And the Heat in North Texas Contines...

at an all record high and streak. Today, marks the 31st day of 100+ degree days here in North Texas.

I love me my summer temperatures but even I have to admit this is getting a little bit out of control...no joke.

I have been seeing trees that are starting to look like autumn has fallen upon them in the middle of summer, except I know that unfortunately they are not signaling the turn of a new season and cooler temperatures but are instead reflecting what this heat has done to them which is toast them to it's core. I am not much into plants and trees and all but it sure is sad to see what the scarcity of water around here is doing.

These are our temperatures for the remainder of the week.

Please pray that we get some rain sent our way.

South Padre Island 2011!!!

We headed out to the beach on Sunday for a couple of hours to catch some sun. The water was very cold at first but with the sun, we quickly warmed up.

Sydney most importantly had a blast. My little kiddo is constantly saying she wants to go to the beach and though half the time she associates that with going to the pool swimming, it was wonderful to see her enjoying herself in the sand, sun and water.

Here are some pictures of our stay:

Such a serene view!

Dathan managed to get stuck digging himself a whole and Erica came to his rescue.

Sydney looks so grown up in this picture! Love you mammas!

Sun-bathing.

My little angel & me.

July 2011 RGV Trip.

Back in November when we visited my dad in Donna for Thanksgiving, we were informed that my cousin Briceidy would be contracting nuptuals in the summer.

We planned to use this occassion for another trip to go down to the valley, visit with my dad and spend time with our relatives.

Liz, Andy, Rebecca, CJ, Sydney & I packed ourselves into Liz's truck for what would become an eventful ride down south. Two hours into our trip, after having froze nearly to the point of a popsicle (no joke) the first part of the trip, all of a sudden the air conditioner went from being super cold to feeling sort of muggy.

After several minutes of trying to mess with the air in hopes it would start working again, we gave up until our next stop at an Auto Zone where we determined (for real this time) that the remainder of the trip would be traveled under the warm sunny conditions of mother nature in Texas. Andy put in a whole can of freon only to watch it quickly drain out of the compressor.

Luckily God was on our side as we had a pretty cool ride all the way to Donna.

This is Sydney & CJ enjoying the ride to Donna with their hair flapping in the wind. :)

We arrived in Donna around 9:30 or so and finally called it a night. On Friday, we literally spent all day with my dad at his house - relaxing, which was nice.

Then Saturday came along. They day quickly flew and it was time to get dressed for Briceidy and her new hubby-to-be, Raul's wedding. The ceremony was very beautiful. Briceidy was of course radiant. As the pastor officiating the ceremony made mention - it is refreshing to see couples now a days make the formal commitment before God and friends & family to remain true to their spouse, when a lot of us for distinctive reasons, choose not to. My wish for the couple is many years filled with countless blesssing and lots of love.

Mr. & Mrs. Raul Mendoza!

The reception was just as beautiful and fun. We had a great time visiting with lots of relatives from Mexico and the valley that we had not seen in a while. I was able to capture lots of memorable pictures.

Here are a few of my favorites:

These are my four cousins (L-R): Daisy, Briceidy, Melissa, Nallely.

My beautiful family.

Mi tio Gerardo & mi tia Elisa with the girls.

My grandma Aurelia with 21 of her grandchildren and missing if I am not mistaken...7 more. What a blessing.

I Don't Have Time.....

A long time ago there existed this enormous apple tree. A small boy loved that tree so, and everyday he would go and play around the tree.

The little boy would climb the tree branches all the way to its highest point; he would eat his apples and would even take a nap under its shade. The little boy loved the tree and the tree loved the little boy.

As the time passed, the little boy grew up and never returned to play around the enormous tree. One day the little boy, now a young man, returned to the tree and heard the tree tell him very sad, “Have you come to play with me?”…but the young man responded, “I am no longer the little boy that used to play around enormous trees” what I want know are toys and I need money to buy them.

“I am sorry, said the tree, but I have no money...my suggestion though is that you take some of my apples and go sell them, this way you will get the money you want to buy the toys you’d like,” and the young man felt very happy. He took all the apples from the tree and got a lot of money and once again the tree was happy.

But the young man never returned after getting his money and the tree once again got very sad.

A time later, the young man returned and the tree got real happy once again and asked him, “Have you come to play with me?”… “I don’t have time to play, I must work to support my family, I need a house to live with my wife and kids, can you help me?... “I am sorry, said the tree, I don’t have a house, but…you can cut my branches and build a house.”

The young man cut the tree branches and this made the tree happy once again, but the young man never again returned…from that point on, the tree got very sad and lonely.

On a warm sunny day, the young man, now a grown man, returned to the apple tree and the tree was ecstatic. “Have you come to play with me?”… asked once again the apple tree.

The man answered: “I am sad and becoming old, I want a boat to navigate around and rest, can you give me one?”…the tree answered: “Use my trunk so that you can build your boat and that way you can navigate where you’d like and be happy.” The man cut the tree’s trunk and built his boat, then he left to go navigate for a long time.

Finally, after a long time had passed, the man returned and the tree told him, “I am very sorry, but I have nothing more to give to you, not even my apples.” The man replied, “I don’t have anymore teeth to bite; nor strength to climb your branches…for now I am simply old.”

Then the tree with tears in his eyes told him, “I honestly cannot give you anything else, the only thing that is left of me are my dead roots.” The man responded, “I don’t need much anymore, only a place where I can rest, I am so tired after many years.”

“Well, the old roots of a tree are the best place to lie down and rest, come sit with me and rest,” said the tree. The man sat beside the tree and the tree with tears in his eyes smiled at the man and was filled with happiness.

This story makes me think of each one of us, the tree is like our parents, when we are children, we love them and we play with mom and dad…when we grow up, we leave them…some of us only return to them when we need them or when we are in trouble. It doesn’t matter what the circumstance is, they are always there to lend us a hand and give us all we need to make us happy once again.

You might that the young man was cruel with the tree, but it is in this very manner that we have at times treated our parents.

Remember, if you are not a father or mother, yet, pretty soon you will be. Take advantage of the time you have them with you, and don’t wait until it’s too late and you can no longer turn back time.

Exodus 20:12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God has given you.”

Sizzling Summer!

We are under a heat advisory day for the 5th time in a row this week and contrary to what the meteorologist believed that it would be lifted by yesterday evening, it looks like it has been exended into the weekend.

Coming from someone like myself who loves the summer and it's very warm and sunny days, the month of July has really been extremely hot with record breaking temperatures. The only place that anyone wants to be in at the moment is the nearest pool to cool off.

I know that if I read this a couple of months from now when it's unbearably cold for me, I will wish with all my might that it was warm again, so I will not complain. Just to document, here is the forecast for the next few days.

Anthropology 2302!!!!

I finally got a response from my professor late Friday afternoon telling me that I got a 95 on my webpage. I was so relieved, I don't know what happened to the first like 20 emails I sent him but I was glad he finally got one of them.

He advised for me to check the campus website later on that day for final grades and I did and this is what I found. Happy times!!!!

I am officially done with school until August 29th when the Fall semester begins. So looking forward to the break. :)

Life is so busy.....

sometimes I just don't know how I manage to keep up with it. Here lately it seems I have had so much going on with school, work and life in general. At the current moment, I am stressing out because though I thought I had finished with a killer Summer I class (Anthropology), it seems that my last and most important assignment worth 20% of my grade was not received by my professor. I am worried that I will be docked for this and get a zero and have no chance at getting an "A" like I worked hard for all month long. I guess I will have to wait and see.

On another note, last Thursday, a week ago today, Frank & I went to go see one of our favorite groups, MANA at the American Airlines Center. The concert was fantastic. I had a really good time and enjoyed the music like no other.

Also for Frank's 30th birthday, a couple of weeks ago, I managed to pull off succesfully a surprise dinner for him. I must say all the planning and hard work paid off - he was truly surprised when he showed up at Liz's house like he normally does on Wednesday evenings expecting to spend no more than 5 minutes getting Sydney and going back home. Can you believe we didn't leave that night until 1:30? :)

I am seriously going to try and be better at this posting stuff on my blog. I find that like cleaning, it helps relax my nerves. Until soon.

Mr. & Mrs. Erik Martinez!

Who would've thought that this day would finally come that I would see my niece Ruth become a married woman? Well, today was that day.

Erik & Ruth became a married couple through Justice of the Peace Gerry Cooper in Garland, TX at approximately 2:45 p.m.

It almost seems like yesterday when Erica & I (well, maybe more me than her) were playing cruel jokes on Ruth or when I beat her to the purchase of that clown she wanted from the neighbor's garage sale for $.25.

Though I still see her as that little kid, she is all grown up now.

Just want to say that I wish you the best. May God bless your marriage.

Last Day of Tutoring at Northlake Elementary!

Today I wrapped up my third year of tutoring at Northlake Elementary. My 4th grade student this year is named Jose Medlin.

He moved to the United States this past summer from Mexico. When I first met Jose in November, he was very shy and quiet but I could see that he was a very intelligent kid.

It blew me by surprise as well to see what manners he had. He is a very respectful young boy. Every Tuesday, I would get him from class and we would go to the library and sit there and work on his assignments from 11:00 - 11:45. Unlike other years, I only had him to tutor and not two different students.

Though it seems like only a few weeks have gone by, today wrapped up 5 monts since we first started tutoring. We never got to practice his English all that much but from his motivation and knowledge, I know that Jose will go very far.

I know he will never read this blog, but I just want to say thank you Jose for making my tutoring experience that much more fun this year. You were a lot of fun to learn with.

Insanity Fit Test!

I began doing Insanity 15 days ago. The very first day I had to do a Fit Test. This basically consists of 8 different workouts and the goal is to do as many sets of each in 1 minute.

The whole Insanity Program lasts 60 days and every 15 days you are instructed to do the Fit Test. The goal here is to hopefully see some major improvement in the amount of reps you can do as you have done Insanity more.

Here are my stats to report as of now: (03-28-11 - 04-11-11)

Exercise Fit Test 1 (Day 1) Fit Test 2 (Day 15)

Switch Kicks 45 48 (+3)
Power Jacks 36 45 (+9)
Power Knees 60 75 (+15)
Power Jumps 30 32 (+2)
Globe Jumps 6 12 (+6)
Suicide Jumps 13 15 (+2)
Push-Up Jacks 14 22 (+8)
Low Plank Oblique 22 19 (-3)

Overall I think I did pretty fantastic. I am very impressed with myself and how I have found the motivation to stick with this even when it has been so hard at times because of everything else I have going on. Not to mention, it is of course much easier to just sit down and start muching on junk food and watch t.v. instead of making the time to work out, even with a little bit of sacrifice.

I know I have the willpower to scrape away little by little at my goal.

Until next time.

Especially Needed Easter Egg Hunt & More Bluebonnets!

Wow!!! What another great and acomplished week I've had. I survived my second week of Insanity with tonight being especially hardest since I did two workouts with the second being abs. I am inching little by little to my goal. I realize it might take more than 60 days to get this down, but if I keep up the pace I have now, I will eventually get it.

On another note, Frank, Sydney & I went out to The Fields at Craig Ranch in McKinney for another Easter egg hunt that I had signed up Sydney for. It took us a little bit to locate the park but we finally found it.

......

The setup for this hunt was similar to the one we went to last week at Audubon, but the hunt was concentrated to one big field that was split up into sections. Here they also had live bunnies and several bounce houses with what looked to be the same Easter bunny strolling around taking pictures with the willing kids...of course, Sydney would have no part with Mr. Bunny.

The hunt was pretty successful. Afterwards we headed to Mesquite and had some dinner at The Jalapeno Tree. I had never been there before but Frank went last week when he was at the fishing tournament and ready liked it so we went to try it out.

On the way back home, we stopped at the bluebonnets, as I still wanted my very own pictures in them before they go away for the season. Frank took a couple of just me and then of course I had to get some with Sydney. Being that there is never a dull moment with that kid, she managed to knock me to the ground and back we went. It was pretty funny.

Now I am here catching up on my blog trying not to slack off like I did before. I really do enjoy keeping this up and though it may serve for nothing else, I hope that one day it will be a good way to look back at some great memories I've developed along the way.

Until the next post....

Insanity & Fun Filled Weekend!

I am proud to say that I survived the first week of Insanity by Beach Body. As the name implies, these workout videos are insane...they are hardcore and very challenging.

Though I did not completely believe that I would be able to do this thing for a whole week after the first workout, I am so glad I was able to stick with it...I am very proud of myself.

Here is a breakdown of the workouts I did this past week:

Monday: Dig Deeper & Fit Test
Tuesday: Plyometric Cardio Circuit
Wednesday: Cardio Power & Resistance
Thursday: Cardio Recovery
Friday: Pure Cardio
Saturday: Plyometric Cardio Circuit.
Sunday: No workout...free day!!!!

This entire exercise program is scheduled for 60 days. I hope to be able to reveal to myself how tough I am by the time this is done and over with.

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On another note, Sydney & I went out to the 2011 Special Needs Easter Egg Hunt at the Jerry Carter Softball complex. The days activities were scheduled from 1:00-4:00 with the easter egg hunt beginning at 2:30. We arrived and signed in and got our hot dog and drink. Sydney didn't have to do much with food, as her greatest motivation was the assortment of bounce houses that had been set up.

I finally let her go on one and was surpised at how well she did without much assistance. You see, the bounce house was set up somewhat like a obstacle course, and the very first thing she had to do was climb a tube looking thing.

The time finally arrived and we headed toward the field. You should have seen the field...it was covered in eggs. Sydney was very excited. We didn't have to use out extra bag as she was able to fit all of them in her basket. I'm lucky she gathered what she did...all she kept doing was saying, "mama, egg," acknowleding they were there and walking right past them.

Though there was quite a bit of kids, the hunt lasted a good 10 minutes. Afterwards, I got some pictures of Syndey's stash. Speaking of pictures, today was also the day I took some time to head out to the random fields of bluebonnets and capture some awesome pictures of Sydney and the bluebonnests. Considering the long day we had, Sydney did really great in being a good sport to her "momma," that is picture crazy.

Well, that is it for now. I will continue to post ocassionally random occurrences and everyonce in a while hope to put up something showing how much progress i have made.

Until the next post.....

The Tyler Azalea 10K

What a morning this has been. I just got back from Tyler from running in my second ever 10K. I am physically exhausted but oddly enough, I have a surge of energy from God knows where.

We arrived at Roseland Plantation last night around 8 p.m. and looked around a little bit. By 9:30 it was lights out as we were getting up at 5:45 to head towards Berger Park which is where the race would be at.

We didn't have such a difficult time getting the kids up and found the park pretty easily.

We got our bibs and before we knew it, it was time for the kids to do the 50 yard dash. Sydney, being the little runner she is, was loving all the attention. I do believe she had a great time. She even got a medal (which we didn't), for all her hard work.

8 o'clock quickly rolled around and it was time for Erica & I to take our places to begin our race which was exactly 6.2 miles. The weather was absolutely gorgeous...nothing compared to last year's race where it was super hot.

If you will recall from my last post, my left ankle was not doing so great as I injured it while doing Zumba yesterday morning. Liz gave me some Ibuprofen gel to put on it last night and it definitely helped a lot this morning.

I am proud to say even with a bad ankle and all, I was able to run close to 4.5 miles without stopping. The course was a little bit interesting versus the one from last year. I don't know if the race people were trying to play with us, but if I figured it out correctly, they only had mile markers for every two miles. That was a bit frusterating as I didn't even notice the first mile one and had no clue how I was doing.

Anyhow, I did make note of the 4 mile one and let me tell you right after the marker for that one we went up this hill on Roberson Lane that lasted 4 blocks (this I confirmed with the race peeps)....that hill just about did me in. It was so hard....I finally had to give in and walk a little...by then I was getting chills, seeing stars and my ankle was starting to bother me a whole lot.

When I thought it would never end, the street finally leveled out and though I did not think I was going to make it, I was able to finish in about 1:12:30 (?)....that is roughly 6 minutes better than last year's race. I was very proud of myself.

Erica did really good, too. She was just inches behind me (that is because I sped up too, because I didn't want her to beat me)..she beat last year's time by about 16 minutes....way to go Erica.

We rested for a couple of minutes and before heading back to Dallas, stopped again for a little bit to visit with Christina at Roseland. She had previously told me to make and effort to stop back and she would show us to the surprise room.

I am so glad we did. She took us to this shed looking building that has a canvass of the picture of the last supper on it. She explained to us briefly that the lady that used to own Roseland had several artists come in from Rome about 50 years ago and do a replica of that painting. She said it is painted on three different parts and it took them about 1 year to complete.

This was totally breathtaking. The picture and what it represents is just beautiful. (So glad we did stop)

After that we finally headed home and here I am doing what I promised myself I would do, and putting down my memorable event so that I will never forget this day.

Here are some of the pictures from the last two days. Hope you all enjoy.

Roseland at night.

Liz, Rebecca, Tyler & Sydney chilling outside of Roseland.

This was my bib for this years race.

Like mother like daughter - Sydney & I ready to go!


** For some reason I have been having problems for the past couple of days uploading pictures, so I am going to go ahead and just post this blog and try again later.**

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I got the official results from the race and here are my standings:

Finished race = 1:12:26:12
505 out of 660 (overall)
46 out of 56 (age group)

It's Zumba time!

I suppose if I really wanted to I could make the effort to go into one of the local rec centers or even my gym and do the Zumba classes there, but since I don't want to make the time (the very little I already have), I decided to purchase the DVD's and try it for myself at home.

I did the basic cd yesterday afternoon at home and pretty much discovered what I already knew..I have no coordination whatsoever. It doesn't help either that I have to left feet when it comes to dancing and just even the thought of doing so makes me get all tensed up.

Either way, I tried my best and for the most part did get most of the moves down. I woke up this morning all energized and decided I would attempt Zumba again and though the instruction book says to do the basic dvd again on the second day, I decided I would jump into the next cd which is a 20 minute workout. I am sure that maybe when I get to the third cd, I will regret not doing the first cd with the moves but that is okay.

I managed to survive the 20 minute workout and actually broke a sweat and felt really refreshed afterwards, the only bad part is that I think I might have twisted my left ankle. I hope it's not too bad as I am actually headed out this afternoon to Tyler for the Tyler Azalea 10K in the morning.

The place where the race will be held at is somewhat like an arboretum...there are a ton of flowers, hence the name of the race Azalea.



Isn't this place just absolutely gorgeous?!?

Well, it is but the place we will be staying for the night so we don't have to wake up at the crack of dawn and drive to Tyler, is by far prettier. A million thanks to Christina, Jennifer and her dad for allowing us to stay the night at their breath-taking bed and breakfast.

We will be leaving shortly and I hope my next post is detailing the awesomeness of tomorrow's 10K...my 2nd in case you are keeping track.



Roseland Plantation (Ben Wheeler, TX)

I'm back!!!!!

Well, let me clarify, I was never really gone, because I do have posts ready to be uploaded from all the stuff that has been happening for the past year, but since I figured I am only going to get more behind if I never start over again, I decided I'll take my time in posting the old stuff (no one really might care about that except me anyways), and try to be better from here on out in posting the current happenings.

I might change up the way I utilize this post from what I had been doing in the past so just hold on for the ride. For the few people reading this, you all know that I write as much as I can talk and though I don't consider myself to be a comedian, I must say that some of the stuff I can write can be quite entertaining. Not to mention that my life is pretty hilarious, especially with Sydney poo around.

I recently watched the movie Julie & Julia (yes, I know that movie is from 2009) and totally loved it. Julie, a blogger, and very interesting lady, decides to take on the feat of cooking all the recipes of her favorite cook, Julia Childs, all the while blogging about it. Low and behold without expecting it, she acquires a lot of followers to her blog and they make the 365 blogging/cooking experience all the more worthwhile.



Now let me CLARIFY....I do not have any intentions of attempting to cook 200+ recipes from anyone's book much less blogging about my experiences, which might include burning a lot of things and cooking a bunch of meals with no taste and many which I would probably not eat myself anyway. All I want to do is document the everyday happenings in my little part of the world - as insignificant as they may be.

I have discovered that documenting everything is the only way to preserve things. I do that now by taking pictures, but sometimes even a picture needs a little description to go along with it to make it more memorable.

With that said, I invite you all (whomever you are) to embark in this journey into my wonderful, blessed life. I hope not to put too many breaks in between and if I do, please feel free to give me a nudge. Please feel free to nudge me as well if I begin to bore you all.

For now, I leave you with a picture of the news story I woke up to on the 5 o'clock morning news this morning. I definitely would never like to be stuck in this position, EVER, not in the cab of that truck, much less in the car that was pinned under it, which you could barely see. (Side note: glad to report that the cab driver as well as the two passengers in the car are all okay and walked away with minor scratches.)



3 rescued after Fort Worth crash leaves semi dangling off I-20 ramp and car pinned under tanker

2010 Snowmaggedon!!!!

We had so much snow come down in the last couple of days, it's been unbelievable. Texas has not seen this much snow in ages!

Of course, we took advantage of it to get out in it and play.













This was my view from the window in my office.







My very own & first ever snow angel!

1st Ever Father-Daughter Valentine Dance!

Luna Elementary was having their Father-Daughter Valentine Dance and Frank took Sydney to her first ever, daddy-daughter dance.

They both looked super cute. Frank said that Sydney was more interested in dancing all by herself than with daddy but that she had a really good time, which is what ultimately matters.