Arizona Trip - Part Two

    Day Two in Arizona

    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!

Mom's Surprise 80th Birthday Party

Mom will be turning 80 this year in December, but she doesn't do winter well. As soon as the temperature dip below 80 degrees she hibernates! She doesn't go out other than to morning Mass and to pick up prescriptions at the drugstore. You can't get her to go out for dinner or even Christmas Shopping! She's really happy that I've helped her to do her shopping online.

So knowing this we felt that it would not be a good idea to try to schedule any type of birthday party for her. We knew if we planned a party on her actual December birthday in her home she would insist on cooking, cause that's what she does! So we tricked her, we tricked her good! We scheduled a surprise birthday party for her on October 22nd! 

Her daughter in law Connie has a birthday on October 19th so we told mom that Connie's family was throwing a surprise party for Connie, we were sure that she would go to that because the weather was still nice. And we really surprised her! Here's the video of her coming in the door at the ballroom of the hotel where the party was held.



You can see she was very surprised. That is me trying to get in behind her. I'm so glad that my nephew sent me this video since I was behind her I didn't really see her expression!

Here's the dress she wore. I post this not only because she looked gorgeous but because there is a whole big story behind this dress and some drama as well! Although she does look gorgeous doesn't she? Mom has always dressed very elegantly and she's so tall and slender and regal....she makes me feel like an Oompa Loompa!

Mom's favorite color her whole life has been red. She dressed all her children in red as often as possible. She wore red all the time. When she sewed clothing for her grandchildren she made them red. Red, red, red! But the day came when she felt that she was too old to wear a bright red color and she started wearing a burgundy red instead, but we all loved that she loved red so much. The color theme for her party was Red, Black and Gold. So we all wanted her to wear a beautiful red dress and it became my duty to make sure she found the perfect red dress.

But mom is very stubborn and she didn't want a red, red dress, so she found a burgundy dress that was quite beautiful but it was not red! I could not talk her out of it, she loved her dress. So my sister tried to talk her out of it and mom came to me and begged me to make my sister let her wear her dress, so we gave up, we decided to let her wear the dress that made her happy.


The dress she loved was purchased in a vintage dress shop, so before she felt comfortable wearing it she took it to the dry cleaners. Guess what happened? The dry cleaners ruined it. The dress had a silk ruched waist that draped beautifully but the dry cleaners for some odd reason flat ironed it so it just laid there perfectly straight and it ruined the line of the dress and there was no way mom could wear it. 

She decided she was going to fix it because she's a wonderful seamstress, but I talked her into going to look for a dress again just one more time and you have no idea how much arm twisting it took to get her to try that red dress on that she is wearing. She still was not very happy with it, but I talked her into taking it home just in case she couldn't fix her burgundy dress. When she came home she remembered she had a beautiful red sequined kimono-like cape and she put it over the dress and the rest is history, she fell in love with her dress! And we were thrilled because it was red, red, red!

We were so happy that her brother Tino who is 86 years old was able to make the trip from Arizona. It'a about a 10 hour drive, no small feat, but my cousins made sure their dad was there. Have to love family!

Here's a picture of mom with her brother Tino and her sister Casi. Tino is 86, Casi is 82, mom is 80 or will be in December and there is one more living sister named Maria who was unable to come. I'm not sure of her age, but mom is the baby of the family.

Lots of other family members made the trip to celebrate with us and we were so happy to have them come to show mom how much she is loved.

We are so blessed and lucky to have this wonderful lady with us and we hope to all be able to gather to celebrate again when she gets to age 90!