The latest news from P-Town

Things here are gearing up for school to start again. This has always been the worst time of year for me because I hate going back to school (as a student and teacher). It just feels so dreary. I really don't mind teaching as a profession (aside from the huge amounts of time I have to waste on professional development). It's just a difficult transition. 

So things around here are getting tense- not in an icky stress way, just in a "hey I'm not going to be a lazy bum" way. On top of the school stuff, Ana is due in a few weeks and has started having mild contractions. Her family has a history of delivering early so she's starting to pack her stuff for the hospital now, even though she's not due until the end of August. BTW, I think I forgot to mention that due to troubles with her spouse she's been living with us for a few months and will probably be staying until after the baby is born. That also means my mother-in-law is here, too, and soon to be my youngest sister-in-law. The good news is that my laundry is always done for me, and usually the dishes, too. The bad news is that I have to share a remote. It reminds me of being in a college dorm again! Good thing I loved college. 

Also things are starting to heat up at the store. We pitched our fall line to a bridal boutique that's located up in Farr West and they are in the process of placing an order. If they like our designs that'll pretty much keep us in business for a while, plus give us the capital to expand in to a nicer place. That would be sweet. So keep your fingers crossed for us. I think we've got some cute stuff at great prices, so I'm pretty optimistic. I'm attaching a couple of sketches from our design book in case you're wondering what it is I've been doing all summer. 

Oh. And Andrei is moving back in with us starting the 11th because his Montessori is closing for summer break and his mom can't find a sitter in Salt Lake. So we've got a full and crazy couple of months coming up for us. I'll keep you updated as things go. 

Photos from Saturday

Here are a few photos from Saturday. Please note Emily's awesome photography skills, my mother-in-law's general flamboyancy, and Ana's over-all cuteness. Also keep your eyes open for two of the only photos I've allowed to be taken of me this year, as well as a few cameos by Andrei. If you're wondering why he's prancing around in a pink plastic tablecloth, just remember my "hands-off" parenting philosophy. If he want's to pretend he's pink bat-man, that's cool with me. It's a pretty good collection of pictures if you're wondering what life is like around Chez Farias. 

Sisters!

Today was a lot of fun. It was my sister-in-law Ana's baby shower. Ana is having her first baby (it's a girl) in about a month, and we're really excited because she's the first baby born in the family since Andrei. Yikes! My husband's family is pretty much the opposite of  mine when it comes to the whole procreating thing. Children are few, far between, and tremendously spoiled. I used to be totally opposed to it, but I'm reconciling. The fact that the baby is the first girl born in the family since Grecia (Luis's youngest sister who happens to be 19) is an even bigger deal. So the baby shower was really well done. The food was great, the decorations awesome, and the company greatly appreciated. 

My favorite guest was *my* sister Emily, who I freakin' love. Emily lives in L.A. and we don't get to see each other enough, although we talk on the phone enough to make up for it some. She's in town for her husband Brent's niece's baby blessing. I always love when Emily comes because she's hilarious and she totally "gets" me. Anyway, we spent most of the afternoon giggling about ridiculous nonsense, which is just the way I like to spend my afternoons. 

Between Ana's party and Emily's visit, today was a lot of fun. While she was here I made Emmy take a bunch of photos of my garden which is in full bloom. I'll post some as soon as they're developed. Ems also took some pictures of Ana to chronicle her pregnancy. Ana is a really tall girl and has always been self-conscious about that, even though I don't get it because she's totally gorgeous. She hasn't allowed anyone to photograph her pregnant because she claims that she looks like a very large berry most of the time, so when she found out Emily was coming she insisted that I have Emily bring her camera so that she could have some nice portraits done. I think they'll be adorable. 

So this is my last weekend of freedom before I have to go back to work at my "real" job. I'm glad it was a good one. 

Sigh...

So the big bridal fair was this Saturday. It went well, but not as well as I had hoped. Partly it was because the bridal season is over until December and partly it was because it was our first time out. Building a reputation for a company is a lot harder than I anticipated, but we've got good products and we've made some good connections. 

If I seem like I'm obsessed with work lately it's because this has been a dream of mine ever since I was a little kid. I know it seems weird, but I've been obsessed with fashion ever since I was a REALLY little kid. I was talking to my mom about it and she mentioned that I was the only one of her girls who regularly attended school wearing full dresses and often hats. Seriously. I was like 5 and had to have her sew extra ribbons on my clothes because they weren't girly enough already. 

Throughout my childhood I pretty much devoted all my time to playing Barbies, only I didn't play with my Barbies, I only dressed them and posed them. I also played with fashion plates and as soon as I could draw devoted most of my time to designing clothing in secret- mostly big fancy dresses. So I guess this is a natural career path for me, despite the fact that it doesn't make much sense for someone who graduated top of their class to care this much about clothes. If it doesn't work out, I've got to admit that I'll be bummed out, so I've been really stressed lately. 

Anyway, we've got some good prospects and I'll keep you all updated. 

This rocks!

So I've been looking for information on millinery lately because I'd like to try my hand at making hats and veils for my boutique and I ran across the most randomly awesome website I think I've ever seen. It's like, if I could make a website about random stuff that I think rocks, it'd be this one. It's called Threadbangers and it's run by a bunch of crazy eco-conscious hippies who make their own clothes and accessories for personal and environmental reasons. They're nuts, but in a weird awesome way. I highly recommend it if you are in to making your own stuff. Check out the how to make a hat episode. It's really cool. The graffiti lace episode is pretty sweet, too! I mean come on. If you know me, you know how much I love spray paint...

The URL is www.threadbangers.com or you can see all their episodes on YouTube.

Random Facts

I saw a version of this on another blog and thought it was a good idea. Here are 20 random and somewhat surprising facts that you probably don't know about myself and my family.
1. I skipped the 1st grade and was the youngest person to graduate at my high school in 1999 that I know of.
2. Luis was a total hellion when he was a kid. He destroyed most of his family's major appliances, priceless collectibles, and a booth at some diner in Guadalajara.
3. Andrei was born 6 weeks early and weighed 7 plus pounds!
4. I can shove my entire fist in my mouth. It's gross, but true.
5. Luis's mom drove to Mexico City while he was on his mission to visit him and drop off goodies, ignoring mission rules. She claimed that if they didn't want her to visit him, they should have called him to serve in a different country.
6. Andrei has been able to burp his name since he was 3 years old. In fact, he could burp on command before he could form complete sentences.
7. Luis and I met on a blind date. Ironically, Luis fixed the same friend responsible for arranging our first date up on a blind date the same week. That couple got engaged and married within a couple weeks of us, too!
8. Luis once impaled himself on a barbed wire fence topped with broken shards of glass while trying to sneak into a church building to play basketball as a teen, yet somehow failed to notice that he had wounded himself until his sister started screaming. He has a 4 inch scar on his abdomen.
9. Andrei's favorite thing to do is cook. He is ALWAYS in the kitchen helping me measure, mix, and pour. He regularly puts together picnics for us to eat together on the dining room floor.
10. I taught myself how to read when I was 4, mostly because I was told that I was too young and couldn't do it.
11. Luis learned English in only 18 months when he was 21 years old. He speaks so well most people have trouble identifying where he is from because he doesn't have much of an accent and uses better grammar than most native English speakers.
12. Andrei created his own name for me- Nana- when he was about a year old because he couldn't say "Camille." I've been Nana ever since.
13. I didn't learn how to pump gas in a car until I was 17 years old. I was actually taught how to by a boy I was dating at the time.
14. Luis is currently the number one rated Bank Manager in Northern Utah for Wells Fargo. He's too shy to admit it many people, though.
15. Andrei talks in his sleep- often hilariously, and usually quite loudly.
16. I never learned how to swim properly, and can only doggy paddle and float.
17. Luis knows dozens of awesome magic tricks.
18. Andrei is the king of random comments. Example: once while we were driving, he randomly blurted out "I want to be bald. I want to be a bald rock star." Another time at church, while someone was reading a scripture that said "and who shall be first in the kingdom of heaven?" Andrei raised his hand and blurted out "me!"
19. We make up all sorts of ridiculous songs that we are always singing, especially ones about and for our dogs. How lame is that?
20. In our family, all disputes are resolved with rock, paper, scissors.

La Caille

Ok. Here's the quick version for those of you who haven't been around much in the last 4 months- back in February or March I realized that as much as I love teaching I can't really see myself spending my career doing it. I've tried, and I just can't visualize it.
Fast forward a few months to May and I put down the deposit on a cozy little store located at the intersection of University Ave. and Center street in Provo. For those of you who don't know Provo well, that's the intersection of "Holy crap, this is where all of the people in Provo are" and "there's no way I can afford the rent around here." Except I can because the place looked like the 1980's went there to die so they discounted it and rented it 'as is.' I spent most of June fixing up the place and it's pretty cute now.
Fast forward a little more and our first Bridal Extravaganza is this weekend. We'll be displaying a booth at the La Caille Bridal Fair and booking appointments for the Casablanca Gown Co.- Utah's one and only bridal atelier. We do couture on a budget, basically, and I love it. Of course I'm working harder on this than I ever did on teaching (minus the all-nighters I pull sometimes the week before grades are due) but it is so much more fun. I'm pretty excited about La Caille because it's our opportunity to market directly to our target demographic. Yes!!!
My partner's name is Jenny Vance. She's the same age as my sister Emily and a graduate of design school with 3 years experience working for Wilhelmina Urban based out of SLC. She's brilliant and a lot of fun. We're giving it until December to start really bringing in the bucks- but I'm thinking that after this week that won't be a problem. We already have a bridal boutique from up in northern Utah interested in buying wholesale from us and carrying our line in their store. We also have a dance company interested in us designing and creating their costumes, which is cool since Jenny also worked for Ballet West at one point and has experience in that area.
Anyway, that's what I've been doing over the summer. If any of you have advice on what we should include in our La Caille display, please feel free to make suggestions. I've been to a lot of vendor fairs before, but never a wedding show. I've have some ideas, but I would like some input on how to flesh them out. I was thinking of doing a powerpoint with my projector. Is that too over the top? Should I just stick to mannequins and portfolios? Should I include sketches of our fall line?
Thanks!

Birthday Photos

This is the awesome bounce house/ water slide we borrowed from Angel Montalvo for the event. Angel is Luis's Sister Ana's Husband Jacob's Sister Rachel's Husband. I'm not really sure what that means, but he's family so we spend a lot of time with them and recently played at a wedding for them. Angel owed Luis for the wedding and agreed to pay off part of his debt by lending us the slide for the party. If you have the means to get your hands on one of these bad boys, I highly recommend it. The kids were totally entertained for hours.
For the kids who were too small or not daring enough to try the slide, we had the Slip'n'slide Andrei got as a birthday present from Ana and a kiddie pool generously donated by the Frica family who live down the street.
There is also a picture of Andrei getting showered by confetti, a memory I am sure will linger in our hearts and on our lawn for months to come. Notice the awesome birthday cake Ana made for Andrei featuring gummy popcorn, a clown, gummy carousel creatures, and a whole lot of food coloring.
One of the best things about the wonderful people I live and work with is that when there is a celebration they never take it for granted. The fact that so many people came is an honor and in so many ways a blessing. Growing up in a family where my concept of belonging was always in question, I feel really blessed to be a part of such a big group of family and friends who are always there to support us during the good times and the bad.
The birthday meal was large and a bit of a monster to prepare, but it was an honor to feed so many people because in Latin culture food is love. Sharing a meal together is the ultimate act of giving and receiving love. I was especially touched that Ana spent so much time shopping for and making the cake. The woman is expecting her first baby in 6 and a half weeks but she was on her feet for hours building the cake for Andrei. If that's not love, I don't know what is.
All in all, it was a wonderful experience, even if it was a lot of work to put together.

The Final Tally

Guests: 60-70 (not sure because they wouldn't hold still long enough to get counted)
Guests who arrived before the party even started: 7, not counting family
Cakes: 2
Bags of Circus Popcorn: 12
Pounds of Watermelon: 17-20
Caramel Apples: 20-ish
Corn Dogs: 125 (I'm totally serious. They cleaned us OUT)
Corn on the cobs: 50
Giant bags of Nachos: 1
Giant Bottles of Salsa: 1
2 1/2 Gallon Jugs of frosty beverages: 3 (Pink Lemonaide, Jamaica, and Tang...)
Paper plates: 100's I think
Inflatable Water Slide Bounce Houses: 1
Near death experiences with said Bounce Houses: 1- luckily there was only one bumped head at the great bounce house collapse of '08... most of the kids had left by then.
Bags of Cotton Candy: 25
Novelty Glass bottles of Root Beer: 12
Toys to give away for Ring Toss Prizes: 30-ish
Strands of Twinkle Lights: 4
Hours spent hanging cotton candy and toys from strands of twinkle lights: 2-ish
Balloons that popped before they ever made it to the party: 20
Cans of Raid Bee and Wasp Eliminator: 1
Number of hives crushed to get rid of bee party crashers: 6
2nd Degree Burns: 1 (on my arm)
Giant Screaming Firework Fountains: 2
Cherry Bombs: 10
Sparklers: 36
Flower Fireworks: 20-30
Boxes of Party Poppers: 4
Noise Complaints to the Police Department: 0
Hours of Loud Screaming Soaking Wet Fun: 5

It was the BEST PARTY EVER.

Our tendency to over do everything seemed to pay off this time. At one point I thought to myself, is there any way that we could ever possibly need 125 corn dogs, and the answer dear friends was in fact, "yes."
Thanks to all those that made it possible.
I'll post pictures when they're developed.

Camping Anyone?

Luis is a very big man. He's probably about 300 lbs. (down from last year) and he's a good 6 foot 4. He can easily lift large, heavy objects and has no problem squishing the ickiest bugs. When my overachiever poodle brought a dead bird into the house, he didn't make even the slightest fuss about picking it up with a garbage bag and throwing it away. He is also terrified of any place that does not have paved roads and large amounts of lighting on the street.
He was born in Mexico City- the world's most populated urban area according to what I've read- and grew up in Guadalajara which has a population of about 9-10 million people. He was called to serve his mission in Mexico City, as well, which only aggravates this problem. Driving through the dark and dangerous streets of Provo, UT he gets nervous and has me lock the doors if it's night. He also takes the longest possible route to get anywhere because he only drives on main roads. He says he's seen too many bad things happen to good people.
Keeping this in mind, we don't go camping a lot. The country fully freaks Luis out. When his cousin proposed a camping trip last week he was hesitant at best, but decided to go because he's a really good sport. We drove up Hobble Creek Canyon while daylight, and he was doing ok until we got really lost. Then the tension started to rise. We finally got that sorted out and it took him and his cousin 20 minutes to pick a campsite I'm guessing because they wanted something with easy road access in case we needed to make a Mission Impossible-esque escape at night.
I had to leave him up there tonight because I have a client dropping by the store tomorrow morning. He is going to share the tent with his aunt so I hope he does alright.

Argh!

I hate blogging. I really do. I've been submersed in a culture for the last 6 and a half years that rejects email for being too impersonal. Blogs are totally out of the question for Mexicans- many of whom do not even have internet in their home out of principal. But living in Provo I have no family or friends close by except for a sprinkling of cousins and random assorted work-place buddies, so I guess it's time to jump on the bandwagon since a lot of my peeps out there don't even know WHERE I live these days, much less what I'm doing. So here I go.

Andrei's birthday is coming up this weekend. Actually he turned 6 on the 3rd, but we're having his birthday party on Saturday the 12th because it is a mammoth beast that could not be contained in a single holiday weekend. I was talking to my mom on Sunday and she asked if we were going to have any friends coming or if it was going to be just family. The answer to that question is kind of embarrassing if you don't have some background knowledge about Mexican culture, so I digress. I'm a digressive thinker. Deal with it.

Mexicans are dramatic people. And keep in mind I'm not talking about U.S. born Mexican-Americans. They follow a whole other set of cultural bylaws. I'm talking about Mexicans from Mexico. Drama. They over d0 literally everything from cooking a simple family meal to dressing themselves to throwing kids birthday parties. When I started putting together the party a month or so ago, we sat down and brainstormed the guest list. First we included family- that means Luis's family. Not mine. Of course we have to include everyone including siblings, parents, aunts, cousins, and second cousins. If we don't, they'll be offended and start a huge chisme. That put the list at about 15 people. Small by family standards. Then we agreed that we needed to include Luis's cousin's wife's sister's kids- because they are practically family. Plus 7. Then we decided that if we didn't include Andrei's close friends he'd be bummed out. Of course the child is just as gregarious as his dad, so we had to define "close friends" as children whom he sees and/or plays with at least once a week... but we have to invite their brothers and sisters, too, because they're Latino families and you can't just invite one kid from a Latino family to a birthday party because that would be rude. So you see where this is headed...

After we added in Luis's friend's kids, people we're obligated to invite because they've invited us to parties, and a couple of kids from the ward, we were lucky that the guest list is under 50. Oh! And it's not a cultural norm to drop their kids off at parties, because that would be too impersonal. They stay. And they bring people who aren't invited. I'm planning dinner for 75. That's not weird. I went to a 1st birthday for a kid at a trailer park a few years ago that had over 100 people in attendance and a DJ.

So as I was saying, this monster that is the birthday has taken on a life of its own. It's a carnival theme, so we're dolling up the back yard to look like an actual carnival complete with carnival games (ring toss, etc.) balloon animals, a water slide bounce house, slip-n-slide, and the entire stock of cotton candy available the day we stopped by Dollar Tree. By the way, if you're in to carnival stuff, go to Dollar Tree. They have really cute popcorn buckets, candy, toys, etc. this summer.

My sister-in-law is a professional cake decorator, so she's putting together a roller coaster cake, and I'm making a Carousel out of cupcakes. We're also doing fireworks. Illegally. ¡Si se puede! Because we're a Mexican family and so we have to do our part to reinforce negative racial stereotypes in the neighborhood.
It's a good thing that I have a tendency to over do everything too.

So dear family and friends, if you wonder why you don't hear much from me for the rest of the week- that's why. I'll post pictures when they're developed.