Friday 7th December 2012….Hey look who is here????

My first stop this morning was to go get Paola and we came to the house where she first answered her e mails she likes to do this she writes in English as I tell her the words and some of the spelling.  She then got busy making signs for our friends Paula and Jerry are arriving in the afternoon!!

We then bought a poinsettia and went to the RV park and put the welcome sign and plant in the spot where Paula and Jerry are going to park.

I then took Paola back home but on the way we saw Carolyn in her car so we stopped to say hello and Carolyn wanted a photo so this was the end result cute eh??

This is the last article in the soccer referee story I have written about before…you may not find it very interesting but I did…. this incident went from the player and club accusing the referee to him being exonerated and then the player fined good job!!

John Mikel Obi banned for Mark Clattenburg threats

Chelsea's John Mikel Obi has been given a three-match ban and fined £60,000 by the Football Association for threatening referee Mark Clattenburg.

Mikel admitted an FA charge following an incident in the match officials' changing room after Chelsea's defeat by Manchester United on 28 October.

The FA accepted the player had believed the referee had racially abused him.

However, the union Prospect, which represents referees, said it was "dismayed" at the "lenient" punishment.

In a personal hearing on Thursday the FA's Independent Regulatory Commission accepted the Nigerian midfielder's explanation.

"But for that factor the suspension would have been significantly longer," the FA said in a statement.

Prospect national secretary Alan Leighton claimed "far too much weight" had been given to Mikel's mitigating circumstances.

A Prospect statement added: "It is vital that officials were given real respect and this decision regrettably gave entirely the wrong message. A player in parks football found guilty of behaviour like Mikel's would have faced a long-term ban."

The FA investigated the allegation against Clattenburg which prompted Mikel's behaviour and found that there was no case for him to answer.

The police also dropped their own inquiry into the allegations that Clattenburg had racially abused Mikel, 25.

Mikel's team-mate Ramires had made the allegation and Chelsea later said they regretted the way the matter was handled.

Clattenburg missed four weekends of Premier League matches while the FA investigated Chelsea's complaint.

I came home for a couple of hours and then went back to the RV park to meet Paula and Jerry…these are very special friends that I met in 2011 when I toured Eastern Canada in Ramona…they invited me to stay with them for a few days we became close and special friends…these photos are from then

If you go back to my blog posts for September 4th 2011 you can read all about how we met and how kind they were to me!!

It was lovely to see them and they are here for 11 days so will get lots of chances to catch up and they are very special friends to Paola and Daniela so lots of visiting..great to see you and thanks for my gifts!!!

On the way home I stopped to buy myself a poinsettia for home

I think you may find the below article informative and interesting!!

 

Notes on 'La flor de Nochebuena'

Spanish Article's Grammar and Vocabulary Explained

 

 

Durante la temporada navideña,
During the Christmas season,

Navideño is the adjectival form of Navidad, the word for Christmas. The feminine form is used here because temporada is feminine. In Spanish, unlike English, nouns aren't readily used as adjectives.

la flor de Nochebuena es muy popular en los Estados Unidos.
the poinsettia is very popular in the United States.

Nochebuena, a combination of noche (night) and buena (good) is the word used for "Christmas Eve." Although the phrase flor de Nochebuena could be translated literally as "Christmas Eve flower," doing so would not be as clear here as using the English name of the flower.

Pero muchos no saben que la flor es originaria de México.
But many don't know the flower is originally from Mexico.

The phrase ser originario de is frequently used to indicate where something originates. Note that originario (or the feminine form, origiaria is the original sentence here) is an adjective, not an adverb as in the English translation. Note also that the word que is left untranslated in English. In this case, it could have been translated as "that," a word often omitted in English. But in Spanish, que is essential.

En español, la flor tiene muchos nombres
In Spanish, the flower has many names

como la flor de Navidad, la flor de Pascua, la flor de fuego, la estrella de Navidad y la corona de los Andes.
such as the Christmas flower, the Pascua flower, the fire flower, the Christmas star and the crown of the Andes.

The word Pascua originally referred to the Jewish Passover. In Christianity, it came later to refer to Easter, whose timing is theologically connected with Passover. Its meaning later came to be connected with various days of the Christian liturgical calendar, and in plural form (las Pascuas) typically refers to Christmas. In fact, "¡Felices Pascuas!" is one say of saying "Merry Christmas!"

Los indígenas mexicanos la llamaban cuetlazochitl,
The natives of Mexico called it cuetlazochitl,

Indígena, meaning an indigenous person, is one of those unusual words that end in -a in both masculine and feminine forms. In the above sentence, la is used to mean "it" because it refers to a feminine noun, la flor. If the reference had been to a masculine noun, lo would have been used.

que significa "la flor de pétalos resistentes como el cuero".
which means "the flower with petals tough like leather."

Note that in Spanish, the period comes outside the quotation marks, the opposite of what is done in U.S. English. Note also that the de in the definition is translated as "with," even though de typically is translated as "of." This provides a more natural translation. You should always translate for meaning, not attempt to translate word for word.

Para los aztecas, la flor roja era símbolo del sangre de los sacrificios que ofrendaban al sol.
For the Aztecs, the red flower was a symbol of the blood of the sacrifices they offered to the sun.

The verbs in this sentence are in the imperfect tense, as is usually the case with verbs that refer to events or repeated actions that occur over a long period of time.

En los EEUU, la flor es conocida como la poinsettia en honor de Joel Poinsett, botánico y el primer embajador estadounidense a México.
In the U.S., the flower is known as the "poinsettia" in honor of Joel Poinsett, a botanist and first U.S. ambassador to Mexico.

EEUU is the abbreviation for Estados Unidos. See how the letters are doubled as is often done in an abbreviation of a plural noun.

En México hay una leyenda sobre la flor.
In Mexico there is a legend about the flower.

Hay is a form of haber that is very commonly used to mean "there is." The past tense, as in the following sentence, is había.

Se dice que había una niña muy pobre
It is said that there was a very poor girl

Se dice, a reflexive form of decir, is a common way of saying "it is said" or "they say."

que lloraba porque no tenía regalo para dar al niñito Jesús en el altar de su iglesia.
who cried because she didn't have a gift to give to the baby Jesus on the alter of her church.

Niñito is a diminutive form of niño, a word for "boy."

Un ángel escuchó sus oraciones, y le dijo que cortara las ramas de algunas plantas cerca del camino.
An angel heard her prayers and told her to cut the branches of the plants near the path.

The verb cortara is in the imperfect subjunctive form, because the subjunctive form typically is used with commands and requests that follow que. The le in this sentence is an indirect object pronoun; "to cut the branches" is what the angel said, but the girl is whom the angel told it to.

Cuando llegó la niña al altar, al contacto con sus lágrimas, de las ramas brotaron bellas flores rojas y resplandecientes.
When the girl arrived at the altar, upon contact with her tears beautiful and brilliant red flowers came forth from the branches.

Use of al followed by an infinitive, seen here in the phrase al contacto, is a common way of saying in Spanish that something occurs as the result of another event. Also note how the word order in this sentence is different than what it would be in English. Such use of verb-followed-by-the-subject word order is much more common in Spanish than it is in English.

Eran las primeras flores de Nochebuena.
These were the first poinsettias.

The translation of "They were ..." also could have been used. As the subject is often omitted in Spanish sentences, you can let context determine the smoothest translation.

Ya tenía regalo adecuado para el niñito Jesús.
Now she had a suitable gift for the baby Jesus.

Ya is a very common adjective whose translation varies widely depending on the context. The adjective adecuado is obviously related to the English "adequate" (making it a cognate). See how a different translation is chosen to make it fit the context better

A quiet evening at home and getting ready for a busy weekend.

Yashi Koshi!!