feliz navidad

{loni, mindi, & derrill in front of san jose house, 1972}

i always envied the fact that my older sister loni was born in mexico city, mexico.

it just always seemed so glamorous and hip, being born somewhere other than the united states of america. too bad i didn't realize early on that mexico city is a flipping DUMP with a capital D. it might have also been the fact that i was just plain jealous that the nurses in the hospital wanted my mom to pierce her ears at less than a day old--SCANDALOUS!!! (my mom held her ground, fyi--no mexi-earrings for baby loni.)

my parents were living there while my dad attended school on some kind of ultra-great scholarship. between living there for a few years and my dad's 2 1/2 year mission in mexico prior, both of my parents were fluent in spanish.

i remember seeing a few birthday cards that had been saved through out those years--they would write them entirely in spanish, always ending with 'te amo'. i thought it was so romantic!

so when it came time for me to sign up for a foreign language in 7th grade, there wasn't any question--german and french were for wussies. the ONLY foreign language i was interested in learning was espanol.

but it was for one very particular reason: each year as christmas time rolled around, my parents would have entire conversations in front of us about our gifts in spanish. it drove us CRAZY.

my goal: fluent spanish interpretation.