Remember the time . . . Dominican Republic

So around this time last year I was coming back home from one of my absolute favorite trips ever. My family and I have been vacationing every year since I was born but this was unlike any other trip because this one was outside of the United States!!

My family was traveling to the Dominican Republic for my older brothers wedding! We were so happy for him and also so happy to use his wedding as an excuse to take a vacation! Who could turn it down? I was even more happy because he invited me to bring my boyfriend, Jose :) At the time he told me it was in November [2 months after we had gotten back together from breaking up] so I was shocked he invited him along!

The trip was last July in Punta Cana and it was gorgeous. It was also a plus Jose speaks Spanish because than they really spoil you :)

Here I am jumping on the bed of our hotel room:

My mom, my younger sister Nicole, Jose and I got there before my brothers family, my older sister and her family and his fiance, Laura's, family so the first day we literally just chilled and it was great.

The second day we went out to dinner, the entire family hung out in the pool [one of the most fun times ever] and than Jose and I did some dancing! I can NOT dance to spanish music for the life of me - which is so sad because I'm half cuban - but we were on vacation! And Jose loves to dance to spanish music so why not!?

Here's a picture my mom snapped of us dancing:

Of course the wedding was the last day we were there and we were there 5 nights so the rest of the days leading up to the wedding was a nice vacation :) Hanging out by the pool, going in the ocean, going to dinner [since the resort was all-inclusive, this trip was even more kick ass] and shopping. Needless to say we all BURNED!

Here is Jose showing off his tan:

Finally the day of the wedding came! It was maybe 35 of us at the wedding and it was wonderful :) It took place in a cute little gazebo right in the hotel.

Here's my brother waiting for Laura:

The wedding was gorgeous :) And right after we had a big dinner at the prime steak house on the resort and oh my lord, that food was amazing! They saved the best for last [since none of us wanted to eat there until the wedding]. Jose had lamb [hey! its vacation!] and swears til this day it was the best meat he's had yet.

Here is a picture of us at dinner:

But my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE part of that whole vacationing was me getting the chance to check off one of my THINGS I WANT TO DO BEFORE I DIE. I got to swim with a dolphin!!! Along with my older sister, her boyfriend [now fiance], and my 2 nieces. It was an amazing expericne, one I only paid 80 bucks for! The dolphins were sweet and sooo weird feeling. It was incredible and I would SOOO do it again! But they gave me the pictures of it on a DVD so for months I couldn't figure out how to print them out. Until a couple weeks ago :) I pulled out the DVD out of hiding and fooled around and VOALA! I now have my pictures!! :)

Here is the picture of the dolphin pulling me:

And the three dolphins posing with me [I just want to say that third one all the way to the right didn't come in to anyone else's picture but mine cos he was the non-social dolphin so I'm honored he is in my picture!]:

So now, a year later, I find myself reminiscing wishes for my brothers anniversary every year we could all take that trip together again. But with my older sister, Barbara's, wedding coming up in October trips will have to wait :)

Oh and Jose and I both have our vacations lined up for next year. One is we are going back to the Dominican Republic and adding more stamps to our passport!! The second is hitting up Disneyworld with my mom and sister, Nicki, and mainly going to the new Harry Potter World at Islands of Adventure!! It will be our 5th time going there and Jose's first!! I can't wait!!!!

Maybe in September I'll do a REMEMBER THE TIME on my last Disney trip :)

We FINALLY got our puppy! [Yesterday!]His name is Riddle, cos his fur coloring on his back is in the shape of a question mark, and he is the best :) he has been sooo excited and he is soo tired but refused to sleep so we had to lock him in his crate to finally get some rest but here is a picture of him when we brought him home yesterday!!

He is such a cuutie! I will put more pictures up when I have more time :)

Ikea does an apartment good :)

The other night Jose and I were watching Vern Yip's show "Deserving Design" on HGTV. I love Vern Yip and think he is so talented and Jose loves him too! He redid a kitchen and a nursery for a couple that was expecting and what he did was just gorgeous! But what really got our attention is the "family tree" he made for the babie's room. He just bought a frame exactly like this one [custom made actually] and filled it with pictures [just like this one below] of the couple's family. We loved that idea and kept thinking we have to remember that for when we have a baby!

Than yesterday we decided on a wim to go check out Ikea real quick. And we LOVE Ikea! We enter our dream kitchen, which picture's are below, and what do you know!? What else do we come across but the perfect family tree frame!

It looks exactly like the one we saw on Tv so we went and bought it! And here it is just waiting to be filled and hung :)

We went and picked out pictures of our family after we bought it and than picked the perfect spot for it... above the mantel! FINALLY! SOMETHING ABOVE THE MANTEL!


So excited to get started on that project :) Well like I said, when we went to Ikea we came across our dream kitchen - seriously... all white cabinets, an island in the middle, stainless steel appliances. Ay! It killed me!


Everything about this kitchen/dining room was gorgeous [and this is where the family tree frame hung!]

Notice the runner in the middle of the table up there? 4 black picture frames put together and have glass on top of it. It looked awesome and we were really impressed by it! We wanted it for our dining room table -problem is our table is brown and those wood frames are black. I knew it would look all wrong but we decided to buy them anyway, they were 3 bucks! If we didn't like it there, we could find another use for it!

Sure enough we put it on the table at home and UCK! I hated it.. than I looked over at our coffee table. Its an ottoman that came with 2 trays to put on top of it from bed bath and beyond. I decided why not!? So I took a go at it... Here is the table before I put the frames.

And here it is after [along with 3 white blocks to hold candles - tealights on one side, pillar on the other, all 3 for 6 bucks total!

You can't even see the frames because that ottoman is so dark but I love it! I think it looks great and gives our living room a different vibe now. A little more modern. A new twist... we're still trying to figure out what we love as far as decorating goes so theres no better time to experiment than the present :)

Puppy Makes 4!

So we have been a little bit busy the past couple days, cleaning the house really good and of course working. We've been cleaning for one special reason - We are getting our Puppy!!

[his picture is down a little more in this entry]

But Sunday we had a Mets game and they actually won! Very good for a team that has been playing really bad baseball. We had alot of fun, we got to Citi Field early and had time to go check out the Mets Store and Jose bought me a Mr. Met doll [even though now it is chilling on his Mets Shelf with the rest of his Mets merchandise.

Last year for our Anniversary I bought us tickets to go watch the Mets at the Movies at the Zigfield theatre in New York City and Jose had the time of his LIFE! But Mr. Met was there [and I grew up a Yankees fan so I'm not used to seeing mascots at baseball games] and I thought Mr. Met was hysterical - I could not stop laughing every time he came out and threw stuff at the crowd or started chants. I love him.

Here is a [really bad] picture of us at the game:

But the big news in our life is our puppy is finally here! He came in from Kansas on Monday and we got to go and visit him :) The pet guy had to take him to the vet and just make sure he was healthy and everything and he is fine! He is ADORABLE! The minute he walked out and I saw this little thing, he had me.

Look how tiny he is! That's my boyfriend's brothers' legs there and he is so tiny that puppy! I don't have a good picture of it but his back as you can see is mostly black except for one white patch which happens to be in the shape of a question mark than there is a little black dot underneath it to complete it so Jose said "what about Riddle?"

I held the puppy out in front of me and asked him "You Like Riddle?" and he winked at me!
So I HAD to name him Riddle! And here is:

He is way too cute and these pictures don't do him justice at all! But tomorrow when we get out of work, we are going straight there to pick him up and bring him home :) [And meet hitchcock! Eeek!]

Computer Desk= New Bar :)

So the more I think about it I am really excited to move into a two family house with Jose's brother, Luis, and his wife [and my best friend] Esther... but the more I think about it, there is something I dread so much it seriously makes me stomach turn.

I just don't want to deal with having our mail get all confused again! I mean, we've been living her six months and the old tenants mail STILL comes here! I don't want that happening with our mail - especially important stuff! Our old tenants PASSPORT was sent here! I'm like hmm... i think this is kind of important!! Ugh, if we get a house early I almost want to send it there early just to make sure it goes!

Anywhoo, I had a little project for myself today :) There is a backstory though. A couple months ago we bought this great desk from Ikea [for only 160! ALL of this for 160!] and I know its a mess, I'm trying to spruce it up. :) ay, look at all those cords under the desk!

But we had another desk before that one, one which was much smaller and couldn't really fit ANYTHING on it. It killed me... here is a really blurry picture:

So after we got the new desk, this one sort of sat in the corner of the office for a while. We were thinking of selling it on craigslist or something but we are the worst precrastinators [i havent done laundry for 2 weeks! eeek!!] but one day I was driving home from work when a lightbulb went off in my head. One thing we really needed was a bar so why not use the desk as a bar!

EUREKA! But one thing that still bothered me was there was a pullout for the keyboard on that desk and it just screamed COMPUTER DESK! So I took a under-cabinet chrome rack my mom bought 2 years ago from Pier 1 [actually, she wanted to use it on the top of this desk but couldn't do it so it just laid there in her house] and I decided to instead hang it where the keyboard was!
Here is the desk when I took out the keyboard shelf :)




And the ugly keyboard shelft which I might keep around...


And here is my little under-cabinet rack :) [and my boyfriend's neon green ryobi drill which is a MONSTER!]

So I drilled that baby into the desk and take a look at my wine glasses now!

Sadly, it only fits 6 wine glasses and we have 8 that were a gift from my mom so I had to stick the other 2 behind but I'm so happy I did it! I have been dying to and just decided to get it over with!

Now our little bar is complete! Check out ALL of those bottles [10 bottles! Jose has actually been collecting wine for YEARS and my mom just bought me one last week :)]

I just have to tidy up my napkins and placemats at the bottom of it and clear out that keyboard shelf and voilà!! YaaaY! I can't wait to show Jose when he gets home from work tonight :)

I'm so proud of myself ::pats myself on back::

Happy 4th!!

Happy 4th of July!!!!

It looks to finally be a beautiful day in Jersey consistiting of absolutely NO RAIN! But I'm not keeping my hopes up as it has rained every single day for a month straight, whether a downpour or a sprinkle it SUCKS! But anyway... Today is the 4th of July!! I got my Philidelphia Freedom [by elton john] playing and I am getting excited!

Today Jose and I will be spending the evening with my family at my sister, Ann Maries, house. I'm bringing smores for dessert and can't WAIT!! :) I'll also be checking out my other sisters house, Barbara, who has been moving end this weekend with her fiance Derek. I'll be taking pictures of Ann Maries house cos it was a mess and she turned it into a beautiful home :) As well as pictures of my family of course!!

Enjoy the holiday everyone!!!

Ahh... Nothing like seeing fireworks at the Magic Kingdom.