Rocking out

Saturday was E & C's Total 80s concert at the Hard Rock Cafe on the Strip. 

The Groupies:

The 2 of them were only in 1 song together: Jessie's Girl:

I got a lot more good pictures of Elijah because he played right in front of me for all of his sings: Billy Jean, Summer of 69, You Might Think, We're Not Going to Take It

"Your hair is sooooo dreamy!"

yelled one of his middle-aged fans who couldn't stop taking pictures of him. 

He even cracked a smile.

The drummer was further back on the stage, so it was harder to get pictures.

Kids in America & You Got the Beat

 

Kids playing outside

Kids playing outside is one of my favorite things.

Tule Springs Fossil beds national Monument was the perfect place.

It's just down the street from where Iris goes to horseback riding lessons.

Sybil and Mila

The rocks are strange-looking.

Sybil said they looked like carrots, I said poop.

 

birthday getaway

We had a quick getaway to AZ. 

Cousin and friend time:

There always has to be some thrifting also. Claire found a splendid wedding dress:

And boy wrestling 

cooking

The best thing about going home for my birthday is that it doesn't really matter whether we are celebrating or not, I always feel special when I go home.
 

Austin

A few more pictures from Christmas:

The gingerbread riverboat

The men did men-things

On the way home, we stopped in Austin to visit the Lopez-Frol family including Sara, who now attends UT Austin.

BFFs at the Texas Capitol

The whole group

We had the whole engineering building to ourselves

Views of downtown Austin

We brought in the new year playing games, watching movies, and eating ice cream and Rosca de Reyes.

 

Christmas part 2

We went with the Ortiz family to tour 5 festive hotel lobbies in downtown Nola. 

This was a gingerbread Mississippi steamboat

life-sized gingerbread streetcar

Christmas tree lane just off of Bourbon Street

And of course, we did Celebration in the Oaks with the Ortiz later that night after dinner at Monas--the restaurant that David and I went to the night we were engaged. Every time we go, we tell the story of our engagement: David paying with a 2-for-1 coupon, then walking along the levee with the hidden band playing romantic music as a backdrop to Shakespearean love sonnets.

 

David pretended to be dead on a ride. I really thought they might stop the ride to check on him. When Sybil saw how much I was laughing as a result, she pretended to be dead on the next ride. The difference was that I was afraid she really might be injured bc she barely met the height limit and she insisted on riding alone. As soon as she got off, she asked me if I thought she was dead with a huge smile on her face

GG with cajun book time

game time

I randomly ran into 2 high school friends: once at the neighborhood grocery store and once at a restaurant on Magazine street where we were having lunch with our dear friends. We later met up for lunch. You can see on the right side of this picture, Sybil and one of Lilian's boys checking out the native insects and Iris photo bombing, of course.

Running in Nola is excellent!

Both in Audubon with the beautiful Spanish moss-laced oaks and.. 

on the Pontchartrain levee, with the lapping waves and memories of my youth.

More visiting. David sat in abuelo's chair to try out his nifty leg-mover.

And Tia Macu and Tio Daniel are always a favorites also.

I've been thinking about the Christmas tradition we used to participate in when we lived in Ann Arbor, MI. The church building would be closed down for a few weeks for a creche exhibit with hundreds (if not more) of nativity scenes from around the world. Every room was filled. There was one set that had its own room which was roped off so that nobody could enter since it was expensive and rare. The figurines were shiny, expertly painted, and quite large. The most valuable piece in the set was a woman, kneeling in adoration of the Christ child with a large goiter protruding from her neck. Her goiter, although some might find repulsive, is what made the piece unique. We all have spiritual goiters of some type. What is important is that we adore our Savior.