Halloween

This year Halloween was fun but a little different. Usually, we do a ton of Halloween/fall related activities. But here in Miami, those fall activities are pretty nonexistent. Sure, there are haunted houses and such, but that's not our cup of tea. Anyway, Blaine was supposed to be out of town this year so I didn't plan any costumes for us. But fortunately, his business plans changed and he's been home for the last 3 weeks! Kind of a miracle. He got lucky this year and didn't have to dress up.

My plan was to just dress up as a witch for work with stuff I already had. But that morning, I took Rue to the vet (she's been sick - post on that later) and bought her a Minnie costume on sale - really I couldn't resist. I sent a picture of her in it to my mom, and my mom offered to make me a matching Minnie costume. This was 2 hours before I had to go in to work. She already had some red and white polka-dot fabric and I already had Minnie ears. She sewed up a skirt and put a lace collar on a black shirt in less than an hour. As much as I miss fall and our Utah life sometimes, I really enjoy having my mom around to do awesome stuff like this for me. How she pulls it off? I'm not sure. But she's been doing it ever since I can remember.

The pictures that sparked it all

So I went to work as Minnie and all the little girls I see loved it. I even had one little girl come in dressed as Minnie too. The look on her face was priceless. Halloween was fun at work since most of the kids came in costume.

The north office therapists 

Placed our phones on a table. Excuse the angle. 

Cutest little twins 

Hello Kitty & Minnie Mouse

Thank goodness he knows are to say his r's :)

After work, I went to my aunt's neighborhood to trick-o-treat with the kids. Blaine and Rue met up with me there. It was nice being around for Halloween after missing out on so many. Ulises wore his signature scream costume with a little Miami flair (check out the flip-flops), Uli was some character from Halo and Ivan was Snake Eyes (a ninja from G.I. Joe I believe). Damaris and Bruce were both busy with school and work, so they were missed.

Before heading out

One house had a crazy set up with a cemetery

She loved trick-o-treating but it tired her out 

Blaine was happy to be himself this year :)

Riding home - she was tuckered out

In honor of my mom's awesome spontaneous costume-making, here are some pictures of past Halloweens that show how talented she really is at making costumes. I'm sure there are tons more pictures of us in costume, but she came across these recently and shared them with me. Whatever I wanted to be for Halloween, she made it. Same goes for my brother and sister. No wonder we love Halloween so much. Thanks Mami!

Black cat

Poison Ivy, Mario and a 50s chick

Yes, one year I wanted to be a gypsy - and my mom let me.

All the boys thought I was so cool that year

Tinkerbell

Ulises' Birthday & Luke Bryan Concert

On October 25th, it was my uncle's birthday. To celebrate, we went out to eat at The Cheesecake Factory for dinner. The next day, we all went to Luke Bryan's concert. I love country (now) but growing up, I thought it was lame and weird. I thought it was even weirder that my Cuban uncle who literally came here in a raft loved it. He was the only person I personally knew who listened to country. So now that the whole family likes country, he was so happy to go to Luke Bryan's concert with the family. This was Ivan and Ulisito's first concert. Ivan knows all the words to the songs. It's pretty hilarious. We got there a late (due to our last-minute car-buying) and missed Florida-Georgia Line, but Luke Bryan was so good!

Check out those boots on Ivan :)

Aren't they so good-looking?

We hadn't been to a concert in several years (too long for my liking) and I had never been to a country concert before. It was so much fun. I love every single one of Luke Bryan's songs. He's a great entertainer, funny and sings even better in person. The concert was completely sold out and packed. We were pretty far away on the lawn but it was still fun. My favorite part of the concert was all the covers he did of different songs - from Maroon 5 to Metallica. It was a great concert, and a perfect way to celebrate Ulises' birthday. We're so grateful for him and all that he has done for us throughout the years (like introducing me to country music :]).

We Bought a 2nd Car!

After months and months of saving and researching, we FINALLY bought a 2nd car. Blaine wanted something sporty and "fun", while I wanted something cheap and reliable that had good gas mileage. We were kinda at opposite ends of a spectrum. Anyway, the fact was that we needed a 2nd car. We have lasted this long without one because of the help of family and because when Blaine is home, he works from home a lot leaving the Camry available for me to use. But there were days that he didn't work from home and he was too far away to pick me up and drop me off at work. Thankfully, m y mom has two cars and would lend me one for the day or week. But one of those cars was a gas guzzler and that was no fun to drive.

It took us forever to buy a car because we couldn't decide on a type of car and on a price. But we finally settled on a hatchback Subara Impreza. We both love Subarus and an Impreza (even though it wasn't the WRX he wanted) was fun enough for Blaine. We woke up one morning to look at a Hyundai Genesis and ended up going to the Subaru dealership next door. We got a great deal on a new 2013 Impreza and felt good about it. Rue came with us too and everybody at the Subaru dealership loved her. She was very patient as we were there for what seemed like forever (I really don't like dealerships…another reason why we took so long to buy a car - I hated going to look at cars!).

Riding home! Rue was weirded out that we weren't in the same car.

One happy guy!

I just realized that I don't have any pictures of the outside of the car, but its silver. We love it so far. It's amazing on gas mileage, has all this technology that obviously wasn't in our Camry and we've found the hatchback to be pretty useful and practical already. I hope this car will stay around for a while!

Puerto Rican Getaway

A couple weekends ago, I met up with Blaine in Puerto Rico. He was working there that week and we decided to make a little trip out of it. Since Blaine travels so much, he has racked up quite a bit of free hotel stays with Marriott. But since he barely has any time off, he has no time to use them other than on short weekend trips. He was super excited for this trip since he's been to Puerto Rico several times, but it has been all work and no play. 

I flew in late on Friday night so Saturday we took it slow and just went to Luquillo Beach and relaxed. Even though there are beaches in Miami, we get so busy on the weekends that we rarely go. Also, the hilly views from this beach were gorgeous. 

We had coconut and parcha (passion fruit) homemade ice cream. So good!

Then for lunch we headed to Old San Juan. We ate at a tiny hole in the wall that surprisingly served up some pretty dishes!

Tostones rellenos

Arroz mamposteao

We went back to the hotel and passed out of how tired we were. As much as I wanted to explore Puerto Rico some more, we were both too tired! For dinner, Blaine took me to his favorite spot in Conrado. It's an Argentinian place called Ummo. We ordered gnocchi with ricotta and short ribs - this is what Blaine always orders and now I understand why. It was out-of-this-world amazing.

The next day, we got up early to try to do as much as possible on our last day here. We went to the caves in Camuy - the 3rd largest cave system in the world. I wasn't too excited at first but this was so cool! 

Loved the sun rays everywhere!

Biggest stalagmite in the cave

See the profile of an indian on the right?

Drinking natural purified water

With el coqui - Puerto Rico's unique frog

After our hike in the caves, we went to the observatory in Arecibo that was only 20 minutes away. It's the world's largest radio telescope and it was HUGE. It wasn't my favorite thing that we did in Puerto Rico, but it was definitely impressive.

We went back to San Juan to visit Old San Juan - my favorite part of Puerto Rico, for lunch. I love all of the different colored buildings and the cobblestone streets. 

We stopped by El Jibarito for mofongo de yuca. I love traditional mofongo, but mofongo de yuca is so much better and I can't find it anywhere in Miami. It was so good. 

The inside of the restaurant reflected the buildings outside

This purple building made me happy

We saw quite a bit of classic cars too

We walked (almost ran) all the way to El Morro because we had an hour before it closed. We made it just in time and at the perfect time. Since it was close to closing for the day, there weren't many people there and we had a pretty magnificent view of the sunset from the fort. It was also breezy and the weather was perfect. Everybody was flying their kites that day. We had so much fun roaming around this massive structure. Blaine liked it a lot more than he expected. It's so impressive. We'd like to go back again and read a little bit more about its history instead of racing through it.

Blaine deducted that this was the cooking hall and later on we found out he was right!

An original canon

Gorgeous or what?

Blaine in a  prisoners cell

This picture doesn't do it justice

We walked back to Old San Juan and ran into the Catholic church where Blaine's great grandmother was baptized. We didn't know this until later in our trip and couldn't go inside to see the actual ledger with her name on it because it was closed. But it was still neat to see it from the outside. Its crazy to think that Blaine's ancestors are from here!

Puerto Rico was so much fun and a much needed trip. I realized that Blaine and I have rarely taken trips alone. It was so great to be together and not worry about anything and do whatever we wanted to do. It was also fun for Blaine to have fun in Puerto Rico instead of just work there. As you can see, he was very excited for me to be there with him. Love that man! 

Being that Blaine will be there very often, this won't be our last trip to the Isle of Enchantment. We love it!