What Luis Has Been Doing

Now that Luis is out of school for the summer, you're probably wondering what he's been up to.  Let me take you into the secret life of Luis.

The other day, Luis was playing with our camera and found our banquet pictures.  I don't know where they disappeared to or how they came back, but just so you know, I am NOT crazy.  I'm thinking Luis rigged the camera to get back at me.  He claims I hide his things and then "find them" for him when he can't just so he'll remember how much he needs me.  For the record, this is absolutely not true.

 Remember those colored pencils I gave Luis two Christmases ago?  He finally opened them up to work on his tiger picture.

For our hike, Luis busted out his dragon-painted walking stick he made last Halloween.  It was very helpful when we had to ford some rivers.

Lu also helped me put together this "noodle game" tutorial.  Some of you have been asking me how to play the "noodle game."  Well, prepare to be enlightened.

STEP ONE
Buy some noodles from the local dollar store.


STEP TWO
Cut apart noodles using a sharp knife or box cutter.

Cut them about 2 inches long...

 ...until you have a buch.

STEP THREE
Learn the game by viewing one of the videos below.

Beginner Version

Advanced Version

You may be wondering, "Was that a tent I saw in their living room?"  Yes it was.  More on that excitement in a later post.

And that is some of what Luis has been doing.

Strawberry Festival

Luis is officially, finally, blessidly finished with his first year of Pharmacy School!  It's pretty much the best thing that's ever happened to me...except my new shoes...and toothpaste.

To celebrate, we headed off to Oxnard for their annual Strawberry Festival.  We parked at the local outlets to join a 1/2 mile line waiting for the shuttles (aka school buses) to take us to the event.  It sure beat paying $10 for parking. 

By the way Amber, I realize now that we were both riding school buses the same day!  How "twinnie!"

As a side note, I have found that wherever I am, my head is already trying to put the events in a blog.  As a result, I take way too many useless pictures...like the one below of Luis and I sitting on said school bus.

By the time we reached the festival we were starving.  Festival food is pretty much a rip off, but you kind of buy it anyway for the experience.  I was delighted to find that in this case, our experience included strawberries on tomales, taquitos, and curly fries.  The strawberries and guacamole: excellent.  the food: not so great.

Another not-to-be-missed food experience was our funnel cake.  It was good, but for $8, I expected more than 1/8 c. of strawberry topping.  We enjoyed it nonetheless...Luis maybe enjoyed it slightly more, but he's lke that.  We realized as we were at the festival that the world was supposed to be ending that day.  When I asked Luis what he would be doing if he thought he had one day left, he replied without hesitation, "I'd be eating a Krispy Kreme donut."  Luckily, he quickly tacked on "...with you, of course."  Yeah, he BETTER spend the last day of the world with me.

Inspiration tells me that I've hit a gold mine with my new idea for a side job.  Luis, time to suit up!



There were lots of events we wanted to participate in, like a pie-eating or pie-throwing contest.  But, it didn't work out.  We mostly just had fun walking around, talking, and just being together WITHOUT worrying about school.

 Afterwards, we spontaneously headed to the local State Beach.  When we got there, the nice park lady told us that if we wanted to be on the beach, we should head to the nearby 5th street and access the beach from there.  We followed her advice and found the most empty beach I have ever seen.  It was heavenly to have the beautiful beach all to ourselves. 

By the way, for a 1st year graduation present, I bought Luis the movie, Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  It is an absolute gem!

New Shoes

My mom and sisters and I love to brag about good deals.  This is definately one I've gotta share.  Check out the price tag below.  That's right...I got a new pair of adorable shoes for $11.00 from Off-Broadway Shoes.

Jealous?

Banquet Time!

We went to Lu's "End of Year Banquet" on Saturday and took lots of fun pictures.  Sadly, they somehow disappeared when I tried uploading them to my computer.  I have no idea what happened, but when it DID happen, I cried and cried.  I do have a couple photos, so we'll get to them in a minute.

When Luis surprised me with the tickets, the first thing I asked for was a new dress.  The attire was semi-formal, and since I don't have any of those hanging around, I didn't want to be tacky.  Lu said yes, and I found a great one at Ross.  Even Luis went shopping and bought a dapper purple shirt and paisley tie.  He looked so handsome.  Do I have pictures of that?  NO:(  However, Luis suggested we should get all dressed up again and go somewhere fancy so we can sort of recreate some photos.  What a sweet husband!

On to some pictures.  Here is my adorable dress that night.

These are our souvenir shot glasses.  I'm not sure what we're going to do with them though.  Maybe we'll have some shots of lemonade or soy milk.

Luis won this bouquet by sitting in the "lucky seat."



I also have a picture of one of Lu's classmates, but I refuse to post it since I'm furious his picture was saved and not Lu's.

The girls who sat at our table were really nice and wanted Luis to take pictures of me with them.  I'm not at all tall, but compared to these cute Asian girls, I looked kind of lurpy.

After dinner, they opened a spot on the floor for dancing.  I was excited to dance until I realized 1) there would be no slow dances seeing as how most people there were without dates; 2) the kind of dancing they were doing was not exactly something I would do in public; 3) I have never hip-hop danced "with" someone.  I'm used to church-type dances where small groups form circles and create moves like "the lawn-mower" or "volleyball."  I had no moves to use with someone else (aka Luis) except the fishing pole so I felt really awkward.  So, we left with plans to go swing dancing one night.  Now THAT dancing I can do...or at least manage without too much embarrassment.

Was it Mother's Day?

I realized Saturday afternoon as Luis sat studying for his finals that I would probably not be getting anything for Mother's Day.  True, I'm not a mother, but I guess I'm greedy and expected something.  I admit, although I was a little disappointed at first, I realized that Lu does nice things for me all the time PLUS he's kind of stressed right now trying to get an education so he can provide for our family.  With that said, when Luis came to the realization that he had nothing for me the next day, he felt really bad and tried to make it up to me.

To start off, he took me for a quick lunch (on Saturday) to Sonic Drive-In, a place we've never been before.

 

Sunday morning I woke up to breakfast in bed along with a warning to not look in the kitchen.  I looked.

What had he made?  French toast.

He also spent the day doing other nice things for me such as making the bed, fixing lunch and dinner, and just talking wth me, which is what I crave most after a week of lonely hours at home. 

Here's his version of making the bed.

I love my own Mom so much and am so thankful that even though I'm far away, I can still talk to her on Mother's Day. 

Love ya MOM!

Brandi's Baby

Brandi's baby boy, Cameron, was born on April 29th.  Luis was supposed to come with me to the hospital, but ended up home teaching for 2 hours and missed his chance.  I still had my friends Jen & Maria to go with, so I wasn't too much of a grumbling wife...not TOO much at least.

Luis went over with me the next day, but for some reason I can't get those pictures to upload.  So, I uploaded this picture of a pinata, but instead of the pinata, imagine Luis...and picture him holding a little baby...and pretend he's sitting on a living room couch instead of the garage floor.  You pretty much get the picture. 

Happy Birth, Cameron!

Surprise Visit

I got a call last Thursday from my brother, Dennis, asking how the weather was in Rancho.  Seeing as how he NEVER calls me, I knew something was up.  Turns out he and his wife Julie won a trip from work that landed them in San Diego for the weekend.  On Saturday, we got to spend some time with them on Coronado Island, near San Diego.

The weather was fabulous!

 After setting up camp, the boys headed off to the water for some boogie boarding.  Too bad the water was FrEeZiNg!  The wimps almost didn't go in until a certain someone pestered them about their manhood.

Dennis was looking pretty tan compared to Luis. 

If you noticed my legs in the pictures above, you'll see I've pretty much given up on tanning.

Next, for some light amusement, we buried Dennis and Julie took out some pent-up rage.  We may need to schedule some marriage counseling.

I love that Dennis' head in just hangin' out in the background.

Next to our plot on the beach, we noticed a man tirelessly working on this sand castle.  He said it took him about 6 or 7 hours.  (Someone has a little too much time on his hands.)  The man did leave buckets all around where we could put our donations.  I just took my picture and left.

We had only planned to play at the beach and go, but then Den's work invited us to dinner.  I wasn't quite prepared, but luckily Julie helped me find an appropriate wardrobe accessory.

At the fancy shmancy restaurant Den's company took us to, Julie ordered veal.  She ended up with the whole left flank.

Halfway through dinner, Luis and I had a nice little conversation that went like this:

Luis: Did you ever think that before you met me, you would go to a nice restaurant without doing your hair or makeup?

Me: I DID do my hair.

Luis: Oh... it looks really nice, honey.  What I meant was, see how much you've changed?

Me: Are you saying that I'm letting myself go?

Luis: Um...