Last Saturday Socorro and I carpooled together to visit our friend Vy who lives two blocks from the beach, yes, two blocks! You might remember her from the shoot I did of her and the family last year here. She is moving up north to Sacramento temporarily and I wanted to visit her one last time. Just because. She is just one cool gal and her family is too, so it’s just a good combo. Plus, I wanted her to make me her famous garlic shrimp with noodles. Delicious as it sounds, can’t wait to try the recipe myself at home. Sadly, I was helping with the prep work and immediately after indulged in the dish so no photos here, next time.

The day was perfect. Gloomy, but kind of nice since we had two days of heat. We had so much fun seeing the kids playing and interacting. It was the typical boy meets girl: boy is a little aggressive, girl is annoyed and both want to play together, but are hesitant. Cuteness! Add a few treats and small talk with a side of laughs and that pretty much sums up our afternoon.

Julia is the sweetest. She wanted her picture taken she said, just like last time.

Hey, I kind of like this.

Vy, thank you for the invite and making us lunch. You’re the best-love & hugs!

This past Saturday during a visit with Socorro at her mom’s I got a chance to see her in action and at play with her cousin Ubaldo. She is the happiest little girl ever, she smiles all day long and it’s pretty contagious. Her and Ubaldo ham it up and they are so cute together, he being her protector and she loving the protection.

Her tights are the cutest, sporting them early just in time for fall fashion!

I wish I had more fun weekend photos, but this is all I’ve got. I’ve come to realize that when I am busiest with my work I really don’t take out the camera out to play for my personal stuff, both good and bad in my opinion. This past week has been super busy and haven’t been home much so things might be quite on the bloggy this week.

Come check out Trude’s blog post on their new pup in the house, you have to watch the video… even if you can’t do sound-hilarious!

Socorro had his baptism this last Sunday and afterwards had festivities at Clark Park with a taco man, goodie bags, pinata and good cake. I had never been to that park and I really liked it, the back part of the park has really nice pine trees, a lot different then what I’ve seen at other parks. I got there a little late as I was busy that day visiting my mom for her birthday and also had my second cooks’ club meeting, but I managed to get some fun ones of him.

Love all his facial expressions.

I really loved the goodie bags that Socorro made.

I don’t have to wait for cake, it’s my birthday so I will just help myself first.

My favorite.

I don’t know about you, but I am really just having a ball here!

His cute pout, he was trying to blow out the candles.

Happy birthday Ubaldo, we love you so much! Can’t wait to give these to your mama for your photo book. I hope you like our present: organic alphabet cookies, organic popsicles and rubber farm cow toys to add to your fascination with farm animals.

Growing up my parents did the whole fireworks, block party with the barbecuing and all. Up until my little brothers were about twelve or thirteen. From there it became just a holiday where we relaxed and barbecued, but little by little we all started doing our own thing.

The last two years Kris has worked stand by which keeps us tied to our home or only a five mile radius within of our home. Luckily we have a pool in our condo community and so we decided that swimming and barbecue would do this year. We were lucky enough that Socorro wanted to visit so we were able to finally see Ubaldo and spend some quality time together. Annie came by later and joined us later in the evening and I was in bestie heaven. We were able to enjoy fireworks from the high school nearby which Ubaldo studied very intensely and was excited to see them although a bit scared at first of the noise. Understandable for an almost two year old, he’s getting so big.

Because we were hosting and too relaxed I only got these following shots of Socorro and her family at the pool.

Of all the toys Socorro bought him he was most inthralled with these squishy balls that soak up the water and float. He enjoyed it every single time he squirted his parents!

This is the face of a little firecracker!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend.

This kept him entertained for a little while, but we had to convince him that it was not okay to go in with the horses.

My second favorite shot of the day. What was that mommy?

My favorite, I miss him already.

He is as much fun as these photos prove, he’s got so much expression and attitude and even said my name for the first time. It sounds like NANNY since he can’t pronounce the C. Kris is officially jealous and is currently working on getting Ubaldo to say his name too.

Sunday we saw Alice in Wonderland in the afternoon to avoid crowds and I really enjoyed it, while Kris was not as impressed, but all in all a good time. Afterwards we met up with the family for dinner at Cajun Swamp in Fullerton, such a hidden gem. I highly recommend if you love cajun food, very low key, but the food is delicious! Mom was sick at home and with my brother Erik at UCLA it felt a bit weird at first to have dinner without them, just something to get used to I suppose. I managed to get a few shots, but these boys don’t like photos.

Getting ready for another mamalita session this Thursday and a wedding this Saturday, this month is off to a good start. Just got to keep the energy level up with some good workouts and healthy food. My mind is going 150 miles per hour, you should see my business and personal journals, you would be scared. Thank goodness for baths and red wine.

The staycation officially started that Sunday night which was Valentine’s Day and we’re not big celebrators of it, just not our thing. We should have avoided the crowds that day, but we had our tax appointment that afternoon and Socorro and Ubaldo came along since we go to the same accountant. The office is in Rancho Cucamonga so afterwards we headed to Victoria Gardens (she had never been!) and her and Ubaldo loved it, of course. We did a train ride with Ubaldo and took him to the playground, that’s it as simple as that. We had already taken him earlier to Boston Market for some dinner while Socorro had her appointment, he was so funny because of course his favorite activity is dining, just like his auntie. He was so funny in fact that I wish I would of had a video camera. This was my favorite shot of them both (a little blurry, but gotta love that bokeh), I think this is their signature pose because I have so many photos of them in this exact pose.

The rest of the week was spent doing fun stuff throughout LA. Starting with a day at Santa Monica Beach, one of our favorite spots in LA! We explored their downtown on Main St. for the first time, window shopped and checked out a few boutique shops. Made a stop at the 3-story Barnes & Noble on 3rd St. Promenade, can we say heaven? After a few hours there ( yes I said hours, we love reading the magazines and checking out books before we buy) we headed to our favorite wine bar for dinner, 4th & Jane and tried some of their crawfish boil. Very yummy and fun, a great way to end the day there.

Thursday we had booked massages at Burke Williams Spa in Pasadena courtesy of a gift, this is the perfect way to end our staycation… I felt 10 pounds lighter and refreshed and Kris loved all the pampering, who wouldn’t? It was still early so we headed to Silver Lake Wine to do a tasting and try Let’s Be Frank , a gourmet hot dog truck with %100 organic products that parks at their wine shop on Thursdays – foodie & wino heaven! We’re already planning another tasting on a Sunday when they do it in a group format with a local chef doing cooking demonstrations which we get to try, all for only $20! We both had such a great time talking with the workers and mingling amongst other winos. I love LA, there is so much to discover and explore, but I love that they have some of the best food and wine in So Cal.

All in all it was a wonderful staycation. Sorry for the lack of photos, but although I love capturing all the lovely moments I didn’t carry the camera while exploring. I really wanted to just ignore the phone, all my normal “doings” even stayed off of Facebook and Twitter and you know what? It felt very liberating and I enjoyed every minute.

Thank you Ubaldo for a wonderful day, I look forward to our next date at Oak Glen picking apples.