A Glimpse of Spring

     I think (fingers crossed) that winter is almost over. I survived, barely, but I survived! 

     Today was a wonderful glimpse into spring. The temperature was perfect, the high in Manhattan today was 66*F! The city is beginning to defrost. I decided that I could not waste this amazing weather, because I have been looking forward to it and I don't know how long it will last. 

     I told everyone to get dressed and ready. Packed the back pack with a few essentials while the kids quickly did some school work. Grabbed the metro cards and walked out the door. I had one idea of what to do but wasn't sure how well it would work, other than that I didn't know what we were going to do or when we would be home. All I knew was it was going to be a fun day.

     ICE SKATING!!! Back in December when the kids and I were cutting through Central park after an eye doctor appointment we came across an ice skating rink (Trump Rink). Hoping that it would be open, it was our first stop of the day. It was open!! Colt and I had no idea how this was going to work. He wasn't going to skate, just hang out on the side and take pictures. I was skating alone with 5 kids that have never ice skated before. *FUN* First of all I was amazed at how perfect the weather was, because we were skating outside. After we laced up 6 pairs of skates it was time to hit the ice. I was ready for tears and cries of frustration. So I was surprised when I didn't see or hear any(except when it was time eat lunch and time to leave). Most of the kids were naturals on the ice. I was impressed by how quickly M, B and E picked it up. C had a bit of a hard time but he never gave up, just kept trying and trying. After a few laps around holding L's hands she was starting to let go of my hands. She wanted to be like her "friends"(sisters and brothers). What do you know our 2 year old was skating short distances with out my help. Since the weather was so warm the ice was melting in some spots, and when the kids would fall there, it was like sitting in a bathtub fully dressed. Over all everyone had fun and it was a great couple of hours making life time memories. 

     After we got everyone as dry as we could (thank goodness I threw a couple of extra clothes for the little ones in the backpack) we headed on a walk through Central park. As we were walking I pulled out my phone and searched for things to do nearby. Next stop the American Natural History Museum.

     Found our way to Central Park west and 63rd and jumped on a bus to 79th(NYC has the best public transportation ever). We get up to the counter to buy tickets, 2 adults 5 kids. 

The lady asks, "How much do you want to pay?"  

WHAT? How much do I want to pay? I asked her how much would it be, $110.

"Well, I will give you $40." 

"Here are your tickets, have a great day."

BEST DEAL OF THE DAY and it could have been better(if I decided to pay less, the guy in front of us payed $5 for 2 tickets). We walked around looking at all the amazing things for a few hours. We learned a lot and saw a lot. We all enjoyed our time there and plan to go back to finish the floors we didn't get to. Finally, it was time to go. Kids were tired and hungry.

     We had a delicious dinner at The Shake Shack(for my friends out west it was kind of like a cross between Smash Burger and Culver's). Then we made our way to the subway to head home. 

     It was a great day. I am so excited to see and do NYC as the weather warms up. Hopefully this beautiful weather is here to stay, but if not this wonderful day will surely hold me over.

Until next time. I love you C,M,B,C,E and L.

Mom and L skating!

M and B encouraging C to keep it up.

Mom, L, M and C skating!

Bobby with the dino tail.

L wanted a picture with these statues from Mexico.

Dad, M,C,B,E and T-Rex!

Eva!!

Lindy!

When I get time I will have to look up why the "u" is a "v".

This was a mosaic art piece on the wall at the bottom of the stairs at the subway.
The kids loved it . E and C are pretending to swim. B and M are pretending
to hold their breath.

These are just a few pictures from my phone. I will update and post more pictures and videos soon(when I get more than 5 minutes to go through the other camera.

My Husband Really is My Best Friend

     As a woman I need friends. Over my life I have had many acquaintances, many friends, and many best friends.

   When I was a little girl my very first friends were my three younger sisters. I am the oldest of 4 GIRLS! Having all sisters is kind of like a never ending roller coaster of friendship. When we were very young we were best friends and because of our birth spacing it always seemed to be the "big girls" vs the "little girls". I am so glad that my mom took lots of home videos of us girls just playing. Its fun to look back and see how we interacted. As we grew into our teenage years we were still close but no longer best friends. We were still there for each other when we needed it. We still had each others backs in fights and people new about the Garcia girls. But like all teenagers, we had new best friends now, and boyfriends. We were becoming our own people, with different likes, hobbies and styles.

  Then my teenage years became newlywed years. I was 17 and married. I was in a new phase in my life. I quickly realized that I didn't have very much in common with my sisters or high school friends. While they were focusing on their studies, applying to collages and getting jobs I was focused on helping my HUSBAND get through boot camp anyway I could from 1,200 miles away, while finishing my senior year, working and figuring out how to be a newlywed, alone.

   As a new military wife, I was now far away from my oldest friends, my sisters. I made many new friends. Since I was so young most of my friends were older than me by more than a few years. They had more life experience than I did. They were the friends that helped point me in the direction of adulthood, although at the time I didn't realize it. I was still very young and had a lot to learn about life, about love, about friendship and about myself.

   When I became a mother, at the ripe old age of 18, my social circle of friends took another turn. I now found myself meeting and getting to know other new moms. Having a baby finally made me feel like I was no longer the kid at the adult table. Although all the moms were in their twenties, I now had something that made us a bit more equal, we were ALL trying to figure out this motherhood thing together, at the same time. I was in this "mom friends" stage for awhile. I was happy I had my friends, and they had me. We were close. We enjoyed our time together. Like any other military family all of our great friendships become long distance at some point. It goes from a phone call every once in a while to, a text here and there, to a few facebook posts, then finally to just hitting the like button as you scroll down your news feed.

   I then made it to friendships in my mid-twenties. Compared to most 20 something I was really like in my late twenties early thirties, and just because I had so many kids. Most 25 year olds haven't been married for 8 years and usually don't have 3-4 kids. At this point we were no longer in the military and were getting settled into our life. I felt like at this point in my life I knew how to be a friend. The only thing was, I could not find anyone who was close to my age and in the same stage of life as I was in. Someone whom I had things in common, as far as everyday life. Even my sisters were at very different points in their lives and we had nothing in common. This is when I found my adult best friend. I had my sisters as my best friends when I was young, I had my best friend in high school, and I had very close great adult friends, but I now had my adult best friend. I think most people find this friend in college, because they are mostly adults living similar lives. For me like I said before, this was not going to be someone my age. In fact she is almost 10 years older than me. On a whim I invited her family over for dinner, after that night I knew we were going to be best friends. She and I were inseparable, and lucky for us our husbands became best friends too, and even all of our kids. It was really meant to be. We were there for each other as we each add babies to our families, we were there for each other as our husbands were gone, we were their for each for every up and down, and every curve ball. I was very lucky to find this woman.

   Then came the time when my sisters and I started to become best friends again. We were all adults now, we all knew who we were personally. We started to have things in common again. We once again became close. There is not a day that goes by that I don't text or call one of my sisters. I am so glad we have come back to the top of our roller coaster ride.

   With all of the traveling we have been doing the past two years I have come to realize that I found my true best friend when I was 16 years old. I have reaffirmed this realization today more so than ever. My husband has always been my friend but over the past 2 years I have realized that he has been my constant best friend even when I didn't know it.

I know what you must be thinking, " this girl is crazy. how did she not know her husband was her best friend?"  

   When we got married I said I was marrying my best friend and I believed it. I said it over an over again that Colt was my best friend, it wasn't until a few years ago that I finally let go of the idea that I as a woman I needed to have another best friend that was not my husband but another woman.
I think women need other women as friends, we just understand things a different way, but my husband is my real best friend.

  Because of our life style we don't have much time to make friends at each location. We do make great friends but we don't have the time it takes to form deep friendships. Since this is the case Colt has had to fill in the place as my "girl" best friend as well keep up as my husband-best friend. Which can be great and not so great. Sometimes women need to talk to women just to talk, not to find a solution but just to get it out, and men see a problem and need to fix it, but my dear sweet Colt has been working hard on the just sitting and listening part.

  Here is the situation that reaffirmed in my mind that my husband really is my best friend:

He is away right now for what was supposed to be just 5 days. He calls me on one of his layovers to tell me he forgot some paper work and needs me to drop everything that I am doing(did I mention I was home alone with 5 kids) so I can overnight it to him, in hopes that it makes it to him in time for his appointment the next morning(it didn't). So his trip is now 7 days. I tell him how mad and annoyed I am about what he did and didn't do. Then he tries to tell what happened and how he is going to TRY and fix it(it can't be at this point). Then I got upset because he didn't just agree with me and say I was right(remember still working on the "just listening" part).  This is when it really hit me, when I said, " How can I vent to my best friend, about being mad at my best friend for what he did? When my best friend wont just listen to why I am mad but just gets mad instead?"  I used to want to vent these kinds of things to my "girl best friend" but the only person I wanted to sit down and vent to was my husband-best friend, about my husband-the jerk(just at the time :) not always). But HBF and HtJ are 2,400 miles away. He realized his mistake and apologized for not "just listening". I am still mad and sad that his trip has to be longer but at least I vented to HBF and HtJ went back to being HBF.

   HE has been with me through every social circle, friend, best friend, and sister/friend change for the past 14 years. He is the one who holds me when I cry, stands up for me when I can't, laughs at my not funny jokes, takes care of me when I am sick, eats the yucky food so I don't have to, acts goofy with me at stores, gives me his coat when I am cold, lets me pick the movie, gives me undivided attention when I need it, encourages me, tells me the truth, and loves the real me, not just the me that everyone else sees, but the me that I am, the way Christ sees me.

I love you Colt Stevens, you really are my very best friend. 

   

The Not Blizzard of 2015

About a week a go the whole city of New York was preparing for a "historic blizzard". We were going to get 24- 36 inches of snow with hurricane like winds. The stores were packed with people stocking up on the essential, bread, milk, eggs, and water(I guess people only shop for one day at a time). The public transit system was going to close by 11pm, and all non emergency traffic on the road was banned. At 3 pm snow began to fall, by 5pm it had stopped. We were again warned on the news that the 2 inches we got then clear skies was just the calm before the storm and to be ready because "it will get bad". Fast forward to our typical 10:30 pm bed time, we looked out the window and nothing was falling from the sky. We awoke to excited kids at 6 am. I glanced out the window to see SNOW! Not the record amount that they were predicting, in fact less than half of that. We in Queens got the most at 10 inches!!! We watched out from our 4th floor window as people went to work, clearing side walks and plowing the roads. As the city authorities realized that the "blizzard" was not to be they scrambled to get everything back up and running. You see most people in the city don't own cars, so when the buses, trains and subways are not running people can't get to work, so the city that never sleeps was closed!

If you follow my blog or are my friend on FB then you know how much I hate winter, and snow. So the fact that we got way less than was predicted was great news but the fact that we got 10 inches was not so great. Nevertheless with my re-found optimism (read about it here) I decided to make the most it.

I needed to warm up our apartment. We haven't had a heater in our main living area since right after Christmas(long story). I got to work making bread of all kinds, honey wheat, cinnamon swirl, and chocolate chocolate chip banana bread. So since the city was shut down and kids where off from school, we passed out all these yummy treats to our neighbors. Something warm and yummy for the cold snowy day. I regularly bring treats to our neighbors in hopes to make up for the craziness they hear through the walls and floors.

After all the treats were passed out I did something I rarely do. I went out for the sole purpose to have fun in the snow with my family. YES, you read that right, I went out to play in the snow. The last time I went out to "play in the snow" I think I was about 18 years old and it was our first winter in Colorado. Colt and I spent a half hour getting everyone all bundled up in coats, gloves, hats, scarves, and boots. It takes that long when you have 5 kids. So we headed out to the park that is about a block or two away from our building. It was filled with kids enjoying their snow day.

Our kids had a wonderful time and loved the snow. Luckily for me we don't have all the right snow gear so our outside time was only about 45 minutes. We walked back home dropped all the wet clothes at the door and enjoyed some hot chocolate. We made some great memories and now maybe I can avoid going to "play in the snow" for another 12 years.

proof I was out there

see the snow ball flying in the air

snow ball meets head

Bobby hit Colt in the face with a snow ball

Colt got him back

Cover Dad with snow

Where is Dad's body

there he is

run nay!!

run Lindy!!

Glasses and snow do not mix well

Eva and CJ trying to walk in the snow plow piles

and the pile of wet clothes and boots

Until next time, I love you C,M,B,C,E and L