Montero Family Blog

Mardi Gras

2011-03-22T18:31:00.000-07:00

So, how can I sum up Mardi Gras?? FUN

This was our first experience with Mardi Gras, and I must say it exceeded my expectations. There are parades for almost two weeks straight, and I'm talking two-three hour parades with 25-50+ floats, plus marching bands, dance troupes, etc. It was an onslaught of New Orleans culture, and we LOVED it! All the parades have a theme, royalty floats complete with feather headdress-laden people, and just about anything you can imagine. And the loot they throw to the crowds is insane. We didn't even make it to some of the big parades, and yet we still have a huge box of stuffed animals, beads, plastic cups, and miscellaneous "junk".

Here are some of the best shots of the whole carnival season...

Gotta love the spunk and character of this city...

Winter... Brrr!

2011-01-24T18:09:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I'm officially cold now. It's been cold here in New Orleans for longer than I'd like to admit, and I am starting to feel fussy about it. The winter coats we bought for the girls last year have been invaluable. My mom even had to send me my sweaters and warm coats that I'd been keeping at her house in Seattle since I never had a chance to wear them in Miami.

I am painfully behind in blogging, so here is a recap of our first Christmas in NOLA! We moved into our permanent home here on Dec 12th. Right, so I wouldn't recommend moving two weeks before Christmas. No time to unpack, no time to decorate for Christmas, no time to keep my head on straight. We were thrilled to get our tree up (just lights, no ornaments this year) and get some Christmas cards out in the mail.

Now that we share a house with the Carlson family (Chad and Cindy and their boys, Andrew (8) and Nicholas (6) ), we had the joy of getting to see not just two but four little kiddos excited about Christmas morning. We had breakfast all together and opened stockings. Then some time with just our family opening all the presents from the grandparents. Later in the afternoon we went to "the blue house" across the street. Mike and Susanne Brantley, along with their boys Logan (11) and Jordan (10) and Adam Nevins (an old friend from Crossroads) live across the street in a blue house. Hence the name. We often have our big events at their house since they have a bit more space to accomodate the 30-40 people that show up for a Christmas dinner. We also have Matthew's Table at their house each Thursday night.

The Blue House, at night

Note for future reference: Boudin is a kind of creole sausage. I will not be eating said sausage EVER again, as it gave both Chad and I horrible food poisoning the day after Christmas. I spent most of the day after Christmas under a pile of blankets. Yuck!!

Our post-Christmas days were spent catching up on rest, especially since my works days between Thanksgiving and New Years consisted of cooking non-stop between 6:45am and 5:15pm. We did finally venture out to ride the St Charles Streetcar line with the girls. We drive along St Charles avenue each day on the way to the girls' preschool, and with how much they love trains, they'd been begging to ride the streetcar for quite a while. There is a "Desire Street" here in New Orleans, and this streetcar line is where "Streetcar Named Desire" is from.

Here are a few shots of our adventure...

The houses along St Charles are insanely huge and gorgeous mansions

Isabella was more than excited to ride a "train"

St Charles is lined on either side by beautiful live oak trees that survived Hurricane Katrina. The grassy space in the middle of St Charles is called "the neutral ground" (more history on that in another post), and probably 18 hours a day find people running alongside the streetcar rails. I love that our neighborhood has so much history and character!!

Retreat, dinners, and holidays

2010-12-07T19:45:00.000-08:00

We've been busy as usual here in Montero-land. I've just returned from a quick weekend retreat with the other women in our community. It was a beautiful place just on the north shore of Lake Ponchatrain. A state park with cabins that extend out over the water! They've been redone since Hurricane Katrina, so they were just wonderful. A much-needed break for a few quiet hours here and there, mixed with some great social time too! We even stumbled onto a Christmas parade in a small town near the state park, complete with marching bands, dance teams, and the Chick-Fil-A cows. Hilarious! Here are a few photos from the weekend...

Even though I worked at the restaurant on Thanksgiving Day, we still had a tasty dinner with our community and a few close friends. I was finally able to get an organic fresh turkey to brine and roast. It turned out very juicy! I try to roast the turkey breast-down for the first hour or so, hence the rack marks on the bird, but it really does help keep the whole bird cooking more evenly.

My brine this year was a combination of:

Kosher salt

Light brown sugar

Black peppercorns

Lemons

Oranges

Cloves

Crystal hot sauce (a Louisiana thing)

Tony's creole seasoning

pinches of dried thyme, rosemary, and oregano

But seriously, more important than the food were the great friends we shared the evening with. And of course, the Saints won!

We're ramping up for the Christmas holiday now (along with the rest of the country), so we're looking forward to moving into our permanent home in New Orleans this weekend. We'll put up the tree, bake cookies, and send out cards. And we're off to look for a bike for Isabella from Santa too. Lots of fun coming up in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned for updates post-Christmas.

One month in

2010-11-18T19:51:00.001-08:00

So one month in New Orleans has gone by too fast, and here I am again wondering how I can cram all the things I want to do into the time that I have. My drive is to do, do, do. Rarely stopping to sit and be present in the moment. To just enjoy being.

A wise friend reminded me of the verse "Be still and know that I am GOD". If you can't manage that, she said, just "Be Still", and then when life is really crazy, just "Be". My challenge in the midst of settling into our new home, finding and starting a job, finding a school for the girls, making new friends, and dealing with the everyday stresses of life, is to simply Be. So few people know how to be quiet and enjoy a moment. To truly rest and quiet their minds of all the things they "must" do. Have you tried it lately? It isn't easy. It takes practice. And if you keep practicing, after a while you'll start to hear a small, quiet voice reminding you of who you are, what your purpose is, and where you are going.

A few details on the logistics of our new life, for those who want to know what we're up to...

Nick is settling in nicely to his job at Mercedes-Benz of New Orleans. This dealership is not nearly as new or big as the one in Miami, but he is really appreciating the shorter hours so that he can focus on family and mission too. The challenge is that the car we were able to get for him to commute in is what I would call "sketchy". It's a 15 year old Nissan Altima that runs well but makes some strange noises. Not a problem for a mechanic as skilled as Nick, but one more car to fix in a long line of cars.

I landed a DREAM JOB cooking a restaurant called Commander's Palace! I just started this week, and it is AMAZING! Intense to be sure. I am in WAY over my head. Nearly everyone I'm cooking with has been to culinary school and has been cooking for 10+ years. And then there's me. 9 months ago I was a home cook. Yikes! Commander's Palace is historically in the top 40-50 restaurants in the country, serves 500-1000 people a day, and is the place where Emeril got his start. Double Yikes!! I am beyond blessed, my cup is overflowing!

The girls are adjusting to living with a whole new set of people, and I think they are really glad to be back in school now. Their preschool is great, and as a bonus, it's only a few minutes away from the restaurant. I'll try to post some pictures of Isabella's artwork soon. She's started drawing people and writing her name, and it is adorable!!

Our biggest (and most important) task here is getting to know our neighbors. In the short time we've been in the city, we've attended a birthday party/pumpkin carving party for Cindy (a member of our team), gone trick-or-treating with a group from around the neighborhood, and helped host a block party. Lots of great social time is had on Thursday nights, which is our Matthew's Table dinner. It's open to our neighbors, friends, co-workers, and anyone else we are journeying with. Sometimes it's 25 people, and sometimes it's 45 people. I love that every Thursday night finds the house packed with voices of conversation and laughter as we try to love the people around us.

Here are some good photos of our life in the last month...

Olivia on Halloween

Isabella on Halloween

Pumpking carving at Cindy's birthday party (with half the neighborhood too)

Just hanging out...

Several people have asked if they can help support our work here in New Orleans. If you'd like to support us with a tax-deductible donation, you can send a check, made out to Communitas (memo line: Nick and Melissa Montero) and send it to:

2539 Octavia St

New Orleans, LA 70115

If you'd like to understand more of what we're doing here, drop us a line or give us a call. We'd love to answer any questions you might have.

Road Trip

2010-10-18T19:49:00.001-07:00

We've made it to New Orleans (aka our new home)! The road trip here was unbelievably smooth. Here are a few of the blessings we had along the way...

1. Our stuff actually fit in the moving truck. It's the biggest truck one can rent from Penske, and if we had had one extra piece of furniture or five more boxes, they wouldn't have fit. Put simply, everything fit perfectly. Whew! (I must say, that at 3:00pm on Friday as we were still loading up, I was starting to stress. It was close!)

2. Isabella and Olivia didn't even fuss or throw a tantrum about being in the car for 8 or 9 hours each day. Wow! We have been blessed with such wonderful children!

3. We didn't even have to fight rain or much traffic on the entire 900 mile journey. Nice!

4. We stayed in the small town of Madison, FL on Saturday night and had surprisingly good Mexican food. Let's face it, I'm a food snob, and a decent restaurant in a small town is always such a pleasant surprise.

5. We had very good helpers in Nick's brother Andrew and his lovely girlfriend, Tara. It was immensely helpful to have extra hands with the driving, the loading/unloading, and the girls. AND, we had the bonus of being able to get to know Tara, and to get to see Andrew after quite a long time apart.

Here are some shots of our little stop in Madison, FL. I love cute small towns!

Our last morning at our Miami home. Farewell house!

A great perspective on what Christianity means to us

2010-10-13T20:21:00.000-07:00

Here is a good (for a change!) news piece on our generation's take on living out the Christian faith in a broken world.

Warning: If you are content in simply showing up at church on Sunday and assuming that makes you a "Christian", this piece may convict you on how you're living your life. It certainly does for me...

If you call yourself a "Christian" but have yet to spend time or money investing in the lives of needy people (I mean really needy), what in the world are you waiting for??!!

Let us know what you think. Really!

http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/face-american-evangelicalism-10744135

T-Minus 10 days

2010-10-07T11:53:00.000-07:00

In 10 days, we will be living in New Orleans. Whoa! Um, yeah, we have a LOT of stuff. Even after three garage sales this year, donating a ton of things to charity, and selling over 20 different items on craigslist, we realize that we are not exactly nimble. Not to blame the kids, but they do have a large amount of belongings for people who can't even tie their own shoes. Ahem, grandparents.

So, here's the scoop on us the last couple weeks... We have been waiting (not so patiently) for our buyers to get their act together and do an inspection and appraisal. They finally did an inspection last Friday, which seemed to be fine. We are scheduled to close in 18 days and they haven't even scheduled an appraisal yet. Brilliant! Apparently their mortgage broker has "no control" over the process. I personally think he's out to increase my blood pressure just to see how high it will go. Breathe, just breathe. See the thing is, if the appraisal comes back lower than the contract price, then we have to go back into negotiation with the bank, and the closing will get pushed back, again. Anyway, enough ranting about stuff I can't control.

Small victory: I was able to convince our bank to release us from the debt of the short sale. Whew! Huge answer to prayer! I must say, a sternly worded letter can go a long way. We are extremely thankful for those of you who've been praying along with us. It helped!!

Work has been picking back up for me, just in time for me to leave. But it's really nice to be in the kitchen, and I'm starting to hold my own, which is nice. Still burned the heck out of my arm last week, but oh well. The scars make me part of "the gang" in the kitchen. I'll have to post something later on kithcen machismo. It's pretty funny stuff.

We are super thankful for Nick's brother, Andrew, and his girlfriend who are flying down to help us load up and drive from Miami to New Orleans. Andrew's girlfriend, Tara, and I share a birthday (Oct 15th, aka our moving day), so we'll definitely be popping that bottle of champagne we've been saving.

I must say it's surreal to be moving again, especially after we just moved to Miami less than three and a half years ago. I'll definitely miss the beach, all the palm trees, and how perfect the weather is from October-April. I'll miss our pool that I wish we could have lounged in even more than we did. I'll miss our church which helped us feel connected to the community, and our many good friends we've made through church. I'll miss the familiarity of driving around and knowing where I am and where I'm going. I'll miss the culture and flavors of Miami and its diverse population. I'll miss the house I've made a home.

However, I won't miss the following: mortgage payments, having to fix stuff on the house (and the associated trips to evil Home Depot), seeing friends for just five minutes at church and then not connecting again for a month or more, sitting home at night and wishing we had more friends and family around, lousy doctors offices (don't get sick in Miami), people assuming that I speak fluent Spanish because my last name is Montero, horrific drivers and traffic, and a total lack of good Asian food.

T-minus 10 days. Stay tuned for updates from the road!

Taking the plunge!

2010-09-21T12:40:00.001-07:00

It's been more than four months since I've posted, and as usual, it's because we've had a LOT going on. Now that we have some official news to share, it makes sense to sum it all up here. So, here goes...

We are taking the plunge and becoming missionaries!

I know what you're thinking... those guys? God sure does pick some characters to use as missionaries. Yes, I agree. The point is, of course, that it's about Him and not us. We're ready to be used more by Him to love the people around us. And this is a way for us to do it intentionally, tangibly, and hopefully, for the rest of our lives. I think many people feel the calling to go, but are comfortable in their lives and so it doesn't happen. We're ready to get uncomfortable (actually, we're already there!).

Details: We are joining Communitas in New Orleans, LA. Communitas is a part of the missions organization CRM. Here is the website to get more specifics on the mission and community:

http://www.communitasnola.org

It would be impossible to sum up the last four months of life in one blog post. And since we're moving in 3+ weeks, I won't promise to blog about it all anytime soon. Here are a few highlights...

1. We made a visit to NO in June for a week (with the girls) and LOVED it. We didn't have any expectations before we went (just wanted to check it out), but as we were driving away, we knew those were our people. We loved the people, the place, and the mission. It was actually really hard to leave. We arrived back home, sat down, and knew we were ready to leave Miami.

2. Much of July was a painful time of waiting to get an offer on the house, being unemployed (Melissa), being home full-time with the girls, and wrestling with God over the things He was revealing in our lives and character that needed to grow and change. I also decided to make an official career change to become a chef. This was another big leap of faith for me, and I'm loving it.

3. We got an offer on the house July 29th, and finally received approval from our bank to sell it (a short sale, unfortunately) on Sept 12th. It was a big blow to our pride to have to short sale the house, but we finally came to terms with it and realized that the people who love us will not love us less if our credit is bad for a couple of years. God certainly doesn't care what our credit scores are. And the point of selling the house is to get out of debt, so here we are.

4. As of this week we are telling everyone (including Nick's job) about our move. We plan to leave Miami on Friday Oct 15th. We are frantically selling lots of "stuff" and packing.

5. Nick and I will continue to work while we begin training with Communitas and start to raise support for our long-term goal, which is to do full-time mission work. The New Orleans Mercedes dealership is under-staffed, so they were happy to make him a good offer (blessing!), and I will start work at a restaurant in New Orleans in mid-November (double blessing!).

We could really use a lot of prayer as we are transitioning out of Miami and into our community in New Orleans. If you pray, please take a moment to bless us with a prayer. It is much appreciated! If you'd like to be added to our newsletter and/or prayer list, leave me a comment or send me an email: melmontero@hotmail.com.

And since no blog post is complete without a few pictures, here are a few to reward you for reading our LONG update.

Why we're selling the house...

2010-05-20T05:52:00.000-07:00

Ok, I admit it. I don't really care for blogging. It's something I put off. I procrastinate. I don't think my once a month posts count as a real blog. Some people I know (ahem, Emily, Susie) post multiple times every week. That is a blog. Our "blog" (if you can bring yourself to call it that) is more of a monthly update. I'm okay with it. Embrace my blog-laziness, and you'll be fine too.

Many people have asked us why we're selling the house. Let me clear a few things up here...

1. We are not leaving Miami. We love it here, so don't get your hopes up. This weekend I'm heading up to Seattle where the high temp will be a balmy 58 degrees. My husband and children will be lounging in our pool at a comfortable 88 degrees. Would you leave that kind of weather? I didn't think so...

2. We are done with the entire "American Dream" debt machine. Over it. Don't want to be a part of it anymore. With me out of a job, Florida umemployment at 12.2%, and hurricane season approaching, we're just not interested in waiting around to see what breaks on the house whilst we squirm away on one income. This is not a way to live. We are excited about the prospect of renting, paying off all debts completely, and putting real money in savings. The average American saves about 2% of their income. We are tired of being the "average Americans".

3. We are making a conscious choice to put ourselves in a financial position so that we can live very comfortably on one income. This is what had originally planned anyway when we moved here (those of you who know us well know the back story), so we're sticking with that plan. Then when I do get a job, which I will, that extra income will just be additional money that we can put to good use.

4. Some people have seemed quite envious of our decision. I wonder how many of those people would not have to work in jobs they didn't enjoy if they just downsized their living situation. Just think about it for a minute. What would you do if you didn't have to worry about how much money you made at a job? Really, what would it be? I think many people would do something other than what they're doing right now. For me, it would be some combination of teaching, cooking, and working with the poor and underserved. So, that's what I'm pursuing in my job search.

5. What are we (and I mean the collective we, as a people) living for anyway? I know what I'm living for, and it isn't to build up wealth so I can sit on my backside once I hit 65. It isn't to be selfish and travel the world in my old age, although I'm sure that we'll travel some. It isn't just for my kids, who bring us lots of joy, but who will grow up, leave home, and live their own lives someday. And if we keep living in the debt machine, we are going to continue to spend most of our lives working and living to maintain "wealth", missing our real purpose along the way.

I'm living to glorify God. Period. It's the only lasting thing. It's the only thing we can "take with us". Sure, I'll invest in other things, like my children, and my relationships with other people. That's an important part of living to glorify God. And this choice frees us up to do what we were called to do. So, please don't pity us as we move away from the "American Dream", because we're setting out to live THE dream. The one that involves investing in people, not things.

So, I'll leave you with a question... What are you living for? Is there something getting in the way of you doing what you really feel called to do? If so, I challenge you to stop spending your life doing what you feel you have to do, and start doing what you feel called to do. I think it's the only way to really LIVE LIFE.

Montero Bistro Weekly Menu

2010-04-05T12:14:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter! Here's what we cooked at the Montero Bistro for Easter this year... And see below for our menu this week, by popular demand.

I roasted a whole turkey breast and served it with Potatoes Lyonnaise. We rounded the meal out with a salad and a good bottle of Pinot Noir from the Russian River Valley (California. I must say that the food turned out excellent, however the wine was not as good as I had hoped for something at that price point. We'll see how it is on day 2, giving it a chance to open up. It was good, but not great. I guess that's what I get for being a wine snob on a non-wine snob budget.

The turkey breast was brined for about 6 hours before roasting. Brining is a must! Just take the bird (or breast) and soak it in a water bath that has at least 1 cup salt, 1/2 cup brown sugar, and other spices. I used one orange cut and squeezed into the water bath, crushed red pepper flakes, a cinnamon stick, and bay leaves.

After brining I coated the turkey breast inside and out with a mayonnaise paste, spiked with garlic powder, onion powder, smoked paprika, and salt and pepper. It really gave the turkey breast a nice crust. Roasted at 350F for 1 hour and 20-30 minutes. This is the time for a breast just shy of 6 lbs, but oven times vary. Let the internal temp get to 170F-ish, then pull it and let it rest. It will continue to come up several degrees even after being taken out of the oven. The meat turned out very juicy! Success!

This week's menu...

Red Beans and Rice, Steamed Broccoli

Spaghetti and Meatballs, Caesar Salad

Spicy Burritos (with ground turkey) and homemade guacamole

Pork Fried Rice and Salad (using pork tenderloin)

Chicken and Rice Casserole (an Iowa throwback) and Garlicky Broccoli Saute

I don't have tons of time to post recipes. I always end up looking at multiple recipes and doing my own version of the combination anyway. My recommendation for recipes is to go to foodnetwork.com and then look through your own cookbooks at home. Beware of recipes that say things like "heat for 5 minutes". These kind of vague descriptions are hallmarks of poorly written recipes. You want specifics.

Here's a shot of one of dinners from last week, Bistecca alla Fiorentina. Yum!

More next week...

A Week of Firsts

2010-03-12T18:14:00.000-08:00

First things first...

1. I ran a half-marathon. Oh. My. Gosh. Yes, I actually did it. I ran 13.1 miles in under 3 hours. A slow jog is really a more apt description, but hey, I never said I was going out for the Olympics.

Let's remember I'm the girl who ran the shortest races possible in high school track. I did one year of cross-country in middle school and I was awarded "Most Improved". This, in case you didn't know, is an award they give to the slowest kid on the team who just didn't know when to give up and go home to watch "Saved By The Bell".

I'll share with you all now a few pointers on running a half-marathon, since I'm so experienced now...

a. Do not under any circumstances forget to put some kind of lubricant on your feet. Very BIG mistake.

b. Do not drink Gatorade during the race. A little sugar helps you stay energized. A lot of sugar makes you kind of crazy.

c. Do not run a race with hills if you haven't trained on hills. Note: there are 3 hills in Miami. I ran over 2 of them twice in the race.

d. Do run the race with a friend. It's so fun to finish within a few minutes of each other and know you had an extra cheerleader all the way through.

The second first this week...

I cooked my very first live lobster this week. I'm toying with the idea of being a guest chef at a steak and seafood restaurant in the area, and thus felt that I'd better break myself in with an attempt at a lobster. This is not for the faint of heart. That little thing was squirmy and looked right at me before I put him in a pot of boiling water. Yes, he moved in the pot. I held in my own shrieking.

I might add that doing this with toddlers in the house took some doing. I had to put on a TV show that would keep them occupied and hoped they didn't notice that the new "fishy" I brought home was about to be cooked alive.

After our lobster was boiled for 2 minutes, it was cut in half and grilled with a lovely tarragon-lime butter. Yes, it was delicious. No, I won't be repeating this exercise anytime soon. First, these guys are expensive. Secondly, the girls kept telling me as we were sitting down to the dinner that they would NOT be eating that lobster. It was really more like pleading, "Please mommy, I don't want to eat that lobster. Mommy, I'm NOT going to eat that. Please!" Don't worry, I made them chicken nuggests instead.

3rd First... Ok, it's not a first, but a second fort that the girls made out of a plain cardboard box. Love it. Can't get enough of them and cardboard boxes.

Friendly Fire

2010-02-14T18:09:00.000-08:00

So, we've been remodeling and thus the title of this post. If you've ever remodeled with a significant other, you know full well that some friendly fire will be exchanged. It's inevitable. Your house is a mess, there is a sketchy dust layer over everything that just won't go away, and there are strange men named Guillermo showing up at your door early in the morning.

The good news is that we're almost done with this nonsense, and will soon be back to having a regular bathroom again. The bonus about remodeling this time is we've gotten our homeowner's insurance to cover most of the cost, and thankfully for everyone, we have two other bathrooms in the house. This is a major improvement over our last remodeling project. Let's just say that a 1927 house with two bathrooms, one of which is in a cold basement, is not the ideal place to stage a 7-month bathroom remodeling project. Brrr... Lesson learned.

The second part of friendly fire is related to our toddlers. Olivia is in full-on terrible twos now. Note that her birthday is still two months away. She doesn't care. There are regular tantrums. Not a few tears and pouts. We're talking totally throwing herself around, face turning purple, blood-curdling screams. Regularly. It blows.

Isabella is learning how to instigate. This is dangerous combination. We have a little broker on our hands. She knows how to work the deal well. There is some intimidation, some manipulating, and a few white lies in each one of her schemes. We think she's picking up a little too much from our favorite show, Burn Notice. It's funny, but we're having to explain that lying is unacceptable to someone who doesn't fully grasp the concept of absolute truth yet. It keeps us on our toes.

And not to complain (okay, maybe just a little), but this "winter weather" is ridiculous. We moved here to get away from this brisk morning crap. It hasn't consistently been 75 degrees for way too many days in a row. We're breaking out sweaters we haven't worn in 3 years. Not our idea of fun. (So much for global warming huh?) Melissa has been training for a half marathon and has had to break out gloves and winter workout gear. We're done with this absurdity.

And without further adeiu, here are some updated cute pictures of the girls. We know, it's the only reason you guys read this blog. Oh well, at least we can accept reality, right?

Bits of Information

2010-01-12T19:01:00.000-08:00

Hello to our five readers!Thanks for sticking with us through the last year when we've been sporadic at best...

Here are a few bits of information about us from the last month:

1. Olivia is now sans pacifier!! It was a tough first week, but she hasn't asked for it in weeks now. We happened to lose the last one the week before Christmas, so I decided I'd better take advantage of my week off and just leave it lost.

2. I have a become a BIG fan of Jessica Seinfeld's book Deceptively Delicious. It just works! Olivia is NOT into vegetables, so I have to do what I can to get that child some nutrients. Tonight was pizza with a layer of pureed spinach underneath the regular sauce. She gobbled it up!

3. It has been two straight weeks of COLD temperatures here in Miami. I've been running at 5am in the mornings for a while now, but I've been progressively adding more layers each morning run. Brrr...

4. We had some not great news right before Christmas... a sewer drain pipe under the middle of our house has become disjointed and is sagging. Looks like our house is going to be under construction while it gets replaced. Looks like we'll be in search of a place to crash for a week or so, assuming homeowner's insurance covers it. The good news is we'll get to pick out new stuff for one of our bathrooms.

5. I am the proud fan of a playoff team. My New York Jets made it past the wild card round of the playoffs. Happy days!

If you haven't checked out our photo page lately, click on the link above to see some photos from our holidays. It was really fun to have a Christmas with two toddlers at play. Good times.

Holidaze

2009-12-19T19:03:00.000-08:00

We are in the midst of holiday madness, yet we're trying to stop and enjoy the little moments of joy this season brings. Ignoring bad holiday traffic at the airport... I'm focusing on the fun of having family in town. Ignoring the fact that my children have torn apart a perfectly good spool of ribbon and stuck it to way too much tape... I'm focusing on the fact that they play extremely well together and make me laugh every day.

Here are a few updates on us...

It was another yummy Thanksgiving, and we even got to host our wonderful nanny Maria and her two sons. I'm still totally addicted to cooking and perfecting the art of roasting a turkey. Each year brings new research and a new version of my recipe. I think next year I'm going to special order a turkey from a small-producing farm, because the grocery store turkeys just aren't measuring up.

The crazy storm that just hit the mid-Atlantic and New England dumped a HUGE amount of rain on us last week. More than I've seen in a while, and I live in a tropical climate, so that's saying something. But, afterwards we had a huge rainbow over our neighborhood. Always makes me smile...

Our silly girls love playing together, and it's lately involved "tackling" (read hugging) each other on the floor of the kitchen while I atempt to cook dinner.

Merry Christmas to each of you! May you be blessed with the knowledge that God sent a Savior for us!

An athlete and an artist

2009-11-23T18:40:00.000-08:00

Isabella is truly obsessed with soccer. There is no other word to describe it but obsessed. She's been begging me to put her on a team for more than 6 months now, so I finally did. We found a little indoor soccer place nearby that has a preschool class for 3-5 year olds. Isabella's class is mostly older 4 year olds and 5 year old boys. Each week finds Isabella the shortest one, one if not the only girl, and she is running as fast as her little legs will carry her. Getting in the rough and tumble of 5 boys all going for the ball is not quite sinking in with Isabella yet, but she is still having a blast. She cries and begs to stay at the practice each week when her class is over. Yes, our daughter is on her way to being an athlete. There are no more dresses worn except on Sundays. She puts on her little pink adidas shorts and/or her soccer uniform 3 or 4 days a week. She would really prefer to wear her shin guards to sleep at night, but we had to put a stop to that after the first couple nights. She is our athlete.

Olivia is our artistic one. She loves all things pretty. Purses, shoes, hair clips, dresses, lip gloss, and pretty much anything else she can get her hands on. She loves to paint, color, and draw. Most every day finds some kind of art supply on her body and/or clothes. Sidwalk chalk, finger paints, pen or crayons... she loves it all. On top of all this, she is speaking in full sentences, that are fairly clear. She understands probably almost as much spanish as I do. She has perfect pronunciation of several spanish words. Thank you Maria!

Yes, I know, this is blatant bragging about the girls. And no, I don't feel a bit guilty about it. We're loving this phase of life with them, and are happy to share our joy with you all.

What is a Gold Party?

2009-09-22T07:15:00.001-07:00

Okay, so for those that don't know, here is the basic description of what I'm working on these days...

A gold party is like the opposite of a tupperware party. Instead of spending money on things you don't need, you come to a gold party to make money. Not just 5 or 10 dollars, but real money. Most people have some things in their jewelry box that are broken, outdated, or that they just don't wear anymore. At a gold party, you bring these things in, and we appraise your items based on market value. Then we write you a check. It's that simple!

Here's a link to a recent news story on gold parties...

http://www.kirotv.com/money/19861862/detail.html

Disclaimer: This is NOT a pyramid-scheme, or some cash for gold scam. We pay a very high price for the metal, and weigh everything in front of you on a certified scale. We won't be trying to get you to join our company, or to sell anything or buy anything you don't want. If you know us, you know we're going to be honest and fair.

It's been really fun to help people make some extra money. A majority of our guests walk away with hundreds or even a few thousand dollars. Who doesn't know someone who could use some extra money right now?

In case you're wondering what gold, silver, or platinum are trading at these days, check out www.kitco.com. Gold is just a few dollars away from the all-time record price of $1020 per ounce. That means you can trade in your old necklaces, earrings that you only have one of, or even some pieces from an old boyfriend for big time money. We can also remove stones from your items there at the party.

Our friends started up a gold party company here in Miami, and I've been working as their office manager. Nick and I go out to work a couple of gold parties each week as well. So, we're going to start up our own company in Seattle doing gold parties. Our name is Emerald City Metals, Inc. We'll be in Seattle October 9-11th, and we're already scheduled to do a few gold parties. If you'd like to host a party, just leave us a comment, or send us an email at emeraldcitymetals@gmail.com. We pay our hosts 11% of all the metal we buy at their party, so if we buy $10,000 worth of metals, the host makes $1100. Could you use some extra money?

Guacamole and shoelaces

2009-09-20T18:40:00.000-07:00

Well, it's the end of another weekend here in paradise, and here is what's new with us...

I've been making guacamole as if avocados were going extinct. I asked our lawn guy to help me take down some of the avocados I couldn't get to because they were too high up. I came home later that day to 25 avocados sitting on our patio table! What the heck?! I can't imagine what we'll do next year if our tree produces more...

Shoelaces... A good portion of my days lately have involved helping Isabella take off and then put back on her tennis shoes. She is obsessed (no idea where she gets that from!) with tying her shoes. She has yet to turn 3 years old, but cannot go through a day, or hardly an hour without trying to tie her own shoes.

This morning we found her in her bed with socks on and one shoe on. We put her to bed last night without socks or shoes, as usual. Somehow, with ninja silence, she got up in the dark, found socks and a shoe and put them on. She then proceeded to try to tie her shoe.

I think she tied it in so many knots that she couldn't get it off and then had to sleep with it on. I just can't believe we didn't hear her. Just goes to show that you never know what your children are going to do, but you can be sure you'll laugh almost every day.

And here is just a cute shot of Olivia...

Fantastic Weekend

2009-08-30T19:17:00.000-07:00

We had a fantastic weekend here at Chateau Montero. Saturday morning started off early with our favorite bike ride, out to Key Biscayne. The last Saturday of every month, we get up before first light, down some gatorade, and get on our bikes for a 45-mile roundtrip out to Key Biscayne. The scenery is beautiful, and we top the bridge out to the key just as the sun is finally coming up. We get to see our city, see our friends, and stop for cuban coffee out at La Carretta.

This month there were easily 50 cyclists on the group ride, and we averaged about 20mph on the way out, and over 22mph on the way back. My calf muscles are really sore! But by 10am we are back home and ready to start the rest of the day. We are so blessed to have a hobby we can enjoy together!

After the bike ride, we headed out to Miami Beach for time with grandma and grandpa. We weren't in the mood for the full on trek to the sand, etc. so we lounged by the pool and let grandma and grandpa deal with our part-fish daughter, Isabella. Good times.

Today was a lovely, lazy Sunday, although we had to say farewell to very good friends, Doug and Kristi. Doug is a federal agent, and got a promotion to go work with the big boys up in DC, so they are moving out of Florida after having lived here their whole lives. We had dinner together probably once every two weeks, they lead our small group, and our girls played together all the time, so we are REALLY going to miss them. That's the tough part about Miami... it's a very transient city, and our good friends may not always stick around all that long.

Our day finished off with picking some avocadoes from our tree. In Seattle, we had an apple tree, here we have an avocado tree. Not until we moved here did I know the variety of avocado we have here. Generically referred to as "Florida avocaodoes", these things are bigger than my fully extended hand, and a little starchier. I'll be making A LOT of guacamole for the freezer this week.

Also, for those Seattleites reading this post, we plan to be in town for the weekend of October 9-11th, so get ready, the Monteros are coming soon to a city near you. We're coming back to do several "gold parties", so we may not have a ton of social time, but please contact us if you're interested in seeing us and we'll try to find a way to fit it in. Stay tuned for more details, as we are starting our own gold party company...

Procrastination

2009-08-18T12:21:00.000-07:00

Yep, that's right, we're actually posting something on our blog. It's one of those things where every time I thought about it, it seemed more daunting because it's been so long since I posted. I kept thinking, "Seriously, it's been 8 months?! If I post something now, people will be expecting something monumental. Lots of pictures of the kids, etc. I don't have time for that!" But here I am anyway. I figured I better get back in the habit at some point. If you're lucky, at the end of this post I'll include a photo.

Okay, here's a quick summary of the last several months...

1. I had foot surgery in January, which quickly ended my Williams-Sonoma seasonal job. In a less-than-brilliant move, I took a job at Nordstrom (trying to find something that would give me a paycheck!), which required me to be on my feet 9 hours a day. It turned out to be not good for the foot, or my wallet. Pay at Nordstrom is pretty bad, especially in a down economy. Thankfully, my friend Brandi, who started her own company 1 year ago, needed a full-time office manager. Thank you Lord for a job that actually pays me! Been happily working 2 miles from home for almost 6 months now.

2. Nick and I have turned into what some might call workaholics. We both work two jobs and sleep little. Our friend, Brandi, the one who gave me the office manager job, has a company buying gold at "gold parties". So Nick and I go out to parties at people's houses and buy the gold, write them the checks, etc. It's pretty fun getting to meet all kinds of people at the parties, and giving people money makes us the life of the party. Not a bad way to get paid!

3. Nick got a big promotion about a month ago. He is now oficially a team leader with Mercedes-Benz. He has 5 technicians reporting to him, and he got a nice raise as part of the deal. Woo hoo! He works slightly longer hours now, but the pay makes it worth it. It's nice for him to be teaching his guys too, because he seems to be a natural teacher.

4. Isabella will be 3 years old soon, and is still fiesty as can be. She took swimming lessons this summer, and is now part-fish. We are thankful for our pool, and she is really diligent about getting better at kicking, breathing, etc. She definitely gets her persistence from mom and dad.

5. Olivia is 15 months and walking now. She's finally starting to thin out a bit, as she was getting really fat (but in a cute, baby-fat way of course). Olivia is a bit more cautious than Isabella, much more snuggly, and she is learning new words almost every day. At her 15 month checkup I made a list of the words she uses regularly... it was over 50! It's really fun to teach her new things and know she's really getting it.

Other than that we keep busy cycling as much as we can, and enjoying our visits to the beach every other weekend. Nick's parents having a place at the beach is a really nice perk to visiting grandma and grandpa!

Here's a shot of the girls favorite summer activities this year... watermelon, and playing in the box our new dishwasher came in. Love the free toy!

November news

2008-12-22T17:31:00.000-08:00

November was a blur. I started my seasonal job at Williams-Sonoma. I enjoy the work but the schedule can be rough. I work a few nights a week and most Sundays. Nick will get home at about 5:30pm and I will leave at 5:35pm. We just pass the kids off and wave goodbye. I'm home by 11ish and then am up at 6 or 7 the next morning with the kids because why would they sleep any later? On top of this I'm applying for full time jobs with the federal government which means extensive applications. College applications are less in depth. Basically it's easier to get into an ivy league school than get a job as a elementary school cafeteria lady! (by the way I am not applying for a cafeteria job, just an example).

This is us out celebrating my 30th birthday with friends. Good times.

The girls are doing well. They are keeping busy with modeling jobs this time of year.
Olivia is growing like a weed, is teething now, and as you can see below, is very photogenic. Isabella is Isabella... she is learning the fine art of pedaling and steering her tricycle at the same time. She is talking a lot and we can understand her more and more every day. Nick's work is up and down. This time of the year is historically slow and the economy is also a factor. Yet he somehow continues to find things to do. When he isn't working he still tries to get out on his bike and exercise.

So we know it's bad, but we have come to love our artificial Christmas tree. It goes up kinda like an umbrella and is pre-lit. It never needs water and looks great. Real trees can be bought but they don't hold up very long here in the heat, and after having done many Christmas with a fresh cut tree it's just not the same buying one at the grocery store. We thought this was a cute shot of Olivia checking out our tree...

We had Thanksgiving with Nick's extended family again and had a good time. Isabella was happy playing with the other kids and the food turned out great. I made the mashed potatoes this year, so we didn't have to suffer through boxed mashed potatoes like last year. The weather has been nice and on the cooler side for Miami so it's been a good break from the humidity. Stay tuned for what I'm sure will be cute holiday photos of the girls...

Halloween fun

2008-12-22T16:06:00.000-08:00

Well, we are seriously behind in our postings, so I'm making an effort to do a few in one shot. Here's the scoop on our Halloween...

Isabella was supposed to be a princess. My mom sewed her a beautiful dress and hat and sent it out to us. Unfortunately Isabella flatly refused to even try the dress on. It was rather big for her, but still, I have never seen her refuse to try on clothes. Sigh! Maybe next year...

So, I was off to the uniform store to buy scrubs for Nick and I. Isabella had some cute scrubs that my sister sent her from her med school, so we figured we'd just be a family of doctors. Besides, Nick hates costumes, and scrubs were just about the only thing I could convince him to wear. I still had a lab coat left over from my lab days, and we had a stray stethoscope around the house from Nick's mom's nursing days.

And we were off to the party at our friends the Hackers house. They have a Halloween party every year. Each family draws a picture of their house on a large piece of paper, and then all the pictures are taped to the fence in their backyard. This way all the kids get to safely trick-or-treat and the parents get the benefit of limited trick-or-treating. No diabetic comas for our kids!

The kids had a blast and ran themselves silly dancing, playing, and eating candy. Then the kids collapsed in front of a Charlie Brown movie in the backyard while the parents had a moment to relax and eat some candy of our own. All in all, it was a great night.

Track Day (guest posting by Nick)

2008-10-23T17:19:00.001-07:00

Hi, Sorry for the long break. I must admit we have been busy. Besides flying around the racetrack (tough business I know!) we have been ramping up our activities with the coming seasons. Melissa has been looking for a full time job and has been doing so very fervently. For the short term she has landed a seasonal part-time gig at Williams-Sonoma. As she is happy to find employment, we are mostly looking forward to the discounts not so much the actual pay check. Isabella is back into the modeling world. We have hit a few castings in the last week or so. The season is started here for that. Olivia was recruited by the agency the minute Melissa walked in with both of them. They immediatly inquired as to why she wasn't signed to the agency and offered an audition. Here's a recent photo of Olivia...

We are happy to have missed any major storms or hurricanes this season. It was a fairly dry summer, however, it has been raining alot the last few weeks. I think the lack of summer rain is being made up for in a matter of several weeks! Just today we had three inches. We've also had some answers to prayer. We sold our Honda Civic, our second car. Now being close to work I'm going to get back on the bike. Also I sold my tool box so I don't have to worry about where I'm going to store that.
So onto the track day. It was a great all day event that AMG does four times a year in different location in the US. It started with catered breakfast complete with made to order omletts. We then had a brief introduction and was broken into three teams consisting of 20 people. Each team was headed by a pro driver (the likes of Tommy Kendall, Jeff Andretti, Jeff Bucknam, etc.). We then rotated through three different areas. The first was the rallycross track where we raced several C63. We started with a few practice laps and then ran two laps to get our fasted lap time. By the end of the day the fasted autocross time won a great prize. Then after a few hours of that we went to the skid pad and slid around in some SLK55 and SL63 doing drifting and figure eights to learn some car control and skid recovery. Then a few hours later, to the main event, the main race track at Homestead Intl speedway. We had to wear helmets and drove an assortment of cars ranging from the SL, CL, E, CLS, C and CLK63 cars. A pro driver would lead a group of three drivers on the road course and we drove at breakneck speeds and learned the finer art of cornering, breaking and full throttle driving. Top speeds varied from 120mph on straight aways to kinda scary corners at 75-80mph. With a catered lunch and some other small activities it was a great day. It is something availible to the public. You can sign up for this. But I must warn you it isn't exactly "free". For one day its $1300.00 for two days it moves to $1600.00. So will I try to win again next year... definately. By the way, the prize for the best autocross time was a $7500.00 Limited edition AMG watch by IWC an AMG sponser...and no, I did not win.

Here are a few photos of Melissa's recent trip to Seattle for a friend's wedding. She loved the fall colors (we definitely don't get that here at all), and being able to wear a few sweaters and coats that literally haven't been worn in a year and a half.

Also, here is a quick shot from Isabella's 2nd birthday. She definitely likes cake more now than she did a year ago, although the blowing out the candles thing hasn't happened yet. Maybe next year...

Nick is a rock star!

2008-09-04T15:49:00.000-07:00

So I just have to take a moment and brag about Nick...

Nick received an award at work today that just proves what I already knew, he is truly great at his job. It all started a week or so ago when one of his managers told him he had won an award from Mercedes-Benz. Not many details were given, but he was told it would include a paid day at the local racetrack to drive the super fast Mercedes AMG race cars and meet professional race car drivers, etc. Pretty cool, but he never really did find out why they were giving him the award.

So, today some of the muckety-mucks from Mercedes-Benz corporate were in town to present him with the award, and to buy the whole shop lunch in his honor. It turns out that Nick is one of 16 technicians in the entire country chosen for this award, called Precision 1. The award is given to technicians who have acheived a high level of technical training, but more importantly, the award recognizes technicians who have a high percentage of fixing cars right the first time. Nick's percentage is over 95%! So, out of the more than 6,000 Mercedes technicians in the country, my husband is in the top 16. Woo hoo!

We are SO proud of him! And we'll be sure to post photos from his day at the racetrack. Track day is October 3. Happy Motoring

Four months old

2008-08-26T05:43:00.001-07:00

Olivia had her four month checkup yesterday, and it's official... she's HUGE! Well, she's not off the charts, but she is in the 90th percentile for height (26 in.) and the 95th percentile for weight (16 lbs, 2 oz). She is still the picture of health and a very happy little girl. Seriously, she is an angel. I'm not sure if it's just because we're more experienced parents now, or because it's her natural temprament, but she is a very content and happy child. What a blessing after a very fiesty Isabella! Here are some updated pictures of the girls...

Isabella has started hiding from the camera. She thinks it's a funny game, I think it's a bit annoying...

Almost rolling over...

Seriously, she is almost always smiling.

Fake-out

2008-08-19T11:31:00.000-07:00

Tropical Storm Fay turned out to be much less interesting than it was originally hyped. Seriously, we had maybe 3 inches of rain yesterday, which is not too out of the ordinary for south Florida in the summer. It has been a bit windy, but not so much that it kept us awake last night. Honestly, I can think of a couple of other storms that were not categorized as a "tropical storm" that gave us significantly more rain or thunderstorms. I think it was mostly just good practice for us to see how much time it takes to prepare for a storm.

I would post a picture the post-storm view of our street, but it looks almost identical to the picture from yesterday. This is not as interesting a blog topic as I had hoped for...

On a side note, this is exactly why the 24-hour news cycle is not necessary or all that beneficial in my opinion. With 24 hours of news time to fill, something like a tropical storm threatening a US state is hyped quite a bit by the media. Add to that some jumpy neighbors who lived through Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and an inexperienced family like us is left thinking that we need to prepare for several days without power, a flooded yard, and downed trees. In actuality, we could have done almost nothing to prepare and fared just as well. Lesson learned...

Storm prep

2008-08-18T04:25:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Season 2008 has gotten into peak activity now, and we spent most of yesterday preparing for Tropical Storm Fay. It's quite a bit of work to prepare for what will probably be just a lot of rain and some mild (by Florida standards) wind. But, better safe than sorry seems to be the motto here. As of Mondy morning, we're already seeing the "outer rain bands" as they call them, and we're forecasted to get 5 or more inches of rain by the end of Tuesday. I'm going to show pre and post-storm photos of our street. Here is the pre-storm photo...

Stay tuned for post-storm updates...

Back to the Emerald City

2008-08-14T18:31:00.000-07:00

Well, we finally made it to our vacation this year, a nice week back in beloved Seattle. Here is the rundown from the trip, with a disclaimer that we had lots of fun to distract us and kind of forgot to take many pictures.

Flight from Miami to Seattle: 5 hours and 45 minutes

Minutes of toddler crying: 30

Number of drinks needed by parents: Too many to count (but not consumed because airline drinks are a ripoff and notoriously bad quality)

Toddler strapped to her seat and quietly coloring: Priceless

Seriously, the flight was on time, our bags made it, and there were no major meltdowns by either girl. We were thrilled! And I have to make a plug for the harness we bought online for Isabella. It straps the child to the airplane seat just like a car seat would, but doesn't have all the bulky plastic that a carseat does. It's the only FAA approved device for toddlers, and it was a major life-saver. Totally worth the $75 dollars that seemed ridiculous at the time of purchase.

Anyway, we made it to Seattle and relaxed for our first day. It was truly surreal to be in Seattle as a visitor. Just very strange to be in a place that you know for so many years as home but is now not home. I must also admit, that the change in temperature was nice. Very refreshing compared to the 92 degree humid weather we have in Miami, and will almost certainly have until the end of September.

Our first full day in Seattle started off kind of funny. We were very excited about getting to Pike Place Market. After sitting in 45 minutes of traffic to get there, I opened the door and Isabella vommitted all over her nice white dress. Thankfully it was just carsickness, but let's just say that the car we were borrowing didn't have good ventilation and was not going to take us far in our journey, so it was returned to our kind friend and exchanged for Nick's brothers much nicer Jeep. Thank you Andrew! Isabella got a new outfit at Nordstrom as soon as they opened and we were on our way.

The rest of the day was spent hitting some tourist and culinary highlights (Noodle Ranch and Agua Verde, as well as the Elysian Brewery). Yum! We got to have a great dinner out with friends thanks to the kind grandparents who watched the girls. Much needed time out and catching up with friends we really, really miss.

Friday and Saturday took us to Portland to visit more grandparents and generally relax. Isabella was treated to an old-fashioned amusement park, but it was hard to tell if she liked it or not. She cracked a couple of smiles but seemed slightly confused about what we were all doing staring at her. Perhaps when she's a little older she'll get into it more. What she absolutely loved was the large Elmo that she got from the grandparents. She talked to it the whole way home, and also told us several times that it was hers with a loud "Mine!".

Sunday was a true whirlwind day. We visited our old church and got to see just about everyone we could have hoped to see. It was good to be back in that place, but I must say, I don't really miss Bellevue at all. There's something about Bellevue that will probably never change, and I can't quite put my finger on it, but I know I don't really miss it.
Anyway, we jetted off to a great lunch with family friends and easily could have spent the rest of the day catching up and laughing with them. My cheeks ache from laughing every time I see that family. Isabella had fun trying to feed their family cat (who weighs almost as much as she does) an ice cream bar. Hilarious!
Sunday afternoon was a wonderful BBQ hosted by our good friends Myles and Emily. So many great people we miss showed up to see us, and we talked so much that our voices we hoarse the next day. It was kind of fun to get all those couples back together since many of started off in the Newly Marrieds sunday school class 5 or so years ago. Now most of us have kids and are going bald or at least going gray.

Uncle Andrew with Olivia

Monday and Tuesday were honestly almost recovery days. We had visits with friends and family, but it was more low-key. Nick had some time with the guys, and I got in some shopping and a spinning class with my girlfriends. Tuesday night took us on a red-eye back to Miami, and it was perfect. Another on-time flight, all the bags made it, and unbelievably, both girls slept the whole way. Now only if Alaska Airlines woudl schedule a red-eye from Miami to Seattle, we'd be set.

Big Fat Cuban Wedding

2008-07-14T18:07:00.000-07:00

I experienced my first Cuban wedding this last weekend, and I saw so many strange and funny things, that I was honestly writing this blog posting in my head before we even left the wedding. Unfortunately I forgot to bring the camera so the photos below are courtesy of my cell phone camera. Here's the rundown...

We only went to the reception, so I can't comment on the ceremony, although Nick's cousin informed us that it was at some kind of Santaria shrine (large statue of Lazarus, etc.) rather than a church. I'm happy we avoided it because not only did I not want to pay our babysitter for any more hours than necessary, but also because there were reportedly some strangers who wandered into the shrine to worship the statues during the wedding!

We walked into the reception to find the bride and groom up front sitting on some kind of platform that looked like an altar because it had spotlights on them while they sat. At first I thought this was kind of cheesy and a little ridiculous, but once the meal was served, I saw how practical it was. As a woman who had very little chance to sit and eat at my own wedding, I was impressed that the bride and groom had a nice chance to sit down to the meal together and talk a bit with no one bothering them. Not bad at all! Here's a photo of the "bridal altar".

The rest of the reception consisted of very hokey Latin elevator music playing in the background while the MC talked very loudly in Spanglish telling everyone what to do and when. The wedding guests were quite a sight, and I think it was probably the highest concentration of low cut dresses worn to display plastic surgery that I've seen in quite a long time, and that's saying a lot because this is after all, Miami. Only one wedding guest was wearing shorts though, so that is pretty good for a Miami wedding. Probably the funniest sighting of the whole wedding was a bridesmaid who had the strangest hair accessory I have ever seen. The photo doesn't do it justice, but it really looked like this lady went to a craft store, bought some plastic flowers and small birds, glued them to a hair clip and shoved it in her hair. On top of that, she looked a good 20 years older than the rest of the bridesmaids, so just stood out in every way.

Overall, we had a good time, and it was nice to be out just the two of us. Today is our 6th anniversary! Here is a photo from our wedding six years ago. Who are those young kids?! My how different and yet the same we are now.

2 months old

2008-06-26T17:26:00.000-07:00

Hello from the Montero zoo!

Olivia had her two-month checkup today and weighed in a 12 lbs 2 oz and 23 inches long. Isabella was 6 oz heavier and almost one inch longer at her two-month checkup, although I think that has more to do with the fact that I fed Isabella almost non-stop in her first two months as a nervous first-time mother. I have a better feel now for when Olivia is actually hungry and when she is just fussy than I did when Isabella was an infant.

Also, we're just over one month away from our first trip back to the northwest since our move to the republic of south Florida. We're looking forward to seeing all our friends and family, and we're also very much looking forward to visiting our favorite restaurants, coffee shops, and other Seattle hot spots. We'll be in Seattle from August 6th-12th, so if you'd like to pencil in some time with us, make sure to let us know soon. It's a quicker trip than we'd like, but we can't wait!

I know we haven't posted many pictures lately, but in an unfortunate turn of events, our camera died a couple of weeks ago. We've found one to borrow until we get around to buying a new one, so we'll do our best to get more photos out soon. In an effort to appease the appetite for new photos, I'll post some more from the last two months that didn't make it into our photo website or blog...

Family time on the porch

I was trying to get some cute photos of Olivia sitting up, but she was having none of it, so here is one of her ticked off at mom. I though it was kind of funny... Stay tuned for more photos.

Status Report

2008-06-10T19:29:00.000-07:00

Well, Olivia is 6 weeks old and still growing strong. As you can tell by our lack of posts in the last month, we've been keeping busy around here. Isabella is running and climbing just about everything, and Olivia is still up once or twice at night, although I think we're getting close to a regular 8 hours of sleep a night. Here is a status report on each of us...

Olivia: Checked in at 22 inches long and a whopping 10 lbs 10 oz at her 1 month checkup. She is the picture of health and a very sweet little girl who likes to cuddle. I don't think Isabella cuddled with us until she was 9 or 10 months old, so we are really loving Olivia's sweet disposition.

Isabella: Isabella got a nasty stomach bug over Memorial Day weekend that really wrecked all of us. 3 days of throwing up landed her in the ER for some much-needed anti-nausea meds. We had had big plans for the Zoo, the beach, and maybe even a quick trip to the Keys that weekend, but God had other plans for us. Thankfully Isabella is back to full speed, and she recently enjoyed a trip to the Seaquarium with her grandparents. She now loves whales. So cute!

Melissa: I'm officially back to full speed now that I'm 6 weeks past the c-section, so now I have no more excuses to slack off. In an effort to lose the pregnancy blubber, I've joined a league of co-rec Dodgeball through our church. It is actually really fun, and I'm not half bad. I'll try to post some photos next week, because some of the people in this league are hard-core, and it is really funny to look at.

Nick: Nick has just 2 or 3 weeks left working at the Coral Gables location of his dealership, so hopefully by the end of the month, he should be working at the brand-new $45 million dollar Mercedes-Benz of Cutler Bay. It is really nice inside, and most importantly, it is air-conditioned! Just in time for the really deadly heat and humidity of Miami summer.

The Edge of Reason

2008-05-17T12:27:00.000-07:00

We thought we'd steal a title from Bridget Jones because it is such a fitting description of our (well, at least my) state of mind these days. Sleep deprivation is setting in, and after two weeks of taking care of two children by myself during the day, I'm ready for a vacation. Really, it's not that bad, but it is most certainly exhausting, physically and emotionally. I think Isabella's clothing choices here are reflective of our collective states of mind...

Isabella came down with a cold and then a middle ear infection a week ago, at the same time she started cutting two canine teeth. Nick and I spent most nights this week passing each other in the hallway at 1am as he was tending to Isabella while I fed Olivia for the millionth time that day. And I spent a couple of days where it seemed the entire day was spent with one daughter crying on each shoulder. Here is photo of Isabella at the height of sickness. Nick thought this photo bore a remarkable resemblance to Nick Nolte's arrest photo. You be the judge...

As for Olivia, she doesn't really have her days and nights mixed up anymore (praise God!), but she has started an annoying habit of wanting to eat small snacks every hour and a half between 3am and 7am. I may have to resort to taking off her pajamas completely in order to get her to stay awake enough to take a full feeding in the middle of the night. This little girl LOVES to sleep!

This is my attempt at one of those cute Anne Geddes style baby photos. Olivia is really already too big for this shot, and I am clearly not a good enough photographer to make it work, but I'm sharing it nonetheless. I miss my good friend Emily, a photographer superstar!

Our little Olivia

2008-05-07T13:10:00.000-07:00

Years ago, before we had kids, Nick and I commuted to and from work together (side note - this is not recommended unless you are BOTH morning people). We passed by a billboard for a hospital maternity center what must have been hundreds of times over a period of months on our commute. The ad showed a conveyor belt with babies swaddled in blankets, wearing little hats, and I always oohed and aahed over the ad because the babies were so cute. We started referring to the ad as the pod baby ad because the babies looked like they arrived in little pods. We often joked about how someday we'd have a little pod baby of our own. Well, I took this picture the other day and it jogged my memory of the billboard ad. I am happy to have my little pod baby!

I came home last night from a quick outing to Starbucks (peace and quiet with no one crying, ah, it was glorious!), and this is the image I was greeted with. Nick had just finished feeding Olivia, and she was looking fat and happy, so I had to take a picture. Olivia is starting to become an eating machine, and I honestly think she has already put on weight and grown in length in her short 12 day life. It is truly amazing to see something grow so quickly before your eyes.

Some father-daughter bonding time...

If you are reading this, would you mind saying a quick prayer for me, that I might get as much sleep as possible? Olivia has her days and nights mixed up a bit (Isabella did this too), and it's beyond frustrating to have a child nap well during the day when I have to be awake, but then only want to sleep an hour at a time at night. Grrr....

Growing up fast

2008-05-02T10:50:00.000-07:00

Isabella seems so big now that we have a newborn in the house. Carrying Olivia around at 8lbs, and then picking up Isabella at almost 25lbs is quite a shock. I would have sworn she had gained weight and inches in the last week, but no, she just seems bigger because Olivia is so small. Isabella is really taking her big sister role seriously these days, wanting to hold and carry Olivia, and even trying to wear "big people" shoes. Here are some cute shots from this week...

Trying on Mommy's heels before going swimming...

Holding Olivia for the first time...

At the Zoo with all the girls...

Yep, it's hard to believe, but I feel good enough to get out and go to the Zoo only one week after having Olivia. I am completely blessed to be feeling this good after a c-section. And Isabella certainly appreciates the activity. Goodness knows that girl can't hardly go one day without needing to get out of the house. Just like Mom and Dad...

More photos

2008-04-30T08:45:00.000-07:00

Here are some more photos of our first week with the two girls. We were actually able to get one with Olivia's eyes open... amazing!

Chubby cheeks!

Ready to go home from the hospital

Hello blue eyes!

Sisters at last

Introducing our new little girl - Olivia Rachel Montero

2008-04-28T05:27:00.000-07:00

Well, she is finally here. Since I know what everyone really wants to see are pictures, I'll get right to it...

Paging Dr. Montero! Scrubs courtesty of my sister, Jill. So cute!

Olivia is a very sweet little girl, just like her sister, but that is where most of the similarities between the two girls end. It is remarkable how different they are, right from the start. Olivia has hardly opened her eyes in the few days she's been here, and seems happy to eat and sleep all the time. Isabella looks quite a bit like Nick and wanted to be up and looking at things from her first days. Olivia looks like my side of the family, and clearly has my Dad's chin.

As for the birth, things went very smoothly, and funnily enough, I started having contractions as I was waiting to be prepped for surgery, so perhaps Olivia would have made her appearance on the 25th regardless of the scheduled c-section. I am very thankful to be feeling significantly better after this c-section than the last. What a difference not going through 30 hours of labor makes!

Well, we're in a bit of haze now, so I think we'll get back to eating and sleeping. Try to post more pics later today...

Isabella's Modeling Shots

2008-04-08T16:37:00.000-07:00

Some of Isabella's modeling work has finally been published, so now we can share it with you all. If you go to the link below, you'll see Isabella featured on Boden's main webpage.

www.bodenusa.com

Here are the photos of her from the Boden shoot...

And here is a photo of her from the Talbots shoot. I wasn't sure this one would make it in since she was hungry and very ready for a nap by the time they got around to her...

There are supposedly a couple more coming out in Kohl's ads, but since there isn't a Kohl's very close to us, we don't get their ads. If anyone does get them in their Sunday paper, please keep an eye out for us. Stay tuned for more photos of our cute girl!

The no's have it

2008-03-23T18:53:00.000-07:00

Well, we're in for it now... Isabella has figured out how to say "No!", and it's all she says these days. No is her answer to almost every question or situation, for example: Melissa: Isabella, do you want some juice? Isabella: No! (As she grabs the cup) Nick: Isabella, we love you. Isabella: No! Even the navigation system in our car gets disrespected by Isabella... Nav system voice: Turn right in 500 feet. Isabella: No! Nav system voice: You have reached your destination. Isabella: No! Do you see a pattern here? She certainly understands what the word means and uses it when she actually means no, but she also likes to use it whenever she feels like being generally loud and opinionated. It is pretty cute most of the time, but I suppose if she starts getting too mouthy we'll have to put her in line. Here is a video of Isabella's first Easter Egg hunt (hopefully this works!). I think if you listen carefully you'll hear her say No and Bye in true Isabella form...

A sampling of Americana

2008-03-16T19:18:00.000-07:00

Nick and I have returned from a wonderful weekend away to central Florida, where we had a sampling of many things "American". Here is what I'm afraid is a lengthy summary of our journey...

Our weekend started on Saturday morning with a massage for Nick and a facial for me. Much needed relaxation! Nick was clever enough to ask the spa staff for restaurant recommendations, and we had lunch at a great grill in Port St Lucie. I drank close to a gallon of sweet tea... yum!

This is where the story got interesting for us. We had planned to see a New York Mets spring training game, but hadn't bothered to buy tickets ahead of time, thinking they wouldn't be that hard to come by. Wrong! There was a very long line of cars waiting to get into the stadium (this was a small problem considering the gallon of sweet tea I had just drunk!). The woman at the parking entrance asked us if we had tickets when we pulled up. When we replied "Uh, no...", she rolled her eyes and told us we could try to get in, but to come back and see her to get our parking money back when we couldn't get in as they were sold out. I waited in the car while Nick went to check out our prospects. Sure enough, someone had given up their season tickets for that game, and we had two seats right behind home plate, six rows back. The seats were even in the shade! Everyone else who got in last minute had to sit out in right field on the grass, with a less than stellar view. The old couple we sat next to asked us if Ed had given us the seats. Well, no, but thank you Ed for not showing up, whoever you are! The game was fun, and it was nice to be reminded of the things we love about springtime and baseball. The smell of the barbeques, peanuts, die hard fans heckling the pitchers, etc. A perfect afternoon it was.

Dinner Saturday night was also a bit of an adventure. On another recommendation, we ventured down to Jensen Beach to Ian's Tropical Garden. The restaurant turned out to be in a bit of sketchy residential area, and it looked like the restaurant was converted from an old house. I was skeptical, especially since it is a seafood place, and Nick is allergic to a lot of types of fish. But the menu looked great, so we decided to give it a go. We sat outside in a beautiful garden of palm trees, fountains, tiki torches, tropical flowers, etc. We wish now that we had a picture, but we got too carried away with the food to remember. The place reminded me a bit of Hawaii. It was truly a stellar evening, and we are thankful to have found the place, because we certainly never would have found it on our own.

A funny bit of the weekend happened also on Saturday night when Nick insisted that I might need snacks in the middle of the night (in his defense, I am rather pregnant these days), and so we stopped at the local Wal-Mart near our hotel in Fort Pierce. Oh my goodness, the people who frequent Wal-Mart on Saturday nights are in need of 2 things... First, education. If some of these folks graduated high school, it is a VERY sad testament about the state of our educational system. We joined the "express - 20 items or less" line, only to find both the people in the line and the checker are incapable of counting. Secondly, we had a hard time finding a person in the store who wasn't extremely overweight. What is wrong with our country? Have we lost all self-control? I may not be the thinnest person around, but I can see that if my backside doesn't fit in my pants, the solution is not to go out and buy more cookies to eat. We left the store feeling a bit embarassed to be Americans, and vowing not to shop Wal-Mart anytime soon.

Sunday took us up to Vero Beach to Dodgertown. This place has been the home to Dodgers spring training since they were the Brooklyn Dodgers. There is a lot of history there, and we found ourselves amongst the most serious baseball fans I've ever seen. The big sighting of the day was baseball legend Tommy Lasorda. He drove right by in his custom golf cart as we were watching the Dodgers warm up. He was greeted by throngs of baseball fanatics, but we managed to get a picture of him as he drove off. To be perfectly honest, he looked rather tired, and it was only 11am. I guess some people do what they love, no matter what age they are.

That's pretty much it for our weekend away. Nick and I probably won't be able to have a trip to ourselves like that again until after Olivia is finished nursing, so we were thrilled to have the time. Thanks to the folks who made it possible, especially Grace and Michael who donated hotel points for us to stay for free!

The calm before the storm

2008-03-12T08:50:00.000-07:00

With 7 weeks to go before Olivia is born, we are in a relatively calm state. Nothing major to report, other than the fact that I'm getting more pregnant every day, Isabella is becoming more of a toddler every day, and Nick is still working hard and taking names at work. Here's a photo of me, with a new hairdo (first time I've had bangs in 20 years!), looking pregnant as can be...

Our days consist mostly of going to playgroups, parks, and heading to church for small groups, etc. We are thankful to have found many good friends here who have young children around Isabella's age, so we have lots of playmates. There are even two other moms due within 3 weeks of when I'm due. Such is the life of a young family. Here's a recent shot of Isabella...

We took a trip to the Miami Metro Zoo a couple of weeks ago, and Isabella had a blast. I think we're going to try to go every couple of weeks (thank goodness for the $49 annual family pass!). She asks what the animals are and points very insistently. We literally had to drag her away from the hyenas last time we were there. Of all the things to want to spend more time with, hyenas! Who knows what goes through a toddlers mind?! As Bill Cosby said, "All children are brain damaged!". There are certainly days we agree with that sentiment! Here are a few cute shots of Nick and Isabella at the Zoo...

Well, that's about it for now. Nick and I are headed out of town for the weekend (by ourselves, woo hoo!!), so I'm sure we'll have another posting soon with details from our trip. We are heading up to Vero Beach, which is known this time of year as Dodgertown. The Dodgers have held spring training there since 1948, and this year is the last year. We're looking forward to some peace and quiet, a lazy baseball game in the sun, and maybe even a nice meal out without having to ask for a high chair.

Winter? What winter?

2008-02-03T02:00:00.000-08:00

We have now been living in Miami for 9 months, and I can safely say that there are no seasons here. Although today is February 19th, and we just recently celebrated Super Bowl Sunday, the forecast is for sun and a high temperature of 81 degrees. I don't care how anyone tries to spin it, this is not winter. It is honestly hard for me not to chuckle when people talk about a "cold front" coming through, because what they really mean is that the high temps will be around 70 instead of 80, and we might get a few days of rain. I think it would be an interesting experiment to see the people of this city try to live through a couple of months of gray Seattle cold and rain. There would be massive requests for Prozac at the doctors offices, and the news channels would not stop airing stories about people wearing parkas made for eskimos. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the weather. I just think it's funny what constitutes some people's definition of winter.

On a cheerier note, Isabella is doing all sorts of fun things these days. Here are a few stories...

1. She is a climber. I don't remember mine or Nick's parents saying that we were climbers, but Isabella got it from somewhere. She is not content unless she is climbing to a higher perch in the house. Granted, she is only 32 inches tall, but she can get into a trouble spot quickly. For example, she recently climbed up on one of the dining room chairs, and in the short time it took me to get my pregnant body off the couch and over to the chair, she had climbed up onto the table and was starting to run down it. Yikes! The toddler days are definitely here.

2. She loves cars. Toy cars, real cars, doesn't matter. Most days include some time spent letting her climb around in our car so she can push all the buttons and try to turn the steering wheel. She is absolutely her father's daughter. She actually tried to take a little boy's toy dump truck at the park the other day. The boy had to fight for it before the mom's intervened. Here's a shot of Isabella driving Grandpa's car.

3. She is a strong-willed child. Yes, we know where she got that from. She has started expressing an opinion about a lot of things lately, including what clothes she wants to wear, what she wants to eat or drink, and what Nick and I should be reading to her. She did, however, like the new hairdo I tried on her this week. Here's a shot of her checking herself out in the mirror with her new pigtails. So cute!

In pregnancy news, little Olivia is doing well, kicking away, and scheduled to make her first appearance on Wednesday, April 30th. I'm now officially in the 3rd trimester, and pregnancy insomnia is back, so you may be seeing more posts for the next few months while I try to put myself back to sleep at 4am. Enjoy quality sleep if and when you have it!

House photos

2008-01-03T04:19:00.000-08:00

After a long wait, you finally get to see photos of our house! In our defense, we've hardly had time to breathe due to all our visitors and holiday activities, let alone take photos of our house. So, without further adieu...

Front of the house - what you can't see in this photo is how cold it is outside today. 35 degrees in Miami is a record cold! It was 84 degrees two days ago. Ouch!

Our living room

Master bedroom

Kitchen

Dining room

Nick's parents living room

Pool

Our favorite place to sit - under the avocado tree

Those Crazy Cubans!

2007-12-25T16:23:00.000-08:00

We have made it through our first Noche Buena in Miami! Noche Buena is "the good night", also known to the rest of America as Christmas Eve. It is traditionally celebrated by roasting a pig, playing dominoes, listening to salsa music, and drinking rum in one form or another. The pig is usually bought from a local farm one day ahead of time to allow for marination with a LOT of garlic, sour orange juice, salt, pepper, etc. The farm we bought our pig from opens at 5am on December 23rd, and normally has 400-500 cars of people waiting in line to buy their choice pig for the celebrations. These crazy Cubans are serious about pig roasting. Here's a quick shot of the party scene...

To make a very long story slightly shorter, our pig was much bigger than we needed for the 25 or so people coming, and it took more than 8 hours to roast. We had been assured by our great Uncle Ernesto that the special box he brought would roast the pig in 5 hours or so. But as his insistence, we waited "15 more minutes" about 10 times before the pig was finally finished. The pig finally made it out of the box around 9:15pm, and we were all seated and eating dinner by 10pm. Check out Nick's photos below. I think he looks like one of Satan's minions or something in the first photo. Apparently it is tradition for the man of the house to eat the tail, so there's also a shot of Nick taking his first bite of the pig. Yummy! : (

Our Noche Buena finally ended around midnight when the last guest had departed and Nick and I collapsed into bed. Very tired, very full, and virtually zapped of all holiday energy. But the next morning (a short 7 hours later), Isabella awoke to let us know she was ready to open all her presents. It took her a bit to get into it since we had told her very sternly for the last few weeks not to touch the tree or presents. Then we were insisting she tear these things open. I think the whole process was more confusing for her than anything, but she liked all her gifts very much, and that's the point of the whole present thing anyway. Here's a picture of her "opening" presents on Christmas morning.

Needless to say, we felt no need to do anything productive on Christmas Day, so we didn't leave our pajamas or the house all day. It was wonderful! The biggest news of the day was that Andrew, Nick's brother, absolutely loved our gift to him, a toy remote-control helicopter that isn't much bigger than a large mosquito. Anyway, that helicopter didn't spend much time on the ground except to charge its batteries. Clearly the hit gift of the year in our house. I'm sure Andrew will have fun harassing his dog at home in Seattle with the toy, and we are happy to have that buzzing noise gone for now.

Well, that's it for now, but we have another post coming soon because Isabella has been learning lots of new tricks so we have some fun photos to share, and we plan to post the much anticipated photos of our house. Stay tuned and thanks for reading!

Ding, ding, ding... Round 2!!

2007-12-18T16:53:00.000-08:00

We're in the second round of a couple of things around here these days...

First, and certainly more joyful than the next, we are proud to announce we are expecting another healthy baby girl! We are thrilled Isabella and this new little girl will get to experience the joy of sisterhood. And it's certainly easier on mom and dad's pocketbook since our girls will get to share a lot of clothes, toys, etc. over the years to come (at least we hope!). We have absolutely no firm idea on names yet, but I think it's safe to say that names like Flower, Freedom, and Sunshine are not on the list. If you thought any of those names would be names we would use, you really don't know us very well.

Secondly, we have yet again been struck by a nasty stomach bug here in the Montero household. Yuck! It all started with one of the little boys on a modeling job with Isabella. His mom actually admitted to me that her little boy had been sick and was still fighting off the bug. Some people really have a lot of nerve. Anyway, Isabella got the bug, and then Nick got it too. He was spared last time, but this time it hit right as I was about to start preparing his birthday (28!) dinner. Poor guy spent most of the night on the bathroom floor, and I spent most of the night trying to sleep on the couch. Nick's mom, Mary Ellen, also got sick, but not too bad this time. Yuck! Needless to say I bought a big can of Lysol and sprayed every surface I could think of last night.

By the way, some of you have asked about Isabella's modeling jobs lately. So, here's a rundown of what she's done.

Wal-Mart: An ad in the Sunday paper last Labor Day Weekend. I'll see if I can scan the photo in sometime.
An ad in one of their Christmas mailers, but it wasn't actually used. Thankfully she still gets paid whether they use it or not.

Talbots: Wearing a cute pink dress that will hopefully come out sometime in the spring or summer 2008.

Mini-Boden: Wearing several outfits and a swimsuit in their summer 2008 line. This is a UK company, so you probably won't see anything except online. Again, you'll have to wait until spring probably to see anything.

That's it for now... stay tuned for stories of holiday mayhem and pig roasting!

Welcome to Germville - population 5 and 1/2

2007-12-01T11:22:00.000-08:00

Hello from Germville (aka the Montero household)!

This week has left us a little ragged due to a nasty stomach virus making its way through the family. It all started with Isabella's Tuesday playdate. My friend Grace invited us over for a visit. Her daughter Mercy is just 6 months older than Isabella and the two play very well together. While Grace and I were distracted by their cute new son, Graham, the little ones had exchanged water cups. Whoops! Within 12 hours Isabella was sick.

This virus has shown us no mercy, as it seems to get worse with each person it infects. Isabella was really only sick for 12 hours or so and never seemed bothered much by the whole thing. Ron and I, on the otherhand, spent all Thursday night moaning and groaning, and I even had to make a brief visit to the hospital for some IV fluids and anti-nausea medicine. Not to worry, I'm fine, doctors are just extra cautious about dehydration when it comes to pregnant women. Now poor Mary Ellen has the bug, only hers includes a rather high fever too.

Nick has been the only one spared from this nastiness. I don't think he's ever been so thankful to have to work all week, including Saturday, as he is this week. Let's hope he stays germ-free until this thing clears out!

There is a positive side to this whole thing though.... Isabella has started taking much longer naps. 2.5-3 hours at a time. This is a little piece of heaven for a pregnant mom who needs a nap or two of her own! And it really could be worse. Our poor friend Grace got sick too, but she has an 18 month old, a 3 week old, and no in-laws around to help out. Ouch!

So, the moral of the story is: Don't let your child share cups with another little one. And if you want to stay germ-free, avoid our house for the next few days. :)

Are the holidays over yet?

2007-11-26T17:47:00.000-08:00

The holidays are in full swing here in Miami and at the Montero household. Looking back to Halloween, near the time of our last blog posting, we had a great time trick or treating with Isabella at our friends' house. Isabella dressed up as a pumpkin, thanks to a very cute costume made for her by my mother. See photo below with Isabella cramming candy (still in the wrapper) in her mouth.

November was relatively quiet. My sister flew in from Nashville for Thanksgiving weekend, getting her first taste of a big Cuban holiday celebration. Our relatives served 4 kinds of meat, including roast turkey, fried turkey, roast pork, and a ham. Though a bit more chaotic than we're used to on a holiday, it was fun to be with family in our new city. While we were preparing to go to our family's house, Nick was trying to finish up a section of our roof that needed some repair. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to completely finish that section of roof before we needed to leave for dinner, and....

The next night, Nick, Jill (my sister) and I headed out South Beach for a night out. By the time we reached downtown Miami, we were in the middle of a downpour. This is apparently what the weather forecasters were referring to when they mentioned a "slight chance of isolated showers". As we drove through South Beach, it began to flood. It became clear that we wouldn't be hitting any shopping or bars on the beach that night, because without an umbrella and hip-waders, it's tough to park anywhere when it's raining that hard. So we turned around and headed back, finally settling at a ridiculously loud Cuban restaurant with a live salsa band. On a side note, is it really necessary for a trumpet player in a medium-sized venue to use a microphone? The point is, it was so loud in the restaurant, that none of us heard our cell phones ringing. Well, we had missed several frantic calls from Nick's dad. Whoops!

We quickly drove home to find Nick's parents waving their arms in despair as water poured in through the ceiling above their living room. The next couple of hours were spent moving furniture, finding more bowls to catch drips, and squegeeing water out of our living room. So Nick's hope that the weather would hold out until Saturday was not in the cards. We are however happy to report that their was no permanent damage and all we really lost was some sleep, since all of this took place at 1am. Nick was able to complete the roof repair job on Saturday as planned, and although we've had no major rain since, we are confident his workmanship will hold up to the crazy Miami rains.

In Isabella news, she has taken an interest in helping out around the house, as you can see from the photo below. She seemed very curious in trying her mopping skills the day after the roof disaster. She has also helped Grandma water the plants in the yard recently.

The cutest thing Isabella has done lately is learned how to give kisses. Here is one of her kissing the ceramic chicken at Uncle Gaston's house. She kisses most things these days. We try not to laugh too hard at her...

PS: We'll try to post more than once a month now, but forgive us, we have a toddler, two senior citizens, a house, and another baby on the way.

No more sympathy for the toads!

2007-10-17T18:17:00.000-07:00

Well, we have yet another piece of evidence that we have in fact, moved to a foreign country. It turns out that the rather large (but kind of cute) toads we have hopping around our yard are POISONOUS! "Bufo" toads (otherwise known as "big as# toads" by our friends Grace and Michael) are extremely poisonous, and regularly kill small animals such as cats and dogs. Who would have thought that these seemingly harmless things were out to get us?!

This afternoon, after getting roughly 4 inches of rain in 4 hours, we went outside to survey the yard. Our street had about 3 inches of water in it, but we were high up on our lot at 11.67 ft above sea level (that elevation still cracks me up, because that's considered high for south Florida). Anyway, Annie, Nick's parents' dog, was outside playing with what turns out to be a POISONOUS toad. For several minutes after that she was rubbing her face into the yard, and seemed generally irritated. Ron, Nick's dad, proceeded to give her a bath. Then she started shaking and falling over. So, they rushed her off to the vet, who said it was "a very close call, touch and go" (seriously, the vet's words, not mine), and she had to have a little mouth-rinsing procedure. We can now report that she is resting comfortably at home.

The vet instructed Nick's parents that they ought to go right out to Wal-Mart to buy a pellet gun. After seeing the look of shock on Ron's face at these directions, the vet explained that they she knew they were not from around here, but to wake up and realize they've moved to what is still considered "the south". Apparently it is culturally normal to arm your home in south Florida with a pellet gun in order to kill any pests that may stumble/hop/crawl onto your property. This seems a bit extreme to us, but I suppose we had better get with the program before one of these crazy things spits its poison onto our child.

Seriously, our drivers licenses are issued by a state of the USA, and we still pay taxes to the USA, and we still have the justice system of the USA, but that's about where the similarities end between south Florida and the rest of the country. Just so everyone knows, once you get south of Palm Beach, you are no longer in the USA, you are in the crazy Republic of South Florida. Craziness!

Wild Ride

2007-10-01T17:17:00.000-07:00

We're on the tail end of a wild ride, really, a wild month. As of today, we have been in our new house one week. The last month is a complete blur of closing on the house, painting madly for 2 weeks, packing madly for 2 days, and then finally, the move. But, the good news is that we made it here with a relatively smooth moving day and now all we have to do is figure out where to put everything. This includes the 30 or so boxes of belongings that Nick's parents brought with them, and I don't know why it surprised us, but we remembered after they moved in that they've been married for nearly 35 years, and have simply accumulated a lot of things. That, and they are pack rats at heart. The upside of all that stuff is that they have lots of cool kitchen stuff that we never would have been able to buy until years from now. It was like Christmas opening up all the "new" knives, pots and pans, gadgets, etc.

On a funny note, we have a resident Mr. Toad, and he had quite a wild ride recently. We came over to the house one morning while we were painting, and what did we find, but a HUGE toad (at least 6 inches) floating in our pool. And he wasn't really just floating, he was swimming for dear life because the pump was running and he couldn't swim himself out of the current. We just wonder how long he'd been circling our pool before we found him and fished him out. But, we are happy to report he seemed to survive just fine, and we saw him just the other night in the grass with a little friend.

In other news, Isabella is fully walking now, which is a wild ride all on its own. She started walking well right before she hit 11 months, and she's practically running now. The timing was good, because now that we're in the house, she finally has more room to roam. I now spend most of my days chasing her from room to room or searching for her madly because I've turned around for a moment and she has made it nearly across the house.

And finally, the weather around here has been the wildest ride of all. Nick and I have hardly had a good nights sleep since we moved in because we have had a thunderstorm every night. And we're not talking small thunderstorms, we're talking about waking us out of a dead sleep, rattling the windows, 3 inches of rain in a few hours kind of thunderstorms. I hate to admit it, but a crack of thunder was so loud this morning that I actually jumped up a foot while I was lying in bed, and my very next instinct was to grab the covers and pull them over my head. It was a gut reaction that reminded me of childhood in Iowa during summer storms. Thankfully Isabella sleeps right through it. I guess that's why they call it sleeping like a baby!

Well, that's it for now. We'll post photos of the house once we get the last boxes unpacked. Stay tuned!

It's not unusual...

2007-08-19T18:04:00.000-07:00

It's not unusual to see/hear/experience the following in the Montero household as of late...

1. It's not unusual to... catch Isabella taking a step or two on her own! This is thrilling for us, and she always has an impish grin on her face afterwards.

2. It's not unusual to... find Melissa with a phone attached to her ear, talking to a realtor, insurance agent, mortgage lender, or other such agent associated with the process of buying a home in south Florida. Oy! What a mess! We close on September 6th, and we can't wait!!

3. It's not unusual to...see Nick walking through the door after a long day at work with two smiling girls waiting to hug him. Nick has worked very hard the last few months, and was honored with a raise after his 3-month probationary period finished. A raise after 3 months is VERY unusual in the auto industry, but it's not unusual to find that Nick has worked hard and proved his worth. What a wonderful provider he is!

4. It's not unusual to... see people of every age out and about on Lincoln Road in South Beach well past 10pm. We ventured out to South Beach again last night and saw several kids below the age of 2 and several "kids at heart" well past the age of 70. Only in South Beach! Lincoln Road is pretty much the heart of Miami culture and tourism, and it never ceases to amuse us.

5. It's not unusual... to meet someone for the first time and have them hug you and kiss you on the cheek. This is not just adults either. Nick's 13 year old cousin was a part of this custom too. I didn't count, but at a recent gathering of Nick's family, I was probably kissed and hugged by more than 20 people, once each as I arrived and once as I left. Men, women, and children are all hugging and kissing. A note to all our northwestern would-be visitors, get ready to share the love, Miami-style!

6. It's not unusual... to talk to someone in business somewhere in Miami who says they will call you back, and then... they don't! Upon asking around about this phenomenon, friends who've lived here in Miami a while say this is normal, and just the way things are done here in Miami. We are slowly getting the feeling we have moved not to a different corner of the US, but rather, a different country altogether! I don't speak the language, and there are so many weird customs to get used to... hugging and kissing on the cheek almost everyone you meet, and then telling people you'll call them back when you know you won't. Strange indeed!

Well, that's it for now, but tune back in after September 6th for photos of the new house and photos from our upcoming Vegas trip (G-rated photos, don't worry!).

Miami Freak Shows

2007-06-30T19:35:00.000-07:00

We have seen some very funny and downright astonishing freak shows in the last couple weeks. Here are the details...

Last weekend Nick and I had a date out on Miami Beach, and we enjoyed the crazy people passing by almost as much as we enjoyed our meal. The first was a man who walked by wearing nothing but a black, fringed loin cloth. We think his name must be Tonto. At least he was trim and in shape. But it was 9 o'clock at night. We had to wonder where he was going dressed like that at that hour of night.
The next "freak" was a woman who was clearly dressed up in her best dress. We first saw her on our way to dinner as her husband was taking a picture of her. From the front all we saw was a 50ish woman wearing a lot of makeup and a sequined evening gown. Later, as we were eating dinner, she walked by again and we saw her from the back. Wow! She had not one but two scrunchies in her hair (didn't those go out of style in the late 80's?), and you could see that she didn't even bother to wear the appropriate undergarments with her evening gown, because her white bra straps were showing quite a bit. Yikes! Where are the fashion police when you need them? It was too dark for a good photo, but this is what we have from our evening on South beach.

This week, I took an aerobics class from the most para-military instructor I've ever had in an exercise class. She looked to be a Latin woman in her 50's, but she had a thick accent that I think was Russian. The class was full, so I figured she would be good, but she started off the class by screaming "Quiet!" to two women who were talking. I should note that she didn't seem to need a microphone that the instructors usually use during the classes, as she was very loud all on her own. My that was a lot of volume from such a small person! The rest of the class was a blur of steps, pushups, situps, and weights. Honestly, I got dizzy near the end because she wouldn't allow anyone to take a water break. If anyone stopped or slowed down she would come over and yell for them to "Get moving!" and come over to their step to do the move with them until they got it. I'm not sure whether I want to go back to one of her classes or not, but I think if I did, I might have a chance at keeping up with her after a couple of years or so. That woman either had several large cups of coffee that morning, or she really did moonlight as a Russian military drill instructor. I don't think I have the nerve to ask her, so I suppose it will just have to remain a mystery...

PS Plane tickets to Miami in October are rather cheap, so start thinking about joining us down here for some fun in the warm surf and sand, and come ready to heckel the Miami freak shows.

Crawling, not walking...

2007-06-18T19:57:00.000-07:00

Hi all!

Wow! I can't believe it's been almost a month since we last posted. While I can't say that anything earth-shattering has happened, we are having fun. Hence the title of this post, crawling, not walking. We are all in the crawling stage these days. Isabella is crawling, albeit a bit crab-like. And Nick and I are taking baby steps in the city, so to speak... Nick is settling into his job well and enjoying the increased paychecks. And I'm feeling like I know the town better and am starting to make a few new friends. Here's a photo of part of downtown Miami. We haven't found a great viewpoint yet, although it may be tough to find one in this very flat city.

The big news is that Nick's parents, Ron and Mary Ellen, are finally here in Miami for good! Isabella is already enjoying the games with abuelo (grandpa) and grandma, and we've even had a chance to get a date in without bringing Isabella to a "family friendly" restaurant.

And we've made our first day trip to Miami Beach, which was warm, relaxing, and very fun all at the same time. We feel very blessed to have such a tropical oasis 30 minutes from our apartment. Here are a few shots from our family beach day.

Isabella is still growing like crazy and learning all kinds of new tricks. In the last week she has learned how to crawl (forwards, not just backwards) and pull herself up to standing. It seems like every time I turn around now she is standing up holding on to something, which means that I can hardly leave the room now for fear that she'll bash her head into something unless I'm there to help her stay steady. Thank goodness for naptime!

We also just received a phone call yesterday requesting Isabella for her first modeling audition. Of course, we think she's gorgeous, but it's nice to hear that other people think she's great too. We thought these were a couple of cute shots of her. If she gets any jobs, we'll try to scan the photos into the blog so everyone can see them.

Amongst the boxes

2007-05-21T18:07:00.000-07:00

We're finally getting back to normalcy here in Miami. Nick has started his first full week of work, we've unpacked most of our boxes, and we're back at the gym to work off all the flab from the last several months of post-pregnancy, Seattle-wintery, junk-food eating laziness. Nick and I are both hobbling around feeling very sore, but it's a requirement here in Miami. A woman at the gym today actually asked me if I worked out just once or twice a day. Once a day was clearly not the right answer in her eyes. Yikes! We are sooo the fat white people here!

Here are a few photos of our apartment so far. Nothing too exciting yet because we've ordered a new couch that won't be here for several weeks. We'll take more photos when it actually looks like a place we're living. Yep, that's Nick drinking milk out of a wine glass because that was the glass packed on the top of the box. Isabella seems quite happy to be out of the car, and found this red ribbon to chew on. Yum! She really has been a champ the last couple of months. We feel very blessed to have such a good little girl.

We'll try to keep posting regularly as we make our first big beach trips, go to our first Miami Cuban restaurant, etc. Until then, we love getting messages from our friends and family, so keep them coming!

Last leg of the trip

2007-05-19T16:57:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been quite a week. We’ve had the opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of stress levels… both total relaxation and ultimate stress have been experienced so far.

We started the week with a pleasant little drive from Nashville to Madison, Alabama, just outside Huntsville. While it was a short visit with Beth and Andy Crocker, it was so great to see them again. Last time we were together, the Crockers were leaving Seattle for Alabama, with Beth in her 3rd trimester. Their son, Drew (adorable!), is now more than a year old. They live in a beautiful neighborhood in Madison, as you can see from the photo of their house above. Oh how nice it would be if a house like that were affordable in Miami!

On Monday we had our last long driving day. We made it from Madison to Jacksonville, Florida in 13 hours, via Atlanta. The highlights of the drive came in the morning when we drove by Talladega and the Talladega Speedway. We were tempted to stop by and see Ricky Bobby, but we had to press on and make it through the entire state of Georgia in the afternoon. To be honest, most of Georgia is a blur. We hardly stopped at all. Nick did get a chance to enjoy some sweet tea at lunch though. One side note about Georgia is that they had the best rest stop we have ever seen. It was complete with leather couches and a plasma TV! Not a bad place for Isabella to have her breakfast.

At long last we made it to the state line of Florida. They’ve had some wildfires recently, so we drove through a lot of smoke before making it to Jacksonville. Unfortunately we forgot to take any pictures in Jacksonville, which is truly a shame because we had a great time visiting Nick’s cousin, Mark, and his wife, Suzie. Just about the sweetest couple ever! They treated us like royalty, with good steaks, good wine, and lots of fun stories. We talked their ears off in true Montero fashion, hence the absence of photos.

One funny thing about Jacksonville is that it helped acclimate me to the different creatures living in this part of the country. It isn’t at all uncommon to see snakes and little lizards (geckos?) crawling around. Mark and I happened to be sitting outside with Isabella one afternoon and what I though was a black hose suddenly started moving. Yikes! Mark chased off the harmless garden snake (probably more than 2 ft long!), but that didn’t stop me from picking up Isabella from the grass for a minute or two. Oh I am such a pansy! By the end of the visit, I was at least not jumping quite as high when a little lizard would scurry in front of me on the sidewalk.

Wednesday we waited to leave Jacksonville until noon in hopes that Nick’s cell phone might finally arrive. No such luck, as of today, Nick has been without his electronic leash for 2 weeks! As we drove into Miami, the sun was starting to set, and I captured this photo. It doesn’t really do it justice, but if you want to see some great shots of Miami, watch CSI: Miami.
Once we got past downtown Miami, we experienced the truly horrible traffic on the US 1. Oy! We were so close and so far away. It probably took an hour to go 5 miles. We will most certainly not be buying a house that would put our commute on that route. The good news is that we made it to our apartment, and we were very pleased to see it is located just a couple blocks from a nice shopping mall, restaurants, etc. Stay tuned for pictures of the apartment and our first ventures into our new city...

Noshing in Nashville

2007-05-06T08:25:00.000-07:00

Our time here in Nashville is coming to a close and we're reflecting back on some good sights and really good food. Here are the highlights...

Jill took us on a touristy afternoon around Nashville, including a visit to the largest hotel in the US, the Opryland Hotel. This photo really doesn't do it justice... the place is huge! There's a photo of us in front of one of the many fountains in the gardens.

We also went downtown to see the honky tonk bars. We actually saw a little boy with a mullet riding by but couldn't get a picture fast enough. We did however stop to take a picture of a funny pairing of signs. I can't number the times we've seen signs with the words kum, kwik, kwike, etc. Do business owners in the midwest and south have an objection to the letter c or something? I don't get it...

We've had some delicious food here too. Good down home BBQ for dinner with a crazy waitress who couldn't stop talking about her children named Tessla and Dakota. We had some of the best pancakes I've ever had this morning too. If you're ever in Nashville, stop by the Pancake Pantry. Yum! Here's a shot of Isabella going for Jill's beer last night.

Here are some more photos of Isabella too.

Seriously in the South

2007-05-04T20:08:00.000-07:00

Oh, it has been a long day! We drove from Montezuma,Iowa to Nashville today, in 13 hours. But, the upside is we saw some funny rednecks today. Here are our notes from today...

Started our morning with a lovely greasy breakfast at McDonald's in Galesburg, Illinois. Illinois is actually more boring than South Dakota, which we didn't think was possibly. Our apologies to the Schrocks, who hail from there, but driving through Illinois required copious amounts of caffeiene. See photo above of the dull flatness.

We stopped at a random outlet mall in the middle of nowhere for lunch, and thankfully discovered as we were driving out of the complex that they had a Carter's (baby clothes) store. If we had seen that before driving away, we might have had to stop and buy an extra storage box for the top of our car.

We also stopped at a state park in southern Illinois to give Isabella her afternoon meal (see photos above). Nick discovered afterwards that there are several poisonous snake species inhabiting the park. Whoops!

The funniest part of the day was seeing the biggest redneck ever pass by us on the freeway in Kentucky. The car was a late-80's canary yellow Camaro with T-tops, extra-wide rear tires and extra-skinny tires, and had straight pipes coming out the back. We think his name was probably Bobby Ray, and he had to floor the accelerator just to get on the freeway with his piece of junk car. Hopefully he didn't see me take the picture of him... I laughed so loud after taking the photo that Isabella was startled and cried.

At long last we made it to relative civilization in Nashville. Come back for updates from our visit with Jill and the honky tonks later this weekend.

Montana to Iowa

2007-05-03T13:28:00.000-07:00

Sunday was another beautiful day, and a fairly easy day of travel. We saw a beautiful sunrise as we left Butte (see photo above). We made it to Sheridan, Wyoming and stopped at a park for lunch. The town was a very typical western town, including Dan’s Western Wear. We even saw buffalo at the park where we had lunch.

Eastern Wyoming turned out to be a pretty boring part of the drive, so we stopped in the town of Gillette in search of some coffee. We were pleased to find a Starbucks in town. It had only been open 3 weeks, and was clearly the hot place to be for locals. We think just about every person under 25 in the town was there that afternoon. We are now convinced that Starbucks really is taking over the world.

Sunday night was spent in Rapid City, South Dakota. We thought about going out to see Mount Rushmore, but were just too exhausted. The hotel had a pool, so we took Isabella swimming and called it a night.

Monday was definitely the most boring drive we’ve ever had. Nothingness is an understatement when it comes to South Dakota landscape. The most interesting thing we saw was Wall Drug Store in the town of Wall, which is another touristy western town (see photo above). Wall Drug is so popular that they even had an overflow parking lot. Kind of ironic considering how desolate the rest of the area is just a few blocks away.

So far we have seen deer, rabbit, quail, pheasant, buffalo, steer, and more horses and cows than we could ever count. And of course, Nick has pointed out lots and lots of busted old cars and trucks in fields.

Monday evening took us into western Iowa, where it took us easily 3 hours to go the last 120 miles. Isabella was so peaceful in the car all day and then finally decided she’d had enough. So, we stopped at a couple rest stops and a McDonald’s before making it to Des Moines at about 9:30pm.

Tuesday was a quick trip to Brooklyn, Iowa, only about an hour. We had a lovely day visiting my Grandma Doty. We took a walk around town in the stroller with Isabella, and every single person we passed by made sure to say hello and comment on what a beautiful day it was, in true Iowa fashion. This is one of those places where people are just as friendly as can be. And the weather really was perfect… sunny and 75 degrees. It’s nice to be in a place where spring actually gives us sunshine.

Wednesday included more road time than we had originally planned for, but we also got to see more family than we had planned for, so it was worth it. We spent a peaceful afternoon in Montezuma with my Grandma and Grandpa Fleming. We then took the back farm roads to Indianola to watch my cousin Jen's son play in a T-ball game. Very cute 3 and 4 year olds in baseball uniforms trying to hit, catch, and throw! My Aunt Karen was there too and we all had dinner together afterward. Isabella was very vocal, and after every had ordered, decided she wanted to speak (screech) for her turn at ordering too.

Today (Thursday) was again relaxing. We started the day by joining my Grandma Doty in town for her coffee club, where she was proud to show off her great granddaughter to all the little old ladies. I'm sure it made her day. Tonight we'll make a big dinner for lots of family on my dad's side. If Isabella behaves we may even leave her with the great grandparents and hit the Tap Room ( a local dive bar) with my Aunt Karen. Come back for pictures of that.

On a funny note, Nick's cell phone is still MIA. It appears that the hotel in Seattle was a few days late in sending it via FedEx, so it looks like the cell phone will travel to Florida via Iowa via FedEx. We'll try to post again after our weeekend in Nashville with my sister, Jill.

3 states in 1 day

2007-04-28T22:19:00.000-07:00

Well, we've arrived in Butte, Montana. Things have been going very smoothly! Isabella is doing great in the car, and we stop every couple of hours to help her keep her sanity. We found a great lunch spot in Spokane that was right across the street from a mall, so we were able to get out and walk for an hour or so. The first photo is of Lake Cour d'Alene in Idaho.
The highlight of the day was probably feeding Isabella her afternoon meal next to a river in western Montana (no idea of the town name...). See the attached picture. I'm willing to bet Fisher Price hadn't planned for their infant chair to be used in quite this way.

We did learn a couple of lessons today...

1. Don't forget your cell phone at the hotel! Standard FedEx fees apply, and Nick's phone will meet us in Iowa. Ouch!

2. Do be thoughtful in your meal choices when on a long road trip. A peppercorn burger with lots of onions may taste great, but you and your fellow passengers will be paying for it for hours to come.

3. Do not order dessert when you are already too obese to sit at a booth in a restaurant. Wow there are a lot of people out there who would probably live longer without the extra peanut butter and chocolate pie for dessert. I know, I know, it's not very nice, but it still shocks me every once in a while how large we as Americans have become.

4. Do stop and enjoy the scenery wherever you are. Life is short, and we live in a beautiful country!

Cheers!

One more night in the Emerald City

2007-04-27T20:41:00.000-07:00

We spent a long day today watching most of our belongings being taken out of the house we've become a family in. It was a little sad, but we're very happy to be spending our last night in Seattle downtown, amongst the lights and the noise of the city. The view from our hotel window is just about perfect. Not much else defines Seattle more than the Space Needle.

Tomorrow we hit the road, in hopes of reaching Butte, Montana. We'll get our last Seattle lattes on the way out, which will probably be the last really good ones we have until we hit Miami. Here's to hoping Isabella manages the long hours on the road without having a meltdown!

Our last days in Seattle

2007-04-22T07:14:00.000-07:00

This is our first official blog posting! The whole thing is funny because up until a year or so ago, I don't think Nick or I could really give the definition of a "blog". And now here we are, finding a use for a blog in our life. We plan to use this to keep a running commentary on our upcoming road trip to Miami, and after that, on our experiences in our new city. Keep coming back to check out what's happening in our lives, and to see our (hopefully) funny thoughts about any "stupid people" we encounter.