Sacrament City

Flores + Segovia=True Love 4Ever!

The last part of our trip to Texas took place in Corpus Christi, famous for being the home of Latin popstar/martyr Selena and the headquarters for our fast food favorite, the Whataburger. It also happens to be home base for Sergio's mom's side of the family and the location for the Humberto-Veronica wedding, the main event and purpose of our travel north of the border . We took a ton of photos until the battery ran out (doh!) about halfway through the reception. Here's a rundown of our time in Corpus.

We bid Houston adieu on Friday, and after a three hour drive through what we guess might be called coastal prairie (basically a tropical Iowa?) we crossed some impressive bridges and spotted oil platforms on the horizon. We had made it to the capital of South Texas, Corpus Christi! We were running a little late so we zoomed over to our hotel, buttoned Ivan into his suit and raced over to St. Thomas More.


Just in time, we watched Chipper and Veronica's rehearsal. They looked super and we followed up their show with Ivan's baptism.

Dapper Chipper (and his lovely lady)!

Just before Ivan went berzerk...

The logistics of all of this was complicated, as you might imagine, and we owe the night's smooth success to Ivan's padrinos and Sergio's cousins, Raymond and Linda. They are amazing and will be fantastic guides for Ivan's spiritual and religious life. Father Tomasz, a son of Poland, was also unbelievably kind and accommodating. Not to mention the bride and groom who were so generous about sharing their weekend with us. All in all, we felt pretty lucky to be surrounded by so many cool folks when our son "lost his tail" as they say.

La Madrina

Il Padrino

After the wedding rehearsal/baptism double-header, Raymond and Linda had an open house where everyone had a fine time catching up with their far-flung relations and getting to know the newest members of the family on Veronica's side.

Baptism cake!

Cousins from Texas...

...and New York...

...and Mexico!

Narda's godmother, Tia Mary

Father and Son and Chips and Dip

The next day we had a little bit of free time before the wedding, and so we braved some rainy weather and made our pilgrimage to the Whataburger on the Bay.

I'll have mine with extra pickles...

We managed to talk Sergio's sister's family into joining us for the hamburger party and afterward we all headed over to the seaside to pay tribute to the Selena memorial and take a very brief cruise on the docks.

So young, so beautiful, so rust-covered...

Thank Selena for all she's done for you.

On the docks, shrimp boats roll in to sell their catch fresh 'n' direct. Seeing us snapping photos, this salty dog called us over to show off what he found in his nets that day: a hammerhead shark!

We had no idea a human being could be this red.

No comment here: this is fathers' business.

Oh, and yeah, while we were doing all of this we were also closely following the Texas-Oklahoma game via radio.


As you will note above, Ivan had his Longhorn gear on all morning, and we watched the end of the game and the Texas victory back at our hotel. Who's Number One?

Texas FIGHT!

The wedding was back at St. Thomas More and it was beautiful. Leila and Carol provided beautiful musical accompaniment and the bride and groom looked like they had just stepped off the top of a wedding cake. Adorable.

Hooray for Marriage!

After the wedding, we met up at Chipper's family's place for an outdoor evening reception featuring great food, a beautiful garden and super music including mariachis, a Latin jazz band and dance music courtesy of DJ Chipper himself.


The people-watching was pretty good all night: a real mash-up of Chipper's Texas family, Veronica's family from Chicago and all of their friends who came from all around the world. We suspect that hailing from the film/art world in Los Angeles contributed to some of the entertaining sartorial choices on display. But as usual, Tio Chippy probably took the prize for best dressed as his slim-cut tuxedo with black cowboy hat was pretty much a knock-out. Take that art school dudes!

Also looks good in a hat.

It's rare that Sergio gets to see both his brother and sister, so we took advantage of the photo op.

Narda's still the short one.

It was a glorious evening and we were sad to go. But we needed time to pack up our bags and head back to Mexico City on Monday. Ivan started recharging his batteries right away...

The dog's name is Shakira. Seriously.

All the best to all of our loved ones in Texas. It was great to see y'all and to bring Ivan to one of his homelands.