A weekend without an event

Friday night rolled around this weekend and I thought what I should do with my free-time. You see since early October we have more or less occupied with our events. As we are usually finishing up projects and flowers, etc.

I knew I had to pick up some groceries, so off to Soriana I went. When I got home I put on some Christmas music and got to baking. I really wanted to make some Christmas cookies, but didn't want to get that far into baking. So, I whipped up a batch of packaged chocolate chip cookies. They were YUMMY!!

Here's how the night played out...

I started with a glass of wine.
Then made the cookies..
The whole batch is gone because I took them to the office to share with everyone on Saturday.

"Deck the Apartment" & Entertainment Center

So, here we go folks... The Christmas tree is up, the decorations are out, the plane ticket is purchased, now all I have to do is pack the bag ...oh get through two more events and work/finish up two designs for January....

Monday night I ventured out to Wal-Mart and purchased the tree and decorations, last night I headed downtown and met up with Dorian to go to the Christmas store to see what they had this year, not much luck. Then I wanted to run to the fabric store to pick up the fabric for under the tree and then it was to the ribbon store to buy some silver ribbon to hang the ornaments. Yes, we have to use ribbon because we don't have the convenience of ornament hooks. I don't think I'll switch back to ornament hooks because the ribbon adds that little something extra to the tree and you can color coordinate...what's better than that!!!

*** Note to self - bring back Christmas Tree skirt *** (HA...if I can get to my Christmas bins)

Ok..here's goes....

The Christmas Tree:

Christmas Decor: (don't forget to check out the pictures I posted a couple of days ago with my railing decorated)



The rest of the Christmas Decor and the finished Entertainment Center...





Next on deck is to purchase one of my favorite paintings here in PV to hang on the walls, put up my collage picture frames and to put up some a collage of shelves I purchased a while back.

Stay tuned.....

Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving!!

Christmas "Sneak Peek"

After work tonight I made my way out to Wal-Mart to purchase a new Christmas tree, lights and decorations. Here are just a couple of pictures as "teasers". I will post more soon!! It's my goal this week to get the apartment decorated as we don't have an event this week. I also should be getting my entertainment center this week too. Toro has been working on it for me over the last couple of weeks and tonight he was painting!! I'm soo excited to post pictures!!

I decorated my front railing. This part is done!



And the new Christmas tree & decorations...



Tomorrow I'm putting up the tree in the TDD office. Will take pictures to share.

Stay Tuned.......

The "Day Before" Craziness

Tonight I wanted to give my family and friends an idea of what the "day before" an event is like around The Dazzling Details headquarters.

Joe & Camilla get comfy and stay their distance:

Sophia is entertained:

Our office & desks are deserted and turn into more work areas:


Our team is finishing up painting projects:


Our focus is on bouquets and floral arrangements:

We all pitch together to sometimes "burn" the midnight oil. I love and enjoy how we all work together so hard to bring each and every design full circle. Hop on over to The Dazzling Details blog to view the end results.

And then the next day, with our bodies tired, drained and exhausted and our brains are fried and non-functional we drag ourselves out of bed to enjoy a peaceful breakfast to enjoy beautiful music and ADORABLE company!!




Hope this gives you a "sneak peek" into what our days are like before event days.

The Bond Between Mother and Daughter

These past couple of weeks have been pretty stressful and crazy on the work home front. This post tonight is to reflect the bond between Mother and Daughter. I guess maybe my reflection tonight is because of a slight feeling of "home sickness" or just plain self-reflection.

It's times like these when I wish my Mom would have a computer and Internet and we could chat about our days. Maybe it's something they should think about doing for themselves for Christmas. Hmmm..maybe something I should mention to them next time I talk to them. Last week I called Mom on Skype and wanted to try something new and I conferenced Dad into the call. It's been my goal to call and talk to them together as I call Mom more frequently than I do Dad and miss my conversations with my Dad. It's also difficult getting to chat with Dad has he heads off to bed quite early because he gets up for work sooo early. I have to make a point to call early. I think Dad was getting a bit frustrated with the conference call because there is always a slight delay when using Skype and he tends to be a bit inpatient. It's always a special moment when Dad comes to pick me up from the airport on my trips back to the States. We are able to share those first brief moments of me arriving back than anyone else has yet to experience.

So, back to the whole reason of this post. Here are just a couple of pictures of Mom & I. Can't wait to be home for Christmas!! I miss our weekends when she would make the trip over to MN and we would "power shop" for an entire weekend for Christmas. We would basically get all of her shopping accomplished in one weekend and we would have so much fun together!!



This picture was taken in May of 2007. I made a surprise visit back home to go to cousin Ryan & Lisa's wedding and we didn't tell Mom I was coming home. It just so happen to fall during the weekend of Mother's Day too. It was a really fun weekend!

Miss you Mom...See you soon!!

And I was rummaging through photos tonight I found this one that's probably one of the BEST photos I have with my parents. This was taken the Christmas before I made this life changing journey.

The start of a cool down

The last couple of nights has been getting a bit chilly, so I decided it was time to bring out the comforter. Last night was the first time in a couple of weeks that I slept decently through the night. I guess I should have pulled out the comforter before. It's so nice not having to have the ceiling fans on HIGH and enjoying the cooler air. AHHH FINALLY!!!

Here are a couple of pictures of my bed with the comforter. I know it's a little wrinkled, I just brought it out the big garbage bag I had it stored in after having it laundered for the Summer. It will eventually flatten out!!

A Successful Day of the Dead with NO broken bones!!

I'm not sure if all of you know, but my first Day of the Dead experience was not so fun last year. I ended up spending it in an emergency room. Last year as I was walking to the bus stop to go downtown to meet up with Kristin & Pablo, I fell in the street and broke my left wrist. I didn't think anything had happened, I thought maybe I sprained it really bad because I could still move it. Well, by the time I got downtown to where I was to meet up with Kristin & Pablo I knew something was TERRIBLY wrong. Yes, I rode the bumping bus from my apartment downtown which was probably about a 10 minute bus ride and realized in that 10 minutes that something was not right. And about 4 hours later and some AWESOME drugs (haha), I was in a cast and headed back to the apartment in the comfort of a Nissan Platina (aka "lola"). So, this year I was NOT going to miss out on seeing some altars and entertainment. I made my way downtown VERY CAREFULLY.

Here are just a few of the altars that I saw. There wasn't many, but I was able to get a few shots.

These altars were made by students of a school. I believe each student made one and then it was on display. They were miniature altars.

Each altar had different meanings and significance. It was amazing how much work when into each altar. From preparing the favorite foods to purchasing the bottles of tequilas. It was soo cool to see them.

I'm not sure if this next one was a joke or an actual altar. But, it was stuck in around the corner next to a column. I had to get a shot of it just to document it.


Sundays always are entertaining on the Malecon and the Sunday which celebrated the Day of the Dead was no different. The locals come out in swarms to enjoy the food, entertainment and dancing!!


A view of the Guadalupe Cathedral...

There was also a performance on the Malecon. I didn't stay long as I was getting tired and wanted to get home and go to bed. But they had a live performance with a singer dressed like a calavera and interpretive dancing. I apologize for the quality of the photos.



This Day of the Dead is officially considered "accomplished". As in, no broken bones and I got home safely, besides being "picked up" by a drunk guy on the bus on the way home. Now, we'll just have to have an "accomplished" trip home for Christmas and we can call this chapter closed!!

Sophia Alexandra

It's been such a fun adventure these past 6 months with the Vargas-Crawford family. It's been so much fun being a part of their family and Sophia is getting more fun and beautiful every day. Here are just a few shots that I've captured recently that I HAD to share!!!