Tugboat

Every time I start writing something to post on the blog I always think how much I wish I were a better writer as my father was. He wrote poetry and even a book that he never published. My sister Paula inherited that talent from him and she writes novels (ha ha yes Paula I’m revealing your secret to the world) she’s too shy to let other people outside her immediate family know about that. Well it is obvious that I didn’t inherit that talent from my father. Although there are other talents I did inherit from him like my love for music and singing,my love for books,etc.

I always heard that your “first love” is your Dad! He’s like your “perfect example” and that every girl wants to marry a man just like her father one day… what’s really funny is that I did! It’s amazing how similar my father and Chris are, some of those similarities are: 1-My Father played guitar and was always singing to me and my siblings/ Chris plays guitar and is always singing to me and Clara. 2-My Father LOVED antique shops and was in love with old stuff/ Chris does too! 3-My Father loved to spend money on collecting old things, anything antique/ guess what? Chris too! (by the way I’m NOT a fan).4- My Father wrote songs/ Chris too. 5-My father called me “princesa”/ Chris calls me “princhapesa” (princess). 6-My father always made people laugh with his stories/ Chris is always making people laugh with jokes (even though he’s kind of annoying sometimes haha)
There are many more small similarities that they share. Chris knows how important my Father was to me and how much I admire him even though I was so young when he passed away. So with this knowledge of my love for him Chris made me a gift.
A week ago Chris went to Uruguay and installed his first Public art piece! It is a tug boat posted on a side of a long and spacious base, representing the great future that this small but strong tugboat has ahead. My Father worked on tugboats from the time he was in his 20s. He loved his job! And I still remember all the stories he told us about ships and foreign people! Chris was inspired by him and made this art piece and dedicated it to my dad. I have no words to thank him for this.









The five windows on the boat represent his five kids. The piece also represents Uruguay as a country that although its small its strong.

I’m very happy for this and for the good artist my Chris is, but most of all for the love he has for my country, my family and anything that involves me. Thank you Chris!

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Wow! It has been so long that I don’t even know where to begin…
It has been a bit more than a month since we moved to the ‘Empire State’. I have to admit that this village is much more interesting than I thought , a lot of different kinds of people, languages, ideas and styles of life for such a tiny place. I love the fact that I can be able to walk wherever I need to and that Chris can walk to school every day and it takes him no more than 5 minutes to get there. So by far we’re not spending as much on gas as we used to!
We found a very small library a street down from our home, that I absolutely love! It has tons of books, toys and play mats for Clara to have fun while I can sit and enjoy a book and see her playing at the same time!
On August 27th our princess turned Two! again I can’t believe how fast time flies! To celebrate we took Clara out to lunch in “down town Alfred” which is a nice 2’ walk from our apt.! Then we tried to make kind of a “surprise little party” for her, but didn’t work so she ended up helping us out with the decoration, she was so excited but she had no idea that all the preparation was actually for her (she’s SO cute) I made one of my typical ‘afternoon cakes’ (that’s how my mom used to call them) and decorated it! Here is a video of the birthday girl trying to blow out the candles! We had so much fun making this video
Clara is so funny, she literality brightens my days! . So, we always take turns to pray, and when it is Clara’s turn she reverently repeats every word Chris or I ask her to, but the other day we were about to have dinner and she seemed so excited to pray, so Chris started helping her to say the prayer and after he said “we thank thee” she didn’t wait for the rest and she followed “for Papa, for Mama, for comida (food), for Gatos (cats), for Tios (uncles and aunts)! I couldn’t resist it and smiled at her!
Another story: A couple nights ago, after doing the typical routine, which is: (take a bath, go to the room, read a couple of books,” night night kiss”, turn off lights and close door) I usually hear her talking to herself or moving a little before she actually falls asleep. But the other day I hear a lot of movement in her room I even heard her walking so I went to her room turned on the light and to my surprise she had take all the books from her shelf and put them all over her bed and was trying to lay down in between them! And she did this with the light off! She sure makes up crazy things!
We had been told that winter in this side of the planet gets VERY cold and snowy, I’m 100% NOT ready for that and I never will be. So we decided we will go out a lot until winter comes, ‘cause when that happens I’ll imitate the life of a bear and I’m going to hibernate!
On the 18th we drove a little bit more than 2 hours, crossed the border and went to Canada! We visited a little bit of the providence and the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls. It was great to see all the signs on the road in a measure I can feel familiarized with and actually understand! YAY for the metric system!
We had a great time! I loved the falls! Although me being ‘waterphobic’ I have to confess that several times I had to turn my face away and tried to convince myself that these enormous amounts of water was something beautiful that people actually enjoy to see.
The next week we went to Palmyra, It was a beautiful day and Clara did great in the car! On our way Chris put his chair back and tried to sleep and Clara stroked his head and said “Mama: shhh, Papa is sleeping!”. We went to the Hill Cumorah, to the Sacred Grove, to the Temple and visited other church related places. It was a great experience! Chris had been in those places before but for me and Clara it was the first time to be in such sacred places, I only imagined them while reading the scriptures but now I had the opportunity to be there for real! and I loved it!. By the way all the pictures are posted on facebook! So you’re welcome to see them.

A couple weeks ago my sister came back from her trip to Italy, Greece, Croatia and Turkey, my gosh she’s SO lucky! People say that Uruguay is a smaller replica of Italy, even though our "mother land" is considered Spain, everything is Italian! So I always felt interested on meeting this particular country! And my sister actually did! … Well, may be one day I’ll go too…

Chris and I have been watching a tv show on hulu about a competition of artists! It was very interesting and it helped me to understand more what artists see and interpret their world around them. So I had an idea, and wondered how can Chris, based on a theme I’ll give him, could translate than on his art. So my challenge for him is: “ how he interpret what he feels for me” and he will have a window time of two weeks and we’ll see! I’m very excited to see what he comes up with!
P;s: by the way I had no idea how to name this post, but then I thought this word was appropriate for the situation...

Uruguay Independence Day

A day like today but 185 years ago Uruguay declared itself Independent. I was one of privelieged ones to be born and raised in that beautiful nation! I'm also very grateful to live in my husband's home land The United States, I just wish my country was closer...

Read about Uruguay:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguay

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/uy

Reupholstery and other things...

My mind is just so full of projects ideas for this summer! as I finish the first one, I’m already thinking of the next. So I decided I wanted darker couches for our living room, not that I don’t like them white but I’m tired of cleaning up spots and not to mention my sweet and lovely Tony and Alfredo have been filing their nails on it.
I think this is one of the biggest projects I’ve done lately, it took me around 2 weeks to do the whole reupholstery and I think the most difficult part was the sewing. Part of the sewing was by hand and other part was by machine. I got the fabric at Joann’s and I was so glad to get a couple 50% off coupons in the mail so all the fabric was actually half of the real price.
Here is a picture before

And this is the picture after
I have to apologize for the bad quality of this last picture, you can't really see the details of the reupholstered sofa, but I don't have my camera so I took this with my cellphone and I hate cellphone pics! anyway
It looks really good in real life!

And I did all of this for less than $8o bucks! Yesss! I feel extreme pleasure on saving money and doing things by myself. The key is having the ideas and just doing them!

Last Sunday we had our branch conference at the Grove City building; it was a very special meeting with leaders talking in 2 languages!, It’s still amazing to me that we can have the opportunity to meet in Spanish here in Ohio! It’s just a huge blessing! Although most of the people in the branch are from Mexico we also have people from central and South America. Sometimes I think the only thing that put us together as a group is the language, there are so many different ethnics, cultures, traditions, thoughts and even words! In the “Spanish speaking world” But I feel so grateful I had the opportunity to belong and serve in the Franklin branch through all this 5 years I’ve been in the United States. It was such a blessing to be able to learn from new cultures from all over the Americas! I love learning and now I feel I don’t just speak Spanish and English (and a little of Italian!) but I also speak Mexican, Dominican and Colombian to name a few! Haha! We have the commandment to love one's neighbor, But how can you love people you don't know?! and it's very easy to judge other people's behaviors when you don't know their reasons and you're not on their shoes, so through serving as a RS president I've learned to not just understand BUT to love them! and really understand their needs.I have a true testimony of growing love from each other through serving! My two counselors are both from the Dominican Republic, they’re GREAT women!and a great example to me! I’ve learn so much from them and it’s a pleasure to work together as a RS presidency!
Ok this sounds like a “farewell” post or something, well to be honest I’ve been kind of nostalgic lately about the idea of leaving Ohio and going to a new place, I’m excited about it but I’m also going to miss so many friends and good people here in Ohio.


On the 18th Chris and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary! I LOVE my Chris,we are very happy together.. what more can I say? Once again I didn't have my camera so for now you're just gonna have to believe me we did a lot of fun things!

Clara is SO big! her hair is long and curly! she loves animals, reading and blowing kisses! she loves to go shopping with mommy and going to the playground, she lately developed an interest on cooking and the best of all she's VERY organized! and she knows that makes mommy happy!

Growing up...

A sequence of changes have been happening lately in the Taylor-Regueiro’s world. It seems like our little baby is a baby no more…

First, Clara is sleeping in a normal bed now! And she loves it! I’m happy we skipped the “toddler bed stage”, she is so excited to have a “big people” bed, so “night night” time has become one of her favorites times of the day! We’ll see how long this excitement lasts. No more climbing out off the crib! Yeah!, this little girl is ready to work in a circus, believe me..
She’s being very independent now, she wants to do everything by herself, and forget about reading a book to her! She won’t let you! She’ll read it for you instead!
This is funny! Last night it was 5am in the morning and she got up and started crying standing up in the middle of her room, so Chris got up and went to her room to check on her, he opened the door and said “Clara, come with Mom and Dad” She got mad I guess! So she shut the door on Chris’ face and went back to bed just like a teenager would do! Ha ha!

Second, we finally got rid of the bottle! Not that she didn’t use sippy cups or normal glasses! But her favorite thing to drink from was the bottle, and she usually used it as a pacifier too, so we thought she was kind of “addicted” to it and decided it was time to quit. This process was a little hard but it lasted a week and now she forgot about it.
I’m amazed at how fast babies grow! I mean I feel Clara isn’t my little baby anymore…oh well...


On March 21st Chris graduated from OSU

I made this cake on his honor!

After a couple of options and after praying we decided Chris is going to be attending Grad-school at Alfred University in New York. It’s a top 10 school of Art and design, so we’re pretty excited for this new upcoming stage in our lives!

Chris and I started to take Yoga classes from a CD collection from the library. We’re loving it so far! It’s so relaxing! I also want to teach this handsome gringo to dance Tango! I always tell him that you can’t be married to a Uruguayan and not know how to dance Tango!

Our Winter Vacation!

So we're back in the North! after our three month vacation in Uruguay. It's crazy to think that 2 weeks ago we were going to the beach and today playing in the snow!
I'm so grateful I got to see my family and spend this quality time with them.
To go into details 'll sum up every month:
November: Uruguay honors the Guns 'n' Rose's classic "November rain". It was probably raining every two days, so besides going to visit some friends and family we didn't 'go' anywhere. I had fun just enjoying being at my mom's home and exploring once again my dad's library. He was a big book lover. His hobby was to book collecting. Every subject, every author, most of all literature. He was a writer too! I didn't get to read the more than 10 volumes of his diary, but I got to read one. It was a little over three hundred pages. It is amazing how you can get to know a person more deeply and get to love him even more from his writings.
My father died when I was 11, and sometimes I don't remember much of his personality, that's why I'm very thankful he took the time to write in his diary every single day.
I do remember he use to read a lot, listen to classical music and tango, he was a huge Beatles fan! He loved music, played the guitar, was a loving person and my first Bishop.
By reading his diary I was discovered how many things we have in common and how blessed I was to have such a faithful and amazing Father.
December: Chris came to join us on our journey! We went to Salto. It's a state 6 hours north of where my mom lives. We visited my brother's house and met his fiancee and her family. I absolutely loved the city of Salto.

Clara was so happy with her new bicycle uncle Gabriel got her! After visiting Salto we got to enjoy many places of Montevideo. The pictures say it all!
We had a great Christmas and enjoyed seeing the kids opening their presents! The last day of the year we watched all the fireworks.
January: The temperature went up significantly, so we went to the beach almost everyday! Clara's first contact with the ocean was a little hard, she was overwhelmed by the waves, the sand, and the people, but eventually she started to love the idea, and lost all fear for water.

One of our visits to the many beaches was to "Las Toscas". It's around a 2 hour drive from where my mom lives. It was literally heaven! the sand was incredibly white, the waves were huge and Clara and I got a natural and envious tan! haha. We had a great time there with my sister-in-law Mariangel's family, who has a beach house there, and cordially invited us.
I loved to see Clara playing with her 2 cousins Belen and Santiago. It's really hard for me to be far away from family.
Now Clara officially speaks Spanish! She understands english as well. She will be a perfect bilingual, in a couple of years she'll be speaking better English than me and better Spanish than Chris! Oh kids.. they're sponges!
We came back and a storm was waiting to welcome us to Ohio. Clara was a little confused by the weather change, but everything is ok now.
Enjoy the pictures!
chau~

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