The Mexican Lunch

Guess what the absolute highlight of my weekend was!

We have Mexican neighbors and they invited us over for lunch today! Alma made the most delicious soup with shrimp (camarones) and crab (cangrejo) in it. She made it not too spicy (picante) for me, but had some peppers on the table so everyone else (including Brian) could make theirs more spicy. Even Cory tried some bread dipped in the soup and liked it!

Not including the food it was fun to be there and practice my Spanish! Alma has a college degree from Mexico, but speaks very little English. This means unfortunately she's relegated to the role of a migrant worker here, but because she is much more educated than the average migrant worker they look down on her as different. So sad.

Her husband is educated as well and speaks some English, but not real fluently. They have three cute kids, the youngest being 3 months and she already had to go back to work in the fruit packing plant and it's going to be cherry season in another week meaning they work 7 days a week for something crazy like 14 hours a day. Ay, I don't know how she does it.

Her sister, Noami, and Noami's husband, Jose, were there as well. Jose is Alma's brother-in-law twice since he's also the brother of her husband, Gamaliel! How's that for fun, Noami and Jose met last year when she came up to help Alma with her kids.

Anyway, we had a good time just being together. Their oldest daughter, Sarai, is about 5 or 6 and adores babies so she had fun playing with Cory and trying to help him color. The "guys" were talking about work and getting to know each other so I got to hang out in the kitchen and talk about the food and Noami's pregnancy and other things. It really makes me feel like I don't know my Spanish well because I'm stumbling over words every other sentence, but for the most part we can carry on a conversation and I don't get too lost! They say my Spanish is really good so that makes me feel good. I'm just glad I can talk to them!

I'm really thankful for this opportunity to hang out with them. Alma wants help with her English, but we don't have much time together (given that she has to work so much!) so usually we revert to Spanish.

They said "next time" they will make us Mexican tacos! Probably won't be for a couple months though as cherry season will be here in a week or so.


The rest of our weekend has been non-stop. Yesterday (Saturday) we went up to some friends and then back to Cashmere for lunch at a Southern BBQ place. It was all brown food (BBQ pork, beans, fried chips) and super salty. Then we walked around the burgeoning town of Cashmere and of course had to stop at the Aplets and Cotlets factory.

Came home so Cory (and we!) could take a nap and then went to our friends in East Wenatchee to have a BBQ. It was supposed to be all our small group from before... but no one else came. Oh well. I guess that just means we got to relax a bit more. It was way too windy to have an outdoor BBQ anyway with wind gusts up to 38mph!

This morning was church, lunch with the awesome neighbors, then we went to my best friend's house for her daughters 3rd birthday and another BBQ! This was wild and crazy! There were more kids there than adults as 3 of the families have 3 kids and one of them has 4 - plus one other family with 4 teenage kids! There was a kids pool in the backyard with ice cold water in it that Cory managed to lean against and "bad mother" didn't bring any extra clothes. At least we could switch out his shirt for a sweater I had brought and it wasn't that cold today. (what is with this weather anyway, it's June for crying out loud!)
After eating outside we all crowded inside for cake/ice cream/presents. At one point it was so loud even Cory started crying and he's usually Mr. Social!
They had balloons for every kid though and he had a blast with that! He will point out balloons in any book we read and he thinks it's fun to hold the string and bounce the balloon around.

Now... I'm tired! What did you all do this weekend?