Best possible position

How happy Guillermo and I were this afternoon as we took off from our house to go pick up Leo and Eva from the airport!!  Once we met them, we felt like we were in the best possible position - with all of their visit ahead of us!!

Fernando will be coming later this evening.  He had to drive since the car's inspection and registration is due this month.  As I'm writing this, he is probably about 30 minutes or so away from our house!!!  Then we REALLY will be in the best possible position!

Until of course Rebeca and family arrive - then THAT will be the absolute best position to be in!!!  They get here on the 28th.

It's way too cold!

Highs barely in the 40s and lows in the 20s.  Oh well, this weather is ok until the end of December.  This weather fits for Christmas.  But after December, it would be nice if this cold weather would just go away!

Guillermo's been working hard outside trying to save some of his most treasured plants and citrus trees.

This is how the Staghorn fern looks right now.  Before this cold set in, it had gotten really nice looking.  A plant to be proud of!!!  But it is incredibly big now, and very heavy, so there was no trying to move it this time around.  Plan B had to go into effect, which is to just cover it up and hope for the best.

And the wind is really whipping up this tarp that is covering the citrus trees.  We joked that with these near 40mph winds overnight, that the tarp would be down the street come the morning.  But no, Guillermo did an excellent job (as usual) of securing that tarp so that it wasn't going anywhere.  He even added an extra tarp the next day, (enduring the bitter cold wind) since the following night it was going to be even colder.

Support Group meeting

Today Guillermo and I went to a Pulmonary Fibrosis support meeting.  We hadn't been to one in a long time.  We first started going back in 2015 a few months after Guillermo was diagnosed with Pulmonary Fibrosis.  It was good to go to another meeting and hear everyone's stories.

We are all showing a Christmas ornament we decorated!

Back by popular demand....

Here you go, Andrew, and anyone else who has missed reading this blog.  I'll try to keep on it more frequently.  Thanks for letting me know you missed this blog.

So, here's what's new.

Back in August, we had a most wonderful time taking care of Scotty in Tucson for several days while Rebeca and Jason were out of town.  He really is a wonder to us and we just loved seeing him at this new level of awareness and talking.  We had so much fun with him!!

In October and November we went to New Orleans to visit Fernando, Eva and little Leo.  That sweet little boy is growing up so fast!!!  How fun it is to see the world again through a little one's eyes.  In October we took him to the zoo and to a park and probably to some store or another every day.  In November, we celebrated Thanksgiving with them and also took Leo to the zoo again and to the mall, where he and I rode a train around a snow mountain!  He never smiled once, but you could just tell he was happy to be on that train!!!

So now we're back home and getting ready for Christmas.  For some reason, it's taking such a long time to get all the decorations up!  But I have decided that every single Christmas item we have is going up or being put somewhere.  Not like in all previous years where a lot of stuff stays in boxes because I don't know where to put it.  It's finding a place this year!!!!  Fernando and family are coming for Christmas, as are Rebeca and family so we are happy about that.

This is the life!

Loving having them here and being a part of their daily lives for a little while.

Leo loves Baby Story time at the local library

We love taking him to the nearby park.

We've had some crazy thunderstorms lately.

Leo just loves being in his little pool.

We were very fortunate to be with him for his very first birthday celebration!

The amount of rain we've gotten and the cooler weather kept these petunias looking nice way longer than we expected.  

They don't look as nice anymore as of the last two weeks, but we never would have imagined we'd have them looking so nice for so long!

Guess who's here??

Yay!!!

Another painting!

Last night was another painting class!!  Whoa, much harder than the first time.  It was kind of nerve-wracking but we made it. Well, almost all of us.  There were only 3 people in this class - myself and two friends.  One friend was so distraught with her painting that she decided to quit midway through the class.  She stayed, though, and enjoyed watching us and munching on wine, cheese and chocolate!

 Here we are with our paintings.  The friend who quit painting is on the right and the model we were following is on the lower right.

And my painting from closer up.  The hard part was after doing the background and the mountains - when we had to draw the branches up front.  

Still, it was fun and we plan on doing another painting again one of these days.  Well, maybe not one of us........

Little plants in

The straw bales have been prepped and are now ready for planting.  Yesterday Guillermo planted a few plants but he did find it a little harder than he thought it would be.  He said it wasn't easy digging holes in that straw and so the easiest thing is to put in plants that are still relatively small.  Leaving the plants that have grown bigger, and need bigger holes, for the regular garden.  Still, he's excited about this experiment and says he even plans on planting lettuce into the sides of the bales to see if that will work.

Great time of year

This is such a nice time weather-wise in San Antonio.  We get periodic rains, the weather is neither too hot nor too cold, and there are no mosquitoes yet.

We enjoyed this broccoli from the garden the other day.

Here's how our deck looks right now:

You know the weather is nice when the petunias look this good!

Another experiment

We've heard of this before, but after reading an article in a Costco magazine about straw bale gardening, Guillermo decided he's going to give it a try!!!

The bales are in place.

The bales got a good soaking with the rains we had the last few days, and today Guillermo is prepping the bales with ammonium sulfate.

The line going across the top of the bales is a water line, for when the plants start growing.  It's not time yet to plant in the bales.

Fun evening painting

Last night, two of my friends from Elrod and I went to a painting class at a place called "Painting with a Twist".  We were a little nervous at first, but after the first strokes of paint, it was actually quite fun.  While we painted we drank wine and munched on cheese, olives and crackers.

Some pictures of our class.  I'm on the very right behind the pink painting.

You can't see me here, but I'm sitting between the two ladies on the left.  That's Sharon towards the front and Barbara behind her.  You can only see my hand holding a brush.

Another view of our class.  

My painting getting started.

Just about finished.

Painting is done!

Title of this painting class was "Japanese Cherry Blossoms"

And here's our whole class with our paintings.  The model we were following is in the background standing up on the easel on the left.  I love how everyone's interpretation is different.

And the three of us with our finished paintings!

Barbara and I would like to do another painting class.  Sharon said she probably wouldn't do it again - too stressful for her!

Enjoying the snow

A picture we received recently.  Seems like little Leo just loves the snow!

February Tucson visit

What a nice time we had in Tucson.  It was hard to believe how big Scotty is now.  We remembered so fondly being with him last year at this exact same time - when he couldn't talk yet and was just learning how to walk.  A year makes a HUGE difference.

Here we are eating at one of his favorite restaurants where he just LOVES the macaroni and cheese and then enjoying tapioca pudding with jello.

.

Some things are still the same - Scotty still loves playing with playdough.  Although this time he could help me make it!  Here he is showing how his two fingers turned blue from the food coloring.

Nice warm playdough.

Getting his playdough supplies out.

On Tuesday we took advantage of the nice weather and went to the zoo.  Tia Abuela Irene joined us and we all had a very nice time.  

Going in to the cave is still a favorite of Scotty's

Those fish are BIG in the water inside that cave!

 We watched the little mini loader building this carousel last year - and now this year he got to ride the carousel!  He picked the leopard to sit on.

All the other times we've been to this zoo, the train wasn't running but today it was!  How exciting!  So we took advantage of it and had a most fun, but very windy, ride around the park outside the zoo.  When the train started to take off, Scotty was so happy.  Irene and I loved watching him laugh and laugh while saying, "chug a chug a chug a chug a choo choo choo".  He really did enjoy being on a little train.

Eating at another of his favorite restaurants - Boston Market.  He likes the food there but he also likes the fact that from Boston Market's parking lot, he can see the BIG dinosaur that is by McDonalds next door.

So, we spent a total of 8 and a half days with him this time.  Our shortest trip ever.  But we made the most of our days and are grateful we could at least have those 8 and a half days.  We had planned more outings with him but one of the days the winds were gusting at had to be more than 40mph and the other day we talked ourselves out of driving ALL the way out to the Desert Museum, instead opting to just take it easy at the house.
In this video, towards the end, you can hear how Scotty says "Abuelito".

Playing in the park close to his house.

It was a little harder getting pictures and video of Scotty this time.  Because whenever he'd see the phone or tablet up, he'd immediately walk over to me saying, "let's see (it)".  

A precious memory for me from our visit to Tucson:  

We put St. Patrick's Day cling-ons on the patio window.  Scotty found out that if he took down the Pot 'o Gold cling-on and handed it to me, that I would give him a big hug and a kiss.  So, several times during the day he would take it off the window and bring it to me, wherever I was.  And I would say, "Again?!?!?  Ok, that means I give you a hug and a kiss!"  And I would give him hugs and kisses and then put it back on the window.  Sometimes it would come back off the window right away!  Which was just precious to me, because it meant he is still ok with me giving him hugs and kisses!!

Sweet memories

Our most precious memories from December and part of January:

Having little Leo early in the morning, and walking him into the room where Guillermo usually was on the computer.  Guillermo would look up when he realized we were coming into the room, and with a big smile on his face exclaim, "A - MI - GUI- TO!!!"  This in turn would make Leo break out into a huge smile and usually stick his whole fist into his mouth, because he was just as happy to see his abuelito.  Then Guillermo would spend the next 5 minutes or so holding Leo and we'd put him on the futon where he'd happily play with us or the pillows or look at an animal book with Guillermo.

Then I would carry him into another room where there would always be a little electric heater going.  Leo was fascinated with that heater and would always stare at it.  We'd sit on the bed in that room and read the same two or three books every morning.  After that little morning ritual, we'd head out to his playground in the living room.

We had a Snoopy plush that would play music when you'd press his paw.  Leo loved that Snoopy and while we'd dance in place to the music, the sweetest sounds would sometimes come out of his mouth.

Leo seemed to love sitting out in our garage and listening to classical music with his abuelito.  Guillermo would take him out there and they would both just peacefully listen to the music.  Leo never seemed to tire of it.  We set up some lawn chairs in the garage and would sometimes sit in them with the garage door open.  It was a perfect place to sit especially when it was very cold and windy.  We'd feel perfectly comfortable in the garage.

Before Christmas we had some nice warm weather so we took advantage of that and would do a little walking when it was dark outside to see the houses decorated for Christmas.  There were several houses that Leo seemed to enjoy.  One house was close to ours and had two big inflatables.  One was a penguin and the other was a snowman.  Leo just loved going out to look at the penguin and the snowman!  Another house had an inflatable that was a Christmas tree with a Santa that would pop up out of the top of the tree and then go back in.  Eva and I really enjoyed the evenings that we were able to walk out there and show Leo all the lights and decorations.

Guillermo loved holding Leo to look out the back patio windows.  Leo was fascinated with the squirrels that would frolic out there and watched in amazement when huge flocks of doves would fly up from the neighbor's yard.  It seemed there was always something going on back there!

One day Fernando and Eva needed to go to the credit union and also do some grocery shopping.  They dropped Guillermo, Leo and I off at a nearby park while they took care of business.  Oh my goodness what a nice time we had.  First we hung around the playground for a few minutes so Leo could watch the other kids playing, which seemed to fascinate him.  Then we took him with the stroller down the walk to the trails where there were lots of trees.  He seemed to really enjoy that.  He just lay back in his stroller and watched the scenery go by.  It was very peaceful on that walk and we were just going to do a tiny little piece of that walk (because it was a LONG way back to the playground if he started getting upset) but we ended up doing another section of that trail because he seemed to be enjoying it so much.  Then we went back to the playground.  We sat among the children playing which he seemed to really enjoy.  Then he and I took a slide down one of the tamer slides - not really sure how he felt about that.

There were other memories, and if some come to mind, I'll include them......

Nana and Atutúo

We sure do look forward to seeing these two again!  Leo doesn't talk yet and Scotty is becoming a real talker!  He calls me Nana and he calls Guillermo Atutúo.  Atutúo is pronounced Ah-too-TOO-oh.  It's his best way of pronouncing Abuelito and he has all the syllables and the accent in the right place!

Guillermo's garden is looking good and we've got some fresh broccoli on the way!

Post Christmas get-together

The next day, we went to a park and had some photos taken.  It was COLD!!!