Aventura

I have refrained from blogging about this, to spare you four months of hearing about it, but as it is now less than two months out... I can no longer help myself!

Katrina and I are taking a trip in early May to San Diego and Mexico. We have long wanted to visit San Diego, but I don't think we would have taken the leap so soon if two friends of ours hadn't decided to have a destination wedding there. When they told us about it, back in January, it didn't take long for us to see this was the perfect incentive for us to make the trip. We would be there to celebrate with them, and extend our stay afterwards. We booked ourselves a week's stay, airline tickets, and then thought.... why not add on a few extra days and take a road trip down to Mexico?

We will not be visiting Mexico as tourists... we're not going for the beaches or tequila. This was the opportunity of a lifetime for Katrina to reconnect with family she has not seen since she was a baby. So we will be staying at the home of her aunt (who is beyond thrilled that Katrina is making the trip).

L: Katrina's dad and his little sister (her aunt)
R: Katrina's grandma and baby Katrina (how CUTE is she?)

Katrina and her aunt
As excited as I am about all of the vacation-related activities we are looking forward to in San Diego (I'm sure you'll be hearing more about that), our adventure to Mexico to meet Katrina's family is by far our most anticipated part of the trip. Some of her paternal family reconnected with her father (a Guatemalan who immigrated to Mexico as a boy, and to the United States as a young man) through facebook. She grew up never knowing any of them, hardly even aware of their existence. That is difficult for me to imagine since I have always known both of my parents' families.

I feel so happy and lucky to be able to experience this with her!

Her family speaks no english, so we are both making an effort to learn as much spanish as we can over the next seven weeks--we're even having a friend come over to help tutor us. We've been listening to latin music (recommendations, anyone?), putting up vocabulary sticky notes, trying to incorporate spanish into every day conversations. Fortunately we both took several years of spanish in school, and Katrina's dad occasionally spoke the language around her, so we're not starting from scratch.

helpful sticky vocab
I'd appreciate any tips for learning a language quickly! It's definitely not easy, but I think will be worth the effort. Her aunt said she would love to teach us some of Katrina's grandma's recipes (Katrina's grandma has passed away).

I am thinking I'd like to make some kind of art as a gift for her...

¡Estoy tan emocionado para nuestra aventura!