Surprise!

Saturday night, we threw a surprise 60th birthday party for Wil's parents - Guillermo turned sixty about a month ago and Elsa turns sixty in April. It was SO much fun...and they were SO surprised! As our excuse to get them to our house, we definitely told them that my grandpa was coming to visit and that since they hadn't met him yet, I wanted to have a family dinner so they could meet him :-) we're so sneaky!

Nicole's sister got the best photo of their surprised faces...I'll post it as soon as I get it from her!

Highlights of the night included:

The girls dancing to a song about frogs...

The boys performing a lovely little ditty on the broom guitar, salad tong microphone and real guitar...

And all of Guillermo and Elsa's kids doing impersonations of them (actually, that might have been my favorite part...I don't remember the last time I laughed that hard!).

Overall, it was a GREAT night!

Burning Hot

I was in fifth or sixth grade when I first discovered microwaves and metal don't mix. My grandma was napping and I decided I would heat up some leftovers from the night before. So, I took the metal pot out of the fridge and put it in the microwave.

There were soon small flames in my microwave, and I did not have a clue what to do. So I went running into my grandma's room to wake her up - the microwave is on fire, the microwave is on FIRE! I'm sure that's not the best way to be woken up, but what can you do? My grandma's calm response - so did you turn off the microwave? NO! I came to get you!

Ever since, I have known not to put metal in the microwave...and that if the microwave ever catches on fire, you should turn it off before you run screaming for someone to help.

Two nights ago, I was baking a cake and the batter overflowed and landed on the heating element in the oven. It smoked a little bit but didn't do anything too bad. Wil and I laughed about it. We are getting a new oven today (HOORAY!!! More about that in another post), so we decided cleaning the old one was not required.

I kind of forgot about it last night when I turned the oven on to preheat. As I was washing a dish, I turned around and there were flames in my oven...FLAMES! They weren't huge flames, but there were flames nonetheless. I think I reverted back to my 11 year old self. I had NO IDEA what to do...so I turned off the oven (thank you for that lesson, Grandma!) and started yelling at Wil who was in the bathroom - the oven is on fire; the OVEN is on FIRE!!! He came running out, still trying to pull up his pants (I'm sure he'll love that I told you that). He opened the oven door took a towel, and smothered the fire. No big deal.

Remnants of what was at one point cake batter.

Except, it IS a big deal that I don't know what to do when there's a fire. I know all the fire prevention tips, but my only reaction when I see flames is to freeze and scream for help. What if Wil wouldn't have been here? I'm sure I would have figured something out (I probably would have thrown a glass of water on it, but I don't know if that would have been the right thing to do). What if I had kids and Wil wasn't here?!? This is a big deal to me!

So today I bought this.


Now, I will know what to do if my oven or microwave or any other kitchen appliance ever catches on fire again.

Paved Paradise

The people who lived in our house before us made some wonderful upgrades that we LOVE. For instance, the built-in grill and sink - LOVE it; the extended patio - LOVE it; the raised garden bed - LOVE it!

They also must have liked fish...because they had a fish pond in the backyard between the regular patio and the added on patio. Yes, you read that right...a fish pond. We called it the moat.

We're not so much fish people, so when we first moved in, we filled the hole with dirt thinking we would plant pretty flowers. The moat had the cutest little wooden bridge going over it that I loved...so flowers seemed perfect. Except, flowers take effort and Elvis really liked to dig in that hole.

So, a couple weeks ago, Wil and Waldo refilled the hole with dirt (much of the dirt disappeared thanks to Elvis's superior digging skills). This weekend, Waldo and Lalo were kind enough to help Wil cement over the hole. It looks beautiful! I love it!

Following is a progression of the project...who knew filling that small area with cement would be SO much work?!? Thank you SO much to Lalo and Waldo for all of their help!

Wilton IIII

I'm taking the fourth cake decorating class this month...fondant and gum paste. I LOVE it!


If anyone has a special occasion coming up and needs a cake, let me know. I would love more cake decorating practice!

Stand and Be Counted

I took a family history class in college. During the class, which I really enjoyed...mostly due to the fact that it was a cool class and partially due to the fact that I sat next to a super cute boy :-)...we learned how much information you can find out about deceased family members through studying census records. You can find out so much about a person's life just through tracking them through the census - where they lived, if they owned property, how many children they had, if they had other people living with them, about how long they lived there, etc., etc., etc.

So, it was with great anticipation that I waited for our census form to come in the mail...imagine, I get to fill out this form that may one day be used by searching predecessors to learn about my life. It's kind of a cool thing (yes, I realize the fact that I think it is cool makes me uber super dorky!). Yesterday, the form arrived. I pulled out my pen and greedily began to fill it out - somehow convinced that Wil might fight with me for the opportunity (yeah, like that's gonna happen!).

Person 1
Name: Wilfredo Gonzalez
Gender: male (man, I'm good at this form!)
Age: 27
Is person 1 of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin: YEP!
What is person 1's race: Errrch...(imagine a screeching tires sound here). The form said, for the purposes of this census Hispanic origins are not races. Huh, didn't realize...so the options for Wil on this question that I was required by law to fill out were White (no, not really), black (yeah, definitely not), American Indian (nope), Japanese (not the last time I checked), Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Vietnamese, Samoan, other Asian...

Yeah, so my husband is not any of those, because believe it or not he actually is hispanic - just like the many, many, MANY other people in this country who also happen to identify themselves as Hispanic - whether or not the United States government seems to think that is a valid race.

I'm not sure Wil was quite as upset about this as I was, but I was pretty annoyed. I was tempted to check Japanese just to throw them off, but then remembered the possible future posterity and did not want to confuse them because I am annoyed with the census people, not my future children's children's children.

So instead, I checked other and wrote in Hispanic, because yes, I really do think it is a race and the one that most correctly identifies my husband. So to the people who wrote this year's census questionnaire (none of whom, I'm guessing, were Hispanic) I think you missed the boat...in a BIG way!

When You're Sick

Overheard at our house today:

Wil: Do you know who you remind me of when you're sick?

Me: Oh no, who?

Wil: You, in pictures from when you were a teenager.

Good...I've been hoping to relive my awkward phase! :-)

Domesticated Bliss

Wil and I rarely have the opportunity to eat dinner together during the week. Typically, I'm at work until after he leaves for school, and he doesn't get home until between 7:30 (at the earliest) and after 10.

Because of this, I rarely cook dinner. In fact...it's quite possible I ate better dinners when I was in college (how sad is that?).

In college, I had a roommate who would make lasagna and chicken enchiladas, a huge thing of them, and then put them in baggies and freeze them to eat later. I remembered her trick and thought it might work for us.

Tonight, we made four meals - Sicilian something or other, pizza spaghetti, chicken and potato casserole and stuffed pasta shells (I looked them up online, because I wasn't sure what types of recipes would be good to freeze). Here they are in our freezer...and taking up most of the room.


This way, we can quickly have a hot meal for dinner (or lunch). I'm hoping it will reduce how often we eat out - meaning it will both be cheaper and healthier. We'll see how it goes...hopefully we'll be doing this again soon.