Focused+Fabulous

Hello Everyone,

Hope you are all doing well. I apologize for not posting in such a long time. But…. obviously, you can see from my title, my family came down. We barely got our things from the states in July so there were a lot of things to do before family came down. So needless to say we have been very busy. Grandparents from both sides came down to visit. We had a good time. I am going to be sharing what we did while they were here with us on this post. Next week I will be sharing our trip to Puerto Vallarta, which is a beach  about five hours away. We all went for about 3 days. So my grandparents on my mom’s side were here for two weeks, and my grandmother on my dad’s side was here for two weeks and three days. We kick started our weeks off  with a family dinner with the owners and management of the company my dad works for, POK.This is the owner of the company and his wife. They are very sweet people.Here are both of my grandmothers at the restaurant. We took them all over Guadalajara. We went to the zoo and many other places.My grandpa had turned his ankle, so rather than him stay home, we rented a wheelchair. He is doing much better now.

We took them to the market which is definitely a cool place to go. These are the buildings around the market. At the market, they sell anything from purses, to pigs. They have everything. They were all tired when they got home. The market is a three-story building with about a million (no exaggeration) little bitty stalls were they sell electronics, shoes, purses, kitchen gadgets, souvenirs etc. And the downstairs floor is nothing but food, vegetables, seafood, meat, and anything else you can imagine. Oh I forgot to add, they also sell rabbits, birds, puppies, and fish. I mean it literally has anything and everything.

We also took them with us to our normal places. We all went to Savannah’s orthodontist appointment and, of course, just like with everybody, my grandpa meets he becomes friends in about 10 seconds flat. 🙂 This is Savannah’s orthodontist.

We took them to the Cheesecake Factory, where everybody got about stuffed to capacity. So take the next few seconds and drool. 🙂                  We had a lot of fun at that place. My grandmother was taking that first picture.

They also visited both the Spanish speaking church and the new English speaking church. Here is my Grandpa testifying at the Spanish church.  He has his cane up just like he is Moses parting the Red Sea 🙂 !!! Due to his heart condition he cannot preach anymore but he can still testify. He can’t speak Spanish so my dad had to translate for him.

He also testified at the English church!

So overall we had a good time. Next week I will post about our trip to the beach.

Have a good week,

Victoria 🙂

Hello again,

For this post I thought I would talk a little bit more about Mexico and how it’s different than America. For the most part Guadalajara is a lot like America. We have five malls(like I said before). This is the galleria. My favorite mall is Andares. It is all open air.We love the restaurants here  because most of them are all open air. Weather here is AMAZING! Right now as I write this, it is 73 out, and there is a breeze blowing. Back to the restaurants , food here is a little different. Here the Mexican restaurants will not give you chips and salsa. I KNOW RIGHT! Your like what………:) They serve you tostadas and lime. We eat at different restaurants all the time. We have a little “hole in the wall” place that we like to eat at called Hectors. Our whole family can eat there for 14 dollars. And then we have P.F. Changs, and Cheesecake Factory.  Which are VERY good. We  have one restaurant which is a must see for tourists. Sante Coyote is a Mexican/Indian restaurant.                  This bottom right picture is a traditional Mexican dish called molcajetes. It is shrimp, steak, chicken, cactus, onion, and cheese. You put all that in a tortilla, and it is the BOMB. Their dessert bar is huge!! You can also get crepes made for you.  So I’m going to address something that has surprised me. TACOS. They make tacos with 2 corn tortillas, chopped meat(not ground), onions, cilantro, and NO CHEESE. Yes you read that right. ZERO cheese. If you ask for cheese, they will bring you white cheese. Don’t ask me why:) But once I got used to the food, now I love it. So now that I have made myself hungry, I’m going to go and get a snack 🙂 On weekends our family will take little mini adventures to places we’ve never been. I hope to share that with y’all. My next post will be on something different than Mexico. Hope you all are having a great day.

Victoria 🙂

 Hello Everyone! I’m going to start by talking about where I live, and what I do around here. Most of you are aware that I moved recently to Guadalajara, Mexico. I have now lived here for going on 9 months. This particular photo was taken at our zoo. The mountains are basically what I see every day. I live in a nice neighborhood called Azeleas.  It is a gated community. I live in a two story house same as in the states. I have PLENTY of room for anyone who wants to come visit. It is a four bedroom house and SEVEN bathrooms. So when I say  there is room I mean it. Everybody who  visits can have their own bathroom :).  Our neighborhood has a clubhouse with a whole bunch of things to do. A pool, a gym, tennis courts, basketball courts, picnic areas, Ping-Pong tables, soccer fields, swing sets, and more. Right now we only have uno coche (one car). Our stuff from the states did not arrive for seven months. So needless to say the clubhouse has been a lifesaver. My days (right now) consist of going to the gym, school, cleaning, swimming, and all of that. Throughout my posts you will notice a couple of Spanish words! I have not learned Spanish all the way but I can understand a little bit. I figured,  why not throw in a couple words so you can learn them too! Other than the language barrier, living here is pretty normal. We shop at Cosco, Walmart, and Sams.  The malls here have stores like Forever 21, Zara, Sears, H+M, Best Buy and many others. We have at least four malls here. The number one thing I miss about food in the states is CHICK-FIL-A. ohhhh you all have to eat some for me. I’m practically dying:). We have Starbucks  and McDonalds, Burger King, Carl’s Jr., Krispy Kreme, and everything except CHICK-FIL-A. Any way, I hope you all have a great day. I miss you all very much!!! 

Victoria 🙂