I am so proud of all the things that he has accomplished this last decade. He is so strong-willed, such a go-getter, and so sure of what he wants out of life. He has grown so much over the last 11 years and I feel honored to have shared those years with him. He has always been mature and I thank God I didn't have to deal with problems do to immaturity. Seeing him enter this phase in life makes me so happy because I know that he is destined for great things! He has so many plans for this coming decade and I'm glad to be able to join him on his journey. I'm getting ahead of myself here but I can imagine him at 40s and I can only see success in every aspect of his life. 

Knowing that the 30s are here is like a little reminder of the great things that are to come in our lives. I know that I myself am looking forward to turning 30 in 6 short months. Maybe because of the saying that says "when you turn thirty, that's when you really begin to live life". You are more in tune with yourself and with what you want, your priorities changes, your focus is more serious, life has a new meaning (sort of), you tend to appreciate more what you've been blessed with instead of taking it for granted, and most importantly you see things differently. Can you note the exciting in my words? Well if you can't just know that I'm really excited! The 20s were rough. Good but rough and I just want to be over it and look towards the future. Our future! 

My love, I hope you had a great birthday and an awesome birthday weekend. You are everything a girl could ever dream of. I feel beyond blessed to be able to have you in my life and honored to have all that we have together. Our kids, our home, our dog, and every little materialistic thing we own. Having you as a best friend has been both challenging and fun but I wouldn't change it for nothing in this world. I love you bunches and I look forward on being by your side this next 10 years, and 60 more. May the good Lord bless you today and everyday for the rest of your life! xoxo

Holy Jesus it feels like forever ago since my last post. We sure have been busy this summer and I feel terrible that I haven't been documenting as much or as often as I had done earlier in the year. I just i understatimated nursing school hahaha. 

I have lots of posts on the works and although I really want to post in chronological order of events I won't even set myself up for failure because someday I find myself writing about a topic that just happened but I don't post because I have ten other things that happened before that and before you know it weeks go by and neither one what posted. So I'm just going to go with the flow and post as the inspirations arise. 

In the meantime this is what we've been up to lately and you will probably see a more detailed post about it in the coming weeks. Hopefully before the fall kick in. 

We took our annual trip to Ovean City, MD and it was lots of fun! 

The hubby and I celebrated 5 years of marriage :) 

I assisted my cousins in throwing her own bridal shower which was a success and so much fun. 

We had a great baseball season making it to the championship and winning that gametoo! It was so awesome to see all the hard work that the kids put in take fruit. That final game was out of the field. Literally. 

We celebrated our big boy hitting double digits. I'm still in shock mode. Is surreal to me that he's 10th, on the fifth grade, and has hair in places I didn't think he'd have hair till at least another 3 years hahaha 

We started some backyard projects buy only made it as far as painting the deck. We have yet to add the deck lights or replaced the fence :-/

I made it through my first semester of nursing school and have recently started the second. This is tough stuff guys. I def have a few confessions in regards to nursing school. 

We traveled to the Dominican Republic for 2 weeks. We attended a my cousins wedding and the road tripped around the island the rest of the trip. It was without doubt the best vacation of our lives! 

My hubby welcomed the 30s! Yaayyy! 

I stepped out of my comfort zone by wearing an outfit I have never wore or will probably not wear again in this lifetime. 

My oldest child is in his last year of elementary school while my youngest child started pre K. Yikes! 

Thid hasn't happened yet but can you believe that in a short few weeks we will be celebrating one year of foster care parents. Holy Moly! What a year a difference makes :-)

Doesn't seem like it's a lot but trust me, we've been busy. I hardly have time to just sit and think about nothing. On any given day at any time you can check in to my brain and see it spinning nonstop, there is always something to be done even the little things in life like showering I have to write in my to do list so I don't forget to do hahaha jk but really I do have to fit it in my schedule at times. 

Summer 2016 has been short of amazing! I cannot wait to welcome my favorite season, drink pumpkin flavored coffe, wear sweaters, boots, and scarfs, and most importantly get in the holiday spirit! ;-) 

We booked our flight, we booked our room, we shopped, and made plans on the things we wanted to do while there and everything was going great. It was a last minute sort of thing but everyone was on board and excited for it. We had some group drama about two weeks before the trip over a prank but thankfully came the day off and we were pretty much over it. 

Thursday before we flew out we drove to NJ to a cousin's home to just chill and kill time before driving to the airport. When we arrived she was waiting for us with a super traditional breakfast, Mangu! This cousin is one of the youngest and the one I was closest to while growing up so I still see her as my little cousin and it's been hard trying to accept that she's not little anymore. She's a grown mid 20 gal that can throw it down in the kitchen hahaha. You go girl!

We arrived at the airport like 3 hours early, I have no idea how this happened because everyone knows that Dominicans are never on time, let alone early. So from 330 until boarding time which was like at almost 6am we just took ownership of an area in the waiting room and napped. Well, some napped l, some took pictures, some browsed social media/the web, and so on. Boarding time came around and we were in our way down south. 

About two and a half hour later we landed in west palm beach (I know, we're crazy to have flown in through there but because it was a last minute trip this was the most economical way to fly down to Miami). My high school best friend was awesome and went to pick us up at the airport which saved us a ton of money. I love you girl!

Once at the hotel, we stayed at the Catalina Hotel & Beach Club which was pretty nice, no complaints. Since it was quite early for check-in we just changed into our bathing suits and headed to the roof top pool which pretty much took over our entire afternoon. We had lunch there, calamari and coconut shrimp and some buffalo wings with pretty good mixed drinks ;) some pool time and nap time and by 4ish we headed down to the room to start getting ready for dinner.

By 6pm the bride and I were ready so I treated her to sushi/wings and mojitos while the others got ready. Afterward everyone met outside the hotel and we walked along side of the beach till we reached the restaurants area and we decided on a place to have dinner. We had dinner at about 8pm and I honestly cannot remember the name of the restaurant but I was not impressed with my choice of meal. I had some pasta with clams and well, yuck! The drinks were so so. I wasn't impressed at all. After dinner we walked down the strip some more and ended up at Mangos. Well that didn't go as planned. I already talked about that here, so I won't get into details to prevent even more drama and judgement.

The next day we started our day off with breakfast. My best friend also came along and she stayed with us until after dinner.

After breakfast we walked down to the beach, enjoyed some beers and great time together. I'm not a beach girl but I do enjoy my time there with good company, whether it be my kids, husband, or just friends.

As you've read here, there was nothing exciting about this day, our last day if I may remind you. After dinner we did go out just us three and we ended up at Wet Willie's. We planned on getting call-a-cab but that was way too strong. I foresaw a headache from the very first sip of the sample so that was out. We tried other drinks and decided on a Bob Marley mix. That one was so so but drinkable. I probably will never have it again. We ended up calling it at night at 2am. I think we were all just disappointed and couldn't enjoy ourselves which was very unfortunate.

The next morning we woke up around 6am to start getting ready for the flight back and noticed that the girls were still not back. We gather our belongings and called an uber. Once again we made it to the airport three hours early. I wanted to do the beach before heading to the airport this day but we received an email from the airlines to arrived earlier than originally stated because they expected some delays so off we went. As we were about to walk out the room the other girls were just walking in. No words were exchanged. We bumped with them in the airport again, as expected, and we have not exchanged a single word since. At least I haven't. 

You could only imagine all that has been said by our parents. I'm sure they are all just as disappointed at the outcome of the trip as we are but at last, things happen for a reason. 

I decided to start off with the bad first to just get it out of my chest and to not end up with a sour taste. I hope to revisit Miami again but next time I do I'll make sure it'll be with my better half. 

Some days I can't figure out if the saying that everything happens for a reason is something that I really believe or if it's my way to get over a disappointment in life. Let's elaborate. 

A dear cousin is getting married in 4 short weeks in the Dominican Republic. As her bachelorette celebration we decided to fly to Miami for a weekend and enjoy some bonding time and fun in the sun. Everyone was super excited specially because the bride, as a gift to us, covered a good portion of the cost. There were six of us going including the bride and we are all cousins. This would actually be the first time all six of us got to bond and go on a weekend getaway together so you bet that I was super excited because I always thought that we were lucky to have such awesome relationship even with our differences. But I guess I was wrong. 

Everything started to go wrong even weeks before the actual event. Arguments and disagreements between the girls about everything that you can think of. But even with that and flights booked we decided to brush it under the rug and keep it moving. After all, we are family is not like we're going to stop talking to each other. 

Everything started out great. Well, sort of. We ended up leaving later than usual that Thursday night. Then we got stuck in traffic for 3 hours when it should had taken us an hour to reach our destination. Then we came across issues with transportation taking us to the airport which got resolved fairly quick. We had a good flight and everyone was getting along great. 

We arrived at our destination only to find out that we had left a luggage behind in the airport back home. Fortunately that luggage only contained a pair of dress shoes and tons of make up which yes although it was a good chunk of money invested by the owner at least it was just make up. Thankfully the luggage was found by security and taken into custody shortly after we had landed in Florida. We decided not to let that ruin our short trip so we made plans to just pick up the luggage when we returned and start the festivities. 

All was well during the day but come nightfall lack of communication created a huge problem between the group. The issue was such a big deal breaker that we called it quits on the night and 4 out of the 6 left back to the hotel while the other two continue the partying until 5am. 

Come the next day (24 hours later and 24 hours left of the trip) everyone was over it and we decided to start the day with a nice breakfast and enjoy the morning at the beach. 3 hours later and everything went downhill. Now remember this is a bachelorette getaway so like it or not the only person who really matters is the bride. We're here for the bride. The bride is the center of attention and everything we do should revolve around her, right? Or at least that's what I've always thought so someone please correct me if I'm wrong. 

Well again 3/6 girls decided to go and do their own thing instead of coming back to the room to shower and get ready for lunch. It wasn't that big of a deal because it was going to take a while for everyone to get dressed anyways so we figured half can get ready now n then the other would follow. Well I guess not everyone had the same idea. Minutes before getting ready to go get the other group we receive a message saying that they (the 3 girls who went to do their own thing) were going to skip lunch and that we should go ourselves. Wtf! Now I'm like ok what's really going on? That is unacceptable. But again the bride was chill and although very disappointed in her "bridesmaids" she let it go and we did lunch ourselves. It ended up being an early dinner because it was way too much food and by the time we finished eating it was almost 6pm. 

We walked our way back to the hotel only to find out that the other girls were still not getting ready. Ok.....

They walked in shortly after we did and started to get ready. Well this is when it really become fucked up. After we're all ready and about to walk out the door one of the girls says that she's not going. She stated that she was in a bad mood (I'm still trying to figure out why she was in a bad mood by the way) and did not feel like going out anymore. WTF!? The other one says that she never planned on joining us anyways so that we could leave without her. At this point I have fumes coming out of my ears so I could only imagine what the bride must have been feeling. Not only are they her bridesmaids but we're family. If we can't even count in our own family how can we trust anyone else. 

One of the other girl had left the room to answer a phone call therefore she was unaware of what was happening. The bride walks out the room because what else can she do, and so did I. The fourth girl, who was one of the ones who didn't make it to dinner by the way, stayed behind and I figured it was to talk some sense into the other two but after some minutes of waiting outside for her I called her only to have her tell me to "go ahead without her and that she would message me to meet up later on". What the triple FUCK! I was speechless. That was the cherry on top. It was like we traveled to Miami with complete strangers. 

We stood outside trying to figure out what just happened and what we were going to do next but the heat was too much so we went inside the lobby to sit down while we figured it out only to see the girl who "was not in the mood come out tonight" with a change of clothes and ready to enjoy her night. She was shortly followed by the one who had no intentions to go out with us anyways and the one who wanted to meet up with us later. Her face expression was priceless when she saw us sitting in the lobby. She stood there with her eyes wide open and all I could see was her mouth mumbling "Oh Shit!". Really? Really?!

Insert emoji of angry fuming face right here! 

And then I question myself on why I have trust issues. This was honestly one of the worse experience of my life. I had no words. I think about it and still cannot believe that family, bridesmaids, can be so shady to use a bride to pay for part of the bachelorette trip only to bail on her on what is suppose to be a happy and memorable time. Honestly this brought me to tears. Even as I type this (on the flight back home) I'm shedding tears because I can't believe this really happened. We are family for God's sake. Where's the loyalty. This is plainly fucked up. I mean it when I say I have no words. 

Like you seriously have no heart to pull a stunt like that. That is beyond unforgivable. 

I don't know about the other two girls but I don't need people like that in my life. I'm not the bride and I feel so hurt that I want nothing to do with them for as long as I live. I am no one to not forgive but that doesn't mean that I have to deal with them so as far as I am concerned and as much as it may hurt, those girls have been excluded from my world. They are officially cut out of my life and I don't know if I'll be getting over this anytime soon. I pray that they never get to experience something like this, yet again it won't really matter because it's obvious that they have no heart and they most likely don't care.