Christmas 2015

Joy  to the World! The Lord Is Come.

 

 

 

 Dear Family and Friends,

 

As I sit to write this Christmas note, I think of all the people that have touched our lives for good this year. I think of the memories we have made and the blessings we have received and my heart is full. This year I wanted to do something different and not just send out a Christmas card but to share some of the things that we truly cherish, to share some of our everyday pictures and stories that make our family what it is, and to share our testimony of this sacred Holiday Season with all of you.

Family

Family has truly been the biggest blessing to us. For the past 3 years or so we have re-learned the importance of family. We have been blessed to strengthen some family relationships and pray that the opportunities will be opened to continue to meet and visit many more of our extended family. To really get to connect, re-connect and strengthen those relationships. One of our beliefs as members of our church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) is that we can continue these family relationships after we die. What a blessing and comfort that is to know that we can be together forever as families. It makes us want to better those relationships today.

We have been blessed to have some family nearby and we are very thankful to have our children grow up with cousins and grandparents nearby. One of the most fun things we did together this year was go with the girl cousins to Seattle and spend a day at the American Girl doll store to celebrate Sarah and little Julia’s birthday. We got to visit Pike’s Place Market and hang out in Seattle.

Grandpa Roy and Grandma Yvonne moved to Spokane this year and we have enjoyed spending time with them. Grandpa Roy is a young 86 years old and continues to work on family history and Grandma Yvonne is still one of the best cooks in my book and we loved visiting with her this year as well!

I have been blessed for the last couple of years to go to Chicago about every 6 months to see my parents and family. While most trips have not been for the happiest of reasons, I have felt immensely privileged to have gone to see my nephew David before he passed away and for his funeral. And I was able to visit my Mom’s brother, Uncle Piri, before and after he passed as well. Those two experiences have reshaped my heart to really think about what truly is important in life. My most recent trip to Chicago was, finally, for a happy occasion. It was my brother Joe and my sister-in-law Liz’s 25th wedding anniversary. I was able to see some old friends, finally get a family group picture, and have something happy to celebrate. We laughed, we cried, it was just awesome!

The kids are sure growing up fast! Anna, 4, loved starting preschool, Juju turned 8 and was baptized, Dylan turned 12 and was ordained a Deacon in our church and joined the older boys at Boy Scouts. Christian turned 13 and is eating, breathing, and dreaming basketball, and Nolan, 15, started H.S. and Seminary and soon will start Driver’s Ed, yikes! Our olders are also doing great. Kyle is back from serving a 2 year mission for our church in Virginia and is at BYU-Idaho, Lindsey will be getting her PhD in Neuroscience from BYU-Provo next year! 

 

 

 

 

Friends

Friends have been super important to us as well. We have been blessed to make and keep some really neat friends over the years. And while some friends have come and gone it’s so neat to be able to keep in touch. To hear that you are doing well, to hear and see the fun things you are doing. To see your families growing. But more than that to be able to offer support and love during your difficult times as well. It is beautiful to see the legacy that you and your children are making.

 

 

Work Opportunities

We have really had some neat opportunities for work the last couple of years. We really are very blessed to work for the people that we do. I often feel that they are placed in our path not just to bless us with work to provide for our family, workers and all the responsibilities that we have but to also keep the friendships. I think one of the greatest gifts that Harvey has is to really care about his client’s home as if it was his own home.

 

Service

We want to thank each of you for your service to our family. The treats, the cards, the texts, the visits, the babysitting, driving, help around our house, the Facebook posts, the prayers on our behalf; all of the many things you do that bring us so much happiness. You may think they are small and insignificant but to us they are huge! Service is anything done without the expectation of recompense. True service is doing the work that our Savior would do. One of my good friends once gave me a frame with a quote that says “Angels can’t be everywhere, that’s why God gave us Friends”. And there’s also another quote that I love that says “We are God’s Hands and Feet”. I truly believe we get more out of serving than those we serve get out of it. We have made some of our greatest friends when we are doing the Lord’s work. And I know we have been blessed because of it. When you really think of how God uses people every day to carry out His work it really puts things into perspective on the importance of service not just the service that is given to us but the service we give to others. We serve people around us with not just our acts but our prayers and thoughts. My brother Israel reminded me recently that those prayers are sometimes more important than anything else we can do for someone else. There is great power in prayer and in good thoughts for our loved ones.

 

Jesus Christ

One of our most treasured possessions we have is our testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ and His gospel. He helps us raise our children, He keeps us safe every day, He blesses us with the things we need, He loves us even when we don’t deserve it, He has given us a gospel that is simple and when we follow Him we receive Peace and Joy, even amongst our hardest trials. He is our Friend, our Brother, our Advocate, our Redeemer. We know that He was born in Bethlehem, that He taught the gospel, that He performed miracles, that He loved as no one else, that He laid down His life for each of us so that we can return to live with our Heavenly Parents, and that He was resurrected, further we know that He lives! He loves us and knows each one of us. He knows our joys, our struggles, our short-comings and wants us to come unto Him. We know that He will come again to the earth to reign in all Glory and Power. This is the good news that we are taught in the scriptures and this is the good news that we want to share with you this Christmas Season.

 

We love you, we miss you, we cherish our association with you and we wish you the very best this Christmas Season and in the coming New Year!

Love, The Friends

Harvey, Julia, Nolan, Christian, Dylan, Julia, Anna, Lindsey and Kyle

 

Mexican-Style!

I've heard that as you get older you not only start to reminisce about your life but that you also develop an appreciation for your life. Well that's were I seem to be these days.

I was cracking myself up as I drove to the doctors office today just thinking about some of the fun and funny things we did growing up. Luckily no one was watching me in the car next to me and hopefully no one in front of me noticed. 

I never knew I was poor as a little kid. I think I finally realized it when I was about 8 or 9 years old because my so-called friend, Annette, was playing Barbie's with the neighborhood girls and she wouldn't let me borrow one of her Barbies since I didn't have any of my own. That was the first time I realized that I didn't have the same cool toys my other friends had or the same cool clothes. And by the way yes she's still my friend. I, of course, remind her of that every time we start talking about old times. And no she's not as selfish as she was at 5 years old, well not as much. Love you Nettie! I met Annette in the park when we were 5 years old and she was wearing her heavy winter coat in the spring. We made so much fun of her for that. She was a mama's girl for sure! I ate my first pickle with Annette (I never had tasted one before believe it or not, and yes I love pickles). Annette taught me what a nightgown was (I only knew them by pajamas), and she was the only friend I was allowed to have sleep-overs with. She is half Mexican and half Polish. She claimed to not speak a lick of Spanish but she totally understood everything we said about her. I remember that I was mainly Spanish speaking until the 3rd grade when I went bilingual in school. So I'm not exactly sure how we communicated. Interesting. She was a pill but I grew to love her like a sister. What started out as playing dolls, sucking on the limes and salt when mom wasn't looking, staying up late under the covers, and playing dress up with my older sisters' clothes and high-heels eventually turned into flirting with the cute boys, going to dance clubs, staying out late, and drinking and smoking cause we thought it was soooo cool. My mom always called her my "alcahueta" or my instigator. We definitely had fun times together. Our paths finally separated when I started going to church for the right reasons and started hanging out with "los jovenes solteros", the Young Single Adult group in my church. We kind of lost touch for a while there. But life has a way of always bringing us back together. 

So I live in a very affluent area. Nothing like what it was, growing up in the south side of Chicago in the Mexican neighborhoods with the gangs, the graffiti, and the Mexican tiendas everywhere. Here in our neighborhood I see lots of nice cars, beautiful houses with big yards and fences made of beautiful wood and not the ugly chain-linked fences. Yards with trampolines, basketball courts, propane BBQers, and backyard patios with the pretty umbrellas and padded chairs. There's trees with green leaves that blossom in the spring, clean streets that for the most part don't have garbage debris flying everywhere. And I say "for the most part" cause it's very windy here and garbage flies everywhere on garbage pickup days but seems to promptly get cleaned up by the street sweepers. I see lots of people walking in my neighborhood that actually are walking for recreational purposes instead of walking to the laundromat, the store, or to get to work which is the only reason that people in my neighborhood growing up were walking to. And I have to say I ABSOLUTELY LOVE where I live! It's such a wonderful area. My kids love it too and we feel pretty safe here. The bonus is the beautiful views and the abundantly gorgeous flora and fauna everywhere you turn. 

So back to my driving to the doctor's office and why I was cracking myself up. First of all I had all these things as a kid! I just realized that today! I had a trampoline! It was a Mexican trampoline but a trampoline nonetheless. Let me explain. I was about 3 years old and we had just immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico. We were living with my Uncle Piri's family. So it was my parents, my Aunt and Uncle, their 3 kids and me and my 5 siblings. Not sure how big their house was but it couldn't of been too big. So I remember we had mattresses that we had propped up against the walls and at night we would move the sofas and lay the mattresses on the floors. I loved nighttime and had hours and hours of fun jumping on my trampoline mattresses. I'd jump from one mattress to another and I'd fall backwards a hundred times. So much fun! 

Growing up I loved where I lived, especially my neighborhood water park. Not the water park like at our local gym with the pool and the slide and the cool water fountain coming out of the pool, no that is lame compared to what we had growing up. Chicago summers, as I remember were hot, humid and just absolutely miserable! When the weather hit the 90's it was a sure deal that one of the locals would, with their stolen or purchased (on the black market) firefighter key open the water hydrant. All that was needed was a tire or a 2x4. They would either put the tire over the hydrant before turning it on and then turn the water on and have an instant fountain that reached the other side of the street. Or they would use a 2x4 and force it up against the hydrant and make manual fountains, or sometimes when they were desperate and didn't have either of these items they would have one of the guys use his arms and hands to make manual fountains. The tire, by far, was the preferred method since it provided a continuous and perfectly huge fountain! The cars would have to slow down and make sure their windows were closed. Our water park was always short lived though because the fire department would always come and turn off the hydrants until someone learned that if we plugged the storm drains we had these massive puddles, and by massive I mean pond-like puddles! So we had hours and hours of fun. 

Most of the houses we lived in had small kitchens with minimal cupboard space. So my wise mother improvised by using our oven as extra space to store the pots, pans, and dishes. The only time we had to take the dishes out to use the oven was to toast our tortillas to make them crunchy when we couldn't go to the store for tostadas. It wasn't until I was like 9 or 10 that some sister missionaries showed my sisters how to make pineapple upside down cake. They made that cake until we all grew tired of it and then started using our oven for storage again. Later my mom started making turkeys on thanksgiving day and we started using the oven once a year. So while I was at my brothers house this past month I don't know what made me look in his oven and I saw a bunch of dishes in there. I had to chuckle cause some things never change. 

As a kid, we moved around A LOT sometimes up to 2 times a year!. I'm sure it was hard moving but seriously I think I loved that nothing ever got boring. I was always seeing different parts of the city. And we always knew where all the good Mexican stores were. If you wanted good tamales you go to 18th street, if you wanted the best Mexican pastries or the best polish pickles the size of your hand you'd go to Pilsen, the best Caldo de Cameron or the best fried shrimp you'd go to 26th street. I didn't realize this until just recently that I really had a lot of fun growing up. I loved getting to see the different parts of Chicago as a kid. 

You know what I've learned? That life and family is never perfect, that life brings struggles and challenges. And that's OK...it's actually more than OK, it's awesome! As human beings we always want more, we always want something that we don't have, and when we get what we want we often times lose interest or appreciation. Life sucks sometimes but you always have to make the best of things. As a kid I remember being pretty grateful and then as a teenager I lost that ability very quickly. I was selfish and always looking at what other people had that I didn't. At 43 I feel like I finally am back to where I started...Grateful and happy with what I HAD and HAVE. The experiences that I had growing up have made me the person that I am today and HARD WORK has brought me back to my love and appreciation for the simple things in life.

Some of the neat murals in my old neighborhoods.

Soda...To Drink or Not to Drink, Making the Right Choice for You

Seriously I don't want to post this and just be a total soda hater, I know a ton of friends and family who love their Diet Coke or their Pepsi and have no desire to quit. I had always been a heavy soda drinker. In fact growing up our drink of choice for breakfast, lunch and dinner was Coke, Squirt or Sprite. A few years back I was drinking like 3 or 4 18 oz. diet sodas per day. I tried to quit but I always kept going back to it for energy, for comfort, and for...I'm not sure why other than I got really bad headaches when I tried to quit so it was just better to go back to it. About 3 years ago I had already heard some of the reports on the news about how bad diet sodas are, etc., etc. I thought well I'll just limit myself to one non-diet soda per day, I did that for a while and gained like 10 pounds. About 1 1/2 yrs. ago I was sitting at church listening to our Bishop speak about addiction and some of the control that we give up to any kind of addiction and I just had one of those “aha!” moments. I knew I was addicted to soda. I had tried to quit and I didn't seem to be able to. So that day I decided to get home and really research soda, find out everything that's in it and why I needed to quit. What I found was that half of the research shows no links to any healthy issues just dental health issues. The other half of the studies show that soda diet and non-diet is super unhealthy and can cause stroke, obesity, etc. I felt like I needed to just make the right decision for me. What did my gut feeling, coupled with all the studies that I read, tell me to do? So since that day I stopped drinking it and I stopped buying it. I mostly drink water at home and when we go out to eat. Listen I totally understand it is a personal choice but if you're on the fence about why you need to quit these articles may be helpful. One thing I will say when I decided to quit I did have a MASSIVE headache for almost a month!!! Stick it out, it will pass. I think I always thought "well there's other crap we eat that worse" or "drinking soda is such a small change in my life". But for me it was like quitting soda put me on the right track to getting healthier and kind of knowing that I can do anything that I just set my mind to. It has been like a small stepping stone to really look at what I eat and what I'm making for my family, and just have more of a conscious effort. There are much healthier things you can drink to replace soda. Maybe my family or I would never have gotten cancer even if we had never stopped drinking soda, or maybe we will get cancer even with having quit soda but you know what? It’s like driving a car. I may be in an accident even when I’m dutifully abiding by all the traffic laws but if I am ever in an accident I can have a clear conscious knowing I was obeying the laws of driving. Sorry for the long post but as you can see I'm pretty passionate on this subject, LOL!

These are some really good articles about the health risks and reasons to avoid drinking sodas.

Coca-Cola Funds Scientists Who Shift Blame for Obesity Away From Bad Diets

Sodas and Your Health: Risks Debated

Ten Reasons to Avoid Drinking Soda

I also wanted to post this one article because I have seen quite a bit of articles that support that there are no studies that show that soda is bad for you. Again you need to make your own decision but for me I really felt that the risks outweigh the advantages of soda consumption.

Is diet soda bad for you?