Last blog of 2010

A holiday recap:

On Christmas Eve, Sandy, Marty and Tristan flew down from Salt Lake to spend Christmas here. I didn't go to pick them up at the airport because I was busy cooking. I made the typical Christmas Eve soup, it has chicken, beef, "pilota" and vegetables. And of course the "galets" or shells. It's served as 2 different courses, first the soup with the shells, and then the platter of vegetables and meats.
Tristan has grown a lot since the last time I saw him, Sandy had a cute new haircut, they all looked well :)

The next day, Christmas, we got up around 8:30, Lizzie and Jeff came by 9:)) and we sat around and opened presents. I think everybody was happy with their gifts. It's hard to remember everything! I put pictures in Facebook, I'm sure everybody that reads this blog has seen them already.

After that, Marvin cooked breakfast and then we all talked and just got together. I started cooking, and they decided to go to the movies, to get out of my way ;) Everybody but Tristan and me, went to see "True Grit". I stayed and cooked canalones, they are good but it takes forever to make them, mincing chicken, rolling them, and making the bechamel, then I also made a roasted chicken with a stuffing my mom used to make with pork, prunes and pine nuts. When they came back from the movies I had fixed a tray of assorted meats and cheeses for starters. For dessert we had a variety of turron, and of course Spanish Cava to drink.
At night, Lizzie and Jeff went back to their hotel, and we all went to bed as well.

The next day, Sunday, Marvin's brother and sisters came over, also Bettie's newly married son Rick and his wife Christina. Now it was Marvin's turn to cook. He made chili, and it was very well received. We had the chili with little dishes of grated cheese, sour cream, etc, with hot rolls, and for dessert, he made pecan pies. We also had chips and dips.


There was an exchange of gifts, and some of us exchanged "white elephant gifts" as well. It was fun. Around 6, they started leaving, back to Burbank, to San Diego, and to the airport where Marty was flying back to Utah.

It was really a very nice Christmas with our daughters and their partners, Tristan, and Marvin's family as well. We are blessed.

On Monday we went to Huntington Beach, it was pretty chilly but nice and sunshiny. We stopped at Paul's diner for dinner. On Tuesday, Sandy and I went to El Torito Grill for lunch, it was Sandy's treat, I had fajitas and a Margarita, of course, and guacamole made table side. Sandy and Tristan were going to go to Disneyland , but they decided because of the holidays, it would be too full, and sure enough, we saw the news and they were saying Disneyland was totally sold out by 10 in the morning and they had to close the gates. I bet a lot of people were disappointed. Wednesday Sandy and I did a little shopping, it was raining most of the day, we had leftovers for lunch and In'n'Out for dinner
And this brings us to Thursday. Marvin and I took Sandy and Tristan to the airport, they left at 2:30. We went back home and it felt so quiet!

Tomorrow we will go out for an early dinner, don't know where yet, I invited Norbert over, but he just got back from Las Vegas and was planning to stay home and go to church. Weather permitting, I will probably welcome the New Year in the Jacuzzi.

Happy New Year to all, and let's make 2011 the best year ever!!!!

A year older, a year wiser

Yesterday was my 67th birthday, and also my last day of school before vacation break. In the morning , the Kindergarten team got together, along with the principal to discuss our student's progress, we do that every two weeks. We take turns bringing breakfast for the team. This time it was Gloria's turn, she's from Cuba but came to the US when she was pretty young. She brought Cuban food, from a famous Cuban bakery called Portos Welcome to Porto's Bakery & Cafe Porto's Bakery. Their food is pretty similar to some Spanish foods, so I really enjoyed it.

The day before, to celebrate my birthday, we went out to lunch to Veracruz, our local Mexican place, they paid for my lunch (chile relleno and chicken taco with rice and beans, and..a Margarita) they also brought me a flan and sang Happy Birthday.

In the afternoon we had a Christmas party in my room, parents were invited too, we decorated Christmas cookies, in the shape of a Christmas tree, they spread frosting on them and added sprinkles, mini marshmallows, m&m's etc. They had fun doing it. After that we set up potato chips, Doritos, Tostitos, veggies, and different kinds of dips.

Just before leaving, they sang happy birthday to me, then we sang some Christmas Carols, and did a book exchange. I didn't have time to open all the presents they gave me, I have 22 students and I go 20 gifts...pretty good! :)

When I got home, Marvin told me my sister had called, since Mia had already called me earlier, I knew it was Nuri. I had also received a yummy box of Godiva chocolates from Sandy :) Nuri called back at 6, and we talked a long time, rather, she talked a long time lol. My friend Lolin also called, and of course I got the Sandy and Tristan and Lizzie's call singing Happy Birthday too. I missed the girls' call because Marvin and I went out to have dinner at El Cholo. They have the best tasting Margaritas. I had beef fajitas, and Marvin had chile colorado.

As we were about to leave, I turned around to get my coat on, and then I saw a jewelry box . It really surprised me because not long ago he had given me a beautiful diamond circle necklace in Big Bear, when we went there four our nephew's wedding, so I was not expecting more jewelry. It was a beautiful ring!!!!! I posted a picture of it in FB.

All in all I had a beautiful and rainy happy birth day :)

December days

It's already December 11, is it just me or does it seem like December days are going by too fast?

One more week of school and then I have 2 1/2 weeks vacation, but it' s going to be a very busy week in Kinder :)

Today Norbert came over to help Marvin put on Xmas lights, they also put some on the patio and it looks very festive! It was a very nice sunny warm day. In the evening we went to Red Robin for dinner. Notice picture of patio Xmas lights complete with a hummingbird feeding :)

Tomorrow I guess I will go and try to overcome my aversion to shopping crowds and do some serious shopping of my own lol. On Wednesday I am going to have my hair colored and cut, another one of my little anxiety inducing endeavors, then next week: JURY DUTY, not fair grrrrr. But then later in the week we will have our girls, their partners and grandson for Christmas, can't get better than that :)

I hope December is full of wonderful things for all of you.

End of November

Well I did it, I wrote every day but the 2 days in San Diego. It's been challenging.

Here's the list of the books I read in November:

Dominick Dunne – Too Much Money
Laurie Frankel – The Atlas of Love
Cathy Holton – Revenge of the Kudzu Debutantes
Cathleen Schine – The 3 Weissmann’s of Westport
Cathy Holton – The Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes
Sue Ann Jaffarian – Corpse on the Cob
Lori Lansens – The wife’s tale

Oh, and just in case you are interested...I got my license :)

Happy Day

Yesterday they had elections in Catalunya, CiU won! That's the one all my family voted for and the one I would have voted for had I been there. It killed the Socialist party that was in power.

So that was good news to me, and today there was "El Clasico" which was the game between Barcelona and Madrid, the great rivals. Madrid spend countless millions of euros getting all the big names for this year, Ronaldo, Kaka, etc...but Barcelona just trashed them 5-0 !!!!! I was in school checking the scores once in a while and when the game finished I applauded and went half bananas which of course made my class go bananas also, we had a good time! :)

Tomorrow I'm taking off to go get my driver's test. I have been doing DMV tests online, and I did pretty well. I just need to really read the questions cuz sometimes they are tricky. I am still worried about my vision test, but I hope it'll be OK.

Just finished watching the movie "Bride and Prejudice", I forgot I had already seen it, but it was fun watching it again, lots of music, Bollywood style and gorgeous costumes.

Windy day

It was really windy today, it came from the north, so it was quite chilly too, but really nothing to complain about.
I finally made it to Trader Joe's, yay! I love that store, It was all set for Christmas and I got the Advent calenbdar for my kindergartners, I also got a Gingerbread Man cookie, it's already baked, about 15 inches tall, and it has everything you need to decorate it. We will do it next month in class when we read The Gingerbread Man book :)
Tonight we went out to eat at Carino's, I had chicken Marsala and it was good, but I think I like Sandy's better!
Random note..I am member of a Facebook group called Cuantos Perello en la red? one of the members, is Ramon Perello, he was born in the same town my paternal grandfather was born, I wrote to him saying maybe we are related.. well we have commented back and forth, he's very nice. We usually write in catalan, sometimes in Spanish, but today he wrote in my wall the following:

Handsome congratulations soon touches, i raise the flight to me. A hug from Catalunya

Your guess is as good as mine, lol.

Another quiet day

Today Marvin went to WW, he lost 2 lbs. I didn't go out at all, a few days ago I went to Trader Joe's, I drove around the parking lot about 8 times, it was packed, with cars turning their blinking lights when they saw somebody on the way to their cars, it was madness. So I left. This is a bad week for shopping, I don't enjoy shopping anyway and with all the people even less. I did a little Amazon.com and it was all right.
We were going out to eat, but decided to leave it for tomorrow, so I worked on Report Cards, and used the Jacuzzi, and read. For dinner I made breakfast: hash browns, eggs and sausage.
I have an appointment for my driving test on Tuesday. I need to read the booklet a little more, but I did fairly well with the online tests.
And so it goes.