My mom and stepdad arrived Friday afternoon. We picked them up from the airport and went straight to a bar. After a few beers we came back to our place and I got to try on all my dresses! I really really wanted to like one of the white dresses. But the one with the pleats was too short for me, and the tighter one fit very strangely. I really ended up liking what looked like a yellow dress but turned out to be a sort of gold color. But it was too long for the party. So I went with the silver dress! It looked really nice with my purple shoes.
My SO loved the gold dress and silver dress both so much, I was given permission to keep both of them! Yehaw! So I sent the white ones back with my mom and hopefully she'll get them returned for me.
The gold dress
We also went to try to find sparklers. We drove into Pavas centro and just started asking people "where can you find sparklers?" Turns out some old lady in a house sells them, and they were right! We knocked on the door of a house and this lady comes out with tons of sparklers. There were the regular ones 10x$0.50, or some bigger ones 6x$1.00. My SO says "why are these more expensive?" The lady said "well, they're better" He asked "why are they better?" she says "well, for a lot of reasons" And he's like "okay" and buys them! We laughed about that all weekend. (turns out they were actually better! Brighter and lasted longer)
Oh and on Thursday I had a mani/pedi which I think turned out super cute!! I spent the entire weekend trying to not chip my nails, and it worked. They still look good.
Saturday we got up early. It looked like RAIN! I was like WHAT THE FUCK. It never rains in Jan or February! I looked up online and it said 50% chance of rain and I freaked out. Then the sun came up, and I felt better. We went to the feria (farmer's market) with my mom and stepdad. My mom LOVED it. I knew she would. She took a ton of pictures which is great because I've always meant to and never have. We got some groceries we needed, a huge plate of gallo pinto (rice and beans) for breakfast and a bunch of flowers to put in the vases.
After breakfast the beer drinking started. Eventually we all went out to buy more knick knacks I needed for the tables, my bouquet, the cake and more beer... At home I took a shower and a nap, I had slept horribly the night before. Eventually I got up to go get my hair and makeup done by my neighbor.
Bouquet- I grabbed some flowers and was like "I'll take these" and she wrapped them up in ribbon. I loved how colorful it was.
He started curling my hair and I thought "oh great, a bunch of curls" but it turned out so DAMN CUTE!!! Not just like I took a curling iron to my hair, he like fluffed it somehow. He also did a fantastic job on my makeup. I told him I wanted to use my fake eyelashes and a bright lipstick. So therefore I didn't want too much going on on my eyes. He said no problem, he'd do everything very natural and have my eyes and lips pop. I'm hella glad I asked for "natural" because HOLY SHIT I have never had on so much makeup in my life. I swear when I first looked in the mirror I didn't even recognize myself! I looked like a doll! It was very strange. But I eventually got used to it, well sort of. Let's just say it was fine for a one-time thing. I'm sure it'll look great in pictures.
The only picture I have of the makeup/hair.
We all piled into the microbus, picked up the photographer and then headed up the mountain! And it was nice and clear, definitely wasn't going to rain. Thank goodness!!! My mom and stepdad went ahead and set up the tables with the tablecloths and the candles and such. My SO and I went to take pictures.
Our photographer was AWESOME!!! Like really, I want her to be my friend. She was so damn fun and we had so much in common. We took tons of pictures and I felt sooo uncomfortable the entire time. If I'm not being goofy, I'm uncomfortable. Every time she asked me to close my eyes and just relax, I'd burst out in laughter. I'm not good at those poses.
So hopefully she got a few good ones.People started coming and it was great to see some people we haven't seen in so long. The band was a lot of fun, though I do wish they played more dancing music (aka- salsa, merengue, etc) They mostly played songs in English. There were a few tables of gringos around that just LOVED it and were loaded and dancing and talking to us and just having a grand ole time. We gave them all cake later
At one point the ladies decide to take a family picture with just the ladies. And one of them asks me "are you going to throw your bouquet?" So I was like "why not?" And threw it directly to the cousin who is engaged. It was nice.
We also did our sparkler pictures, though I'm not sure how nice they came out. We tried to do a group one, but there were so many people that everyone was getting burned by the sparklers and running around screaming. Funny!
At the end of the night after the band finished and we cleaned up (and gave away!) all the table cloths, we found out we still had 12 drinks left. We got 3 drinks per person and some people didn't show up, etc etc, so we had 12 left. So someone says "TEQUILA!" and they bring us 12 shots of tequila. Because that's really the only way to end a party
Took the bus back down (so glad we hired a bus!!!) and my mom, stepdad, SO and I had another beer in the apartment before going to sleep.
Sunday was mostly uneventful. My mom made some delicious grits for breakfast, my SO went and got us ceviche for lunch, we drank more beer and eventually took my parents to the airport to leave.
So, a really fun and quick weekend. I was so glad my parents came down for the party! They said they had a really good time. Unfortunately I have 0 pictures from the party. Because we had a photographer every time someone wanted a picture they just called her over to take it. You guys can wait eagerly on the edges of your seats until I get the pictures back in a month or so. Maybe longer, she said she had a lot of work to do right now.
Have a great day! I think I'm going to be a bum and not go run today. Instead, here's a bonus picture of Perlita.
ETA- Got some pictures sent over from a friend. Huzzah
With a welcome "beverage"
The food
The view
Sparkler picture attempt. We weren't good at making hearts
Family picture at the end of the night
Can't wait for the pro pictures!