Mi Mari

Maria Isabel Castro, is by far one of my greatest role models. She is a powerful woman. I love that she doesnt give up eventhough she get hits hard in life. She has a college degree and a beautiful young son...Nicolas and he is the smartest kid ever. He has a great imagination and loves Power Rangers...who doesnt? they are way cool! I am excited to go visit and play with Nico.

Mr. Adam

Yesterday was my official bday...I have about 3 birthdays thanks to the unexcellent recordkeeping of my lovely motherland....and human forgetfulness. According to Chali, she swears that I arrived in this world on Feb 16, 1975 but my mom says I was born on the 18th of Feb. The story goes that I was registered in the city records 2 months later because mom didn't have the money when I was originally born, I guess she would have had an extra fine if she registered me late, so to save money my birth certificate says I was born in April the 16th....I am so confused!!! The cool thing is that I have a unique birthday, one thing is for sure, I was born and I am here, how's that?

Yesterday I received calls from: Danielito, Martincin, Nach, beautiful Mom and Awesome Mari and finally Adan and his wife Mari. Adan's call was specially amusing because he serenated my "birthday" with a typical mexican birthday song "las mananitas" with a wonderful vibrato, Pedro Infante style! Bravo Adan, Bravo!!! However I did receive a little chastisement from my wise brother, he said he felt left out of the brag-fest. I reassured him his turn would come soon, and soon is NOW...

ADAN....

Adan is best described as "the wind beneath my wings" well, pretending I were a bird...but in all seriousness, Adam is very very inspiring. When I lived in Salt Lake, on my own, his letters and phone calls were my edifying juice.

One of my favorite memories of this great person is when we lived in Stockton Califas, Maria and I were squawking about contacts lenses and we were pretty angry with eachother, we were yelling at the top of our voices, about to start the punches and scratches, Adan got a hold of us and gave us a really touching advice. He said, something like " you are eachother's family, no one will love you or look out for you as yourselves, if you are 'biting' eachother, expect worse from the world" something like that. Adan is:

Wise

Loving

Super good looking

Responsible

oh and an amazing amazing Artist.

I am really proud of him and his accomplishments. Good job Adam, and his has the cutest children in all of Tucson...ok all of the southwest! He's been married for 6.5 years to lovely Maria de los Angeles. That is her name, she is not from LA she is from Jalisco, like us and she is truly a cool girl!

my bday card!

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Chabelita and Franklin...bathtime just before bedtime

Franklin getting a scalp massage, this is the life!

Franklin and Chachis Bennett, best buddies of all time.

I want to take a moment to brag about my younger brothers... they are quite remarkable.

First, there is Danny, tio Danny, Christian, everyone who meets Danny pretty much loves him instantly. He is super super super organized...I love his apartment it is so nicely decorated, the only thing is that everytime we visit, my little tornado of a daughter turns it upside down! One of favorite memories of Danny is him being a great friend. When I we lived in Utah, I was working at a watch repair place inside Sears downtown SLC, I would have to take Bella to work with me because she was still so little, Danny would come over after his work and bring me this delicious McDonald's salads, they seemed to big and were so yummy, Danny, you are my best friend and I love you so much. By the way, please notice how handsome this young man is!!! Oh yes good looking and a great personality!

Then there is Elias Ignacio, aka Nacho, to me Nachito. This young man is sooooo bright, I have to wear shades when I am around him. He is about to finish his studies at the world renowned institution Washington Central University. With a degree of much intelligence,,,I cant remember actually, I know it is a double major, one being Mathematics... He is really good at languages, he followed in mine and Maria's steps by learning French. He can kick butt at French and Math too, "dang it" (with Napoleon Dynamite's idahonean accent)...Gosh!!! What I trying to say is that I am super proud of Nacho's great accomplishments. Way to go Nach!

And finally for now, I want to brag on Martinatious, el mas chiquito de toda la bola. Martin went on a mission to Kentucky and now he gets to work with America's black sheep. He hopes to soon get a career in law enforcement. Which I am sure he will get done within a year. Martin is like a magnet for little kids, kids just love him. I was so happy I got to see him 2 weeks ago. He looks good and seems happy. Ok, Enough bragging for now. Next time I will go on and on and on about the old ones of the family.

Wonderful Spring is starting to come to our area, I love not having to put on so many layers in order not to freeze. This weekend we had perfect weather in the mid 70's. Let's see, it was a very nice busy weekend. On Friday night we had a family date night. We took ourselves to Nampa to have dinner. We ended up going to an all you can eat chinese restarant...bad idea...the food was questionable. Zach ate an eggroll looking thing and he said and I quote "tasted like someone took a clam and squeezed all the poop out of it, maybe more like a dead rotting carcus" yummy yummy. Needless to say we will not be eating there again. Restaurants like that are enticing because you feel like you are getting a good deal for your money but really it is just an opportunity to eat like you've never seen food before. Not good for the waistline.


On Saturday I went collecting food for one of our Scout's eagle project. He had a food drive and sadly, the subdivision I worked was pretty weak on the donation, out of about 80 homes only 2 gave...it was fun getting up early and enjoying the warm weather early in the morning.


After that we took Chabelita to el circo. I call it el circo because I am pretty sure the circus came from Mexico City. It's called Circus Gatti. Everything was really nice but the clown was very unenthusiastic...by the way....clowns freak me out...they are scary to me, I dont think I have ever liked them. I wanted to take pictures at the circus but a big ol' sign at the entrance read.."no cameras, no outside food, no chairs...." Once inside a man in front of us was filming the whole show...and security people said nothing... I am glad I followed the rules though. Bella really enjoyed herself and Franklincito was excellent he seemed to enjoy the show at his baby age. Zach endulged by buying some cottoncandy, the pink kind. Bella got to ride a little donkey or pony I couldnt tell the difference. She was very brave. It was pretty funny that every 5 minutes the circus mc would plug in the products being sold thru out the center...they had light sabers, flashing light toys ($15), clown noses, coloring books, caramel apples, cotton candy....big balloons, Dora the explorer, Sponge Bob and Spider man blown up dolls...holy cow...tons of stuff.