Boricua en la Lima

People are going to think we've turned into some kind of amusement park freaks but last week we actually had free tickets from work to go to Kings Island and we had enough tickets to go both Saturday and Sunday, and this weekend I was curious about Falloween at Coney Island and I was very pleasantly surprised! Especially since we were almost able to pull off a whole round of mini golf even with the kids in tow. Gabi continues to explore thrill rides (well, for a 4 year old) with mixed results. :) And if it was up to Sebas I think he would actually ride every single ride, but he's still too small to go on most of the rides.

I'm not a huge Beyonce fan but I guess I am pretty big sob queen so I was really moved to see this. Beyonce pulled a girl out of the audience in Australia this last weekend to sing Halo to her. She is suffering form Leukemia. Very moving.

I'm not Oprah's biggest fan, but I'm definitely a fan of Black Eyed Peas and an even bigger fan of dance (especially when it's a gazillion people dancing at the same time) and this is just freaking amazing. What I would have given to be in that crowd!

This is our first time ever joining our neighborhood yearly picnic (which they've been having for more than 20 years to raise money for the park maintenance). Sebas decided, in classic fearless style, to start going down the slide all by himself during the picnic. At least there were plenty of people around to catch him in case he fell! He was also simultaneously disciplining the other kids in the park for playing with their ball in the swing set.

I had a Girls Night Weekend in Miami last weekend, which coincided with my 35th bday (that's another case of "that's a subject for a separate blog post!). When I got home I thought the house was going to be utter chaos but actually it wasn't that bad at all. What was bad was the fact that Sebas was covered in what seemed like mosquito bites from head to toe. Jose had called me when I was at the airport to tell me and my first instinct was to think an infectious skin thing (Rosalea maybe?) that had been going around day care the previous week. Strangely, though, as soon as I came home I started itching as well. While on the plane Jose took him to the ER where they told him they thought it was flea bites. But I guess seeking the quintessential second opinion the next day we went to his regular doctor who said hives. So I forgot about the fleas but made a mental note to ask the vet on Friday since Borges was due for his yearly check-up. Of course I completely forgo...

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I've had many an argument this week about whether the husbands should go play golf every weekend and leave us "golf widows" alone with the kids for 4-5 hours every weekend. This week I got some horrible virus that's going around which had all the symptoms of the swine flu. I went to the ER last Sunday because I was scared that whatever it was the kids would get. Turns out thankfully it was only a virus, but the bad news was that Gabi then got it Sunday night so I had to stay with her in the house Monday and Tuesday. And then Sebas got it Tuesday night so I had to stay home with him Wednesday. Now normally I don't even know how stay at home moms can do it, and this was no exception! But trying to be a stay at home mom, while feeling like crap, while having to work at night to try to catch up with the day (paying!) job, that is just as overwhelming as things get. So when Wednesday afternoon Jose gets a call from a buddy who invites him to yet another golf outin...

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later View more documents from Marta Kagan .

I'm looking forward to a day in which we only have two things on the to do list because this is all we had to do yesterday! - Go to Target because Gabi HAD to have a butterfly costume for the butterfly show - Breakfast at Sugar and Spice (in butterfly costume of course) - Kroger - Lunch at Indigo with my friend Maia - Show up at Butterfly Show to realize the exhibit is already over, which was followed by much tantruming (in butterfly costume of course) - Unsuccesful napping attempt - Haircut for Gabi - Running - Web cam with fam - Night at Bootsy's in order to take advantage of free babysitting. Feeling like losers for going to sleep at the same time we do every night (except for feeling very fat and a little drunk). - Waking up this morning to Gabi NEEDING to put on her butterfly costume right away. ;)

That's me breathing a huge sigh of relief after baby's surgery went off without a hitch. I had problems sleeping last night, first because of the pre-night jitters (I felt like the day before my wedding or the day before my C-sections) and secondly because my cleaning lady actually rearranged all the furniture in our bedroom (how she had the strength to do so I do not know) and that just made me feel all weird. It's not a bad new set up, it just felt odd. For those of you who don't know he was getting surgery for an undescended testicle. I'm a little embarrassed to put that on Facebook but I figure if you're here you care enough and I can let you know. :) Oftentimes they do find a hernia though, and he had a pretty big one, so they fixed that as well. That made the surgery last 100 minutes though so Jose was freaking out a bit because he really thought it would be shorter. When they gave him the anesthesia that was probably the hardest two minutes of my lif...

My mom is arriving today to help take care of the baby after he's back home from his surgery. I can't wait! We haven't seen her since we were in PR in April, and although it takes a superhuman amount of effort to resist her delicious (and equally unhealthy!) cooking, I am looking forward to have some family back in town (and free babysitting too, yes). Baby's cough is getting way better so it looks like we might be able to have the surgery after all, although we won't know until the anesthesiologists look him over. I am nervous for him! I hope everything turns out well.

Sebastian is supposed to have a (very minor) surgery on Wednesday for which my mom is coming into town since he has to stay home from day care for five days. We also coordinated with 4th of July weekend so that we didn't have to miss as much work. However, he's going under general anesthesia which is starting to make me a bit anxious because he's supposed to be completely healthy but he's had a cough for a while now that seems to be getting worse instead of better. Jose the eternal pessimist is even more nervous, so it looks like we might need to reschedule, which sucks because I'm sure by the time we get another date my mom will probably be gone so we won't have any help. On a lighter note, we hung out at Hyde Park Blast yesterday which was a lot of fun although the kids were so grimy by the time we got back home (so were we!) we had to give them both a bath even though it was way past their bedtime. And of course you would think they would sleep in today but n...

Jose: "What is your boca for, Gabi?" Gabi: "For eating". Jose: "What are your ears for, Gabi?" Gabi: "For listening". Jose: "What are your ojos for, Gabi?" Gabi: "For blinking". Jose: "What is your nose for, Gabi?" Gabi: "For taking the mocos out!" She's one smart cookie. The picture of the gorilla reminded me of a story Valeria used to tell us in college. She used to crack up every time she retold how she saw a gorilla in TV poking his butt with his "fingers" then smelling his finger and falling back on his ass from the stench (I'm sure the video's somewhere on YouTube in case anyone finds the link and wants to send it to me). Anyway, Valeria used to laugh so hard she could barely get the words out, and it took us forever to understand what she was saying, actually come to think of it, it always took us forever to understand what she was saying.

Gabi was invited to the bday part of one of his friends from day care. It's the first time we go to Parky's Farm in Winton Woods and it was really fun for both of the kids. The animals were awesome, Gabi rode a horse for the first time ever (we had a miniature pony at her bday party last year which she refused to ride...argh) and the weather was amazing. Best feature is having the bday party in a really fun place and not having to worry about a lot of the details. Only downside was that we all had to take showers/baths when we got home to get the smell of animal poop out of our systems. :) Oh, and that I couldn't eat all the delicious looking food (home made!) because we had just eaten at Sabor Peruano.

Abuelo (Jose's dad) came to visit this weekend and since he'd been here a few times already we decided to head down to Gatlinburg for our first Smoky Mountain visit and give him a change in scenery. The car ride was a little painful (5 hours and I was stuck in the backseat in between the two car seats) but it was definitely worth it. Our cabin was awesome -- jacuzzi, 4 plasma TVs, wifi, everything brand spanking new, and the second and third nights I slept like an angel ALL BY MYSELF in the sofa bed in the living room so in the morning I would wake up to floor to ceiling views of the forest. If I had a cappuccino by my bed it would've been heaven. Unfortunately we're back, and that means work tomorrow, but not before I catch up on So You Think You Can Dance which makes my summer TV viewing sooooo worth it! And maybe seeing all those skinny twenty somethings cavorting on TV scantily clad will make me want to work out a little bit harder.

Good friends, nice weather, lobsters, beer, Alms Park, lazy Sunday. Enough said.