Feliz Cumpleanos!

Just checking in before a new work week begins...well, i'm not sure how my week will go actually...I don't know how much work I'll be doing yet. I do know that tomorrow will be the first part of my orientation. I go in at 11 to meet with Cristina for a couple hours. I also have an appt at 9:15 to get the results of my TB test.

The weekends sure do fly by quickly that's for sure! We had a fairly busy weekend. Yesterday was my FIL's bday so we had a family get together over at their house. We had wanted to have a picnic/cookout at the park, but I guess he isn't a big fan of the park...We actually got up at 3 am Sat morning to get a fish from the market on 22nd street. The market is only open from 3-6am on Saturdays and they sell fresh fish at really good prices. I guess a lot of the local restaurants go down there to stock up. We had been talking about going there for a few weeks now and then finally decided to go this weekend to get the fish for the party. They had tons of different kinds of fish, but Diego wanted to get a red snapper because it's a fish that his dad and Larry had had once before and couldn't quite talking about it.

@ 3:30 am....the place was actually really busy!

They had tons of different fish...

Diego picking out the fish....

We had a very broken night of sleep...On Saturday we headed over to D's parent's house to get everything ready for the party. D and I cleaned the grill and set up the tables. They actually only had one table so we had to make a makeshift table out of a board and some cupboards. Diego came up with an idea of using a pallet on the forklift for a food table. His mom had some material that we used as tableclothes. We had bought some pumpkins to carve, so we put those on the tables as decorations. Some leaves from a nearby tree were falling on the table and I came up with the idea of putting a bunch of leaves underneath the pumpkins to add more color. It worked! So yeah, we had to get kind of creative...as you can see there are tons of pallets etc. around their backyard because they run their produce business from the location. So it's more of a workplace really and not a very relaxing space....which is why we had wanted to go to a park, but oh well...we made it work.

Table with the pumpkins...

Plus the leaves! See the difference?  ;)

Joel prepared the fish and took care of cooking it while I made the asparagus. Larry and Alicia went to Costco and brought back everything we needed for hamburgers and hot dogs. Berenice brought a birthday cake and we were all set. Finally, by 4 or so everything was ready and everyone was there.

D and I found asparagus on sale for $1 a bunch so we bought a bunch for the party.

Alicia and Joel working on the hamburgers

I'm not sure what Joel was doing here..trying to hid from the camera maybe?

Cooking the fish...

Cleaning the chairs...they were FILTHY!

Another shot of the table...

Yes, I was proud of those decorations! :P

Our forklift table...I felt like such a redneck using this table :P

Bigshow!

Diego, Joel, and Larry gathering around the fish...

It looked quite tasty...

D and his mom

Cooking up some onions and peppers

The party has officially begun...

Food table...

The burgers...

Yummy asparagus!

Diego making his burger...

Larry and Edgar chillaxin...

Berenice and Joel...the grillmasters!

Crystal has Chicho in another choke hold...haha

Rachel!

Irma

Bigshow was really wanting some of the delicious food,but he was being a good boy and staying away from the table...

One of the only pics of me....the photographer never gets any face time :P

The Birthday cake!

Trying to get some pictures of the birthday boy...

He doesn't like to pose for pictures...

but I snapped a few anyways...

Berenice wanted her pic with her parents...

Rachel too...

the guys milling about...

We finally corralled everyone and got them to pose for a family photo...

So yeah, that was my Saturday...it was a pretty hectic day. We talked about carving pumpkins yesterday, but decided to wait until today.

Well, I have much more to write and a lot more pictures to share, but I'll save that for later. Hopefully I'll have time to write an entry tomorrow! I'm gonna head to bed now. Hope everyone has a Happy Monday! :)