My Birthday

    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. 

    

Arizona Trip - Part Three

     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. 

Chilaquiles

    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!

Enchilada Sonorense - https://www.maricruzavalos.com/flat-enchiladas-sonorenses/

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!