Cinco de AJ

It is hard to believe that my baby has turned 5 years old. Five. Not a baby (although I still wipe his butt), not a toddler (I still brush his teeth), but a big, bad 5 year old (who wants his mommy to lay with him every night before bed.) AJ recently began his last year of preschool and with that came all of the emotions of feeling that my kids are growing up just to damn fast. Gone are the hopeless days of nursing babies, toddler tantrums and an extensive sweat pant collection. No more diapers, bottles or pacifiers. Life has evolved into very busy days and nights filled with school, sports and rooms that never stay clean. AJ has evolved from "My Man of Lamancha", "Little Squeaker Backseat Driver Boy", "Swivelneck" and my "Mr. Mr." to a sweaty, tan, muscly, sweet boy who loves Legos, Ninja Turtles, Zombies, Trash Monsters and sports of all kinds. At preschool they used to call you the "jock in the diaper." Now when I pick you up they just shake their heads and say "Oh AJ." You are truly one of a kind. Happy Birthday and many, many more!

At 5 Years Old You:

-Love iPads, iPhones, iPods
-Love Everything Zombie
-Are Obsessed With Lego "Guys"
-Do Not Like Wearing Shirts To Bed Because You Get Hot
-Get Embarrassed If You Have To Take Your Shirt Off In Front Of People
-Say "Sumping" Instead of "Something"
-Eat Smuckers Crustless PB&J Sandwiches Every Single Day
-Love Your Mommy And Never Want To Leave Her. Unless I Have Told You No More Video Games. Then You Want Me To Go To Heaven.
-Love The TV Show Monsters vs. Aliens And Sing The Theme Song Outloud
-Love Black Widow Hunting With A Hammer
-Love Soccer And The Batting Cages
-Would Wear Crocs, Flip Flops or Snow Boots Everyday If I Let You
-Taught Me How To Fish By Saying "Let Me Tell You How To Fish Mom. 1st; If There Is A Hooker On Your Pole You Throw The Hooker Out."
-Think your forearm is called your "two arm."

At 5, your sister and I love to watch you playing in the backyard by yourself. We spy on you...and giggle at the things that you do when you don't even know we are watching you. We wonder WHAT IS GOING ON IN THAT HEAD OF YOURS? I only wish I knew....

Zombie Party!

AJ will soon be turning 5 and after looking at the calender for August I realized that...if we didn't have the party like...this weekend...we wouldn't have one at all! After asking the little prince what kind of party he would like to have he immediately blurted out "ZOMBIES!" and I got right to work. My mind ran wild with all kinds of ideas for scary food, music, photo opp cutouts with guts hanging out, etc. It was going to be awesome! That is until we hand delivered the 1st invitation to a neighbor to which she replied "oh wow! A zombie party! Yea, we absolutely cannot come. Our son is TERRIFIED of zombies. We can't even say the Z word in this house." Well, shit. So much for the ultimate 5 year old zombie party! I quickly switched gears....

No more vienna sausages wrapped in tortillas dripped in ketchup. Zombie fingers finger foods would be too scary for this crowd. Instead I bought a witch pinata and did some slight modifications....

I was so excited. It was part Plants vs Zombies, part I had to deal with what I was working with here. I ran into AJ's room and drug him out to the kitchen to get his opinion. He looked up, shook his head and said "it's not good mama. It's too scary. That nose is too scary. Cut the nose off mama!" Without another word I slowly put the scissors away, placed the sharpie on the counter and poured myself a drink. This party was going to be a disaster.

Keeping in mind that my son is frightened of the pinata and our only guest to RSVP has declined, I got to work on the goodie bags. None of that chintzy plastic stuff at my kid's party! It must be useful. It must not go in the trash the moment that they leave. It must be a ZOMBIE SURVIVAL KIT!

Emergency Drinking Water. Check!
Protein in the form of Slim Jims. Check!
Food With Shelf Life. Twinkies. Yes!
Glow Sticks. Supplies. Just in Case You Need To See While You Are Running From The ZOMBIES! Boo Yea!

Party Day! Zombies everywhere! An (almost) 5 year old's dream!!

Zombie Faces, Brains and Severed Arm Cupcakes

Hope your zombie party was the best zombie party in the history of zombie parties AJ! We love you!

Alaska

Miracles do happen. As in, Tony and I just returned from a 12 day Alaskan cruise completely kid free! In honor of our 10 year wedding anniversary, my mom flew in to New Mexico to hold down the fort (and the kids underwater if they misbehaved) to ensure that our marriage would stay strong and I would not be moving home again. Ever. Thanks Mom!
We set sail on June 25th, with 2 1/2 days travel time before we would dock at our 1st port. We managed to find various things to do on board, including running stairs, yoga, massages, board games, oh and making complete fools of our self on "The Newlywed Game" in front of hundreds of strangers. The older I get the more I have an "we should try everything once" attitude so when I saw the ad for sign ups I thought "what the hell!" We were 1 of 4 couples chosen to compete be completely made fun of out of literally boat loads of couples. Get it. Boatloads! Ha! We were selected to represent a couple being married between 5 and 15 years. After round 1 we were in first place due to the fact that we apparently agreed on things like on a scale from 1-10 what would Tony say is the rating that you would give his chances of dating you when you first met (we both said 0!) and where is the strangest place you ever...you know (which now complete strangers know the answer to and family and friends do not!) However, the tide turned after round 2 where we did not agree on questions like "what kind of animal would you say Tony most represents in the bedroom." He said a Lion. I said an Ape. Sadly, we came in last place but were awarded fabulous prizes like a personal fan, chip clip and a set of playing cards. From then on, we were cruising celebrities better known as "that funny newlywed couple!"

Our 1st port was Katchikan, AK where we went crab fishing, toured the red light district and saw amazing totem poles. I would have to say that it was my favorite port in Alaska!

Next stop was Juneau, AK where we did a "Bike & Brew" which consisted of a 9 mile bike ride to Medenhall Glacier and then a tasting at the Alaskan Brew Co. The glacier was an amazing sight and the beer was delicious!

We then sailed to Skagway, AK. Here we zip lined through the trees and then took a scenic train ride all the way across the Canadian border. Breathtaking...both of them!

Our next day we traveled to Endicott Fjord Glacier where the sightseeing was beyond belief. We saw whales, seals lounging on glacier pieces and extraordinary scenery.

Another day at sea resulted in Tony becoming the 2014 Champion of the World, Universe, and Solar System at arm wrestling. Keep in mind that the average age on this ship was 60...and if you weren't 60 than you were Asian. They didn't stand a chance.

Our last stop was Victoria, British Columbia, which also happened to be one of the places where we spent our honeymoon. We joined up with some of our cruise friends for an "off the grid" pub tour, starting at Spinnakers, where we also spent several days in 2004.

Spinnakers 2004

2014

We then ventured to several other local pubs to test the waters so to speak. By the time we stopped counting we had tried 37 local beers!

Which probably explains this picture to some degree....

The last 2 days at sea were full of Bingo, trivia, sleeping and eating. It was an amazing way to celebrate an amazing 10 years of marriage with the man I love on this journey through life together.

Hookers

Last weekend we headed up to the cabin to enjoy the Colorado weather. After floating the river in the roughest water we have ever experienced, we were invited by Beau to fish at a private trout club called Santa Maria. It was breathtakingly beautiful and the fish practically jumped onto your line. Well, if you were male they did. If you were female you looked good trying!

AJ was the star of the day. Not because he caught the most fish, but purely because of his funny antics! As we were setting up everyone's fishing pole, he kept picking up lures and saying "daddy? Can I have any hooker that I want?" We got such a big laugh out of it. We would say, "yes honey, dad's treat! Any hooker you want!" and he would happily thumb through the lures and hold them up and say "I want this hooker!" or "No...I want this hooker!" It was too cute. And a little twisted. Just the way the Mazotti family likes it!

Way to go Hooker Boy!

Even though none of us female folk caught any fish, I had the last laugh. Because it is a trout club, each member has to record how many fish they caught and the weight of said fish. After cleaning the 13 fish, the guys all made a $5 bet that they could guess how much they weighed just by lifting the bag that they were in. Tony, Erik and Beau all guessed somewhere between 10-13 lbs. I lifted the bag, thought "these boys are nuts" and said 8.5 lbs. Guess what? That 8lb 10oz baby that I delivered finally paid off! I got $15 AND bragging rights!

In Summer.....

Summer 2014 has brought some big changes for our family. Last winter we joined the Albuquerque Country Club, which is located just 2 blocks away from our house. Not ones to forget where we came from, I thought it would be a hard adjustment hanging with the economically fortunate folk instead of using "don't swim in the ditch!" free passes at the community pool provided by the fire department. BOY WAS I WRONG! Apparently we are having no transition issues at all!

Since we know how important 1st impressions can be in this type of social setting, I encouraged my children to be friendly with everyone at the annual Memorial Day pool bash. It was the Mazotti Family "coming out party", our introduction into high society functions. I reminded the children that it was important to participate but not steal the show. You know...lie low, make a good impression. I guess AJ didn't get the memo, because to my dismay (take that you elitist bastards!) he won the belly flop contest. Of course I immediately encouraged him to donate the prize to charity give me the gift cards, he said "no way!" and ran off with his winnings. I am pretty sure people were checking our credentials left and right after that.

Although Cienna did not win any contests, she stayed true to her Mazotti roots by creating quite a scene in the ladies bathroom by the pool. Her front tooth had become very loose and she insisted that we yank it out. So, after tying a piece of dental floss to the tooth, she completely chickened out and ran into the bathroom scared as hell. I followed her in and started gently berating her for not just getting it over with. Finally, she relented and on the count of 2 I yanked the floss inside the crowded bathroom and watched the tooth fly across the bathroom and heard it hit the wall. She started screaming and I started scrambling to find the tooth. People looked at us like we were absolutely the craziest people ever born and walked out of the bathroom. 5 minutes later I found that bad boy and all was well with the world. Although we haven't been invited to sit with anyone at the pool lately. Oh well.

Remodeling No More

Good lord our addition / remodel was painful. Not only did it drain our pocketbook but it drained us emotionally. I am now a firm believer that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And wiser. Here are the top 10 things I learned during this process:

10. Don't go with the lowest bid. You get what you pay for.
9. If a contractor tells you the project will take 3 months to complete, add a minimum of 3 months to that number. Add 6 months if you don't want to be disappointed or annoyed.
8. Whatever you do don't get a puppy in the middle of a remodel. DON'T. I am about 6 pairs of shoes down because of this.
7. Always write a completion penalty into your contract. Make it clear that your contractor will PAY YOU if he is not done on time.
6. Don't hire a contractor if you are expecting him to reduce your project stress. Keep the money and do it yourself. You will be less stressed because you will have more money and one less person to manage.
5. Contractors suck. My new list of things that would survive the apocalypse are attorneys, cockroaches and contractors.
4. I should have really paid attention in those Spanish classes back in high school. Pinche estupido!
3. If you have any interest in keeping your marriage in tact do not do an addition on your home. Bam! I just saved marriages everywhere.
2. Even if you are not a crier...you will cry. Accept it. Deal with it. Use it to your advantage when possible. It won't work on your contractor but the sub contractors will do anything they can to make you stop crying.
1. If you can make it through the process you will never do it again. Unless you are a masochist. And if you are a masochist you should probably marry a contractor. Just sayin.

And now...drum roll...the before and after pictures!

Bedroom Before

Bedroom After

Shower and Vanity Before

Shower and Vanity After

Closet Before

Closet After

And I kinda lied. It is not completely done. But we are close. Close enough that I am no longer living in my family room and I can hang things on the walls. But not close enough that my contractor is out of my life...yet. I waited 7 years to have my master suite. I can wait 7 more days right? Or 14 days. Or 21. Oh hell. I will let you all know when it is done-done!

Spring in San Antonio

Last week we rode on in to San Antonio, Texas to celebrate Fiesta! and explore all that the city known for it's fabulous river walk has to offer. We arrived Saturday afternoon and immediately met up with an old friend of ours who lives in Austin. We met Danny Wills in the 6th grade and as he tells it...he thought I was the prettiest girl in school and did everything he could to avoid Tony because he was the biggest troublemaker. I always find it funny when I hear other people's perspectives of what they thought of Tony and I over 20 years ago! Danny and his girlfriend introduced our kids to the confetti egg tradition called "Cascarones" that comes with Fiesta! Needless to say the kids were shocked at first but they mastered the element of surprise pretty quick!

After Danny headed back to Austin, we had a few days to explore. We ended up at the children's museum, on the river walk, and visiting the Alamo where the kids asked to see the basement so that they could find Pee Wee's missing bicycle. That got a few laughs.

Half way through our trip our friends from ABQ met us where we explored the Tower of Americas, the outlet mall and Sea World. It was a very fun trip with very fun friends!

Tower of Americas

Shopping!

Easter Bunny Shamu

The Gang

After driving through Dallas on the way back to Albuquerque so that Cienna could see her "childhood" home, we arrived just in time for the Easter Bunny and my mom to come for a visit. Easter is a holiday production that is just as big as Christmas around here and this year was no exception. Between my mom's gifts, the Easter bunny treats and Tony's parents clue hunt, Easter is the holiday that just won't quit! No wonder the kids love it!

And just for good measure here is a picture of our handsome dog Diesel. All 115 lbs of him. Love this dog!

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