Pascua. Easter.

Easter is an exciting time. My family doesn't care about the fluffy stuff associated with Easter such as egg hunts, bunnies and sugar loaded candies. Those are all a thing of the past. Of course those were supre awesome back when I was like under ten years old. Though I must say, I bought a box of Peeps pink marshmallows as soon as they hit stores in like February, but I only managed to eat one before my brother had finished the entire box and his own blue box.

Anyway, Easter for me is what most people have forgotten about. The ressurection of Jesus Christ. So Holy Week is spent at many church activities all leading to the main event. On Saturday night before Easter Sunday, we have an Easter vigil. Every year we make the vigil all night from around 11pm or midnight until about 7am on Easter Sunday. It is a very exciting celebration.
 
My favorite part is the very beginning where the vigil starts with the lights out and the blessing of the Paschal Candle. Everyone is given a small candle and the fire is spread throughout the entire church beginning with the main Paschal Candle. It's awesome to see how the light spreads and just the glow of everyones candles is magical.
 
I also like that during the vigil there are usually an average of 5 baptisms. It's exciting to see the many babies, kids and sometimes adults be baptized, also kids make their first communion and sometimes some adults receive their confirmation. I did all those outside of an Easter Vigil but it would have been more special to have received those sacraments during an Easter vigil.

Anyway it was a long night but for me it sure didn't feel that way. I didn't even come close to falling asleep nor did I feel hungry. I was happy and attentive thoughout the night. My brother is usually the one falling asleep everywhere: in the car, in church, in the shower, on buses, etc. So I had joked earlier Saturday night that he should take one of those 5 hour energy bottles, and funny enough, at the first head nod he gave during the vigil, my mom pulled out of her pocket none other than a bottle of 5 hour energy!  My brother only drank some of it and luckily it was enough to keep him from falling asleep.
 
Once the vigil ended around 7am, everyone was filled with joy and ready to head out for an early morning 'dinner'. Mayra and I took a picture together as we have celebrated Easter Vigils together for the past eight years. This time she was lucky that her boyfriend was able to experience the vigil as well.

After church we went to a nearby restaurant with other church members. I had a plate with grilled shrimp, fries, salad and rice. I don't know if I've mentioned here before, but I have given up rice from my diet and replaced it with the ever so amazing quinoa, but that morning was an exception. Besides I was finally hungry and the restaurant probably hadn't heard of quinoa.  

Well finally after a long night of celebration and an early dinner, my family made the road trip back home and could not wait until we hit the beds for our annual post-pascual sleep. My family fell asleep in the car but I was the lucky driver listening to the choir of snores along the way. Once we got home I was able to snap a picture of my happy mama before she went to bed and self timed a picture of my self in my backyard.

That's my tradition of Pascua. How did you spend your Easter?

Weekend retreat and reunion

This weekend my parents and I went off to a church retreat. I've been following many fashion blogs and recently focusing on the vintage inspired ones. I love the simple but fancy style that women used to have. I like to think I'm pretty old fashioned by what I believe in and like.

Anyway I was trying to put together my outfits to bring to the retreat & decided to put my hair in rollers for the first time since I took them and experimented with them from my Grandma's room when I was like 5. Here's what happened..

I didn't blow dry it so when I got to the retreat that night I quickly took them out before walking in the hotel but me plus wet hair means a disastrous puff ball and frizz is to come.

It was curly in place for like 2 minutes then it went back to its natural state and dried. Ergh!!

The next morning I decided to quit the hair and just put it in a bun trying to hide the mess. So I went on to brekkie and enjoyed it so dearly.

I was glad to spend the weekend at the retreat with my bestie Mayra. We never see eachother anymore..

She didn't mind my hair messy or in a bun but later the bun decided to hate me too. I really liked my outfit. Skirt was my grandmother's, fave silver pumps thrifted, silver/grey metallic belt from Target, white tank from A&F, turquoise Jackie cardigan from J. Crew. I'm beginning to feel my age now so I've decided to try and look it older of being mistaked for a 15/16 year old. Srsly!?

Anyway.. later in the retreat we had mass so I had to change and I tried to style my hair in five minutes. I also put on some lipstick which I never wear!

I like that it's red but not super deep red. I haven't found a good deep red that looks good yet.

My lips are trying to match my mom's blazer.

Here's my 2nd outfit. J. Crew dress, Target belt, Joey shoes from Ross. See the hair is still volumed up and sort of curled? the back of my head is horrendous.

Anyway that night I gave the rollers another chance. I smoothed my frizzies with my straightener and while the hair was still hot I quickly rolled them. I slept in them and in the AM my hair looked like this.

I quickly began to fall out though because I didn't bring any hairspray and anti-frizz didn't hold up. So as the day progressed these pretty curls died. After the retreat we went back to San Fran to meet up with my older brother whom we hadn't seen since 2006 and was in town on a business trip. So we went out for a quick dinner at Boudin in Fisherman's Wharf.

His name is Javier and he lives in El Salvador. See I have three brothers. One you always see and two who live in El Salvador. I haven't met the oldest yet, William though I hope to see him one day very soon. Javier I hadn't met until I went the one and only time to El Salvador when I was 8. He came back to the US with me and lived with us here for a month. Then in 2005 he came to live with us again for about a year.

Here's my family with our friend Reynaldo who's a Priest.. and we always forget is a Priest haha He's pretty cool. Oh and some hotel guy took our pic and made us laugh when he said "Pizza."

Hopefully with his cool travel filled job we'll have more opportunities like this to see eachother.

Oh and this was my 3rd outfit: lace skirt from Target, pink Lace top from Charlotte Russe & my thrifted silver pumps. Note the uncurled hair! Noo! Oh well at least it wasn't frizzified.