February Happenings

February was such a busy month. I felt like something big was happening every other day. 

To start off, we watched the Super Bowl at Katina and Spencer's house (Bruce's brother). I was rooting for the Broncos but I like the Seahawks as well. I was just bummed out that it was such a boring game. Thank goodness for Bruno Mars, good food and girl talk! 

Bruce took the NCLEX exam and passed! We are all so happy and proud of him. Now he can start applying for jobs. Bruce is going to be one great nurse!

Our stake had a youth temple fireside on temple grounds. It was the closest I've been to the temple so far. It was a great night. We saw the sunset behind the temple and saw the temple light up when it got dark. It is such a beautiful building. I really cannot wait until it's open (2 more months!). It was a great night for our young women. I really feel them growing stronger in the gospel. When this presidency was first called, we had 1 or 2 girls attending church on Sunday. This last Sunday, we had over 10 girls. 

We went to Wynwood Art walk one Saturday. Its an area in Miami that hasn't had the greatest history. Its still a pretty bad neighborhood, but there's a big artistic movement going on there that is supposed to turn this neighborhood around. I think its working. There were so many people there and there are many more businesses and cool restaurants opening. We had some yummy burritos from a food truck and also had our favorite Cuban ice cream from Azucar. I loved seeing all the artwork and definitely want to go back and see more of the galleries. 

Great friends - Jackie and Valentina 

Damaris caught us taking a couples "selfie". 

LOVE Azucar's ice cream

These murals are property of Goldman Sachs. They're part of this big cultural/art movement. 

Goofing around

The boys trying to appreciate the art

A lot more happened in February...but there will be posts on that soon!

November

I was so bad at updating the blog in 2013, but you bet that one of my resolutions is to be better at keeping this up-to-date.

November was a great month even though I really really missed fall weather. Here are a couple of things we did throughout the month.

I've really gotten better at going for walks with Rue. We go daily if not sometimes twice and our walks have gotten longer too. We live super close to a cool little place called MainStreet and we discovered this French bakery and stopped to have breakfast there. It is so good.

We went on double date to The Melting Pot with Damaris and Bruce. As always, it was delicious.

The youth of our stake had a really nice temple fireside at a park that overlooks the temple. It was such a special activity. We all sang "I Love to See the Temple" and the Spirit was felt so strongly. A lot of the girls in our ward are new to the church and don't know much about temples. But ever since that fireside, they have had lots of questions and a great desire to go to the temple and do the work for their ancestors. It's not "100 % official" yet but it looks like the temple will be open by April! We are so excited.

My love for these girls keeps on growing! 

We ate a lot of pizza. Blaine's very happy that we live in walking distance to a pizza shop. Look at the size of that thing.

I'm still loving my job and get lots of love and gifts from parents and kids a like. But these bracelets have to be my favorite. I wear them every Wednesday when I see the little girls who made them for me.

The whole family went to Uli and Ivan's primary presentation (Uli's last one!).

I had a nice Thanksgiving lunch at my job. I made these little cornucopias with the help of my mom for my kids. I'm so grateful for nice co-workers incredible bosses, and the children I see and learn so much from.

Blurry picture and just one of the many tables. 

Blaine and I went to a Panthers/Flyers hockey game. It was my first time going to a hockey game. It was fun to go on a different date and have an excuse to drink hot chocolate.

We went to Massachussetts for Thanksgiving. We knew we wouldn't be able to travel for Christmas so it was so nice to see some of Blaine's family before the year ended. It was freezing but we didn't see snow. It was a nice change from the monotonous weather in Florida (still love the warmth though!). I'll write more about our trip in another post.

November definitely flew by this year. I didn't eat enough pumpkin flavored things as I liked but November was a great month :)

One Serious Update - July

The first thing that happened in July (we found out the last weekend in June, but it wasn't official until July 1st :]) was a pretty big deal. Blaine was assigned him area for work and, to our surprise, they assigned him Miami and Puerto Rico! So that means that we're staying in Miami permanently! Blaine will be traveling 2 weeks out of the month and will be doing territory work in Miami and occasionally Puerto Rico the other 2 weeks. Blaine will be using his Spanish a ton! (They kept him here because of his mad Spanish skillz :])It was all kinda crazy how it worked out, but we're so happy to be staying here. It is truly a miracle that we stayed. We are so grateful for the opportunity to be in Miami for at least the next couple of years. I was so worried all the time thinking about where we'd be moving to, leaving my job which I love and what a big change it'd be. But Heavenly Father had other plans in store for us! 

One of Blaine's managers who was involved with assigning his area sent him this text message. We both had goosebumps reading it!

That being said, the week of 4th of July, Blaine had some time off and we started looking for apartments. We looked and looked and looked. Rentals in Miami are absolutely ridiculous. It was exciting but also very discouraging. Our weekends have consisted of apartment hunting for the last month. 

Fourth of July was fun. It was SO nice to have Blaine home for 4 days. It felt like forever compared to what we're used to. We celebrated the holiday with my family at my Tia's house. We ate yummy food and watched some fireworks at night. 

My mom made this ice cream cake last minute and it was so good!

Andrea visited from New York again so we all got together for brunch (we really love brunch...) at OTC. It kinda reminded me of Station 22 in Provo. It was really yummy. It was so nice to catch up with these forever friends.

A twist on eggs benedict - they used cornbread instead!

In July, they released us from our calling. We absolutely loved teaching our kids. There weren't many kids but the ones who did go to class were smart, insightful, fun, sweet and such good examples to us. They still come up to us every Sunday to talk to us. So they called me as the 2nd counselor in the Young Women and the ward chorister. I love the Young Women organization and the Personal Progress program. It was such a blessing to me when I was a teenager. The president is Dulce, a good friend of mine who was in Young Women with me. The 1st counselor was my YW president during my senior year and the secretary is also a really good friend. We make a good team! But the YW in our ward are extremely inactive. So its definitely challenging. But I do love the youth and love getting to know them. Now, I am not excited about being the ward chorister. I do not sing well and will never sing well. I just know how to conduct basic music. I have had this calling 3 times now! I am not complaining, just stating the facts. But I do love the beautiful hymns of the gospel and I'm very grateful for them. 

Some of our YW at mutual designing mugs with Sharpies.

Last Sunday, Blaine was called to be the 2nd counselor in the Elders Quorum presidency. He really misses the primary, but is excited to work in the Elders Quorum. Our ward is really lacking in priesthood so he'll definitely be a strong force for good! 

We've gone on many double dates with Bruce and Damaris :)

Blaine eating Steve's Pizza - his favorite pizza from the mission

It was ginormous.

'

Re-exploring Miami has been fun. Recently, we went to a new ice cream shoppe called Azucar after Celia Cruz's famous saying that mean sugar in Spanish. All the ice cream flavors are infused with typical Cuban sweets. It was really cute and delicious! 

In the heart of Little Havana

My ice cream had pieces of guava and cream cheese as well as Maria cookies
 with extra guava drizzled on top.
So good! 

I went to dinner at 100 Montaditos (a tapas-style Spanish restaurant) with some friends from when I was teeny (they were my sisters older friends at church and I always tagged along. They were nice enough to have me around :]).

Karem, Cristy, Damaris, Me, Darling & Daleth

And finally, we've been house hunting! After doing some apartment hunting and being unsuccessful, we realized that we could afford a mortgage payment. That's how high rentals are here. So this has been really exciting so far, but its also very overwhelming. The whole process is tedious and long. But the very idea of owning a home is exhilarating. Now we're not looking at very big or very nice houses, but something that will meet our needs for now. So far, we've looked in the Miami Springs area (which is right by my job and the airport). I'm really hoping to be in our own place sooner than later! Send your prayers our way!

The first house we've looked at. I love this cozy home!

So that's what we've been up to in sunny Florida. Now that I've caught up, I will write more about our jobs and what we do, how it is to have Blaine away all the time, Blaine's travels and the things that I miss about living in Provo Utah (can you believe I'm saying this?). A lot has changed in these last 3 months and its been challenging, but we feel very blessed to have the life that we live!