drum roll please....TOP TEN

From time to time I do a top ten, usually to mark special occassions and such. I have spent a little over a month in the U.S. on furlough. There is not even enough space to recapture my time here in the States and so I'll just hit the highlights. Here we go...

10. seeing my first spitting llama, and laughing obnoxiously loud
9. receiving death stares from the ticked off mama, covered in the spit of the llama
8. eating enough Korean food to put even hot-dog eating phenom Takeru Kobayashi to shame
7. staying up til three in the morning to catch up on the entire first two seasons of HEROES
6. figuring out how to get my next Wii-fix in MEXICO
5. realizing how much I have missed family and friends
4. Spending my first birthday in several years with my family
3. Hearing my niece call me “Auntie”…about a thousand times a day and realizing how much I will miss her and that one word.
2. Seeing my lil brother, and realizing that he wants to become a man, a man with goals and aspirations.
1. discovering how much family and friends have missed me and how hard it will be to head back to Mexico

For those of you all that do not know I will be heading back to Mexico this Monday... I think. Three day Mexican road trip here I come. meanwhile...give me a call while I am in the States or email me.

Spitting llamas & Angry Mamas

(This is the infamous spiting llama)

Have you ever laughed at inappropriate times and felt absolutley awful, like at a funneral or when someone dies in the movies. Well, I am as guilty as all of you because of a recent incedent at a petting zoo in St. Louis. It all went down when I was watching a mom and her child feed a llama. The guilty llama got really excited by the free grub being shoved in its face and then proceeded to push his face into her face like he was Casanova. This llama then made a deep-throaty hocking sound and spit in her unsuspecting face as well as her child's face. The image of the Mom's startled face, Rico Suave the llama, and the unexpected airborn-spit, proved to be a seriously dangerously funny combination. In my defense I was not the only laugher...my laugh just was several decibels louder than the others. The mom the thick saliva from her ticked off face, sunglasses, and hair as well as her hysteric son. I felt terrible as the pair stormed off, with many death stares over her shoulder.

My whole family and I got to see the spitting llama while we were having family vacation in St. Louis. This year was the first year in two years that I have spent my birthday with family in the states. Here are some of the pictures that we took.

(Entrance to Union Train Station)

(outside our hotel with my cousins and their wives)

(my birthday cheesecake, yeah... I turned 26)

(family portrait outside Union Station...kind of looks like a United Nation summit)