Viva Fiesta

Well, another Fiesta has come and almost gone. For those not from San Antonio, Fiesta is a week long celebration of San Antonio history, culture, and art. It's a collection of parties and events ranging from multi-million dollar televised parades to neighborhood parties to art shows to grand-scale concert events. We do it all-- starting the first weekend with Oysterbake, a huge celebration on the campus of St. Mary's University and winding it up the last weekend with King William's Fair, a "colorful" fair in one of San Antonio's oldest historic neighborhoods. Throughout, we dress up in colorful Fiesta-wear, don colorful beads, medals, hats, and sashes, and stuff ourself with traditional carnival food from fajitas to roasted corn to frozen lemonades and strawberry shortcake. We drink LOTS of cold beer and frozen margaritas and "Viva Fiesta!" is a common greeting among all.

One of my favorite events is NIOSA, a four day food-fest in the original Villa de San Antonio, established in the 1700s for Spanish settlers. We tackle NIOSA with a battle plan-- starting with getting off work early to hit the gate at 5:30, being one of the first line to get a "Maria's Tortilla," and people watching among some of Fiesta's craziest, most colorful revelers. We weave our way through the various sections, each named and decorated for San Antonio's original culture groups-- from Froggy Bottom with old R&B playing and "Bongo Bobs" (grilled steak shish-ka-bobs) to the French Quarter with its French-Louisiana blend of zydeco music and shrimp po-boys. Jared went with us for the first time this year, and he enjoyed the whole experience and the food!

Two of my other favorites is King William's Fair and the Fiesta Arts Fair, which feature some truly creative artists creating hand-crafted goods. I picked up a beautiful art print for Acacia with the "Tree of Life," representing her new tattoo, and a beautiful set of beaded cross jewelry in Fiesta colors to wear during Fiesta week at work.

We also hosted our first ever official Fiesta party, "Pachanga," and had about 30 guests at our home for frozen Blue Margaritas and grilled fajitas. Absolutely can't wait until next year's shindig-- will start planning next week as soon as this year's Fiesta wraps up.

Here's a link to the official Fiesta website-- http://www.fiesta-sa.org/

Gardening Time

It's Spring finally! My favorite season when I get totally motivated to go out and get in the dirt. Last year I decided to focus on developing the "bones" of the garden-- I've spent too many years and too much money planting perennials and then forgetting where they were planted and pulling them up. I've also tried and tried-again to plant those "impossible to kill" plants such as clematis and seniza and managed to kill them. I read gardening magazines religiously and see the beautiful gardens so dense you can't even see the soil but mine are far from that.

So this year, we (well, mostly me, the kids and hubby just dig and move what I tell them to) decided to put in some more large flowering shrubs, some roses and a few large spring flowering trees. Last year our big project was to put in a flagstone patio and firepit in the corner of the yard but ran out of summer and didn't finish-- Greg and I laid decomposed granite in the spaces this week and it looks nearly done. We have narrowed down a 55x55 lot into about 20x30 of grass, which will hopefully give us more time to garden and not lawn maintenance.

I'll post some photos as soon as I get a chance of some of my favorite parts of the garden.