurance, but it's a big investment, a big responsibility but it's also so pretty!!!
I know this will probably be the last car I ever own and I've always just bought the least expensive car with the best gas mileage since I had to commute so much. This time around, I want something pretty, something safe that will last me a long time.
But I'm still having trouble sleeping. Do you guys think it's a good time to buy a car?
Well, it's been a bit since I did a weekly wrap up, my last one was the week of February 11th when I told you all that I had gotten sick on the way back from my family reunion.
Today is probably the first day that I feel totally like myself again. Not shaky, not coughing, not having that cloudy, fog-like feeling in my brain. Allergies are no joke!
My sister Lisa got it and she's still struggling. Mom woke up Saturday morning declaring "I'm sick." She was a mess all weekend, could barely stop coughing. She has all the right medications, breathing treatments, inhalers, etc., but they don't really seem to be working. I see a trip to Urgent Care in her future today. She's still sleeping so maybe a miracle happened overnight.
Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm still here, still kicking and will be back to posting weekly wrap-ups and hopefully more interesting content soon.
Hope the allergies in your area are mild. California has been having steady rain and snow packs in the mountains for a couple of years now, so we are probably out of the drought, but it makes it a nightmare for those that suffer allergies.
Thanks for stopping by and hope to post something more positive soon! Take care!
I mentioned in my last post that I would be a bit late posting this because I was heading to a family reunion on Feb 16th and not returning until Feb 19th. I was right as today is Wednesday already. But I'm not late posting because of the reunion, but because on the way back from the reunion I got sick!
Sunset in Arizona - nothing more beautiful!
I am pretty sure it is just allergies. I tested negative for Covid and I haven't had a fever or anything. We had planned to drive back on Feb 19th, President's Day but the weather forecast was for a big storm heading in over the Tehachapi's late Sunday into Monday...just when we would be on the road.
If you remember, back in August 2023, Lisa and I had taken a trip to Arizona and on the way back home we became trapped in Mojave because of Hurricane Hillary that struck California and brought down the Tehachapi mountain closing the road while we were just a mere 2 hours away from home! You can read and see pictures about that HERE.
Some elders catching up. I be these ladies have known each other for more than 70 years! My own mom is the one in the bright red shirt on the right.
So we decided the best thing would be to leave on Sunday to beat the storm and have all day Monday off to rest and recuperate!
Mom and her Clan, Mom and Roselyn first row, me Baby J and Lisa second row, Lisa's son Sean holding his son Sean, Sean's wife Rocio in the last row.
Sunday morning we checked out of the beautiful Blue Water Resort & Casino in Parker Arizona and we headed to the goodbye breakfast in the park, then we headed to pickup mom as she was staying with her niece Mary Lou.
We headed out and I was feeling just fine, but before we even got to Needles, California I could feel my throat hurting and scratchiness in my ears, which I was sure was an allergy. Lisa happened to have Allegra with her since she always has allergies, so I took one and it did help.
More of our elders. My mom on the far right is the last living member of the her family. She is now the matriarch of our family, in the middle is her Niece Mary Lou, daughter of mom's sister Eliza and then our beautiful, sweet Tia Ninfa, she was the wife of our now deceased Uncle Jesus who was mom's oldest brother.
I didn't think I was going to make it, but I'm a soldier! I've always said that about myself and I pride myself on my strength and determination! I got us home safe and sound and then I collapsed! I was exhausted when I got home, barely made it to my bed.
Just say CHEESE! Lisa and I in our shirts that Lisa created. We had a t-shirt contest, we didn't win but I thought ours were the prettiest any way. See the group photo of the whole family below and you will see that we really stood out!
Luckily as I said earlier, I had Monday off for President's Day...thank you Mr. Presidents! I was able to sleep the whole day and that was good because I woke up feeling worse, my whole right ear filled with fluid and I couldn't hear out of it.
Today is Wednesday and my ear is feeling better, still a bit of fluid. I put in a whole day of work yesterday and though I was a bit groggy and not at 100%, I am a soldier and I was at work! Today I have quite a bit of cough as well, but I can feel that I am on the mend. Last night Lisa called me and she's got the "allergies" now. She sounded awful!
Mom standing out as always! We were just starting the games out with a Tug of War game between the kids and everyone wanted mom to play. She's always ready to comply and everyone love watching her, everyone was out there with their cell phones filming her. Sister Lisa with her back to us is a lot like mom, always the center of attention. I'm more like my dad, just stand in the background and laugh at them!
Drone shot - Group photo. See that little cluster in red? That's mom and her kids, a few grandkids and her three great grandkids. Our brother Fred was missing as well as my kids and one of Lisa's sons and one of Jaime's daughters. We are small but mighty!
Well, that's all I have for now as it's 7:28 am and I need to log-in for work at 7:30am. We had a great time and I am so proud to be a member of this family. A family filled with love and compassion, unity and pride!
I'll leave you with these last photos that say it all!
***Full Disclosure - I started writing this on Monday, February 12th***
I woke up this morning thinking about the weekly wrap up and what all I had done during the week of February 4th. Honestly, I should just do a "weekend wrap up" because all I do during the week is work and if I do anything vaguely interesting, I don't remember anyway!
Monday thru Friday I just worked.
Saturday Lisa and I had to do some shopping. We needed to start prepping for a family reunion in Arizona this upcoming weekend. We will leave Friday morning and return Monday.
We each are donating a basket to the reunion committee for a raffle to raise money for the next reunion. The last reunion we had was March of 2020. The weekend before everything shut down due to Covid!
Lisa is also going to a conference in March and she needed to provide two baskets for a raffle at her conferences and she still had to put together a basket for the reunion and she had nothing! I just needed to buy a basket and the cellophane wrap for the basket once it was put together, so we went together. We went to the stores we needed to go to and got what we needed to get. We had a wonderful relaxing lunch at Casa Munoz and each had a Strawberry Margarita.
Because it's such a long trip and we are taking our mom we had planned to drive up the week before with mom and leave her there with one of her nieces so that she could relax and visit and come the weekend of the reunion she would not be as tired as if she had driven up with us.
The way it was planned we were supposed to drive up there on Saturday the 10th, but we found out just a few days before that mom got the date wrong and we were supposed to meet our cousin and his mom halfway on Sunday, Feb 11th. On SUPER BOWL SUNDAY! What the heck??? I was devastated. I love football and I was so excited for the commercials and for watching two great teams, the Kansas City Chiefs (who I was rooting for) and the San Francisco 49ers go head to head, I knew it was going to be a great game and now I would have to miss is!!
Plus, on Super Bowl Sunday, I always love to make a huge spread of goodies to eat and now I wouldn't have time to cook or anything good to eat because I would be on the road!
Sunday morning, we headed out around 9am to meet up with our cousin Michael and his mom Mary Lou in Ludlow.
As you can see it's about a 3-hour trip. We got to Tehachapi and we had to make a pitstop at a Love's Truckstop. I love Love's, they are so clean and nice and big.
We got as far as Barstow and mom was ready to eat. She didn't want a sit down meal, she just wanted something fast because it was already 11:45 and we were meeting Michael and Mary Lou at 1pm.
We stopped at the famous Barstow Station where I had Panda and mom and Lisa had Wetzel's Pretzels, here is a YouTube video about this great place. Mom wants to stop and explore more on the way home.
We had just sat down to enjoy our lunch when cousin Michael calls to advise us that we all forgot that California is an hour behind Arizona time!!! They were already there and we still had about 35 to 40 minutes to get where they were, depending on traffic.
But what traffic? Everyone in the world with any sense was at home getting prepared to watch the big game...the road was empty. I guess that was good as we got to them in about 35 minutes. We delivered mom to them and then Lisa and I started to the road back home.
Since we figured, we were going to miss the Super Bowl anyway, or at least most of it, we decided to stop in Barstow and do some shopping at a Marshalls store they have there. It's a tradition to always stop there.
I bought a pretty blouse and an Easter Decoration for my home, it's a Jolie Fleur collectible from their Spring collection and she's just so cute!
It was between this one and one other one. I wish I had bought the other one too, but I am going back through the area this coming weekend for the reunion, so maybe I will stop by and see if they still have it.
From there we decided we needed an ice cream cone. We asked the cashier if there was a good place to get ice cream in Barstow and she looked at us like we were aliens and said "Oh, I don't eat ice cream." Ummm...trust me, she looked like she ate a lot of ice cream!
But we have google maps and we found a Foster's Freeze and we each got a large vanilla cone and an order of their crispy, crunchy french fries. We got back on the road and I was home by 6pm and the game was still on, it was the last quarter and from what I understand the game was boring up until the last quarter, the last few minutes and the overtime anyway...so I really didn't miss much except for the commercials and the half time show.
And gosh darn it...my daughter decided that it would not do for me not to have special food for Super Bowl. She made me some Jalapeno Poppers, which I love. They were so good, perfectly made!
She also made this fabulous salad that she found on the Food Network made by Molly Yeh. It's her Crispy Chickpea Salad, you can find the recipe HERE.
Salad is not necessarily my go-to for a Super Bowl, but it really hit the spot. It was a very pretty salad.
So all's well that ends well. Mom is in Arizona, visiting and enjoying herself. Lisa and I made it back safely. I got to watch the end of the Super Bowl and I had a fabulous feast. It was a great weekend.
I will probably be late posting again for the week of February 12th because we aren't heading back from Arizona until Monday, February 19th and I'm sure I will be too exhausted from the Reunion and the long car trip to sit at my computer, but I'll share some fun photos when I get a chance.
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