Boricua en la Lima

This weekend we went to london to visit jose's sister who's been living there for a few months now. It was the kids' first time so we tried to make it kid-friendly. Despite the cold and rainy weather on day 1 we did the hop on hop off bus and saw the london eye and walked around quite a bit. For dinner we had indian food which the kids tried for the first time. On day 2 we went to the aquarium and the m&m store (massive!). And then saw wizard of oz which the kids loved (but I think I loved more). On the last day we went to bedford, the town where paloma has been living in. Overall great trip - fun, family and food. :) Now no more airplanes until Lima in December!

On Friday Gabi turned 6 and we went to her school with some cupcakes to celebrate with her friends. I'm glad we did that because her party wasn't as well attended as we would've liked, largely because there are school vacations all this week (which I didn't realize at the time I set the date of the party) and everybody pretty much checked out of town early.  Once enough kids showed up at the party she had a blast though! And I think Sebas probably enjoyed himself more than anyone.  We had a Scooby Doo theme so Gabi was dressed as Daphne (sans the wig because it was too itchy) and Sebas was dressed as Scooby Doo.  He held on to the hat for as long as possible after a while he was just too sweaty to keep it on! Here are the two of them dancing with our neighbor Lola while playing something similar to musical chairs. And here is Sebas thinking very strategically about his musical "rings" game -- he was staying pretty close to the rings so that when the musi...

I guess it was too long without traveling because lo and behold Jose got ants in the pants and took us all to Strasbourg for the weekend.  Strasbourg is considered to be located in the very center of Europe and this is a primary reason why it's the seat of the European Parliament.  We took a little boat tour on Saturday morning (which was a little cold but still very pretty). We did some walking around all the streets and found a beautiful Christmas market , so cute we had to go back again while Sebas was napping.  And because Jose was back with Sebas at the hotel we got lost for like an hour trying to get back to the hotel. Maybe Ivette 2.0 comes with GPS as Jose likes to say...

In honor of my friend Ida's 40th birthday I re-did the lyrics of Lady Gaga's Edge of Glory to be "Edge of Forty". I don't think she appreciated the old jokes in there but I think I was projecting myself just a tiny bit. Anyway, hope you get a kick out of them! We sang them during the party and gave out the lyrics for people to sing along with us. "Edge of Forty" There is a reason you and me just feel so old tonight yeah baby tonight yeah baby. I know the reason you and I should get so drunk tonight. We need a girl that tells us what we're doing wrong tonight yeah baby tonight yeah baby. Give her some spirits so she'll grab the microphone tonight. It's hard to feel the rush, to see the big 4-0. I'm gonna run right to get some clairol too so we can both turn back the time. I'm on the edge of 40. And I'm sagging like a day old balloon. Out on the edge of 40. And my eyes look like they're on a raccoon. I'm ...