Nah, we've been here for awhile now. My family come from Asturias and the Canary Islands and they went from there to Havana, Cuba. Some of them stayed in Cuba and are still there but the first one to come to the US was my great grandfather. He came in 1905 to Tampa, Florida following the cigar industry. He lived in the latin quarter of Tampa and all of my family are still there pretty much. My grandparents and my mom are all from Tampa. We really held onto our roots really good though because everyone in my family lives really really long. My great grandfather died in Tampa in 1990 a 100 years old! We had just celebrated his birthday 2 months before. But we have such a mix of immigrant, 1st generation, 2nd generation etc all living together in a latin community so we didn't really assimilate much. We always spoke Spanish, everyone in the neighborhood was Spanish or Cuban with a few Italians too, but mostly everyone spoke Spanish all the time. I grew up speaking Spanish too with my family. My great grandfather never even learned English even though he lived in Florida much longer than he lived in Cuba. He didn't have to learn it so he didn't. hehe BTW, there is a legend in our family that we are descendant from the first king of Asturias. :) King Pelayo. Our family name is Pelaez. Don't know if it's true or not, but my aunts sure like to say it is. ;) :tongue_smilie:

LOL My family comes from Asturias in the north of Spain and whenever people ask me where my family comes from and I tell them they always say, "Austria?? I thought you said you were spanish??" :tongue_smilie: and for the record, I think winning a medal in the slalom is very awesome. :)

I have totally weird baby toes too! On both of my feet all of the first 4 toes are normal and go gradually down in size until you get to my baby toe. I have the tiniest little baby toes on both of my feet and I have long skinny feet so it's really noticeable. I always say that God gave me a rain check on my pinkie toes and I'll get the real ones when I get to heaven.:)

Gasp!! I NEVER knew all of this about the buffalo. Horrible! :eek:

LOL I know. I'm awful. You should hear me talk about cars! hehehe Ay, I should have been born a guy! ;) :D

Sweet! That's a 1985 RS530 in Marine Sunburst. That was the last year they had the Pro Rocker bridge before they introduced the (Licensed Floyd Rose) Edge the following year. I love that finish. The Steve Lukather model is in that same finish. Always loved that guitar. http://www.ibanezrules.com/catalogs/us/1985/p10.jpg If you ever come across an Artist (1978-1983), a Concert or a Radius with the blue burst finish let me know. :)

Oh yes the Powers. That's so cool that you won the custom swirl. Joe posed with a white on in one of the Ibanez catalogs. :) man, I love Satch. He's one of my favorite all time players. Yep, it's the 20th anniversary RG550 in Road Flare Red. That one and the Desert Yellow were there two neon colors. :) Very cool guitars indeed. Yep, my pink one is a 1986 Roadstar RG420 in Cherry Ice. Love it! It was the first year they introduced the Edge floating trem. My RB850 bass is also a Roadstar but a 1984. The blue one is my 1982 Blazer BL550. That one is awesome too. It has a solid brass bridge with awesome sustain. That one is in pieces right now though getting a thorough cleaning. The acoustic with the sweet bookmatched back is my 1976 Ibanez Concord. That thing is awesome too. I love my Ibbys! I wish I could get a Radius in the blue burst and an old Artist or an old Concert. Sigh. I need more money. ;) What year was the Roadstar you sold, do you remember?

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug: My subconscious hates me too. Come into my dreams and I'll give you all the ice cream you want. If you can stand to be in my psycho dreams that is. ;) hehe

That's awesome!!! I went to Austria once. It is such a beautiful country. I loved Bad Ischl. :)

South Florida

Thank you so much for your kind words. :) I was so happy at how well the children did! I'm just so proud of them!! I just went step by step and they got it so quickly!! I wish I was that good at remembering things as they were! :) Coolness!! Is that a RG with a custom swirl or a Radius maybe?? That's really nice. It looks almost like a Jem PMC without the monkey grip and the purple pickups. That's a nice guitar! :) Here are some of my Ibby babies. :) http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n106/FloridaNat1ve/My%20Guitars/IMG_1283.jpg http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n106/FloridaNat1ve/My%20Guitars/IMG_1267.jpg http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n106/FloridaNat1ve/My%20Guitars/RB850-2.jpg http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n106/FloridaNat1ve/My%20Guitars/RB-850-3.jpg http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n106/FloridaNat1ve/My%20Guitars/Jen191.jpg http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n106/FloridaNat1ve/My%20Guitars/1976Concord669-3.jpg

:lol::lol::lol::lol: Mine's default position wouldn't have been to order Dominoes either and certainly not to ask me how my day went. ;) :D

Wow!! Her husband is so amazingly supportive!! That's awesome!

That happened to me too!! I remember packing my bags to go to visit my grandparents and while I was packing I had this overwhelming impression/feeling that my grandfather had died. I remember sliding to the floor and saying out loud to myself, "he's dead." not a second later the telephone rang in the kitchen and a moment later I heard my mom crying and saying "no! no!" He had died. :( :crying: Right before my grandmother died I had a vivid dream that my tooth fell out. This has always been an omen that someone close to you will die. 5 days later my grandmother died. Every time I have dreamed of teeth falling out, someone in my family has died in the same week. :crying:

Most people know I'm a guitar nut by my screen name, but I'm also a big car nut. I love to detail cars and have a passion for old classic muscle cars. I used to be a moderator on 3 different auto detailing sites and spent most of my time answering questions and giving detailing advice. I once rebuilt a carburetor and am still kicking myself for not getting a second job in order to be able to afford a Toyota Supra that I had a chance to get for crazy cheap. UGH! Hindsight! I also got in trouble with the police in high school once and when the officer escorted me home to talk to my mother he wound up asking my mom out on a date. Weird. She actually went out with him too. Double weird. :eek: Oh and eta... I also play the cello. I actually won medals for playing in a quartet. :)

To the OP, my husband saw the picture of the blonde plus sized model a few months back when it first appeared and they reported on it on Yahoo. He said back then that he didn't understand why she was considered "plus size" and that she looked "normal". My husband is not American though so his view of women is more normal I guess. He always thinks that American models/actresses/etc are too skinny and have no butts. He thinks a woman should look "healthy" and have her natural curves, but that she should "be fit" and not flabby. As far as women's sizes go.. He would be absolutely clueless. He has no idea about women's sizes in anything and the numbers mean nothing to him. Hope that helps your experiment. :)

Awww that's so sweet. :001_wub: :)

The first time I ever made them I was feeling frisky and adventurous and so I just made them according to a combination of two recipes from two different Italian cookbooks with whatever stuff I happened to have. They tasted good but they gnocchi were like belly bombs! After like 10-15 of them you were so full you thought you wouldn't eat for a week! :) After that experience I promptly bought a potato ricer and they came out much better. :) My dd LOVES it when I make gnocchi. They're so yummy with a spicy marinara sauce. man, I"m getting hungry now. :)

I make my own gnocchi.:) I also bought a pasta making machine a year ago, but haven't used it yet. :blushing: I need to get that baby boy out and make some lasagne. :)

Oh now that stinks!! I'm so sorry to hear that. Can she get private lessons maybe?? Usually music stores will have a wall where people will advertise lessons or sometimes the stores themselves will have employees who give lessons. Maybe a homeschool co-op. Ah, poor kid. That is disappointing. I hope that she can find some lessons.

That's fantastic. I am doing the same thing, starting them out on the E string and playing little diddys. :) I'm so impressed that she is writing her own songs. Sounds like you have a musician on your hands. That's so awesome! :hurray: :)

:) Thanks. Nope nothing wrong with starting on the electric. The only drawback possibly would be the inital investment in gear, but you can get some decent practice amps that don't cost a fortune and you can get decent used guitar off ebay for 100 bucks. Yamaha Pacificas are good and usually right around 100 bucks and of course my favorites Ibanez. You can find the Gios pretty cheap off Ebay. They are Ibanez's entry level electrics and the older Roadstars are awesome guitars and sometimes you can find them at a decent price although people have started collecting them now and are making the prices go higher. If you want a decent electric for beginners though you can't really go wrong with the Pacifica or the Gio. :) The Orange micro amp is pretty cheap and the Roland Cubes are pretty cheap as well, with a cable and a decent guitar you can probably go electric for about 200 bucks. For my class, I did acoustics because it is the least expensive (and most portable) way to go and since most my students are all young and we don't even know if they will like guitar yet it made the most sense to start there before investing a bunch of money on gear. I love electrics. That's what I mostly play too. :)

Oooh great thread! I've been wondering the same thing. I live in South Florida and am wondering if I can order the catepillars now or not too. :confused: Does it have to be Spring for them to transform or it doesn't matter? Thanks. :)

Oh that's too bad that she doesn't have other kids around, but the upside is that the one on one lessons will allow her to go at her own pace so that is good too. :) A co-op was the only way I could do it for the kids that were wanting me to teach them guitar. I had too many kids that wanted to learn and there was just now way I could give that many private lessons during the week and homeschool and take care of my special needs son and do all of the rest of the stuff I have to do. I have 6 kids in my class and that is all I could fit in my living room to where they weren't banging into each other with their guitars. There are 7 other people who wanted to take my class too, but couldn't make that time slot. I don't know what I'm going to do with that one. I guess I'll just wait a while and see how it goes with this one class and see about adding another. I am so thrilled though to see so many people wanting to learn music. I think that is just so awesome. :) I hope that your daughter enjoys her classes. Once her calluses build up in a few weeks her fingers will hurt less. :) I wish her well in her classes. :) Blessings. :)

:party: :hurray: It was 2 hours long!! :eek: lol I had 6 students of all ages and it went really well. I knew I had to get those kids to the point where they could play since they are only coming once a week and they weren't going to be content to get those nice brand new guitars and not know how to play them for another week so I taught them how to tune the guitar, what all of the parts of the guitar are called, how to take care of it, what the open strings were called, the values of whole notes, half notes and quarter notes and what they looked like, whole, half and quarter rests, the lines of the staff, 4/4 time, the spaces of the staff and how to read the E note on the staff! phew! Now that I type it all out I'm amazed that we got all of that accomplished in only 2 hours! The kids had a good time and really enjoyed playing their guitars. I was a bit worried about the young one that has ADHD because I had all 6 students asking me all at the same time, "Ms. Jennifer is this right? Ms. Jennifer..." but he managed to pay attention enough to learn and when I wrote a line of music on the staff for him to play he nailed it! :) I knew that this first class would be the hardest and longest one because we had to cover so much to get them to where they could play, but it went really well and I know that the next ones will be much easier as we take it step by step. :) I'm so happy for the kids and I'm just so pleased that I finally got this thing up and running. I've been trying since last September to get this class going so I was really happy that we were finally able to start today. Anyway, I just wanted to share my joy with ya'll. :) Thanks for reading. :) Jen