A mexican wedding

This month has been filled with travel. At the begining of April I went to San Elizario, Texas which is right next to El Paso. While driving on the highway towards San Elizario I could see Juarez, Mexico. Daniel, my husband, really wanted to go over to Juarez but it is just to dangerous over there right now. Right now the an average of 10 people are dying everyday in Juarez, and the cartel seems to run the city.
While in San Eli I met Daniel's family, explored the history of the city, and went to a wedding. The wedding was a traditional Mexican wedding and the party lasted until 4:00 in the morning! My endurance isn't quite what it used to be but I made it and had a lot of fun.
The ceremony started at 2:00 pm at a catholic church. I couldn't understand what was going on because the ceremony was in Spanish. The ceremony lasted over 2 hours and I thought it was over a total of ten times because people would stand and clap during the ceremony. In my mind the ceremony was over but then everyone would sit down and the priest would continue with his ceremony.
After the ceremony we ate dinner and the dancing started. Daniel and I did not know the traditional way to dance so we observed at first. After a pitcher a beer and an hour of observing we felt that we had it down. It felt like we were doing awesome but who knows what it looked like to people who were watching us. There was also a dance which had steps to it. Everyone would follow eachother in a circle around the dance floor. Everyone would go forward, but then start dancing backwards! Daniel was on his second pitcher of the night by this time and he was having a hard time figuring out when everyone was dancing backwards. In front of us were three larger women who looked like they could dance right over Daniel without missing a step, leaving him unconscious on the dance floor. I figured I saved his life about five times during that dance, pulling him out of harms way by his belt.
At around 2:30 in the morning everyone left the dance hall to gather around several fires outside and eat 'Menudo'. Menudo is a red chile based soup with Hominy and tripe. Tripe is intestines which can come from a cow, sheep, goats, or pigs. I tried the tripe and found it apetizing though the texture was off for me. Some people had full pigs feet in there soup, this seemed to be the older crew. All of the younger guys who were about my age and younger did not like the full pigs feet.
The Menudo party lasted until about 4:00 in the morning and by this time I thought I may pass out, even though the Menudo seemed to send me a second wind.
In Texas I obtained an agave plant (agave is what Tequila is made out of)
This succulent is related to the aloe plant and grows to about 3' tall! Because this plant will probably die in the Utah winter I could not plant it outside and allow it to grow to it's full potential. This pot will allow it to get pretty close.
While I was away my garden started to grow. I have had a lot of problems with transplanting though. Almost all of my plants which I had started earlier this year are dying. My pea plants all died, but I planted some seeds in my garden. It has only taken a week for them to sprout and they are doing quite nicely. I guess sometimes you just have to start a veggie from seed outside. Since peas are conditioned for cold weather it is okay to start them this early. Next year I will probably only start my pumpkins, and pepper plants inside because they require a longer growing season.
My grapes still look like sticks coming out of the ground and it scares me that they may be dead. There is an older vine around the corner from my house that I have been watching, This vine still looks dead as well so I'm not worried about my grapes as of yet. I hope they have survived!