Father's Day Weekend

This post is a little backwards, but oh well. Last Father's Day Alyssa and I made Bryan this "Dad" hat. So Bryan wears it for a little bit on father's day. Alyssa loves it! Since I had to work Saturday grave I was not about to wake up earlier then I had to, sorry Bryan. I decided to make Bryan his favorite breakfast with a twist, but after church so more like an early lunch, brunch. We went to church and then enjoyed a yummy breakfast of stuffed french toast!

I love this picture of Bryan and Alyssa, isn't it so cute!

Happy Father's Day Bryan!

On Friday of that weekend we went up to Provo Canyon with some friends. It was such a nice evening that it made us wonder why we don't do this more often.

Alyssa and Bryan throwing rocks into a very high river (it's been raining a lot). Have I ever mentioned how much Alyssa loves rocks?!

Me, trying to get us all into the picture.

There were these climbing rocks there that Bryan and I climbed up. (I passed him Alyssa, but because I'm so short it was a little hard, but she was safe)

She wasn't too sure about this lizard.

Forgot to add a picture...

I forgot to add this picture from Danny and Marilyn's wedding... It speaks for itself!! ha ha

Danny's Wedding

On May 16, 2009 one of Bryan's best friends got married!! This meant that we were able to make another trip back to CA for the special event!! YAY!!

Danny & Marilyn Hoss

The wedding events started Thursday evening with the rehearsal dinner. First we all met at the Cielo Bar on top of the Valencia Hotel. We mingled for about an hour and enjoyed a beautiful view. Then we headed down to the courtyard at the hotel to practice for the ceremony. After the run through we all went to the California Bistro and enjoyed a fabulously delicious meal and a great evening in honor of the Bride and Groom!

(Bryan very happy with his groomsman gift!!)

Bryan and Danny

Mike and Bryan

Danny, Lindsay, Marilyn and JanelThis is how the guys pose with a lady in the picture. Bryan, Danny, Nick and Marilyn

And this is what they decide to do when Marilyn steps away. HAHaa. I know it's kind of gross but very funny still! (I have to explain this picture... Two [girl] friends of Danny took a picture kissing him on the cheek, so Nick and I decided to copy them)

On Friday we all headed out to the V-Bar in Santana Row and enjoyed a nice night socializing with friends. Unfortunately I didn't take my camera that night. There was live music playing near by that Alyssa and I walked over to listen to and then I took her to see the chess board on the other side of the V-Bar, the pieces were as tall as her. Then we headed home early to put Alyssa to sleep.

Saturday was the BIG DAY! Bryan spent all day with the other groomsmen. Alyssa and I were able to go support my cousin at her First Communion. Then we headed home and Alyssa went down for a nap while I got ready for the wedding.

The wedding was absolutely beautiful!! Marilyn and her Dad walking down the aisle.

All the Bridesmaids. (well I think I cut out like 2 or 3, because of the angle)

All the Groomsmen.

After the I Do's!!!

Mr. and Mrs. Hoss

After the ceremony we were able to enjoy nice drinks and appetizers in the courtyard. It was a nice time to say hi and catch up to friends we had not seen the previous days!

The wedding was so nice and it was great for Bryan to see a bunch of his friends from high school. It was like a high school reunion for them!!! (From left to right: Jen (who came in from Ireland), Mike, Bryan, Nic, Emmy, Ryan, Josh and Kadija (who came in from New York).

Danny and Marilyn walking into the Hall.

During the party

After the cutting of the cake.

Enjoying the cake.

The party was so much fun!! Its the most fun we've had Child free since our cruise. (WE LOVE YOU ALYSSA) During the dancing Danny called out Josh, Emmy, and Dave for a dance off to "Thriller". It was so much fun to watch!

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I just had to add this picture of Emmy.

You can't really tell in this picture but Josh (in front of Bryan) and Bryan were really enjoying themselves, Shelly and I just had to step back at that moment :)

At the end of a very fun evening! :)

During the wedding Alyssa was with Grammie and Grandpa and her uncle Andy and Aunt Amy and cousins Austin, Alli, Avery and AJ. They were enjoying themselves in the pool!! (no pictures to share :( )

On Sunday we ended all the festivities with a huge BBQ at Danny's parents house. The food was great (catered by Andy's BBQ).

Alyssa in the shade on the extremely hot day.

During our stay in CA Alyssa was able to spend a whole day with her cousin Adah!! YAY!

The two in the sand box.

We spent all day outside and they wouldn't let me rest :) they finally went down for a 2 1/2 hr nap.

This is what happens when Tio Hector gives you a Popsicle, a red Popsicle..Lol

And that concludes our great time in CA!!

Cinco de Mayo

I remember when I was younger that Cinco de Mayo was one of my favorite holidays! =-D It was always so much fun! There was always a huge parade and festival going on Downtown. We even celebrated it in school!

On our first Cinco de Mayo in Utah, Bryan and I were already married and I remember trying to figure out what we were going to do because we couldn't just stay home on Cinco de Mayo. We ended up going to Salt Lake to a festival. I was so disappointed! It did not even compare to the festivities in my hometown! It was this tiny little party outside. I just thought, "How Sad!"

Well since then, it seems that I forget more and more about Cinco de Mayo. This year I was at my orthodontist appt, sitting on my chair waiting, and Dr. Barrowes mentioned to his staff, "today is Cinco de Mayo". One of the girls said "oh yeah". At that moment I felt this excitement in my stomach to have suddenly realized TODAY IS CINCO DE MAYO! How could I have forgotten. At that moment I was determined to not ever forget that holiday. Even though it's celebrated more in the USA than in Mexico, it's still in remembrance of Mexico's victory over the French army. I want my daughter to grow up remembering her Mexican side as well. Which means that's going to take work from me. We didn't go anywhere to celebrate it but Alyssa and I had fun at home. We colored a drawing of a Mexican Flag and she even wore her cute Mexican dress. The last time my sister went to Mexico she brought her back a dress.

Here's my cute little Mexican girl!

So I just have to say that it was so hard to keep this little girl still so could get a good photo of her. But really, what 19 month old isn't hard to keep still. Follow the sequence of photos, I think I took all these in like 1-2 mins.

Here's Alyssa after I got those last photos (above) of her standing.
She's getting ready to sit down.

She just sat down and went straight to her feet (which she never really does anymore... she used to stick them in her mouth when she was a little baby =-) aww those days) "Mom look"

Here she is still looking at her foot; she even stuck it in her mouth, hahaha!!


She's done with the feet and on her way to the other side of the couch.



"Oh, I've got to stand up." Alyssa pulling herself up, getting ready to reach for the picture frames on top of the bookcase next to the couch.

"Ok mom, I've got a picture frame in my hands, are you ready?"

"Peek-a-boo!" Hahaha! She kept covering her face with the picture frame and then pulling it down and yelling.

Well to end our Cinco de Mayo day, I decided I better cook Mexican food for dinner. I was planning to make Gorditas but I didn't have the right meat so my next choice was Flautas. I actually hadn't made Flautas in a long time, not because they are hard (they are super easy), but because I just hadn't. I cooked Flautas, rice and beans. My rice didn't come out as good as it has, I think I put to much tomato sauce, but it was still good. Now for the beans, every time I've made them in the past they've always had a little bit of a different taste than my mom's and it would frustrate the heck out of me. I FINALLY figured out why, so this pot came out super delicious; I was so EXCITED! The Flautas came out perfect (you really can't mess those up). I even made homemade salsa!

To drink I made Agua de Jamaica, yummy!

I don't think I'm a bad cook, but compared to my mom, I suck! She is the best cook I have ever known and I'm not saying that just because she's my mom but she really is and everyone else says that too! My mom is just good at everything! I've got a long way to go to get anywhere near her perfection in the kitchen. I'm always calling her to remind me how to cook something. It frustrates me SOOooo much because both my grandma and mom don't give recipes; they give ingredients and instructions on how to make it. Some times I think to myself, "well mom, I know how to make it. I remember having to help you when I was little. I need to know how much of each ingredient I need." My mom always tells me just taste it as you're going. So, as you can see it may take me a lot longer to master certain dishes. I LOVE MY MOM and I'm so glad I grew up eating her delicious Mexican food everyday!! HAPPY CINCO DE MAYO!!

BTW: Alyssa is starting to say more than one understandable word at a time. Her first sentence "hi, daddy". Yesterday she even said her first name besides mom and daddy. She said, "hi oey" (hi Joey) =-) It was so cute! How exciting!! She has never called anyone by their name. Joey is my friend Angie's son. He's almost exactly one year younger than Alyssa.

Sugar Cookies

For our wedding we received cookie cutters. For the first 2 1/2 years they sat in our cabinet. When Alyssa became old enough they became her toys. She loves them! She carries them all over our place. One day Bryan decided he wanted to bake Sugar cookies. He stayed up late just to get them done (the dough has to sit for 2 hrs in the fridge). They came out really good. Well the other day I decided I wanted to make sugar cookies because I had been craving them for days.
My experience: NOT GOOD! For some reason it was a lot harder than I thought. The dough tasted great but the whole rolling out the dough and cutting it, then getting it onto the baking sheet without messing it up was a PAIN. After my experience I thought, "Never again". My first batch was overcooked. This is the best I could do this time around! When I decide to try it again, if I do, hopefully I'll have better luck.

BTW: We went to the $1 Theater and can you believe they charge you full price now for children (1 yr and older). Good thing it's the $1 Theater. We actually shouldn't call it that anymore because it doesn't cost that unless you are a student. Bummer!

More of CA + Francis'

I'm waiting for some pictures from my sister, I was hoping to get them before doing this post, but I couldn't wait... so I'll just do this post without them and post them when I get them.

While I was in California, after Bryan went back to Utah, I was able to spend a day with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law with her three boys. (They were in southern CA the whole time Bryan was there, which was sad, but at least Alyssa and I got to see them.) We ended up going to this place called Hakone Gardens, in Saratoga... Ever since I've known Bryan his family has talked about it and how pretty it is. So, I finally took a trip there with his mom and sister! It was so beautiful! It's a really neat place with Japanese gardens and a pond. Alyssa and I really enjoyed it there, it was such a peaceful place and all the colors were amazing.

On my last night in CA we decided to have a girls night out. (me, my mother-in-law Sandy, and my two sister-in-laws Kristee and Amy). We had a really nice night at Santana Row. We strolled around and went to Anthropologie, which has so many different neat things. Then, we enjoyed a very YUMMY dinner at Maggiano's. The story of the evening: After our evening was over we arrived to the car realizing we had no keys... we searched every bag and thing that we had but couldn't find them anywhere. We thought back to everywhere we had been and done but couldn't think of where they could be besides the restaurant. Amy and I jogged all the way back to Maggiano's. The staff helped us look everywhere but no luck. Amy and I had left trying to think of where they could be, then I thought, they must have fallen out where the hostess stands, because that's where they took our stuff to store. That was the one place we didn't check. We started walking back to the restaurant and saw the worker outside looking for us with the KEYS IN HIS HAND!! Luckily we decided to go back because he started looking for us in the opposite direction. And where did he find them? By the hostess stand! The ending to a wonderful evening! It was great hanging out with them. It's always so nice to see them! We miss them all the time!

Also, during my trip to CA I made a little change to myself... I got bangs!! I had been wanting to try it for a long time and seeing my sister's bangs made me do it! Aw... look at my little girl in the background.

The day after I arrived from CA, Bryan's brother and his family came into town. (this is the +Francis' part) It was so great to be able to visit with almost our entire family (just missed Leslie's family =( ) in one week =). It's always so much fun being with Greg's family! I just can't believe how big our nieces are getting!! Daphnie who is the oldest is 13, A TEENAGER!! So Crazy!! I think she's taller than me now, maybe, but it doesn't take too much to be taller than me haha! Then, there's Darbie and Demi, the youngest. All three are so beautiful and so sweet! I really didn't want them to leave. I loved watching them with Alyssa. They were so good and cute! Alyssa had a blast! Seeing Alyssa with all her cousins that week reminded me of how sad it is that we don't live driving distance to any of them =(

Here's the four of them: Demi, Daphnie, Darbie and Alyssa.

One night we went to Skybox at the Gateway (an arcade/restaurant) and had a good time in the Arcade! Here's Daph and Alyssa at a game. Alyssa had a great time with this race car game. She was turning the wheel and pretending she was honking the horn. It was so cute; she didn't want to leave it.

The four girls on this horse game that is seriously hilarious to watch!

Even more hilarious when it's Bryan on it! =) He was moving so fast it was crazy!

Here's Trista and Alyssa. Alyssa's making her, "It's way past my bedtime!" look!

Here's a video of Darbie and Demi playing with Alyssa! THEY HAD HER CRACKING UP THE WHOLE TIME!! I Love it! Too Cute!