Another Fun-Packed Weekend In Florida

People are starting to feel like I go to Florida every week.

I still feel like I don't visit enough.

Oh well, to each his own.

My cousin Monica (not my aunt Monica, they're two different people) came to visit from Brasil. Her and her husband, Marcos, do a trip together every year for their anniversary. It was in April, but they postponed just a little bit. So they spent a week here, the beginning in Miami and the second half in Orlando with us.

Now, my mom was busy working, because she had a big shot client from Brasil visit and he pays for her to pretty much be at his beck and call. So she was super busy and I had nothing to do... I took the car and ran around with my cousins all over the place!

Did I mention I'm allergic to tons of hair products?

I spent Thursday night on that awful Megabus, but it was super empty so it wasn't even so bad. Then Friday morning I went back to the hair salon with my cousin Marcia (I also have an aunt Marcia, so you see the cousin/aunt same names trend right?). I had a keratin treatment done to my hair and I spent six whole hours at our hairdresser's house. By the time she finished, I was ready to shave my whole head off. I can't sit still for that long, but I did take advantage of the time to get some reading in.

Hair done!

After our hair appointment, we went out to eat and then went back to her house and spent the evening looking a wedding dresses and cakes, because that's what we girls do when we have spare time and Pinterest. I found my wedding dress, finally! And it's only $350. I'm amazed. I'm half-tempted to buy it now before it stops being made or sells out or the price goes up. Half-tempted, but reason keeps me slightly in check.

We also discussed how many cakes I'm going to need and how we're going to mesh all the Brasilian, American, Salvadorean, and Mexican wedding traditions into one big event (Luis is half Mexican, half Salvadorean). It was wonderfully, giggly fun.

Finally I went home, stayed up all night on Twitter, then went to sleep. I woke up bright and early to pick up my cousin Monica at 9am from her hotel. She came along with her friend, Leticia, and her friend's husband, Thiago. So Monica, Leticia, and I ditched the guys and had a crazed shopping spree. Our whole family is pretty much up to their necks in the cake business, and Monica is one of the most involved. Leticia decorates the parties and Monica makes the sweets; they're quite the pair.

We hit up Jo-Ann, Michael's, and I introduced them to Starbucks. They cleaned Jo-Ann and Michael's clean of all kinds of wonderfully beautiful things, and they fell in love with Starbucks coffee. I ended up having Starbucks with them 4 times the whole weekend (Yay for more rewards points!).

Me and Monica

We then had the most amazing lunch at a Brasilian steakhouse with Marcos, and the waiter bought me a yummy brigadeiro for dessert. I was in heaven honestly. Then I took them to another Michael's, Sports Authority, Marshall's, and Bed Bath & Beyond. By the time we were done shopping, it was past ten!

After dropping off all our shopping at the hotel, Thiago and Leticia went to Downtown Disney and I took Marcos and Monica to Bahama Breeze, where we met up with the rest of the family. You put together more than five of us together, and it's a party. We were a party of 8 at the restaurant. We stayed there until the closed, talking and laughing and being obnoxiously loud. Our poor waiter suffered, having to wait until we left to clean all that up. Plus, he made the mistake of trying to flirt with me, poor boy. My family laughed and laughed at him.

Brian and Cinthia didn't make it into the picture

After leaving Bahama Breeze well after 2 am, we went back to my mom's house and literally pulled an all nighter. Lucky Marcos went back to the hotel, but Monica and all the rest of the family packed into my mom's bedroom and spent the rest of the night talking, laughing, and telling good stories.

Eventually it was time for my mom to go to work and I had to take Monica back to the hotel to pack. After packing, we went shopping even more. Do you see where I get my shopaholic trait from?? They still wanted to visit Apple and GNC, so I took them to Florida Mall. Finally, they wore out. We went back to my mom's house, weighed the bags, ate, and headed out to the airport. After dropping them off at the airport, it was to the bus stop for me.

I love my family so much. I can't wait to see them again!

A Love-Hate Relationship

I have an extremely emotional and wearisome love-hate relationship.

It's tiring and amazing at the same time.

And it's with my hair.

I am extremely vain and my hair is a huge source of my vanity. It is long, dark brown, and full. And it's naturally very very curly. And here's where the love-hate part comes in. I like my hair curly sometimes. It's a fun, bouncy look for me, and great for when I want texture,

But my hair looks so much better straightened! My hair in the above picture looks like it just goes slightly below shoulders. False. In this picture, my hair length was well below the bra line, but it curls up so much, it looks short. When I straighten my hair it's loooong and sleek and shiny. So pretty.

Both looks are so much work though!

To wear it curly, I have to wash it and drench it in hair mousse while it's still wet. And by drench it in hair mousse, I mean make sure every single strand has hair mousse in it. EVERY single strand. And then I can't brush it or tie it back well, and it sits there bouncing against me and getting in the way.


To wear it straight, I have to wash it, dry it, and spend the next two hours straightening it strand by strand, layer by layer. If I miss one layer or strand, my hair turns out poofy and has bumps in the back. But once it's straight, I can do everything and anything with my hair, and it's great and easily managed until my next wash.

The struggle is real.

Here comes the hardest part of this relationship... I absolutely 100% despise haircuts!

No one understands my plight! They see my hair, understand it's hard to handle, understand that I wear it straight most of the time, and they want to take the easy way out and perm my hair! NO!!! I have virgin hair and I'm not changing that anytime soon! It has never been dyed or permed or chemically anything. The most I have ever done to my hair is deep condition and relax it. Stay away from me and your confounded chemicals!

But I hate my hair, I do. It's so thick and hard to handle and it takes forever to fix! I love it as soon as it looks good though! So cutting it off is not an option. Especially since I look like I belong in the 90s with the extreme poof of my short hair.

As much as I hate hair cuts however, they are necessary, or else my hair ends up looking like this

The dryness and split ends makes me nervous

That is simply not acceptable. I haven't cut my hair in almost two years. I hate everyone who approached my hair with clippers, and I feel like no one ever does a good job. I have only ONCE walked away from a haircut that I liked when I left the salon and I liked a week later after all their salon magic potions had been washed out of my hair.

Me in 2009 after my happy haircut

I went to Brasil in the beginning of summer, got my hair done there, and it looked great well into the fall. It was the only time I have ever been truly happy with a haircut.

My next haircut was so bad, I had to leave the hair salon while my mom was paying so I could cry over how terrible my hair looked. (I actually have quite a few hair salon crying episodes, ranging all the way back since I was 5 years old. I told you I hate getting my hair cut) We went to another salon to fix it less than 3 months later. I have not cut my hair since, and have ever since then been convinced that I would only ever cut my hair again in Brasil, because every American salon had ruined my hair.

This has led to me not getting my hair cut since Luis's senior prom. As in over two years ago. My hair is a disaster. So finally, I have been cajoled and tricked into getting my hair cut. As soon as I stepped foot in Florida this time around, my cousin took me straight to his friend's house, who happens to be a hair stylist. Yay...

Of course, I was super nervous, like heart palpitating nervous, but I know that my hair is in serious need of some treatment. The split ends are taking over me. So I let them take me in, with the agreement that the hair stylist would not cut a millimeter more than I said was okay. That's another big issue I have with hair salons. I say only two inches off and all of a sudden they think they work for Locks for Love and are chopping all my hair off. I have a really bad story about going from waist length hair to above the shoulder... I started crying in the salon that time.

So here I am super nervous at the hair salon

She was pretty nice. She kept checking with me on the amount of hair to cut off and asked me about style and framing at least half a dozen times. THANK YOU JESUS! Finally a hair stylist that cares about how I want my hair! She did try to push a hair treatment on me, which I adamantly said no to, but she did semi-convince me. If my hair turns out good this time and after I do some more research on this treatment, I might cave in to what she wanted. It sounds like a relaxer to me so if that's what it is, bring on the relaxing!

I only got a deep conditioning this time though. And she snipped away, styling. And after 4 hours in that salon (I told you I have a lot of hair...) here's the final results:

My hair is so shiny, I had someone ask me on Instagram if I dyed it. My hair is still lovely and long. It feels great and soft. She layered the front almost perfectly. I'm happy! I just hope that it still looks and feels this good after I wash it on Saturday. I have to spend 3 days without wetting it to let the deep condition really set in (Which totally sucks because we're going to the beach today!) So if on Sunday, my hair still looks good, I may have found myself a keeper in a hair stylist!

Here's my post-haircut glam shot!