Birthday parties!

Last Saturday we went to a wedding fair, which also happens to be a first communion fair. Since people here don't usually have large houses and no yards, when they celebrate someone's first communion they have to rent a space and cater it, just like a wedding. Though, luckily, it isn't as expensive. Alex's first communion is next June, so they need to find a place to have it, so we were talking with representatives from a bunch of venues. It was much fancier than the wedding fairs in the US, rather than just having booths, each vender had their own room. Walls and all. Of course, I apparently look like a bride, so they kept approaching me about everything, rather than Noelia. Silly people.

LOVED this crepe stand trailer! It was so cute!

So, this week was Noelia and Avril birthdays. Avril's is Nov 10th, and Noelia's is the 11th. To celebrate Noelia's, last weekend her family and friends threw her a surprise party. Jose Luis was tricky about it too. Saturday, he and the kids told her that we were all going hiking in the mountains Sunday morning, so she had to pack a bag and we had to leave right away to get to our destination near the mountain in time. She was confused as to why we were going the night before and staying somewhere, but Jose said it was a surprise. We packed up and headed out of town. He tricked her a couple times along the way, pretending to be pulling into the parking lot of the train station, and then later pretending we were going to her sister's house, when we passed it. We drove for about an hour, then pulled into the parking lot of this cool chocolate factory/store. We got there right before it closed, so we were able to go in and get some goodies, but didn't have time to hang out for very long.
After that, we stopped at a nearby bar and restaurant and had sodas and shared a bag of chips, because Jose said it would be at least another half hour before we got to our destination by the mountains and the kids were hungry. We hopped back in the car and Jose said that he needed to use the GPS to get us to the next place we were going, but didn't want Noelia to see it, so he blindfolded her. This really threw her off, because rather than continuing towards the mountains, we actually turned back and headed back towards Alcampell, Noelia's hometown. After the half hour drive, we stopped at a restaurant and took Noelia out of the car and lead her in. We led her into a dark room and took off the blindfold, flipped on the lights and watched the excited and shocked look on her face as she saw all of her friends and family there.

Mama Laura made a bunch of cookies as party favors. They were yummy!

They had a LOT of food. They had escalivada (with tuna on it), pan con tomate (slives of French bread with tomato smeared on top), salad (with tuna, of course), potato omelets, calamari, snails, meat and cheese, and shrimp. About 8 plates of EACH thing. Obviously, none of these are up my alley, so Janet ordered me some grilled veggies for my dinner. Twas yummy.

 Special, long toothpicks for eating snails.

 The shrimp still had heads and legs. Icky!

 Janet acquiesced to Avril's request for makeup.

 Cousins :)

 After dinner, Jose set up a projector and played a video for Noelia. Everyone had contributed pics and videos about and with her. It was super sweet. I was even in one video with her friends, which we taped the weekend before in the country. Then, the party moved outside into a tent set up with a stage and a band. Her family performed a song for her: Jose played bass, Alex played drums and Avril sang. It was very cool. I had to spend a lot of the time inside though, because people were smoking and it was hurting my throat. Plus the music was super loud and I didn't bring earplugs. There were a few other people inside too though, so at least I wasn't alone. We stayed over at Noelia's parents house that night and on Sunday we went to Jose's sister's house for lunch. She made fettuccine and a cream sauce similar to alfredo. Despite my attempts to avoid dairy, I didn't want to be annoying and say "oh, I can't eat that," so I ate it. Ok, ok... it looked good and I kinda wanted it too. I was just afraid of what it would do to my stomach later. I was right. I was up all night with horrible heartburn from the dairy. Oh well, learned my lesson.

On Friday, Noelia and I went to the doctor to see the test results from my blood test, to try and figure out why I've been so fatigued and had so many headaches lately. Turns out everything was fine. Perfect actually. The doctor actually seemed surprised, because despite my weight my cholesterol and blood sugar were both ideal. See what eating well does? I'm ideal :)
So, it's most likely stress from having so many things change at once, and maybe some homesickness as well making me feel ill. So... I need to get into the habit of meditating every day. I think that should help.

Today, we are celebrating Avril's birthday with her friends. We are going to go to see Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. After that we are going to McDonalds for dinner. I'm curious to see if they have the same salads we have in the US.

Tomorrow, we are officially celebrating both their birthdays at the house in the country. Noelia made veggie lasagna (no sauce on mine ;) ) for everyone to eat tomorrow, and the rest of us helped assemble them. Jose even cut out letters from the noodles and spelled out their names to put on top of the lasagnas. Super cute!

See that cheeseless spot on that one? That's mine.