July TwentyTen

Wow, what a month!  July truly proved to be one of emotional highs and lows. The last four weeks were full of reunions and goodbyes with friends and family. Thank you everyone for all the love, support and fun times. Looking back at this month Carolina and I have really seen just how hospitable, generous and simply great people can be. Hopefully we'll be able to capture some of that in the narrative that follows below. Feel free to skip around to the different topics, or read the whole thing if you're bored.

Marc & Shireen
Damien's Wedding
Staying in Hanford & Pittsburg
Emilio & Cecilia's Wedding
Week in Florida
Final days before take-off

Marc & Shireen
Sitting down to write this together, Carolina commented on how long ago July 1st actually was. At the beginning of the month we were staying with our good friends Shireen and Marc. Shireen has been Carolina's partner teacher for four years at H.A. Hyde Elementary in Watsonville. They were very generous to open up their home to us while I finished attending the workshop with the Central California Writing Project.

It was great to have roommates again, really! Especially when one of them is an excellent chef, thanks for all the yummy food Shireen. Also, playing video games with Marc was lots of fun; it validated my arguments with Carolina video game time is essential for a healthy relationship.

I HAVE to mention our 3rd roommate, WALTER! Walter is one of the best dogs in the whole world, and one of my bestest friends. He's a big black puppy dog, who was always ready to play. Sorry I didn't say goodbye Walter.

Shireen and Marc rent a house on Shireen's family's land just outside of Watsonville. Staying there was like staying at some spiritual retreat. The home sits on acres of land full of cows, dogs, and two donkeys. We slept and woke to clucking, chirping and mooing. We got to feed the cows and Haydee came to visit. She brought her son Josh and Francisco Borja, who came all the way from Spain to practice his English. The cows were like big slow dogs, and where surprisingly agile. Josh and Frank rode a mini tractor; first time for everything.

While I was  attending the writing project, Carolina spent her days hanging out with Haydee, or Shireen, or Walter. She went surfing a couple of times, did a lot of reading, and basically relaxed for the first time since we started moving out. It was a well earned break.

While at the project, I made a new friend, lol. Antonio Vivó was the only other Mexicano male at the workshop, and we got along from the start. We kept each other up on World Cup scores, and shared strategies for teaching, and vented about what it means being Latino teachers in a White world. Plus we had a couple of beers to commemorate the end of the project.  Good luck Antonio on the job search.

Damien's Wedding
As soon as the project ended Carolina and I sped to San Diego for Damien's wedding. It was great to see old friends, it was like a college reunion. Miggy, Jaq, Carlos, Dame, Rob, I can't believe we're all grown up. It was like we picked up where we left off, drinking and joking around. The wedding was on a boat, on a boat on a mutha@&*#ing boat! It was cool to see Damien happy, the ceremony was really nice, the sun setting while we cruised the bay of San Diego, the city shimmering in the background, fireworks, dancing, and of course the open bar set the stage for an awesome night. Congratulations Damien, and for the rest of the guys, lets make sure that we don't wait for the next wedding to hang out.

The next morning we dragged ourselves out of bed, got some free slurpies at 7 Eleven, on July 7th, stocked up on Advil and water, then set out for L.A. There we spent some time with some of Carolina's family; Carolina's madrina Alicia and her tío Sergio, her cousins Evelyn and Angie, her mamá Cuca, as well as her other cousin's, Ivy, Cristian, Marcos, Javi, Laura, and her other tío Heriberto, and her tía Esperanza and Evelia. We had some yummy pozole, watched the final World Cup game, frustrating as it was, and watched Alicia and Sergio's wedding video; it was entertaining seeing everyone as they were 20 something years ago.

Staying in Hanford & Pittsburg
We spent the rest of the week in Hanford. Here the days slowed down. We had nowhere to go, nothing to do, and loved it. The heat kept us in doors, or in the pool. We celebrated Caro's mom's birthday with a carne asada in the backyard. It was fun hanging out with the Medina girls, bouncing a ball around their pool. We also spent a few days at Alex's friend's awesome backyard pool, with her dad and her siblings, Alex, Efrain, Brenda and Ruth. I almost won at Eclipse the game, but Neida beat me at the end. I had everyone convinced that I was a secret Eclipse fan, which I still deny.

The weekend between the two weeks we spent in Hanford we spent at my mom's house in Pittsburg. My brother Enrique's girls played on the Slip n' Slide, and we had carne asada and hot dogs. I made my argument for them to name their soon to be born baby boy after me. We'll see how my argument held up soon enough.

Emilio & Cecilia's Wedding
The next wedding on our Tour de California took place in Oxnard! This was a reunion of Los Mejicas alumni. We got to Oxnard on friday the 23rd and had some great food at the home of some of Emilio's family. The wedding the next day was great. It was a nice day and Ceci was of course a beautiful bride. The priest was entertaining and insightful. The reception had lots of good music, fun dancing to the live band, and good food. It was a classic Mexican wedding; Emilio wore a mandil, a kid got knocked out during la vibora,  and we got to watch all the padrinos dance with Emilio & Ceci. Good times. It was sad to say goodbye to more friends, but we'll see each other soon.

Week in Florida
The next morning we ate brunch with two of Caro's old roommates from college. Yogi and Jackie drove up from the LA area just to meet us. We caught up on each others' stories and we filled them in on our whole Libya thing. As soon as we finished though, Carolina and I hit the road again, this time straight to the Bay Area. We had to go to my mom's house, do laundry and repack, then catch a flight Butt-Early Monday morning.

We got to Tampa, got our rental car, then found our way to my sister's house thanks to the handy dandy GPS system. As soon as we walked in the door we were rushed by Alma's six kids; Jasmine,15, Abigail 13, Josiah, 10, Aaron, 7, Joye Alina, 2 and Aurelia, 2 months. We hadn't seen them since the wedding, 2 years ago, and it was the first time we met the youngest two. We pretty much didn't rest the whole week, but it was fun playing with my nieces and nephews. We took the boys to an aquarium in Tampa, and the two oldest girls to Busch Gardens. We got rained out at Bush Gardens, but we were able to salvage the day. Abby got on the Phoenix with me, a rotating boat that flips over itself 4 times. The next day we ALL went to Sea World. When we weren't at an amusement park, we were home playing, listening to the kids play piano, or eating lots of yummy food. One of the highlights was summing in the gulf waters, tar-ball free, it was nice and clear and warm, with white sandy beaches and clear blue skies. Summer!

Our flight home was almost an adventure in itself, almost. We got to the Tampa airport early, checked in and passed through security, when the mother of tropical storms washed past, full of wind and rage and lightening and chaos. Our plane had to be diverted to Orlando, so our flight was delayed, threatening our connecting flight in Houston. We played it cool though, and the storm passed, and we soon boarded. When we got to Houston, though, we had to run clear across the terminal to catch our flight back to SFO. It was all just enough to keep things interesting.

Last days before Take-Off
Our last days in California were spent in Pittsburg and Oakland. We packed and packed and packed, bought stuff, then packed some more. We were fortunate enough to spend some time with good friends to say goodbye, again. It's the day before we leave as I write these words, and we're almost done packing. Carolina's parents and Alex are on there way here to see us off at the airport. It's completely real now, and the emotions are too many and too mixed to really relate in words. Thanks everyone for being so kind and for expressing your friendship in all the ways that you do and did this past month.

We give everyone an open invitation to come visit us. If you can negotiate the hurdles of the Libyan Visa process, then you'll have a free place to stay in Tripoli.

Thanks again for visiting our blog, our next post will be posted from Tripoli, as soon as we can. See you all in 10 months, if not sooner, drop us a line every now and then. Besos y abrazos a todos.