U2 Live in Houston

Uno... dos... tres... catorce!!! Bono and his friends came to our hometown and showed us and 75,000 others a great time. The concert took place on October 19 at Reliant Stadium. Muse opened the show, and U2 followed with more than two hours of great music.

Our friends Miguel Angel Avendano (Lagar) and his wife Veronica Rossiter (Vero) came from Guatemala and stayed with us for a week. We enjoyed their company every day of their stay, and we even got to catch up with other friends from Guatemala City.

On the day of the show, we went to pick up Gerardo from work in Downtown Houston. We visited the underground side of the city, and had lunch there. Later on we moved to the Galleria for some shopping, and we had dessert at the Luxor.

In what can be described only as Guatemala-style driving, Gerardo managed to get us to Reliant Stadium on time and in one piece. We found out Wendy was going to the concert too, and we met for a few minutes outside of the stadium. .

None of us had heard about Muse before, but we surely enjoyed their performance. U2 started their show at around 9:00 P.M. They began by playing a few songs from their latest album "No Line on the Horizon."

Then, they moved back to the 90's Achtung Baby... "it's alright... it's alright, alright... she moves in mysterious ways!" ... "One Love, one live... [te traigo pasta] into the night..." :-)

We then heard some of "All That You Can't Leave Behind..." Elevation, Stuck in a Moment, Beautiful Day...

...moving on to The Unforgettable Fire... With or Wihout You... Sunday Bloody Sunday... but... I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For...

Changing the tempo, they proceeded to Vertigo and City of Blinding Lights... We must have driven the people behind us absolutely nuts with our dancing and jumping...

... more of "No Line in the Horizon"... "you know I'm going crazy if I don't go crazy tonight"... in techno version... sounded great...

They left the stage and performed two or three encores... it was crazy. One of the last songs played was "Where the Streets Have No Name"... we didn't know how they could come back on stage after that...

...but they kept coming back... it seemed like nobody wanted to go back home that night... until they played "Moment of Surrender" ... I think... because either the band or the fans would give up at some point... but U2 had the last word...

They finally came off the stage once and for all. Bono tripped as he was going down the stairs... fortunately for him, his skills to keep his balance are much greater than his dancing skills... he managed to stay up, 'Alive and Kicking.' An unforgettable night, a show to remember. Lagar and Vero: We loved going to the concert with you. Kelly - we wish you had been there too.

10 for Texas!!

Second weekend in October. 6:30 AM. Gerardo and Sergio are ready to go. The Ten for Texas Race would start at 7:30 AM.

8:15 AM. Mile 5. Gerardo approaches, still side by side with Sergio. I am impressed. He is running as he is just getting warmed up. I must admit I thought by this point he would be walking...

...but not only did he not stop for a walk half-way through, he never stopped running. He even sped up during the second half of the race...

Neither of us believed how well he did... considering his training. In the words of Kelly Vowles: "No offense, but your training sucks!"

Fortunately, his meager training combined with great weather conditions and 1,700+ people with the same objective in mind allowed him to finish the race at a faster-than-usual pace. Congratulations, Babe! You made all of us proud!

Sofia's last Activity Days!

Time to turn the page. From child to young woman. Sofia spends her last day at "Activity Days," the bi-weekly evening event designed for children 8-11. She is happy to have moved on to the Young Women Program at Church. And we remain the proudest parents.

First Day of School

September 2009. After a fun summer, great memories, and a deep tan, the girls go back to school. Sofia is now in 6th grade - her last year at Coulson Tough Elementary. Stefania is now in 4th grade.

Sofia's 12 birthday!

Sofia had an early birthday celebration. Unfortunately, the weather was not cooperative. Heavy rains and thunderstorms took place during the early hours of her party, forcing us to go from one of the pools in The Woodlands to our home's backyard...

Until a friend and neighbor rescued the day: she let us borrow her pool. The girls and Jorgito had a great time there.

Back at our house, we sang Happy B-day, and ate dinner.

After opening presents, we went upstairs to play games.

It was loud, messy, and fun. They all showed a good competitive spirit, everyone cheered their fellow team members...

More games, more twists, and more fun followed...

A few friends remained for a sleep over....

They all got a special Spa treatment...

...after their facials, they watched "Mall Cop." Then, they spent hours talking. Some fell asleep, others (Sofia and Maria) reportedly never went to sleep...

The following morning, after eating breakfast, they went back upstairs to relax until their parents came to pick them up. Thank you all for having made this day so special for Sofia!!

Def Leppard & Poison

Last day of Gerardo's time off. What a better way to end a few days out of the office than going to a rock concert? Originally, our friend Miguel Angel Avendano (aka La Lagar) had planned to come to the concert with his wife Veronica. He had bought tickets for the four of us, but unfortunately they could not make it. Wendy bought one of the tickets, and I sold the remaining ticket to a stranger... Thanks for coming along, Wendy - we love going to concerts with you!

Brett Michaels may be out of shape, but he still puts a great show together. Poison was awesome. We really enjoyed their songs and their performance.

Among the virtues of the popular game Guitar Hero is the ability to bring generations together. Brett Michaels brought a young kid on stage towards the end of the show. There were many children with their parents in the concert... Sofia is still wondering why we did not take her...

Def Leppard was the main event of the night. They really rocked! They played their greatest hits for more than two hours...

Pyromania, Animal, Armageddon It, Rocket, Let's Get Rocked, Foolin', Love Bites, Bringin' On The Heartbreak... Two Steps Behind...

C'mon C'mon, Photograph, Hysteria, Pour Some Sugar on Me, Rock of Ages... and many more...

It was a great show. Gerardo felt like he was 17 again... I guess there were 20,000 other people that night, who shared the same feeling... Lagar and Vero - thank you very much for the tickets - we really missed you!

Destin, FL

Day 1. The girls went out as soon as they could to get a taste of the beach. It had been two years since our last visit to FL.

They could hardly wait to play in the soft sand and to swim in the ocean. Meanwhile, Gerardo was playing golf.

After his game, we went to the marina for a father and child fishing trip. Gerardo would take turns to go dolphin watching and fishing with our daughters. Sofia would be the first one to go fishing with Dad.

Happy to go out to the ocean on a new adventure with Sofia, Gerardo got ready to go aboard the Little Nemo. It was overcast, and a storm was expected to approach, but nobody knew exactly how soon.

The boat was only half way through the canal when the captain announced that the fishing trip had got cancelled due to a heavy thunderstorm. Repeated lighting and heavy rain fell on the area a few minutes after the announcement.

But as usual in FL, most storms don't last more than 30 minutes. By the time we made it back to the hotel, everything was fine again, and with improved weather conditions, we took buckets, nets, and flashlights to go crab hunting with the girls.

The catch of the night were several tiny white crabs. They camouflage very well in the white sand, and at night, they can be noticed only when they are moving....

Day 2. Gerardo took his tri bike for a 20-mile ride first thing in the morning. Then came Stefania's turn to go out for her fishing trip. She was much more fortunate than Sofia. She was able to watch the Dolphins that wander the waters near the canal entrance, and then she tried her luck at fishing. Not being too comfortable with the whole idea, she asked Gerardo to help her out... The result was a happy Dad throwing lines and catching bait fish, and a happy daughter playing with the caught fish in a tank located in the rear of the boat.

Sofia and I waited patiently for both of them to return... NOT! We went to do what girls do in their spare time... yes, we went shopping...

We closed the day at the beach, playing with the girls and having some more fun.

"Be happy... you're in Florida!"

Day 3. Sofia's second attempt to go on a fishing trip with Dad worked out very well. She fished for the first time in the ocean, and here is a picture of the very first fish she caught. It's bait fish, so you will need to look hard to find where it is!

The day was much nicer. Gerardo took video and plenty of pictures. This is the view of the canal at the point where boats turn to go to the gulf.

Days 4-8. Lots of beach time. An approaching tropical storm provided nice waves for body surfing. All of us did some of it...

It had been four years since our last Florida hurricane... the tropical storm hit Destin at around midnight, and the winds lasted almost all night long... or it seemed to us like they did anyway. On Saturday morning there was debris all along the beach, and it was still overcast...

...but shortly after, even as soon as on Saturday afternoon, the weather went back to normality, and we went back out to enjoy the beach. The girls built castles and curious animal shapes in the sand, including dragons and sea turtles...

Sunday afternoon. Family picture time. I am not sure how many pictures we took, but what I do know is we took a good part of the afternoon posing, checking the pictures in the digital camera, posing again trying to get a better shot, and failing in almost every attempt... :-)

We had many laughs along the way... funny enough, the pictures I like the best are the ones where we just goofed around...

We continued taking pictures until after sunset. Then, we called it a day.

Sometime on Monday, the girls found a very strange creature near a sand bar that was formed during the storm. It had a short neck, it did not appear to have eyes, it had two frog-like legs with feathery fins at the end, and it had a long tail. It looked like a headless chicken - a swimming headless chicken, that is...

The girls had it captive for a night, and then on Tuesday morning, before we left the hotel on our way back home, they went back to the beach with Gerardo to liberate the creature in the water. Here we see Gerardo as he was cleaning the bucket after 'odd creature' liberation...

Time to leave our favorite Florida Beach. A ten-hour drive back home was the next item in our schedule. We were very fortunate to return home with many wonderful memories.