St. Thomas V.I. - Day 4

Our stay at St. Thomas was so memorable. None of us had been there before and were really excited. We heard from some friends that the best place to snorkel was at St. John's Trunk Bay. This is an island that's part of the Virgin Islands. We had to take a boat ride to St. John's. It was about a 45-minute ride. They had a tour guide pointing out houses of famous people like Madonna, Michael Jordan, and Tim Duncan, just to name a few. It was pretty hard to hear because the speaker system wasn't the greatest and the wind and waves from the outside were loud. But Blaine was able to understand some cool facts. The craziest one was that a gallon of milk cost $10! They don't have any cows in the islands and have to import a lot of goods. It's all brought in by ship, since they don't have any airports that are big enough for cargo planes.

Once we arrived at St. John's, we were greeted by our taxi drivers. So the "taxis" were F150s that were seriously hooked up. They put some seats in the beds of the trucks with a little roof and there you go! The drive to Trunk Bay was pretty crazy. First of all, they were driving on the right hand side and were driving super fast. The island was very mountainous and the streets were very narrow. Every time we made a sharp turn, we couldn't tell or see if anybody was coming our way! They stopped several times so that we could take some pictures with the bay in the background. It was a very beautiful island.

Trunk Bay was so awesome. I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty scared of snorkeling. I've never been good at it. Never. The area where we could snorkel was pretty far away and I didn't know if I could be there that long. To my surprise, I was able to snorkel successfully for the first time ever and loved it. They had signs at the bottom of the ocean with arrows pointing you in the right direction. They also had signs with information about the fish and coral that we were seeing. It was really relaxing and a lot of fun. We were out there for about an hour and half. We couldn't touch anything because it was a reserve. So we had to keep afloat the whole time. Damaris' underwater camera came in handy here. We were able to take pictures of the fish and fun pictures of us snorkeling.

As soon as we were done snorkeling, it started raining! So the timing was perfect. We grabbed a quick snack before being taken back to St. Thomas. I wish we had more time to check out the rest of St. John. They had a lot of cute little shops that looked interesting. At St. Thomas, we walked the mall. We didn't really buy much other than some souvenirs. My family has this thing where we buy a magnet of every place we've visited. My grandma started this tradition and now we won't leave a place without one! I didn't like any magnets that I saw, so I bought a Christmas ornament and converted it into a magnet.

Once on the boat, we showered and got ready for dinner. After dinner, Blaine and Papo headed to the arcade again. This time, they were literally there for hours. They played one racing game, over and over again until they finally beat it. While they were doing that, the rest of us just played card games. At one point, Damaris and I just wanted to go to the club right next to the arcade for a song or two. The security guy didn't let us go in because we didn't have our I.D.'s and he thought we were under 21 despite the fact that we were both wearing our wedding rings. We were both so upset that we went all the way to our room, grabbed our I.D.'s just to show them to this security guy. It was so ridiculous. We were laughing the whole time we were going to our room. What bothered us was that some younger girls in from of us that were dressed pretty skimpy weren't even asked to show their I.D.'s. We went inside after proving our legal age status, and danced for a couple of songs. We laughed for a while. I love having a sister to share these simple, yet ridiculous moments with.

We went to bed earlier than usual because we were docking in Puerto Rico really early and had to be well-rested for our ziplining adventure!

Day at Sea & Captain's Night - Day 3

Tuesday was a great day. Papo, Bruce, and Blaine played basketball for hours. Damaris and I watched them play for a little bit and took some pretty cool pictures of them. They continued playing while we lounged around. I was able to begin a book that I've been meaning to read for while now. It's titled The Peacegiver by James L. Ferrell. My mom had it at home and I decided to pick it up. It was a short, easy read and really insightful. I usually don't enjoy LDS fiction, but this was good. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We just hang out with everybody and ate (of course). A family favorite on the lunch menu this cruise was the chicken fingers. The chicken fingers were good, but the honey mustard that came with it was what made it the bomb. We also went to the jacuzzi and pool for a little bit. The boys obviously didn't get enough exercise playing basketball and decided to hit the gym with my uncle, Ulises.

Tuesday night was also Captain's Night. This is when all the people on the cruise dress up a little bit nicer than usual. The food is usually a little bit fancier as well. We had yummy lobster. I hadn't eaten lobster in a long time. Blaine was pretty excited and ordered 2 for himself. Personally, my favorite part of the meal every night was the appetizer. I'd always order whichever soup was available (I really like soups). If there wasn't anything on the menu that I liked one night, I'd just order 2 cups of soup. I can eat soup everyday and not get tired of it.

As a family, we always take a picture on Captain's Night. We were all planning on it but then Ulises wasn't feeling great and had to go to bed early. But we still took some professional pictures. I took one with Blaine, one with Papo and Damaris, and then one with all of us and my mom. It was a lot of fun. The thing with taking these pictures is that they always come out nice. On our first 2 cruises, my family went crazy buying all the pictures we took. Carnival is pretty sneaky. They take the pictures, print them out, display them every night, and then once you have it in your hand, how are you not going to buy it? My mom would always shoo away the random photographers asking if we wanted our pictures taken. She said that if she saw pretty pictures of her kids, it was too much of a temptation not to buy them. She's a funny lady.

After dinner, we went to one of the shows on board. It was like a musical of music through the years. I had seen it before the last time I was on the Valor. They need to update their shows! We ended up leaving early and...playing Monopoly Deal. We also went to the arcade and played some games there. Papo and Blaine would've stayed there all night if we didn't drag them out. All in all, it was a good night!

Half Moon Cay, Bahamas - Day 2

Half Moon Cay was probably the island that I was least excited to visit. I didn't know much about it, other than it being a privately owned island by Holland America. It was actually a great first port of call. It was a very small island with very little to do other than sit back and relax. We actually had to tender to the island because there was no dock. After all of the sleepless nights and action-packed days, it was nice to just hang out. It was the first time I had been to a beach in the Caribbean in a while. It felt so good. The water was perfect - not too cold and not too hot. It was crazy clear. The scenery was just beautiful. We had a view of the cay with our ship in the background the whole time. On the island, there were hammocks and lounging chairs for our use. Since the island is just used as a port of call, Carnival had it's food there as well. We didn't have to worry about buying food. Again, pretty awesome.

We just kept going back to the water, playing around with Uli and Ivan and taking pictures underwater. We also had this weird game going on where we would try to create a little "tornado" or whirlpool in the water and see how long it would last. I know. Weird. But it was fun. We laughed forever and people were just looking at us like we were crazy. And I can understand them. There were some kids with us but it was mainly 5 adults playing around. I think Papo was the creator of this game. This kid has an imagination.

I wanted to spend the whole day in the water, working on my tan. After a couple of hours, Blaine started complaining that he was getting sunburned. We bought a huge pack of sun block at Costco just for this trip - specifically for my white boy. I would help him reapply every couple of hours. Anyway, that wasn't enough and I took a nap with him under some shade. Blaine was just scared of getting a bad sunburn and being in pain the rest of the week. All of his worrying paid off. He wasn't burned at all the whole trip. I'm afraid he was pretty successful. Blaine barely tanned. He got some color on his skin, but not enough to last till our next date with the sun.

Bon Voyage! - Day 1

We woke up early, packed on bags in several cars, and headed to the Port of Miami. The level of excitement was pretty high. Boarding the ship was a lot faster than I remember. We did wait in several lines - security, ticketing, security again - but it wasn't that bad. Once we had our boarding passes, we took this family picture before boarding the Carnival Valor. 

Boarding took about half the day. Once on the ship, we had go through a little safety drill. The last couple cruises that I've been on required you to have a lifejacket on during the whole thing. I guess it's been a while and we didn't have to do it this time! As soon as we were done, we headed straight to the Lido Deck for some food. On cruises, eating is what we do. Previously, I had never cared much for the food on cruises. But now that I cook my own food and wash dishes, I loved the idea of all this food being effortlessly available to me. It was awesome. 

So, I was really excited to get to our rooms. I paid to have our room decorated for our 6 months of being married anniversary. I also had Damaris' room decorated saying "congrats." Damaris gets to her room and is surprised. Success. I have Blaine open the door to our room and...there's nothing there. To him, it was perfectly normal. To me, it was horrible. I had planned this months in advance. I started crying and he had no idea what was going on. I finally told him and we called Guest Services to see what happened. The shipment of the "Happy Anniversary" decorations never came in. Our money was refunded but I was still disappointed. After several days of talking to Guest Services, Blaine was able to get me a free Carvnial scrapbook with a kit. So I guess it all worked out in the end...

Another bad thing that happened - one of my sisters' bags never made it to the room. This bag had almost all of Bruce's clothes and almost all of my sisters' shoes. The thing is that I hadn't brought many shoes since we have the same shoe size. I was planning on sharing with her. That wasn't really the problem. The worst part was that Bruce didn't have clothes and they had a lot of stuff worth quite a bit of money in that bag. This was definitely stressful, but we calmed down and hoped it would show up soon. 

The rest of the first day was pretty relaxing. All of us took naps at one point or another to recuperate from the previous night's lack of sleep. We took some time to explore the ship before going up for dinner. Again, the food was great. Now, the most anticipated moment of the cruise for many of us was the famous warm chocolate cake. We had this every single night. It is so good. A good friend of mine gave me a recipe for it that's perfect, but again, not having to do it myself was great. After dinner, we played the controversial game of Monopoly Deal till we were too tired to play. We headed to bed, knowing that we needed to save our energy for our day at Half Moon Cay, Bahamas. 

Damaris Graduates!

The Saturday that we were in Miami, my big sister and best friend graduated! Damaris graduated from Florida International University with a degree in accounting. She already works as an auditor but this is a big step in her academic career. As I've probably mentioned earlier, Damaris has always been into numbers. She has always known what it was that she was going to do with her life. I admire that a lot, especially since I've changed my major several times.

Isn't she pretty? 

The graduation ceremony was really nice. It went by much faster than I thought. When Damaris walked across the stage, our family clapped and screamed like a bunch of crazies. I'm really happy that she has accomplished this part of her education. She will be studying for her CPA license in a couple of months and then going back to school for her MAc. Yeah, she's pretty smart. 

As soon as the ceremony was over, we rushed to find Damaris in the sea of new graduates. It was a rainy day and we had to take pictures really fast before we were soaked. 

Once we took pictures, we met family and friends at P.F. Chang's for a celebratory dinner. Bruce's parents, Abuelo, Tia, Ulises and the kids, Mami, Papo, the Hoffmann's and Kristin were all there. There was a ton of good food and laughter. Damaris received several gifts - most of them were accessories for her new SLR camera. We had a great time. We are all very proud of Damaris and are excited for what the future has in store for her! 

Afterwards, Jonathan, Kim and Kris came over Damaris' house to hang out. We didn't do anything in particular other than talk. It was so nice to spend some time with our good, lifelong friends. They're more like family. They're there for every event - big or small - regardless of the distance between us. I miss them all the time! 

That night, we barely slept. Once our friends left, we started making final preparations for the cruise. We were so busy and excited that it was hard to sleep at all!

Miami 2011

After much anticipation, the day finally arrived and we were in Miami. We were greeted at the airport by  most of my family with the traditional, unhealthy amount of Cuban bakery goods. We had croquetas de jamon, pastelitos de queso, guayaba y carne, Goya Maria cookies, sponge rusk (baked pound cake), papa rellenas, rollitos de queso, among other seriously heavenly treats. My mom also surprised me with a tostonera (to make tostones) and a flanera (to make flans)!

My little brother, Papo, drove us to Tia's house in his new car. I can't believe he's 16 already. It felt so weird having my little brother driving me around. But, I have to say, he's a pretty good driver! I felt safer than I thought :) Once at Tia's, Georgina (which is my aunt's MIL and like a grandmother to me) had a Cuban feast prepared. I was already stuffed but there was no way that I was going to deny yuca, carne con papas, arroz con frijoles negros, tres leches and arroz con leche. Blaine loves Georgina's yuca so she makes it for him every time we visit. Needless to say, the food was amazing. Seriously, there was nothing more that I wanted to do. Being with my family and eating the food I love most is all I ever want - literally. 

The next day, Blaine and I woke up early to visit the wonderful DMV. What I'm about to say is pretty ridiculous but oh well. I've gotten my name changed on everything except for my license. I waited till our trip to Miami so that I could change my name and keep my Florida license. It's pretty immature of me to not want a Utah license, but that's the way it is. So we went to the DMV and arrived 15 minutes earlier to avoid any crazy lines or misunderstandings. I brought every document that you could think of. But my dreams of keeping a Florida license were crushed. The very kind lady at the front desk (right...) told me that I needed 2 pieces of mail with my address and all that good stuff. So I went to my mom's house and searched for all mail that I still receive there. Unfortunately, she threw all of that away just a week before I arrived. My license expires in February and I'm still trying to devise a plan (or another trip :]) to avoid getting a Utah license... I'll keep you guys posted with that. 

So since I was extremely sad, we went to the little Cuban bakery right by my house. I had a senorita (probably my favorite Cuban dessert ever). One of my favorite things that happens every time we visit is people looking at Blaine like an alien. Let me explain... 1. No joke, there are very few white people in Miami, more specifically Hialeah (where I'm from). There are few that may fool you with their blonde hair and blue eyes... but they're Cuban. So Blaine stands out. 2. When Blaine speaks Spanish, people stare at him even more. It's like they're confused. His Spanish is perfectly fine. They just can't believe that this white guy who really is white and not a white-looking Cuban, is speaking Spanish to them. It's pretty hilarious. So this happened when we were ordering some more deliciousness that morning. The lady, who just arrived from Cuba no more than 3 years ago, kept looking at me when she was speaking to Blaine, as if I needed to confirm that he understood what she was saying. Anyway, I really enjoy seeing Blaine interact and talk so confidently in these situations. 

Later on that day, we went to Dolphin Mall. Dolphin Mall isn't the greatest mall in Miami, but it's one of the biggest with the most selection and best prices. We were there for hours. I walk University Mall in less than 20 minutes :( My frustration is legit. Anyway, while we were there we went to Marshalls. We were looking around for some clothes and I came across the coolest thing ever. Yes, the coolest thing ever...all of my favorite children's and baby books in SPANISH. I wanted to buy them all, right there and then. Goodnight Moon was Buenas noche luna. The Very Hungry Caterpillar was La oruga muy hambrienta. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? was Oso pardo, oso pardo, que ves ahi? My favorite had to be all of Sandra Boynton's books. They were so so cute and I was learning some Spanish while reading them. My aunt noticed my excitement and offered to buy them and give them to me when I had kids. If I lived in a world without Amazon, I would've said yes. I'll just have to wait till the babies come... 

When we were done shopping, Damaris and Bruce treated us to some really good Colombian food. I had what I always had, una arepa de choclo. I also shared the picaditos that Damaris ordered. It was all so good. One of the things that I miss most about Miami are the crazy number of little-hole-in-the-wall restaurants that have cuisine from all over the place (I assure you it's not just Hispanic food). If you think it, they have it. It's a foodie's heaven. 

Another thing that I miss is the amount of music you hear in Miami. You walk into any store, restaurant, anywhere and you hear music playing - good music, loud music. I also miss not having any radio station where I can just tune in and listen to salsa. In Miami, there are too many to name. This may sound silly but music and dance have always played a big role in my life. My fondest memories growing up were when my family would just randomly turn on the radio and we'd dance for hours. My grandfather would get on his bongos or tamboras and all of us take turns playing different instruments while others danced. It's a very Hispanic thing. Here, I associate dancing with two extremes - the college party town experience, where dancing is just a moving side-to-side thing where people go to hook up, or the crazy ballroom dancing that goes on here at BYU. Yeah...

Anyway, we had an extremely short stay in Miami. We were there for 4 days. I didn't eat fritanga, which is yummy Nicaraguan food. I didn't have the churros that they sell on 49 street for $1.00. I didn't go to South Beach or Miami Beach or Hollywood Beach. I didn't eat at Pincho Man. I didn't go to my favorite mall, Aventura Mall. Every time we visit Florida, we make a trip to Orlando/Disney/Universal. We didn't this time, which was a bummer. I haven't been to Disney in a year! That hasn't happened ever! But the best part of Orlando came to us - the Hoffmann's and Kristin visited us! I didn't get to see any of my high school friends or church friends, except for my lifelong best friend, Daniela. But that reunion was way, way too short. It was amazing to see her though. I miss her a lot! Every time we get together, it's like if we never stopped being friends. I love Daniela a lot and our friendship deserves it's own post...

We had a great time in Miami, but we had a blast on our family cruise to the Eastern Carribean! More posts to come! 

Ivan Turns 6

My family is really small. My extended family is basically like my nuclear family. In total, we are 12 (that's including Blaine & Bruce). So every birthday or event is a big one.

Ivan is the baby of the family. Six years ago today, he was born! I can't believe that much time has passed. Being away makes it even harder to believe how much he's grown. Every time I see him, he is much taller, more mature, and is speaking better. Today I was pretty homesick knowing that I would be missing out on another birthday, again. Thanks to technology, I was able to FaceTime and sing "Happy Birthday" to this little man of mine. Ivan is an extremely sweet, smart, funny, grateful, and charismatic kid. I'm so happy that he's a part of my family. Although he's my cousin, I see him more as a nephew.

Since last year, he has been more aware of how awesome birthdays are. It really hit him that it was his special day. Now he's into party planning. Months before his birthday, he tells his mom what theme he wants his birthday party to be. Last year, he had an amazing pirate-themed party which I was actually able to attend. This year he decided he wanted a Super Hero Squad party. The party isn't until the end of September, but it's going to be pretty cute. I think it's so funny that he's into this kind of stuff. He gets so excited talking about his party.

Although I'm not there to celebrate it with him, I just wanted to share a little bit about Ivan.

- He loves super heros, specifically Iron Man.
- His favorite color is blue (& sometimes red).
- He loves Disney World.
- He loves movies and quotes them all the time.
- He loves to dance and listen to music on his iPod.
- He's obsessed with Blaine and is slightly machista. In his world, boys rule and girls drool.
- He's a little bit different from the rest of the fam. His older brother is very Cuban, as are his parents. This little guy is definitely more Americanized - or as we say, gringo. He says phrases that are unheard of in Miami. It's pretty funny.
- He loves to snuggle and give kisses.
- He calls me Pati.
- We call him "yuyo."
- He loves being the center of attention.
- He loves playing baseball.
- He loves his family very much.

Happy birthday to the cutest six year-old out there!