New Jersey

So, it's been over a month since I last posted anything.....Here is an update...

I spent three weeks in PR, my dad is doing much better, when I last saw him he was breathing 96% on his own and they were looking into homes to move him too. On my way home to Italy a volcano erupted in Iceland and caused all of the flights to Europe to be cancelled. So, I called my mother- in- law immediately and had her come pick us up at JFK. It was very confusing, I didn't really know what to do, they said that they were not going to release the luggage until the next day, so I left and went to NJ. The next morning we went to IHOP, Yay!!!! Three and a half years since we last ate there, it was great, the girls really liked it.

After breakfast my second favorite place in the US (my first is Starbucks) Target! Because we didn't have any of our stuff and it was really cold in NY and NJ (the girls and I were dressed in summer clothes since shaughn said the weather in Italy was warm, my mother-in-law bought the girls some outfits and I got myself one outfit thinking that we would have our suitcases that day. Well, I called the airline and they said there weren't any flights for like a week and that it would be three to four days until they released the luggage.

Later that day we went to my father-in-law ( Shaughn's parents are divorced and re-married). My father-in-law, Bart, has three daughters, Dani 15, Alli 14, and Lauren 10. The girls LOVED it there! Immediately they started to play with their aunt Lauren, I left the house three different times and they had no idea.

We spent a week and two days in NJ, spent between the two houses. My mother-in-law was great and let me borrow her car. I had way too much starbucks (I tried Dunkin Donuts and McCafes, but Starbucks is still my favorite) spent two hours in Target looking at every little thing, and went to Barnes and Noble three times and spent at least two hours there each time. I also went to Michael's and Joaans and got a lot of scrapbooking supplies.

Oh, our luggage were scattered all over the place (Minneapolis, Detroit, and Tampa) but we finally got two of them and the other beat us to Venice. We finally made it home were Shaughn was waiting for us at the airport, although I missed the states already I was happy to be home with my hubby.

RSS Titanic

The sinking of the Titanic has always been interesting to me. After watching James Cameron's Titanic over ten years ago, I did some research on it and was kind of obsessed with it. Well, almost eleven years later, I got the opportunity to go to the Titanic Artifact Exhibit with my sister and best friend from high school, who I saw the movie with several times.

It was amazing. At the entrance you received a boarding pass, similar to the one the passengers got when they boarded the ship. On the back of it there is information on an actual passenger of the Titanic, at the end of the exhibit, we were to look up the name on the list of lost and survivors and see whether our person had died or survived.
After getting our passes and listening devices we got our picture taken in front of a green screen. You begin the tour with a model of the ship, information on the creation and building of the ship and on the captain of the ship. There are actual objects recovered from the wreck like, rope, and valves and parts of the ship with information on how it was recovered and preserved.

You then go through a set of doors that lead you through the entrance of first class. Everything has been recreated, the walls, decoration, chandeliers. You are in First class of the Titanic, the details are amazing.

You see china, money, a toilet, mirrors, hair accessories, things recovered from the wreck, things seen, touched, and used by the passengers of the Titanic. There is a model of a First class room, the bed, dinning table and vanity with a small mirror.

The next set of doors lead you to third class, which the passenger on my boarding pass was in. You immediately notice the difference from first class, everything from the walls to the noise that was heard from the engine of the ship. You then see a model of what a third class room looked like: two sets of bunk beds and a small table in the middle. At the end of the hall was a gate, identical to the ones in the movie.

Next stop, the engine room. The room is dark and noisy. You see the engines and smoke, there are big chunks of coal recovered and information on how much coal was needed to run the ship.

The rest of the exhibit focuses on some passengers and objects recovered that belonged to these passengers. One that sticks out in my mind is the small perfume sample bottles that belonged to a passenger that was a perfume salesman. He survived but went on to doing something else. The perfume bottles are still in the leather bag that he carried them in and they say that you could still smell the different smells of perfume.

The list of passengers was divided by first class, third class, and crew members. I looked up my passenger, Miss Bridget Delia Bradley, and found her name in the list of survivors.

The exhibit is dedicated to Millvina Dean, the last titanic survivor, who died at the age of 97 last year.

Two days after going to the exhibit, my sister and I watched Titanic and cried like crazy. We looked up our passengers and learned a lot about their lives before and after the sinking of the Titanic.

Adventures in Public Transportation

Since I left PR, they built a train that goes around the metro area in San Juan, it's called El Tren Urbano, the urban train. My mom and sister ride it to school but today my sister had a 7 hour break between classes and no way to get home from the train station because she didn't want to ride the bus alone. So, I decided to take the bus to the train station and ride back with her, well........ I left the house at 1000, it was raining and it took me forever to walk from my mom's house to the bus station. I asked what bus I had to take and the very rude guy at the window said #19. I waited for about 20 minutes until we were able to board the bus, it made a lot of stops before reaching a train station which was not the one that I was headed to, so I asked the driver if he was going to Martinez Nadal, he said no. I ended up having to get off at that train station and taking a train to where my sister was. The trains are fairly easy to take, it only goes in two directions and very limited area. I reached my sister and asked if we could go to Plaza de las Americas, it is the largest mall in PR. She said no problem, we asked someone how to get there. We had to get back on the train ride to Roosevelt ave, take bus #22 to Plaza. The mall was great, we ate lunch at KFC, and went into Charlotte Russe, where I bought a pair of boots and some leggins. I was so overwhelmed by so many stores that for three and a half years I could only shop online that I didn't go in them. I did go into Borders but didn't stay long because I knew that if I started to look at books, I would be there for hours!

We decided to head back home, Vicky kept saying that the bus stop was by the chilli's exit which she thought was by Macy's, it wasn't. Neither was it by the JcPenny exit. We walked around forever until finally we asked someone and they told us where the bus stop was and what bus to take. We waited for about 10 minutes, took the bus back to Roosvelt Ave and the train to Martinez Nadal. At this point it is 3:30. We wait for a while for a bus to take us back to San Patricio, which is right outside the gate. When a bus finally arrives the driver tells us that our bus will be on the other side of the train station, so we head over there just in time to see the bus leave. A few minutes later a bus stops in front of us and tells us he won't be leaving until 4:30!

By this time my mom was off from school so she picked us up at the train station. All in all, it is fairly easy to get around it just takes forever!!!

Easter

My brother left yesterday afternoon, so we celebrated easter a day early. We filled eggs with chocolate and Vicky and Tasia (my sister-in-law) hid them all over the yard. Then after they found them all and ate too much chocolate, they painted and decorated eggs with princess stickers. Before my brother left we also went to the post's easter activity and the kids enjoyed bouncy houses, cotton candy, snowcones, and face painting. We took a group picture, the whole family, and off my brother and his family went.

The Beach!!!

Today of course it took forever to get out of the house, but when we did, we headed to a town called Ceiba. Ceiba is where Roosevelt Roads is, a naval base that got shut down because they claimed that the training they were doing over there was giving people cancer. Anyway, they still have some army reserve units there and we finally were able to rent a minivan there. It is a shame that the base is closed because it is huge and a beautiful place. They had a hospital, nice lodging and brand spankin new barracks that were never lived in.

Well, there is a beach on post. It is beautiful! We stopped there for a while, the kids loved it. Isabelle would not get out of the water! They made sand castles and explored the shore. On the way home, Isabelle got an ear ache, I think she might have had water in her ear, and she cried for a while. We stopped at a small restaurant to eat fried foods like, papa rellena, which is a ball of fried mashed potato with meat in the middle, and empanadillas. They had all kinds of empanadillas, with lobster, shrimp, ground beef, pizza...... it was yummy.

After we got home, Vicky and shaughn stayed at the house with the kids while Edgar, Tasia, my dad and me went to Marshall's. It is so overwhelming!!! So much stuff that we can't get overseas, and stuff that is just so much cheaper here. I got the girls a pixie hollow pop up book.

There is a starbucks there so of course we stopped and got some. I tried the shaken iced tea in passion fruit, it was yummy, and after looking up the calories, I found out that it has no calories!!!

El Morro and Flying Kites!

On Sunday, we finally made it out to Old San Juan. There are eleven of us at my moms house, so it takes for ever to get ready and out of the house, especially with four small children. It was a beautiful day and very windy there in El Morro. El morro is a fortress, it goes back to 1519 and the Puerto Ricans used it to protect the island from seaborne enemies.

We drove around for ever and were stuck in traffic for a long time trying to find parking. It was so funny because there is a small town by the ocean that is the worst in Puerto Rico, it has the most drug trafficing in the island and as we were driving around, shaughn says " I wonder if any tourist accidently end up it the town?" Well, after driving and driving around we ended up going under a tunnel and finding parking in la Perla. We figured it was ok as long as we parked and got out of there as fast as we could, so we start walking up this hill and at the top some guy in a car asks Shaughn " Where are you going?" "Turn around and go back, this is were the drug dealer are." And that's how a tourist accidently stumbles in La Perla.

The first thing we did was get Piraguas, snow cones with yummy syrup. We sat under a tree and the shade was great, the piraguas were great! After that we walked over to the middle of the open field and started flying kites. There were tons of people flying kites, the wind was very strong. The kids flew the kites for about a minute and then Edgar, Vicky, and me ended up flying them. Vicky managed to get hers tangled with Edgar's.

We lounged around on the grass taking pictures and watching the kids run around it was great. We then walked over to the Big wall over looking the ocean and took in the view and took some pictures before heading back. Shaughn and my dad ended up going to get the cars and we waited at the top of the hill. It really was a great day.

We went to dinner to bonanza, a buffet. I had so much to eat! They had rice, beans, tostones, platanos maduros, patita de cerdo (pig's feet). Isabelle had sancocho, a stew with lots of root vegetables, she loved it. Kaitlyn had some white rice and chicken nuggets and fries.

Grandmas house

Yesterday we went to visit my grandma. It amazes me how my grandma still looks exacly thesame as the last time I saw her years ago. The house, the neighborhood, it all looks the same.Our childhood friend, Paito, still lives on the upstairs of his parents house, and he looks thesame. My grandma has chickens and all kinds of fruit and flowers around the house. The kidsthought it was great! They loved the chickens and picking the oranges and peppers from theirtrees, although my grandma was annoyed that they picked her oranges! The livingroom was theonly thing that was diffrent, she now has a flat screen hanging on the wall and modernfurniture. We drank really cold maltas, ever since we were kids, she always had them in the fridge for us, and we sat on the rocking chairs in the balcony while all the kids ran around the house.

Cousins ♥

Isabelle, Kaitlyn, Aleia, and Aiden

My brother showing the kids morivivir, it is a small plant that closes up when you touch it.

Aiden

Aleia

So, the one really good thing about this sudden trip to Puerto Rico is that the girls finally got to meet their cousins. It was love at first sight, they play and talk to each other like they have known each other their whole lives.

My brother has two beautiful kids, Aiden is four, and Aleia is three. They are both sweethearts. Aiden is so funny, he is always saying chicken butt. Today we saw chickens and Vicky says to him “Aiden, do you see a chicken butt?” And he says “ I see the whole chicken!” Kaitlyn and him get along the best, their both clowns! Aleia is such a cutie! She is very sweet and loving. The only time that I see her cry or wine is after she has woken up. Every other time she is in a great mood.

Travel

JFK
My new book and a Vanilla bean Frapucciono


Milano Airport
On Tuesday 24th we left Italy at 0430 in route to Malpena airport in Milano. We left to Puerto Rico to visit my biological father, who I have not seen in over 10 years. Well, he is very ill in the hospital and even though I have not seen hem in so many years, I would like to be by his side during this time. Thankfully the Army paid for me and my family to fly to Puerto Rico. We flew from Milan to NYC Kennedy airport. We landed in New York at 1:20pm and after claiming our luggage and checking them back in, we headed to the food court for some food. I had chinese food, bourbon chicken Yum!!! It had been over three years! The place was called Wok and roll. The girls had McDonalds. For the next four hours we sat around at the gate, played ds, made puzzles, and had starbucks! We boarded our plane to Puerto Rico at 8pm, right before we saw Daddy Yankee was also on our flight, there was a lot excitement on the plane. The flight was good, the girls slept the whole way and I watch The blind side. We finally arrived at San Juan at midnight were my parents were to pick us up. It was a very tiring trip, but worth it.

ok, a few updates, I lost one pound this past week. (Yay!!) I didn't exercise all last week but today I started the week with Power Pump.

Also, my daffodils that I planted last spring came out!!!! I was so excited to see them today. And Last but not least, we got rid of the mattresses in the girls room (sizzles ruined them by peeing on them) and moved all of the girls toys up there and the small white tv, so they have their playroom up there instead of the livingroom :)

Painting and Flying Kites

This weekend I tried to keep the girls as busy as possible. Saturday, they painted all morning. I used a roll of paper from ikea and put all their paint on the table and let them paint. They had a lot of fun.

Yesterday, we walked to post, had brunch at the DFAC, walked around the px, went to a park on post, got some kites and flew them at the field in villaggio. After that we went to the park for about an hour and the girls jumped on their friend's trampoline. They were so tired!!! It was a good day.

Progress Report

I've been slacking on the blog, so I decided to write a quick post on my progress. Since the 1st of Jan I have lost 10lbs!!! I am really excited and optimistic about loosing more weight. Weight Watchers is great, it is really easy to use. I have been doing power pump, which is a weight lifting class and my biggest looser work outs. That's pretty much it for now :)

These pictures are of Power Pump and Zumba. I was asked to take some for the gym's facebook page.