Weekly Wrap Up - Week of February 11th

     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!

Weekly Wrap Up - Week of February 4th

***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.