Cumplo 19

Last Wednesday was my 19th birthday and my request was that we go shopping in the market :)  I really didn´t want a party even though they wanted to give me one, because it´s awkward to have a lot of people come for your birthday when you can´t really talk to them, right?  We went to El Mercado Central, where we had gone before with the Chantilly team in the beginning of August.  Wow, even though that was only a month ago, it feels like forever!  Anyway, I had a lot of fun shopping, though I am so indecisive...it´s worse in a market because you´re trying to focus on what your looking for amongst all these colorful things, you´re trying to make choices between items and you´re trying to bargain for good deals.  Oh, and on top of that I was trying to think money in Spanish, though most of the vendors know how to speak a little English.  I still have trouble with numbers in Spanish, and then it messes up my adding abilities when I try to switch over to adding in English.  Eventually, I made up my mind and bought a purse with hand-embroidered pink roses on it and I also got some earrings and scarves.  Pretty good deal-I got my bag for $5.  :) 

Annnyway...the rest of the day went as normal, we hung out at the house in the afternoon, I made a gluten free ``cake`` for myself, and then we all went shopping for groceries and the boys got some new soccer shoes.  When we got home from shopping, I helped a little to prepare for dinner by making guacamole.  We were going to eat taco salad.  Rossanita had finished cutting up the other vegetables, so we went upstairs to watch TV and wait to Chochy to call everyone to dinner.  I checked my facebook and email, responded to the birthday wishes, and still, no call to dinner.  It was 8:30, not very late for eating dinner around here.  I thought, ``Oh, she´ll call us in a half an hour or so.`` But then I heard her and Mr. Ruano practicing their song for the kids camp, and still no dinner.  Finally, at 10 minutes before 10, Chochy called me down.  ``Feliz Cumpleaños Rachel!`` shouted Kitty, Gaby and Monica as they jumped out at me.  They all gave me a big hug and then I heard firecrackers in the front of the house and Alan (Kitty´s boyfriend), the other Alan, and Edgar (Monica and Gaby´s brother) came in.  So it was a good sized party, they invited only people that I knew pretty well.  It was awesome! I was so thankful to be able to spend my birthday with all of them. 

Even though I can´t eat gluten, they had to buy a cake so that I could blow out the candles!  And, what´s a party without cake?  Dennis J. tried to face-plant me in the cake after they finished singing- that was funny.  You could see my teeth marks in the cake, but it all got eaten anyway!