The Adventures of Fashion

Legacy

I have come to the not so wonderful conclusion that my legacy has been helping people to be more vain.  People often remember me most for some beauty tip that I once gave them.  Whether its showing someone how to pluck her eyebrows or pointing out to another what clothes a chic mom might wear, I apparently love to dispense beauty advise.  How embarrassing.  The funny thing is that I am always trying to be less and less vain and embrace what my mom always said was the most beautiful of all: natural beauty.  So I guess I am not becoming less vain.  After all, desiring natural beauty is still wanting to be beautiful.  The only difference is that now I am less willing to work for it.  Every morning I just tell myself that I don't need makeup, although that doesn't stop me from putting on bronzer.  That my friends is the secret, by the way, to no-makeup makeup.  With bronzer you look natural, sun-kissed and healthy. (And I realize that real tans aren't healthy but they look like they are.)  And I'm not talking about the sparkly kind. Uggh! Please no.  Bobby Brown makes a great bronzer that totally looks natural.  Remember not to apply too close to your hair line or else the contrast between your white scalp and brown forehead makes it really obvious that you didn't spend the day outside gardening or running happily with your kids and dogs in a meadow.  And please, don't forget the decolletage.   

Another Over the Top Birthday Party

You can always count on Florcita Hernandez to have the best birthday party of the year.  Last year she had an Easter themed party complete with mascot bunny, easter egg hunt, and live bunnies for every kid to take home.  (We didn't take one.)

This year the theme was luau.  The party was held at the Sheraton Presidente. Totem pole piñata, swimming pool, moon bounce, and fire dancers.  Yeah, she's turning seven.  Like I've said in the past, birthdays are big here. When I told Flor, Florcita's mom, that everything was perfect as always she said, "Todo por la pulga," which means, "Everything for our flea."  I guess so.

Below:  These outfits my dad bought the kids a while back.  I think this is the last time Lorenzo will be able to squeeze into his shirt.

Below:  Luciana even got into the spirit of the party.

Below:  Here is Emilia doing the limbo.

Below: The children in front of the piñata.  Florcita is the one in the florescent green bikini.

Below: the moon bounce.

Below: one of the fire dancers

Below: the cake

To Aby: Why El Salvador

     After we got married Jer worked in consulting for three years and then in the pharmaceutical industry for one.  Meanwhile, I got my Masters and became a highschool English teacher.  Then Jer went to INSEAD, an international business school in France.  He went there because we had always wanted to move abroad and we knew that the best international job opportunities would come from there; recruiters come from all over the world to that school as opposed to US business schools. Plus, I was dying to go back to France.  I totally wanted Jeremy to go to INSEAD when he told me about it and where it was.  We had so much fun in France, taking weekend trips to explore the country and we even went to Singapore for two months on an exchange.  Toward the end of his program he got an offer from a pharmaceutical company in Switzerland.  He was days away from signing when he heard about job opportunity in El Salvador. 

     Because he had served his mission in El Salvador he was interested in the job.  I, on the other hand, was very sceptical.  I was very pregnant with twins and had been convincing myself that Switzerland was going to be great. I told him he could fly to El Salvador for the interview, see some of the people from his mission, but that would be it.  Jeremy went and he took the video camera.  When he came back he set himself to selling me on El Salvador.  He showed me video of the malls, houses similar to ones we would live in, and told me all the benefits to moving to El Salvador.  First of all, the job was with an airline so we would receive free plane tickets home and for friends and family to come down (stand-by of course).  Second, the flight to L.A. is only five hours and just three and a half hours to Houston (where Jer's parent's live).  Both flights were obviously much shorter than one from Switzerland would be.  Third, and this was the big closer, I could have a full time maid.  That sounded really good to my pregnant-with-twins ears.  There were some other small things as well.  The weather In El Salvador is very nice year round.   In Basel, Switz they have very cold winters.  Also, because of my Chavez heritage, I love Latin culture and have always wanted to learn Spanish.  German, which they speak in Basel, would have been cool to learn but much more difficult.  Speaking French helped the Spanish to come quickly.

     In retrospect, I see the hand of the Lord in all of this.  I probably would have had 15 nervous breakdowns by now if we had moved to Switzerland.  I felt dreadfully inadequate and ill-prepared to be a mother before having children.  I'm sure those feelings would have only worsened if I always had a messy house and could barely get a decent meal on the table, which would for sure be the case if I didn't have help.  How do you mothers do it without help?  Seriously, you are my heroes.  So I think Heavenly Father is showing me I can do the whole motherhood thing and allowing me to gain confidence in that area (but not too much confidence because he did bless me with twins which keeps things interesting) before expecting me to take on the additional role as homemaker.

     Honestly, I would feel successful in life if I could say I felt I was being a good mom and homemaker.  That is my goal, which for now I am only working to do the first half and that is hard enough.  If during college someone were to have told me her life's goal was to be a good mother and homemaker I would have been embarrassed for that person.  But now I have a better idea of what that means and all that it involves.  And, I feel, for someone like me, who started with what I feel was zero capacity in this area, it will be an amazing feat.  Heavenly Father is teaching me how.  (I'll have to write a post on just how he's teaching me.)

Mush

I am seriously starting to worry about my brain.  It's just so foggy.  I was blaming it on pregnancy and now I'm blaming it on nursing and lack of sleep.  It could also be from lack of brain exercise.  Its like I'm typing and I can't remember what gets a capital or if its capital with and "a" or an "o".  You know, they say in those articles on how to prevent Alzheimer's that learning a foreign language is a good idea, but it hasn't seemed to help my case any.  By the way, I looked it up (Wait, is it "licked it up"?  Yeah, I think so.) and I got it right.  It is capital with an "a". (Where does the period go?  Outside the quotation mark or in?)