Memorial Day Weeds

VIDEO IS FIXED!! VIDEO IS FIXED!!

Thanks to my son the slave-driver, a lot of weeds got pulled this weekend. It's hard to center a blog around weed pulling, however, so I won't.

We had a nice dinner last night at Yaya and Papa Ron's. Today Luis and I went to see Sex and the City 2 which I LOVED! Goes to show the critics are wrong. They just don't get it.

In lieu of anything exciting to post this weekend, here's Siena's ballet from last Sunday (Siena is 4th from left and the last little girl to run across the stage):

Big Birthday Big Dance Big Blog

This is officially blog #100! See mom, see dad, I can follow through with something!

Last weekend was crazy busy. I'm not sure why, but it seems that we have 3 boring weekends a month and one insanely busy one. Crazy was this weekend.

Saturday morning started with shuffling Seina off to her dance lesson for their last practice before their big recital on Sunday. At 10:30 was Mason's BIG 6th birthday party at JJ Jump! Papa Ron managed to make it bright and early (for him) to JJ Jump for the party and found the most comfortable seat in the house.

This is how you tire out a kid. Those little blurs are Jocelyn, Berren, Mason, and Siena.
Papa Ron must have stood up at some point because Jay B found the comfy chair too.

The Grandmas!

Tomas was on board for this crazy weekend too. I'm sure he didn't imagine he'd be spending time at JJ Jump or a dance recital when he booked his ticket to the USA.

I think Siena was having a good time even if she did have to run there straight from dance.

Our friends Sharon and Giada. I think this was Giada's first JJ Jumping experience.

Mason and Giada. I think Giada was a little worn out at this point. Mason was having a wonderful time.

After jumping, Mason got to go up to try to grab tickets from the big air thing. He got 7 little toys as prizes.

Dan and Berren watching Mason pulling tickets.

The kids enjoyed some pizza.

Gloria, Yaya, Jay B., and Chandra holding baby Rory.

Luis and Mandy have some pizza.

Cake time. That's Mason's motorcycle cake. Do you see the motorcycle? Neither do we. Somehow motorcycle became Scooby Doo. Mason certainly didn't care though and the tres leches cake was amazing as always.

Mason loved all of his presents. He's played with all of them continually since getting them home. We have had to set a few ground rules for the squirt guns though...

A big birthday hug from baby Tristyn!

Kids - Berren, Mason, Ellia, Siena, Jocelyn, and Giada. Not sure what Siena is snarling about...

This was Mason's present from Yaya and Papa Ron - a keyboard just like the one he has at school. He and Seina both love it. We got Mason a new bike for his birthday but due to a bent front end, it's still a bit of a work in progress (grrrrrr). Hopefully we'll have a boy on 2 wheels soon though.

Later Saturday, Yaya watched Mason and Siena while Papa Ron, Tomas, Luis and I took Tomas to dinner at our favorite haunt Rogue. We introduced Tomas to some local microbrew and tasty food. After dinner we went to Bartini's to have some crazy flavored martini's. We had a great time and hopefully showed Tomas another side of Portland life.

Sunday was another big day for the Cruz household. It was Siena's first ever dance recital. Unfortunately she started off the day feeling a little under the weather but she's a trooper and the show must be on.

Here she is getting her glitter applied.

Here's Siena backstage all decked out in her Sunday church-lady themed tap outfit.

Hopefully this works - it's my first attempt at embedding a video. As of this moment, we only have the tap song uploaded but I'll add the ballet one too as soon as it's uploaded. These things take time folks.

Less there be any confusion, Siena is the 5th little girl from the left. She's also the one that loses her glove at the end and responds in classic Siena fashion.

After the show, big brother Mason gave his little sister some congratulatory flowers. She was thrilled!

She did a WONDERFUL job in her first performance and we were so proud.

After the big show, we all went out to dinner at Gustavs. It was a hectic but fun weekend.

Meeting a Swede and Pulling Some Weeds

Last weekend we went up to my parent's house to meet Tomas, our visiting relative relative from Sweden. Tomas' grandfather and my great grandfather were brother's. I have no idea what that is in terms of second cousins, etc. but we've been Facebook friends for a while now and it was great to finally meet him.

A lot of the family came out for dinner, to celebrate Mother's day, and to meet Tomas. Here's my cousin Heidi and Aunt Joanne.
This is Luis, Dan, and Tomas on the left. Amazingly, in addition to speaking Swedish and English, he spoke Spanish with Luis and German with Joanne and Doug.
My dad's cousin David (see Roslyn blogs) and his wife Anne came out from Walla Walla to meet Tomas. Here's (from left) Anne, Mary Lou, and mom. Poor mom has the remains of a black eye courtesy of a fight with her exercise bike while painting a chair in the garage.

Tomas, my dad, and David check out some of the family records and documents Tomas brought from Sweden.

The evening started out nice. Then as NW weather is want to do, the clouds and rain came. The girls, Ellia and Siena, enjoy the outdoors while its still nice. Ellia might be closer to Mason in age but those little girls sure have a good time playing together.

Me and auntie Jo. Do we look like a couple of Scandanavians or what.

Group photo. Many thanks to auntie Mary Lou for sharing her pictures with me after I forgot to stick in my memory card. All the good pictures are her's. Okay, here's my attempt at labeling.

Back row from left: Dan (cousin Heidi's husband), Mary Lou, David Bullock (dad's cousin), mom, dad, Tomas, David Bullock (dad's cousin), Anne (David's wife), Jay B with daughter Jocelyn on shoulders, me, Siena, Joanne, Uncle Doug

Front row from left: Uncle Bruce, Baby Rory (Jay B and Chandra's), Heidi w/ son Berren on lap, Ellia, Chandra, Luis, Mason, Amanda, and Travis.

Tomas brought over a beer brewed in our family's hometown of Mariestads. I enjoyed it Friday night after another hard work week. And it was gooooood.

The big excitement of this weekend was pulling weeds in the backyard. I'm bound and determined to gain control of the wild kingdom, otherwise known as our backyard. This is some genetic predisposition I get from each of my parents. No weed shall go unpulled. However, we have A LOT in our yard so this pile only represents a small section, though 2 days of work.

I am sore and tired.

We did a walk this evening and met a neighbor/professional Elvis impersonator. Who knew.

Since we didn't get home until late last Sunday, I didn't get a chance to give a proper Happy Mother's day blog shout out. I had hopes of something more formal but wanted to say a very very happy Mother's day and thank you to my mother. I couldn't have asked for a better mom in the world. Not only did she teach me all the necessary life lessons growing up: how to shave my legs, blue eyeshadow is not becoming, how to properly load a dishwasher but I know it's directly from her that I got my sense of humor. We both always laugh at the same silly spots in the same movies. She is also my favorite shopping partner and always just fun to hang out with. Thanks mom!!!

Interlude

I do have a lot to blog about this week but we got home late last night and it's shaping up to be a late night work week so it may be a couple days before the real blog makes its appearance.

Regardless, happy mother's day to all yesterday!!!