Time Flies

My sister Alma just sent me pictures of my little neices, and I can't believe how big they are, especially Rebekah. Alma is the only one out of five siblings to have kids in our family. My brother will have his first (a boy) at the end of May. I'm so excited.
This is Aprl, my sister-in-law with her big belly.

So when I left California in January to come back to Puerto Rico, Rebekah looked like this:

And now she looks like this:


I can't believe how big she's gotten. And she already has four teeth, two on top and two on the bottom. She is so adorable, I wish I was there to see her grow.
This is her big sister Victoria, she's so smart and loves to play card games with her grandpa I hear.

Where does the time go? I guess it feels that way because I've never been away from my family for so long.

Old School, New School

Seeing that we're almost done with school, I wanted to remember some of the crazy things we've experienced while living in Puerto Rico. One of those things is Matthew's old Optometry school...yeah, it's that bad. When Matthew first arrived with his dad to look for an apartment/furniture and check out the school he would be attending for the next 4 years, he couldn't believe what he saw. It was so bad that he passed by it a few times and totally missed it. Boy were we ever grateful that they built the new campus in Bayamon, but the first two and a half years were dreadfully spent at this tiny, rundown, "optometry school". Things usually look worse in pictures, but the school actually looks better in these pictures.




This was their cafeteria! Luckily Matthew never touched the food, he said he saw cockroaches in there.

This is one of only two spots where the students could "hang out" during breaks and lunches on campus.
...and this is a distant picture of his new school, so much better in every way possible. I'll have to take more pictures of this new building and add them later.

Finally!

This is way late, but I finally decided to blog again, also I've been trying to use my blog as an online second hand store, so please forgive me. I'm glad I did though because I was able to get rid of a lot of stuff. Thanks for those of you who bought a few things.

Well, our friends David and Lemsy have been wanting to get together with us for the past year or so. Everytime we had set a date, something always came up or one of us was just unable to make it for some reason or another. We met David and Lemsy while serving in the yw/ym stake presidency with them and we became the best of friends. I call Lemsy my sister. They are one of those couples you meet and feel like you've known all your lives. Well we finally got together at a beach called Piñones and had a little BBQ.
As you can see Matthew did the honors of cooking our hamburgers. He cracks me up because he won't step foot near a kitchen but he'll grill all day long. Bobby Flay is one of his heros and is always repeating his saying, "there's two kinds of men in this world, those who know how to grill and those who think they know how to grill." LOL, I'm just glad I get break from cooking ;)

This is Matthew and David Aguayo

...and Lemsy, baby David, and me. We always tell eachother that our kids should marry eachother. I guess I better hurry huh? Little david's getting big.

This was during spring break so there was a lot of vigilance around the beaches, but this helicopter flew so close to us that it made currents in the ocean. And then it got so close to this little hill near the water that it blew off a bunch of leaves and branches onto the ocean. I couldn't believe how close it was. Thank goodness no one got hurt. We had a good time though and I'm glad we finally got together.

Still Available

Rechargeable Cordless Swiffer Vacuum - $12



78 Piece Flatware Set - $15


Foot Stool - $5


4-D Battery Lantern, 16 hour battery life - $8/each


Emergency Kit w/Radio, Flashlight, TV, etc. - $15



Two-Person Inflatable Boat w/Oars - $15


Clamp-on Desk Lamp - $5


Cage Bingo - $2

WBC Championship Game

Wednesday was the last game of the WBC here in Puerto Rico. The teams now move on to Miami, FL to continue on to the next round. Puerto Rico beat the Netherlands yet again, but the Netherlands will still advance. The Netherlands surprised us all as the "Cinderella team" of the tournament.

The atmosphere at the game was so crazy. We had a blast. We were even lucky enough for a camera man to stand right in front of us and Matthew appeared on ESPN. The channel aired the highlights of the game on Wednesday night and Thursday morning on ESPN Sportscenter and you could see Matthew cheering in the crowd. We've been getting phone calls from friends and family telling us they saw him on television. Too bad we don't have cable, we didn't get a chance to see him, but at least we know he was on there.

A few pictures of us were also on El Nuevo Dia (http://especiales.elnuevodia.com/clasicobeisbol/default.aspx?G=03-07-2009), a Puerto Rican news paper. These are the pictures from the website they allow you to download them on to your computer. One is a group picture of all of us on March 7th.

...and this picture was on March 11th the final game, we had just crossed the street to get into the stadium and a Nuevo Dia photographer snapped a picture of us.

As soon as we walked into the stadium we were bombarded by a bunch of people handing out free stuff, Matthew even got a free water bottle, when vendors inside were selling them for $3. I got that shirt at the game, it was thrown right above my head, but the guy behind me accidentally dropped it and it fell behind my chair. I quickly snatched it from the ground and kept it.

This was another picture from the newspaper website:

ESPN sports analyst Steve Phillips was at the game, I couldn't get a very good picture but here he is:

this is a better picture of him from the ESPN website:

...more pictures of the game:


Puertorican Team

Some of Puerto Rico's most popular players (at least that I recognized):
Carlos Delgado (plays for the Mets)

Carlos Beltran (also plays for the Mets)

Ivan Rodriguez (played catcher for the yankees)

The bases are loaded here for Puerto Rico to score

Puerto Rico wins, the fans go crazy!

and we got fireworks, it was the perfect way to end the night.

Did Anyone Feel that Earthquake?

There was an earthquake about a minute ago March 11, 2009 at 10:06pm in Puerto Rico. I felt it as I was blogging and I'm wondering if anyone else felt it. Freaky. I live on the 4th floor and I could feel the apartment swaying back and forth. This is the third earthquake I have been in since I moved here, what is going on? I thought I was clear of any earthquakes since getting out of California. I guess not. I'll have to check the news.

'09 World Baseball Classic

It's finally here!

I've been waiting for the world baseball classic to begin. I've grown to love baseball with Matthew, it's his favorite sport, but I only get excited when it's a big game like this one. This is the outside of the stadium while we waited.

We went last year and we had a blast. This year we bought tickets for the very first game (Dominican Republic vs. Netherlands). We sat at the bleachers for the first game, but got really good seats. The stadium is pretty small, so really every seat is good.

Kristen and me

The boys. Stacey, this is for you. He might have been on the phone with you in this picture. LOL.

About 10 minutes into the game more of our friends showed up. Brianna and Julia, and Me and Kristen in the back. We had a good time and the weather was perfect, glad it didn't rain.

The boys were really into the game here.

We also got tickets for the very last game. I'm hoping it will be Dominican Republic vs. Puerto Rico, that should be interesting.
In the game we saw on Saturday, the Dominicans lost against the Netherlands 3 to 2. I coudn't believe it, but the Dominicans were playing really crappy. Matthew and I were rooting for them because that's where he served his mission. What really messed them up was their first picther. He let 3 runs get past him. Needless to say, they had the rest of the game to catch up and they only scored 2 runs. Oh well, at least they're still in the game. Last I heard they beat Panama 9 to 0, so I guess they learned their lesson.
David Ortiz at bat (a.k.a "Big Papi") one of the few players that I actually recognized from the Dominican team.


I was so dissapointed that Vladimir Guerrero didn't play this year.

It was a busy Saturday, later that evening we spent time with the Paige Family. President Paige is our stake president here in Puerto Rico. Him and his wife Cuqui invited us over for dinner and a Rock Band session. You know you have an awesome Stake Pres. when he's a fan of Rock Band.


We had so much fun. Thanks for a fun night Cuqui. We have to get together again.