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! :)

well, that was quick...

The weekend that is...it flew by! I'm sitting here watching "Pam Am", I love that show! I missed the new show "Once Upon a Time" which started tonight. I'll have to watch it on Hulu! ..... So I was just thinking....Halloween is only a week away! And Thanksgiving is only a month away!Craziness!!

On Friday night Diego and I drove up to Palmdale ( about a 2 hour drive from LA)...D had a class downtown and then went over to his parent's house. He was wanting to leave his truck there because it needs some work, so I eventually drove my car over to pick him up. I got there around 7 or 8ish. D felt like going for a drive and I had been wanting to get out of the city for awhile now, so we just started driving. D used to go up to Palmdale with his dad when he was younger and wanted to take the back way over there.  We drove through the Angeles Forest which took us through these winding roads and up a mountain. There was an amazing view though! Even better than the view at Mt. Baldy in Azusa. We pulled over at a bunch of different turnouts and the view of the stars was absolutely amazing! I saw the little dipper and we both saw shooting stars. I've seen a bunch of falling stars, but had never seen an actual shooting star before. It was pretty cool!

Palmdale was right in the midst of the mountains, it was literally surrounded by mountains, but was like a dessert with shrubs etc. As we were driving, we saw a coyote (w/ a rabbit in his mouth) run across the road right in front of us. So yeah, it was a lot of fun! It was nice to just drive around and see some different scenery! It was a long night though, we didn't get home until 2:30 am or so...haha. So we definitely slept in on Saturday! Some pictures from Friday night:

We were starving so we stopped to eat in La Canada...

Our burritos....

yuuum! The corn salsa is so delicious!

I really liked the decor

So Diego and I are thinking about taking up a new hobby: gold prospecting! It's actually becoming a lot more popular around here...there are supposedly lots of different spots go gold panning and I'm really hoping that we can go try our hand at it some weekend! We spent Saturday morning looking up information on the whole process!

On Saturday, we went over to D's fam's house in the afternoon. Ate some sopes for lunch. Crystal and chicho were wanting to make some banana pudding, so Alicia and I went with them to the store to stock up on supplies. Afterwards, we went to the Halloween Festival @ Pierce College. They had a bunch of different activities: food, pumpkins for sale, live music, arts and crafts, corn maze, haunted house, haunted trail, etc.

The corn maze was a bit disappointing because it was pretty small (5 acres i think) and it wasn't overly dark. Some of the others wanted to go to the haunted maze and didn't care for the adventure maze so that kinda sucked. We finally split in to two groups. We went through the adventure corn maze and then Alicia, Jessie, Berenice, and Jacob went through the haunted trail.

Here are a few photos from Saturday:

Pomgrenate!

it's such a strange fruit!

Edgar showing off the fondant flowers that he and rachel made!

ribbons that they made

Crystal and Chicho were getting ready to make banana pudding, which turned out wonderfully by they way!!!

Getting to the Halloween Festival...We rode with Larry and Alicia...

Alicia!

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We rode a wagon shuttle from the parkign to the actual festival...

In line for tickets...

Pumpkins for sale...they were way too expensive though. An average carving pumpkin was about 12 or 13 dollars.

Arguing about which activity we should go to..

haha

the corn maze!

the trail was really uneven...

We had a little map with different checkpoints

Checkpoint!

We finished the maze!

the scary haunted trail...had a super long line...

Walking over to the food stands..

yum!

chillaxin...

Posing by the pumpkins

Jacob and Berenice...

Moi!

Our tractor ride...

Diego with his boss and her husband...they were dressed up for a halloween party. We saw them when we got home Saturday night....At first we didnt know who it was but finally figured it out. haha...

Well, I think I'm going to head to bed. I'll try to write more tomorrow or Tuesday...night all!