It was Friday night before our cousin Heather’s wedding and we needed to find something low key to do since the next day would be packed with fun activities. After the rehearsal dinner, we all decided to engage in a little of what Leslie’s parents call “forced family fun” – and Andrew (also our cousin & Heather’s brother) came up with the idea of going to Dave & Busters! This was perfect because our family LOVES to play games, and it also  gave us the opportunity to meet Andrew’s girlfriend Camala.

Era Viernes en la noche antes del matrimonio de nustra prima Heather y necesitabamos encontrar algo que hacer, algo entretenido y relajado ya que el proximo dia estaria lleno de actividades. Despues de la cena, Andrew (hermano de Heather) nos dio la idea de ir a Dave & Busters! (un lugar lleno de juegos) Era el lugar perfecto porque a nosotros nos encanta jugar y nos dio la oportunidad de conocer a la polola de Andrew, Camala.

We started out with skee ball…..I was terrible at it – well, we all were really… But we got a couple of tickets and began collecting them with the dream of getting a little plastic piece of crap toy at the end of the night! We actually got addicted to getting more tickets when we saw three little kids playing a roulette game. These guys would spin the roulette and start jumping with joy as the machine dispensed hundreds of tickets in a never ending roll…it was spin, jump happily, get more tickets, spin again….they got like a thousand tickets!! So we figured, hey maybe we can be the ones jumping happily and getting thousands of tickets…they just made it look so fun!

Comenzamos con skee ball—-yo soy malisimo – bueno, todos somos malos la verdad…pero ganamos un par de tichets y emepzamos a coleccionarlo con el sueno de canjearlos por algun juguete de plastico que se romperia al otro dia! La coleccion se torno adictiva cuando vimos a tres ninos jugando una ruleta. Ellos movian la ruleta y empezaban a saltar de alegria mientras la maquina escupia cientos de tickets y nunca terminaban de salir…..era dar vuelta a la ruleta, saltar de alegria, ganar mas tickets, y volver a dar vuelta….ganaron miles de tickets! Asi que pensamos, hey tal vez nosotros podemos ser como ellos y saltar de alegria mientras ganamos miles de tickets…ellos lo hicieron ver entretenido!

We got a few tickets here and there as we continued to play different games – we took over the horse races with the family, so all 8 of us could race together (like the games at the state fair). I am sure a lot of cheating happened with the horses that won…(ahem Ian!) but it was really fun to play together. At one point we found the “Gene Machine,” which tells you (for 20 tokens) what your future child will look like by taking pictures of couples’ faces in the booth and asking the ethnicity of your kid, the gender and the color of hair. A very accurate machine!!!…clearly:

Ganamos algunos tickets por aqui y por alla mientras jugabamaos diferentes juegos – nos aduenamos de las carreras de caballos con la familia, asi que los 8 de nosotros pudimos estar en la misma carrera (como los juegos en la feria estatal). Estoy seguro que alguien hizo trampa con los caballos que ganaron….(hhmmm Iam!) pero fue entretenido jugar juntos. En un momento encontramos la “Maquina Genetica”, que por 20 monedas te dice como se vera tu futuro hijo o hija despues de tomar fotos de tus caras y preguntarte el color de pelo, sexo y raza de tu “bebe”. Una maquna muy precisa!!!…obviamente:

Leslie and I were the first to jump in. We got a hispanic boy with brown hair……

Leslie y yo fuimos los primeros en meternos. Salimos con un nino, latino, de pelo cafe….

Ian and Andrea got a dark haired caucasian girl:

Ian y Andrea salieron con una nina de pelo oscuro…

John and Annie tried it out just to test the accuracy of the machine since their two kids were there. Unfortunately, the picture was not even close to Ian (they chose to do a boy) so it got tossed to the trash pretty quickly. They decided that perhaps, to be fair, the machine was creating a picture of what their child would look like if they had one in their mid-50s – gotta give the machine the benefit of the doubt right? I think they just wanted to believe that the machine worked because they thought the kids that came out for Ian and Andrea and me and Leslie were cute. (Let’s be clear, though, they didn’t REALLY think that the machine was in any way accurate…)

John y Annie probaron la maquina para que ver que tan precisa era la maquina ya que sus 2 hijos estaban con ellos. Desafortunadamente, la foto que les dieron no se parecia en nada a Ian (escogieron un nino) asi que se fue a la basura rapidamente. Descidieron, tal vez, para ser justos, que la maquina creo una foto de un nino como si lo hubiesen tenido a los 50 y pocos anos – hay que darle a la maquina un poco de credito…Creo que ellos querian creer que la maquina funcionaba porque pensaban que lo “hijos” que nos dieron a nosotros eran tiernos. (Seamos claron, en verdad NUNCA pensaron que la maquina seria precisa….para nada…)

We played Deal or No Deal and won the biggest prize (250 tickets), and played Wheel of Fortune where at one point we won 600 tickets. My pockets were overflowing with stuff so as the end of the night approached we went to cash in our earnings – a total of 2500 tickets!! I got a stuffed Peter Griffin (family guy), Andrea got some candy, Ian chose a rubber bouncy ball (of course) and Leslie picked a bunch of plastic sparkly bracelets.

Jugamos Deal or No Deal y ganamos el premio mayor (250 tickets) y jugamos Rueda de la fortuna donde en un momento ganamos 600 tickets. Mis bolsillos estaban llenos de tickets y  cuando era tiempo de ir a casa y fuimos a canjear, teniamos un total de 2500 tickets! Yo canjee un Peter Griffin de peluche (Hombre de Familia), Andrea canjeo dulces, Ian una pelota saltarina y Leslie un monton de brazaletes plasticos que brillaban.

It was a fun night spent with the family playing games and of course making fun of our future children. It was great to meet Camala as well, who we got to know more as the weekend continued with the wedding festivities. She and Andrew obviously love to just have fun (I think it was actually Camala who had the idea to go to D&Bs), which is great for us because that’s pretty much all we want to do (I hope you all have picked up on this little tidbit about the Los Rodriguez life…)! Camala is also known internationally for her body building career; she is an I.F.B.B. pro and Leslie and I pretty much couldn’t believe what we were seeing when we saw a few videos of her performances at contests. She’s an unbelievable athlete – you should definitely check out her webpage. Oh yeah, and her last name is RODRIGUEZ! Sweet!

Fue una noche muy entretenida con la familia jugando juegos y riendonos de nuestros futuros hijos. Fue genial conocer a Camala tambien, y pudimos seguir conociendola durante el resto de las actividades del matrimonio. A ella y Andrew les encanta pasar un buen rato y jugar juegos (creo que fue idea de ella ir a D&B!), lo que es genial porque es lo que a nosotros nos gusta hacer. Camala es tambien conocida internacionalmente por us carrera como fisicoculturista; ella es profesional y Leslie no podia creer lo que veia cuando vio unos videos de las presentaciones de Camala. Ella es una atleta increible – tienen que ver su website. Oh y su apellido es RODRIGUEZ! Bakan!

On Saturday the wedding festivities kicked up, starting with an amazing brunch at Leslie’s uncle Scott’s house in Colorado Springs. Check back for our next post on the brunch and then the amazing wedding!

El Sabado empezaron las actividades del matrimonio con un desayuno en la cada del tio de Leslie, Scott, en su casa en Colorado Springs. Revisen el blog seguido para leer sobre este desauno y la espectacular boda de Heather!