The Quinceanera

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The invitation didn't say anything about a ceremony so we assumed that there was none. After staying up until 3:00 a.m. "mi chica" woke up early to go those girly things they always do when we go to California, (nails, pedicure, etc. etc.). She decided to call her brother to let him know we were there and she casually asked how come there was no ceremony. "There is a ceremony, didn't I tell you? It's only for the family and very close friends and it's at 1:00 p.m." he said.


Well by this time that only gave us about an hour to get showered, dressed and to drive to "El Santuario de la Virgen de Guadalupe" in East L.A. Luckily traffic was not too bad, we were only a little bit late and only missed the first five minutes of the ceremony.

"El Santuraio de la Virgen de Guadalupe" is a beautiful but very tiny church that sits on top of a hill and can be seen as you drive the Pomona Fwy. going east. The whole inside of the temple is hand

painted, murals adorn the walls and ceiling, and a lot of gold paint was used to highlight every inch of the temple. The ceremony was very nice and went on for nearly an hour.

Once outside it was photo session time, we all took turns posing with the "Quinceañera". She was so beautiful looking like a little princess in her white dress.


We went back to my brother in law's house to rest as the reception was scheduled for 6:00 p.m. In the meantime we decided to go visit my sister. She just bought a house in La Puente and we wanted to go see it.

We made it to Quiet Cannon for the reception at around 6:30 p.m. After a very nice dinner and some 15 glasses of this delicious fruit punch they had we finally started dancing. At first I thought all we would get to see were these kids dancing their tribal dances all night long but the DJ had a surprise in store for us as he mixed the music very well and played just about every genre of music that we grew up with. To say he took us down memory
lane is an understatement. The young crowd didn't seem to mind as they did not discriminated against any of the music and just kept dancing, which in turn made it for one of the most fun parties we have been to lately.

Very happy and a few pounds lighter we finally went back to my in laws house for a well deserved and by then long overdue rest.

On Sunday we went back to my sister's for dinner. She cooked this pork ribs in a green chili that was very tasty, we burned the pictures from the weekend on a couple of discs, we karaoked some more and finally at around 7:00 p.m. we hit the road back to Phoenix.

Even though this was a very short trip, we really had a great time. But no matter how fun, nothing beats coming back home.