Suzy's birthday

Tomorrow we will be having Suzy's bday party, but I wanted to share some pictures from her big day on Tuesday. It was a really fun and special day that centered around things that she loves. It was such a gift for all of us to be home together that day with no work, no school. 

We took Suzy to Griffith Park, the largest urban park in all of US (even larger than Central Park in NY!) She went pony riding and rode a train around the park. There is a merry-go-round there too but it was closed =(

I'm pretty sure the balloons were her favorite gift! 

Opening up her doll from Abuelita

pony riding

I thought for sure we would be walking beside her, but they just let the kids go by themselves! she loved it. 

bday kisses

we also rode a little train 

we went to another park also looking for a merry-go-round, but found a nice lake with ducks instead

out for fro-yo with bff Gabi

we had dinner at her fave pizza place...the girl ate 2 whole slices by herself and 2 garlic breads!

Suzy took these next two pictures of her gifts...the first one is a see saw that Nana and Granddaddy sent her (that i put together all by myself!)

the hello kitty suitcase was a find from a yard sale =) and the cute cat house was a gift from Elvis' brother from ES

feliz cumpleanos suzy!!!

 Happy 3rd birthday to our silly, sweet, smart, imaginative, and hilarious Suzy Noemi!  You fill our lives with beauty, music, and joy!

whirlwind week

So, where do I start with the novelties of this week? On Monday, Elvis officially received a contract for his new job!! He is officially a Design Engineer again. So proud of him! And excited to see how God will use this job as an outlet for ministry, since 90% of who Elvis will work with are Latino.

So Tuesday was his last day at his current job so that he could finally have a little vacation time, for the first time in, oh, 3 years. We realized that if he is going to go see his mom in El Salvador, he would have to go before the new job starts or otherwise he would have to wait another year until he gets vacation time. Sooo, we bought him a ticket and he left on Friday! The awesome part was that the cheapest flight had a 24 hour layover in Mexico, which was perfect so he could spend the night with his sister Kenya who he hadn't seen in a looong time. Then, he surprised his mom by showing up at her doorstep! And then surprised our church today by showing up.

I reallly wish Suzy and i could have gone, but it wasn't possible this time around.

However, we will all be traveling again soon! With Elvis' new job, he will go to upstate New York for 2-3 months for training. Since we don't want to be apart that long, we are going too! We leave the first week of December, just in time to be on the east coast for Christmas!

We are extremely thankful for all that has happened this week- new job, El Salvador visit, New York trip, etc. Life is just full of surprises!

Tio Bladi

We are happy to have Elvis' brother Bladi visiting from El Salvador this week! It's so nice to see family and we have had a good time visiting some of their extended family and old family friends of theirs that live in LA as well. We're still praying that the rest of the family can get a tourist visa...they've all been denied numerous times and it's so frustrating knowing that they can't even come visit.

 Here's some pictures from this week with Bladi:

Suzy has loved having him around to play with! 

Venice Beach canals

it was freezing and super windy at the beach today

gracias!

update: apparently there are still a couple more hoops to jump through, so keep praying all goes smoothly please! 

Thanks for praying...Elvis got the job!!! 

New Yark City?!?!

That's the most popular response I get when I tell people that Elvis is currently in New York! Whoever thought up the salsa commercial that made that phrase popular a decade or so ago must be really rich by  now.

So, why is Elvis in New York you may ask?? A job interview! What? I thought you guys loved LA, you might say. And we do. So the good thing is that the job is in LA, but the company in LA has bought out the company in New York, so if he gets the job, he will do training in New York. He had an interview last week and it went great, so they invited him up to NY to check out the plant and meet the people.

All that to say, we are pumped about this opportunity which just came out of the blue. But I wanted to ask for your prayers as he will be under the microscope tomorrow in NY, and for safe travels back home (please no snow delays!)

By the way, it's not New Yark City, it's a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, about 6 hours from NY City!

I'll leave you with some pictures of Suz from trick-or-treating around our apartment complex (it was so cute...all the kids clumped together and just went from house to house at the same time) and from a hip-hop underground art festival we went to last night, where Suzy stole the show with her breakdancing moves (did you see the fb video?) Enjoy!