I just notice we never post any pictures of our halloween...

Nils and I decided to be Snooki and Pauly D for this past halloween, and had our wonderful friend Dawn joined us. She decided to be JWoww. So, here we are:

Had to share this

"Be so happy that when others look at you
they become happy too"

Keep smiling
it will make a difference : )
Have a fun weekend everyone!

Pumkin Patch

This year Tiffany and family invited us to go to the pumpkin patch with them. This was the first time for Charlie and second for us. We were excited to go and hang out with all of them. So, the night before I decided to baked some pumpkin treats for all of us to enjoy after the pumpkin patch. This was a very easy recipe to follow and very yummy, so I wanted to share it to whoever reads this:

Mini Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

Ingredients
Cookies:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
1 cup LIBBY'S® 100% Pure Pumpkin
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cream Cheese Filling:
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
6 tablespoons butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Directions
For cookies: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease or line four baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and salt in medium bowl. Beat butter and sugar in large mixer bowl on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add pumpkin and vanilla extract; beat until smooth. Stir in flour mixture until combined. Drop by heaping measuring teaspoons onto prepared baking sheets. (A total of 72 cookies are needed for the recipe.)
Bake for 10 to 13 minutes or until springy to the touch. Cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.
For cream cheese filling: Beat cream cheese, butter and vanilla extract in small mixer bowl on medium speed until fluffy. Gradually beat in powdered sugar until light and fluffy.
Spread a heaping teaspoon of filling onto flat side of one cookie; top with flat side of second cookie to make a sandwich. Repeat with remaining cookies and filling. Store in covered container in refrigerator.

I decided to add some food coloring to the cream cheese filling just to make it look a little bit more fun. I found orange and black food coloring at Michael's the other day, so I got inspired by the month of October and did half of the filling black and the other half orange. I forgot to take a picture of them, but they turned out super cute and delicious. We'll definitely be making more of these!!! Oh! and here are some pictures of our day : )

Fall is back

I used to dislike pumkins but everytime fall season is here that smell is back and I learned to love it. Trees are changing colors, leaves are falling down and I love looking out of my window and seeing the beauty of this season and the place I now call home.

Celebrating with the ones we love

Nils' aunts, Anita and Birgit, also had their birthdays this past September, so we planned a dinner with Tiffany and family to celebrate with them. It was such a lovely evening, we caught up on each other's lives, ate, laughed and had an amazing time. Nils suggested I made one of our favorite meals that we only share with people we love, our famous linguine dish. Unfortunatly I forgot to not make it spicy for the kids, so they were drinking lots of water!! But, besides that hiccup, we all enjoyed the meal and the company. We even had cake and a conference call with Sharon and Kurt, and sang Happy Birthday.

"You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them."
Desmond Tutu

Lion King 3D

Nils and I took our nieces on a special date to watch the Lion King movie in 3D!

We were all excited to hang out, but of course we wanted to make this day extra special for them. Lion King is one of my favorite movies and I wanted them to love it as much as I do. So, Nils and I took them to the Disney store and got them stuffed animals. Liv picked Nala and Ella chose baby Simba, and since they were buy one get one free, we bought Pumba for Beckett and big Simba for me :).

After getting excited about their new toys, we headed to the movie theater to watch the movie. It was a different experience to watch it on the theater, it was just amazing. We had so much fun with the girls, we love them and love our dates with them : )

After the movie, we went to eat some burgers at Five Guys and brought them back to our place to play with Charlie for a little bit. We all had such a great day!

The big 25

So, I turned 25 this year, and thanks to my wonderful husband, friends and family, I had a wonderful day. My day started by opening gifts (one of my favorite things to do). Then, Nils made some delicious breakfast that we enjoyed together. Then, I took off to the mall for some very deserved shopping : ) and relaxed all day getting a mani/pedi and answering phone calls from my loved ones. Tiffany and the kids came over to surprise me and take me out to get some ice cream with them. They made my day!

After ice cream, my hot date picked me up and we went to Cafe Juanita, a very cute little restaurant with the best italian food in town. Nils always wanted to take me there, but couldn't find a "good excuse" to go, so turning 25 was the excuse, and I'm so glad we had our dinner there. There was something magical about that night, spending my big birthday with the man I love was definitely more than I ever wanted, it was perfect!

A day with Beckett

Nils and I took Beckett on a "date" last saturday. When we arrived at his house to pick him up, he had his back up on and he was ready to go. We took him to the dog park to play with Charlie. We had so much fun hanging out with him that day. After running around at the park, we took him to eat a hot dog. He was such a happy boy. We love our Beckett and are so happy to live close to him and be able to take him out and play.

Labor Day Weekend

Nils and I got invited to join the Sundelins from Duvall to go to Port Angeles over labor day weekend. We got there saturday around noon, and met up with them at the Hurrican Ridge for a hike. We hiked for a couple of miles and got to enjoy a pretty view from this national park.

This was the first time Nils and I went on a hike together and after this trip, we are definitety doing it again. Nils decided to wear a white t-shirt, which I thought it was a bad idea since we were going with the kids and I knew that he was going to end up playing around with them. Well, Miss Ella got tired of walking, so Nils offered to give her a piggy back ride, and his shirt... well ... got a little dirty. It was funny to look back and see them talking and talking about who knows what! Of course I snap a couple of pictures of those two:

Beckett had a sweet ride, so he didn't get tired at all, and Liv is such a big girl now, she didn't need help from anybody and walked all the way to the top and back with us. After the hike we went back to our hotels to take showers and changed clothes. Later, we met up for dinner at this very old looking italian restaurant, where the pizza was actually pretty good. The next day, we met up in the morning to have some breakfast, where Liv gave me a picture she draw of me, that made me laugh:
After breakfast, we went to Crescent Lake for a small hike. Nils and I loved this place, the lake was super clean, and the hike was much easier than the one from the day before. It was nice to go away for the weekend and experience this kind of vacation, where all you have around is nature and the people you love. We had such a great time with the Sundelins, and we are so happy they invited us to go with them.

After the hike, they went back home to Duvall, while Nils and I decided to stay one more day. We went to watch a movie that night "Conan" at this very small movie theater. The whole town was very small and it didn't seeing like there was a lot of stuff to do. We walked around downtown, and for some reason all of the stores where close and it felt like we were in a ghost town, because nobody else was around. When Nils and I first arrived in Port Angeles, we were in such a rush to meet up with The Sundelins that we didn't notice that this small town was all about Twilight, in fact our hotel was only a block away from "Bella's Restaurant", and most of the stores had something related to the movie. It was kind of funny how we ended up in a town where Twilight is everywhere, when for the past (who knows how many years) I've been avoiding it. So, at the end I decided to buy the book, and I will read it (one day), but I still refuse to watch the movie. Our last day, we decided to go to Sequim, to a drive through safari and we had so much fun. There were some bears that were in disney movies, and so they did tricks in order to get food, it was pretty cool.
After the safari, we took the ferry back home and picked up our little Charlie. We had so much fun on this trip, and we are so excited to start going and explore nature again.

The Best Vacations yet

Nils and I finally made it to the East Coast. We took a two week vacation to visit his family, relax and enjoy the beautiful places the East Coast has to offer. We started our vacation in Washington DC. Nils' parents were so kind to drive us around and took some time off to hang out with us.

Washington DC:
Was beautiful! We had such a great time. Firts we went to The Holocaust Museum and I learned so much more about it. I had to hold on my tears, because they had videos and a lot information that I didn't know about. It makes me so sad to even think about what the people had to go through because of one man. We spent hours there and couldn't cover all of the information they have. I definitely would love to go back and spent more time there. A couple of quotes that I would never forget about this Museum are:

"We are the shoes
We are the last witnesses
We are shoes from grandchildren and grandfathers
From Prague, Paris and Amsterdam
And because we are only made of fabric and leatherAnd not of blood and flesh
Each one of us avoided the Hellfire"

"First they came for the Communists,and I didn’t speak up,because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,and I didn’t speak up,because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,and I didn’t speak up,because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me."

Walking through this Museum was a neat experience and I would never forget everything I saw and learn here.
The next Museum we went to was the Museum of Natural History and Oh My! Did i loved it? YES!!! It was amazing!!! I had so much fun walking around and looking at everything they have, from dinasours to the most beautiful jewlls I've ever seeing. We even got to watch a beautiful movie about two wonderful women that spent their lives taking care of two of the most wonderful animals the orangutans and elephants. I loved this movie so very much. I'm glad we made some time to see it, it is definitely worth it. We also made some time to walk around DC and see all of the monuments. Our hotel was located on the best place, because we were on walking distance of everything and the view was amazing.



Cape May:
The first day we got there, it was a little rainny. We got there late afternnon, so we walked around the shops and grabbed some dinner. The next day, the sun came out so, we spent the whole morning at the beach. Later that afternoon, we headed our hotel in New Jersey. Nils'parents drop us off at the hotel late at night, where Nils and I had the worst dinner ever.



New Jersey:
We decided to make a stop in Jersey to visit one of my beloved friends from my childhood, Vanessa. She lives in Elizabeth, NJ and has a baby boy named Matthew. So, the next day, we spent it with them and her boyfriend Walter. It was so nice to see her and meet her boys. Matthew was super cute! I fell in love with him. It was very neat to see Vanessa being a mom. They picked us up at our hotel aroun noon and we went to eat some yummy peruvian food: pollo a la brasa, anticuchos and of course inca kola. After lunch, we headed to the mall, where Nils and I found some good deals. Then, we went back to their place to hang out for a little bit,and play with Matthew. The time we spent with them was great and we definitely needed more time. Soon, it was bed time for Matthew and saying goodbye to the little guy was super sad to me, I wanted to take him home with me! He stayed with Vanessa's mom while the four of us went out to dinner, to another peruvian restaurant, where Nils got his favorite peruvian dish: bisteck a lo pobre. He was a happy man. After dinner we hang out for another couple of hours back at their place, and then they drop us off at our hotel. We really enjoyed their company and hope to see them again soon. The next day we woke up early and took the train to New York.

New York:
We arrived in New York City early morning, went to the hotel, drop off our bags and headed out to explore the city. Our first day in the city, we walked around Times Square, grabbed some hot dogs, took a tour bus around the city. We stopped in Soho for lunch and went shopping for some clothes. At night, we went to see "The Lion King" on Broadway, it was amazing! We had really good seats, the show was perfect! This picture is from the wax museum:

The next day, Nils and I went to central park, where we took a carriage ride through the park.

Then we met up with Nils' mom outside Max and Sam's school to pick them up. Max was so happy to see his uncle Nils. He showed us around his school, he was ALL ABOUT uncle Nils, it was really cute to see him talking to Nils, like he was his hero or something. After getting the boys from school, we went to their home. We hung out with The Morgulas family for a couple of hours. It was nice hanging out with them and hanging out with the boys. Last time we saw them, Sam didn't really talk, but this time he was telling us stories. He has the cutest voice! We had a great time seeing all of them.

After hanging out with them, we went back to the hotel, got ready and went to meet up Nils' friend Andrew, who just moved to New York from Seattle. We went out to dinner with him and got to see his new apartment. We went to a japanese restaurant, where we got dinner and it was surprisely good. After dinner, Nils and I went to Serendepity for dessert. We ordered a chocolate brownie sundae and it was delicious but too rich, so after a couple bites we were both over it but satisfied.
The next day was our last day in the city, so we did a couple of things before leaving. First we went to FAO Schwarz, then, to fifth avenue, where Nils got me a bracelet from Tiffany & Co, and went to the wax museum. We loved New York and can't wait to go back again! After our last site scene, we met up with Nil's parents again to go to our next stop: Atlantic City.


Atlantic City:
We arrived there late, so we went out to dinner and to bed. The next day we went to Ocean City, where we spent our day laying down and relaxing by the beach. The weather was on our side, and we even got a tan : ) After spending the day relaxing, we went back to the resort and enjoyed some time by the mineral pool. The next day we decided to take a long ride home(to Delaware) by driving along the jersey shore and stopping in all of the beach towns. After a long fun day with The Sundelins we arrived to Delaware Nils' home sweet home : )
The very next day we went to Philadelphia and met up with my friend, Daniela.

Philadelphia:
When we first got there, Nils and I run to the top of the "Rocky steps" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Then, Daniela picked us up and we headed to the Philadelphia's zoo. I loved hanging out with Daniela, she always makes me laugh. We had a great time together. After the zoo, we went to the Love park where we snapped a couple of pictures, then we went to eat the famous philli steak sandwiches. And because, this was my first time, we went to "Pat's cheesesteaks" and it was delicious! It was a very fun hot, sunny day : ) After eating we said our goodbyes and headed back to Delaware.

Delaware:
The next couple of days we decided to stay in the house to go through Nils' boxes that his parents had save throughout his childhood. This was a very long day, especially because after going through stuff he wanted to keep, and after 10 boxes full of memories... there were still a couple more of baseball cards that he used to collect when he was a kid. Our very last night, we went to Nils' uncle and aunt's house to visit them for a little bit and then went out to dinner to Borders ( a restaurant Nils always goes to while visiting his parents).

The next day we woke up, ate some yummy breakfast made by Sharon and went to the airport to take our plane back home. Saying goodbye to the Sundelins is always hard, we love them and enjoy their company so much, we wish they could live closer to us and see them more often.
Nils and I had a great time during this trip and were so happy to see all of our loved ones. We are already looking forward our next visit, that we hope it'll be soon. I loved it there, so I can't wait to go back!

Surprise trip to California

Last week Nils surprised me with a trip to California to hang out with my cousin Jose Carlos who was visiting from Peru. So, sunday night Nils bought my ticket to sunny California and I was on my way on thursday morning. I arrived at LAX at around 2ish pm. and my brother Sergio, his girlfriend Tami and my cousin Jose Carlos picked me up. I can't believe it had been 10 years since the last time I saw him, it was very nice to finally been able to be part of the pictures he was taking with my brothers and just to hang out with everybody. That day we went out to eat at a peruvian restaurant called "Choza Mama" and after that we drove to Hollywood : )

I always love going to Hollywood to look at the stars and take pictures of them. My cousin had one goal: to find the star of Luis Miguel ( his favorite singer) that of course happened to be on the opposite side from where we parked, but it was nice to walk for a while and catch up on each other's life, then we headed back to Murrieta to surprise my mom, who had no idea I was in town. The next day Angel, Jose Carlos and I went to the beach to relax and enjoy the beach. There, we met up with my aunt Veronica and my cousins Kathy, Renzo and Vanessa. We played in the Ocean, and I enjoyed the waves with Vanessa, Angel and my adorable aunt. We had an awesome time! Jose Carlos went in the ocean with Angel but then (as any old person) decided to lay down and took a nap. After the beach we drove back to my mom's place, ate and went shopping to the mall.

On Thursday all of the boys and I went to Universal Studios. We had a blast! we went to all of the different shows, and enjoyed some of the rides. I believed our favorite ones were The Simpsons' ride and the tour around the different scenarios. We got to drive through Desperate Housewives' street which made my day! : ) I had so much fun hanging out with the boys, and this day was for me the best day of the whole trip, because it gaves us a day for all of us to re conect and remembered old times.

Friday we spent the whole day we all went to Disneyland and had a magic day, took lots of pictures and ate some goodies.

Saturday was my last day there with everybody. In the morning Paola, Alejandra and Kaddin showed up to go get breakfast, so we had some girl's time. It was nice to see them, specially Paola because is moving to Peru for a while, so I won't be able to see her during holidays or to just get on the phone with her whenever I want to. After having breakfast with them, I went back to my mom's house to say goodbye to everyone because it was already time to go to the airport. I had so much fun during this trip, it was great to catch up with my cousin and hang out with him and my brothers just like we used to when we were kids in Peru.

Our 4th of July

This year we spent our 4th with the other Sundelins : ) and had a blast. The day before the big celebration, Nils and I went to get some fireworks. This was my first time going with him, and I loved it! I love the smell of the fireworks because it reminds me of my Peru, so been around that smells was very neat for me. Nils got some small fireworks for the kids and some big toys for him and Tore to play. This was Charlie's first time he enjoyed the fireworks with us. So, we all got ready with our fetive colors and headed to the Sundelins house.

Oh yeah and I made this:

"Mormon jello shots" like Nils likes to call them .

Strawberry cupcakes

We of course got some goodies for the kids:

Bubble makers

Water guns

We enjoyed dinner together, chili dogs made by Tore, and couscus made by Tiffany, ate some watermelon (which I don't usually do) and had a wonderful 4th of July. Those kids sure makes us laugh, and Charlie loves hanging out with them.

Later on, we started setting up chairs outside their house so we could all enjoy the fireworks. It was getting kind of cold, so I asked Nils to get my sweater from the car that was park accross the street. On his way to the car he found this:

A wasp nest!!! Scary!

Two years ago I took this picture with my nieces and nephew:

This year we decided to make it a tradition:

Then, it was time for Nils and Tore to play. They were all smiles after every time they light a firework. They were the happiest boys on earth and the rest of us enjoyed the beautiful show. Oh wait did I say all of us?! I meant all of us except for Charlie.

Memorial Day Weekend

This year for memorial day weekend Nils and I went to Portland. OR. We decided to leave on saturday after Ella's birthday party. She had a minnie mouse theme, so I made this for her:

She looked so cute that day with her minnie ears. I was so happy when she gave us her party invitation, because as everybody knows, I LOVE DISNEY! So Nils and I went to the disney store, and let's just say that he had to take stuff out of my hands. I'm glad that Ella is back on the disney track because she used to like disney princesses but for a while now she hasn't really been on the disney spirit : ( but she is back! : ) and Minnie Mouse was perfect! She turned 4 years old this year. I can't believe how much she has grown, I met her when she was 2 and I love been part of her life : )


So, after hanging out with Ella, we left to Oregon, Nils wanted me to drive so that I could "get more practice" so I did, and we still alive, so it went great! However, our trip was a little bit different than what we expected it to be. We arrived at Portland around 4ish on saturday, and decided to take the light trail to downtown. We saw a couple of guys getting tazed by cops, and after that we kind of didn't want to be there anymore plus there wasn't anything to do in Portland, besides been scared! On Sunday, we went to the outles, to take advantage of no paying taxes! Nils got a bunch of stuff he needed and he got the cutest purse ever : my second Coach!

We spent most of the day shopping : ) and even though that was the only activity we did in Portland, we needed that time to spend together. Latetly, Nils and have been really busy, so it was nice to get away even if it was for a few days