Another month in our lives

Another month has passed since my last update and many things have happened.

Our Jane is two months old!

Where does time go? It's true that this second month felt longer than the first but seeing Jane grow and be happy makes even the hard times worth it. Jane is already grown bigger, she holds her head up almost all the time and likes to stand up when you put her little feet on a firm surface. It also looks like her eyes are going to be blue, like her dad's which makes me happy since I really wanted a blue-eyed baby. :) She is just as good at sleeping at night. She does go to bed around 1:00 AM but then only wakes up once or twice to feed and goes right back to sleep until pretty late in the morning. I love it! She had a few nights when she cried and fussed and also had some colic for a couple of weeks but it seems that she is better now. She actually likes to fall asleep in bed rather than in someone's arms which is great. The only thing that made this second month a little worrisome is that beginning January 1st Jane started having pretty bad diarrhea. We went to the ER twice and only found out that she needs to pretty much overcome it on her own. We gave her rice water and soy formula and it seems that her diarrhea is getting better but is not completely gone even now, over a week since it started. We're still waiting for the results of her labs to see if it's the rotavirus or something else. Speaking of labs, it was so sad to see her scream as three men were holding her little body and head down to extract some stuff from her nose. I felt sick and started crying when I saw it. Let's hope that she won't have to go through awful things like that often in her life. On the 13th we'll have her two months appointment and she'll probably get her first round of shots, which I'm not looking forward to, but at least these are things that happen to all babies and will benefit her in the long run.

What makes me happy and helps me forget all sad things though is when Jane smiles at me. Her face lights up and she looks at me with her big blue eyes. I give anything to see that smile and feel her little hands and arms reach for me and grab me tight. There's no better feeling in the world.
Ruth & Eric's Wedding Luncheon

My friend Ruth got married on December 18, 2010 in Salt Lake. I was so happy to attend the luncheon held in their honor and to see her and her husband Eric and also Amy Ruesch. Ruth and I were companions in Timisoara during my LDS 6 weeks long mini-mission. We had a great time together and kept in touch after Ruth came back home to Utah and I came to BYU.

Christmas

Our Christmas Eve was fun as we opened tons of gifts, ate gingerbread cookies and drank hot chocolate. Thank you Mom for being here and making our Christmas wonderful. We probably wouldn't have had many gifts if it wasn't for her to get us a few things that we needed and some that we wanted. She got us a big Christmas tree, a vacuum cleaner and a crock-pot among other smaller things, for David she got a nice shirt, a hoodie, heads for our electric toothbrush and razor blades and, for me she got a Singer sawing machine which I'm really happy about, a pair of black pants, a shirt and a fluffy house robe. Jane got tons of clothes and toys and she also got a nice Christmas tree ornament from her mommy which she likes very much, even if in the picture it doesn't look like it. :)

From David I got a couple of crock-pot recipe books and a baby remembrance book and I got him a Wii game console and the Super Mario Galaxy game. Mom received three shirts, a pair of dressy black pants and a pair of jeans. We were all very happy with our gifts. :)

We spent Christmas day at the condo with David's family who came from Japan and Grandma and Grandpa Barlow who came from California. It was the first time that we had his entire family here for Christmas and it was a lot of fun.

We all opened gifts, had the traditional Johansen breakfast consisting of eggs, pinwheels with mince meat, sausage and OJ, played Christmas pictionary and had a traditional Romanian dinner savoring the delicious sarmale that my Mom made. Everyone loved them! :)

Jane's Blessing

The Sunday after Christmas (the 26th) we had Jane's blessing at church. Her grandma Jo made her a beautiful white satin gown for the occasion and she looked like a little angel in it. The blessing David pronounced was very special and beautiful and as he lifted her up for everyone to see, I was overwhelmed with emotion and my eyes and David's filled with tears of joy and gratitude for this beautiful baby that we are so blessed to have. We had a little get together after the blessing at our apartment, where we took pictures, had some more sarmale and had fun with family and friends. Eni, Aric and their kids came as well as Carl, Carina and Liam, and Eve, Shawn and Gabi. We had a great time together.

New Year's Eve

We spent New Year's Eve at home as a family and on New Year's day we had piftie, friptura and salata de boeuf. Yummy!

I wish David and Jane had enjoyed the celebration a little more. Why I say that? Well, as I mentioned before, Jane started having diarrhea that day while David got a nasty cold and his 19 year old cousin Richie passed away in the hospital. Not the New Year's day we expected but this too passed.

Romanian girls get-together at Lia's

On the first Monday evening of the New Year we went over at Lia's in Pleasant Grove and had tons of fun cooking supa cu galusti and playing cards. We laughed and felt good and forgot of all problems. In fact we had such a good time that we decided to make it a regular date, twice a month; so next get-together will be at my apartment and we're already looking forward to it.

Life in Utah

Happy New Year everyone! We're still here and still surviving! :) We've been pretty busy during the holidays. As I might have mentioned in my previous posting, both David and I got seasonal jobs and we were really happy about it. I worked for Western Nut Co. selling nuts and different nut-related gifts at University Mall in Orem and David worked for Borders Bookstore in Provo. My employment was terminated at the beginning of January after we sold pretty much everything at the kiosk. I am proud to mention that I sold more than any other employee, my total being about 20 thousand dollars in the few weeks I worked there! It's not like I was rewarded in any way for it or anything but it gave me a pretty good feeling. The other good news is that David was hired as a full-time employee by Borders. He never really gets 40 hours/week (it's more like 30 or less) but at least he has a job. He also interviewed with Simply Mac, a store that sells Mac computers and we really hope that he'll get that job even though is in Salt Lake because the pay is better than at Borders, there are some benefits that come with the job and he'll most likely be able to work 40 hours/week which will ensure a steady income.
Other than that, there isn't really much else happening with us. My sister Irina, who lives in Spain is visiting my family in Bucharest, my grandma from Iam moved to live with my family in Bucharest and my grandpa from Victoria seems to be doing allright dealing with the limitations that come with old age.
David's family is still living and working in Okinawa, Japan, a place we'd really love to visit someday, especially since it has nice weather even during winter-time. :) Ben, David's brother came and spent Christmas with us in Midway and Charity, the youngest sister is still studying music in Cedar City and came to visit us for a weekend, just last week. It was fun to have her and to spend some time with her.
I mentioned before a little bit about our Christmas. Well, this year we had a really fun Christmas. David's family got us tickets to go snow-tubing at Soldier Hollow, which was a lot of fun and the first time for me to enjoy, and Ben took us to see the movie Avatar in Park City at a nice theater. This movie is one of the most expensive movies ever made and as far as I'm concerned, it was pretty much one of the coolest movies I've seen in a long time. We all enjoyed it very much.
We hope that you all had a great time this holiday season and that we will keep in touch through 2010 as well!

Christmas Newsletter - 2008

Happy Holidays!

It was the day before Christmas. My family traveled, like every year, to the small village where my grandparents were spending their holidays. After five long hours the train finally stopped in Arpash, where my grandpa was waiting for us with a carriage pulled by his brown horse. It was getting dark and we decided that we needed to hurry. Poienita [Poyeneetza], the village of our destination, was 8 km away and because of the thick snow that kept falling throughout the week, we knew that it was going to take us longer than usual to get there. The carriage started to move slowly in the snow and our excitement grew with every step that the horse made. We were almost there and were going to have so much fun playing in the snow with our old friends! After about 20 minutes we arrived at a small hill. From far away the hill didn’t look like much of a challenge, but close up we noticed that the hill was icy and maybe a little too steep for the one horse that we had. When the horse started to struggle up the hill, we decided to get off the carriage to lighten its weight. Grandpa tried everything he knew to get the horse climb the hill but with no success. By now it was dark outside and we were still about half way to the village. After a while, a gypsy man who saw us struggling came to offer his help. My dad and the man pushed the carriage and grandpa helped the horse up the hill and they eventually succeeded in getting to the top. We kids got back on the carriage and grandpa walked in front leading the horse by its bridle. The horse was visibly cold very tired so my parents chose to walk behind the carriage. We were in the middle of some fields now and getting close to the village. Because my sisters and I weren’t moving much, we became very cold. I was holding Mira and I can still remember that my hands got so cold that I wasn’t able to feel them much anymore. I was crying and wishing we were home, back in Bucharest, in our warm apartment. We didn’t even have a Christmas tree here, in the village and probably Santa didn’t even know that we were here. The night was still and cold. The snow was glittering in the light of the moon and it was quiet. Only the wheels of the carriage sounded in the night. My parents were left behind and I was worried now that they might get lost and maybe eaten by some animal! The forest wasn’t too far away and I remembered stories that my mom and grandpa told us about wolves and bears that lived around here. And we kept going. After a long drive we got to the house. Grandma, who had been worried sick, hugged us and helped us in. She soon put some food on the table and we had a few goodies that she had prepared for the occasion. The house was nice and warm and smelled like cake and cabbage rolls. I love cabbage rolls, I thought. I was safe now. After we ate a little bit, grandma said that it’s time for us to go carol our next door neighbor, Tantee Jenica. I was embarrassed to sing and didn’t want to go out in the cold again but we didn’t have much of a choice. When Tantee Jenica opened the door and we started singing, I felt warm inside and I was happy. I loved Christmas Carols! Tantee Jenica sang with us and then invited us in and served us with really good cake. Later that evening, when we got home, my mom told me something amazing. She said that when they were walking in the silent night, they heard something like a choir singing in the distance. They couldn’t tell what song it was but they said that it was beautiful. Grandpa said that it was some choir from a close by church but my mom knew that they were choirs of Angels singing praises from the skies. I didn’t hear them because I was too busy and concentrated on my own suffering but as my mom talked, somehow I knew that she was right and I really wished that I heard them too. Christmas is a time of remembrance, a time for love, a time for giving and a time for family… Let us all give a little bit more of ourselves this Christmas season and maybe, if we sit still and listen, we might hear the beautiful choirs of Angels this Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas!

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Our Love for Folk Dance

As part of the international folk dance program at BYU David and I both had the great chance to be on SPAC, the team that travels within Utah at the end of every winter semester. We learned many dances from America, Mexico, Israel, Ireland, Ukraine and Hungary. We danced for thousands of elementary school children and traveled all the way to the border with Idaho for some concerts. In June we were privileged to go to Nauvoo, IL for two weeks, where we got better acquainted with the local history and culture and performed every evening on an outdoor stage very close to the Mississippi River. We visited Carthage Jail, and other sites in Illinois and Iowa. In Missouri we visited the Saint Louis Arch which is an impressive piece of architecture. It was a great experience. We had a lot of fun spending time with great friends and sharing our talents and love for folk dance. David decided that he loves folk dance so much that he would love to combine this love with his love for teaching by becoming a folk dance college teacher. He is currently applying to graduate programs offered in several places around the US and Europe. We hope that he will be accepted in the best one that there is. Wish him luck!

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Only One Semester Left!

Last fall semester was a challenging but good one for both of us. It was good because we learned many interesting things for our careers, but it was challenging also because we had difficult major classes. We succeeded however in passing all the exams and in getting good grades. Dahlee finished all her Linguistics major classes and has only one General Ed English class left, which she will be taking online next semester. David took some more classes for his Exercise Science major and is also getting very close to graduating. In fact., both of us are going to graduate in April 2009. What an exciting day that will be, when we will both receive our diplomas, the fruits of our long years of studying and sacrifices. We are happy to have gotten this far and anxious to graduate and move to a different stage in our lives. Dahlee, just like David, is applying to graduate programs in Applied Linguistics and is trying to get accepted into the online Academic Advisement Graduate Program at Kansas University . She would love to become a certified academic adviser and hopefully continue on to graduate school in the field.

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Work is great at the Open Access Computer Lab

One activity that takes most of our time when we’re not in school or doing homework is our work. We still work on the BYU campus, as Lab Assistants for the computer labs. Dahlee works for the Open Access Computer Labs and David for the Humanities Computer Labs. We like our jobs very much. Dahlee’s job is to supervise lab assistants, take care of problems in the labs, answer lab assistants’ questions and help patrons in the lab. David is a lab attendant and he has to help students and faculty with their problems in using the computer. We’ve been working at these places for more than three years now and so we have a good hang of how to do our jobs. As a result, David is always the one asked to update the computers and make them work for both students and faculty, while Dahlee gets a chance twice a month to participate in full staff meetings where together with other supervisors and with the managers discusses ways to improve the organization. As a result for our efforts and dedication we put into our jobs, we received raises at the end of the semester and the appreciation of our colleagues and managers.

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2008 Timeline

· From January until April we attended winter semester at BYU, which we finished successfully.

· In May we toured Utah and danced for elementary school kids.

· In June we went to Nauvoo, IL

· From mid-June until September, we worked full-time at the computer labs on the BYU campus.

· At the end of August we took a short vacation to Las Vegas, NV where we had a great time together.

· From September until December we attended fall semester at BYU and were successful in passing all our classes.

· At the beginning of November, Dahlee went to a Translators Association conference in Orlando, FL and learned a lot about how to be a better translator. She does translations from Spanish into English as a freelancer.

· We spent Thanksgiving with Patrick, Daniel and their family, and the day after, with our friends Carl and Karina.

· We are now getting ready for Christmas by decorating our house and packing presents.

“Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger”

2007 - A year of joy!

December 2007

Dear family and friends,

2007 is been a full year for us. We’ve been going to school full time at BYU and we also worked on campus while also being on a folk dance team. Here is a short review of our year. We hope that you’ll enjoy hearing from us.

In March David and Daliana decided to unite their lives and got married in Manti, Utah. They were happy to see so many family and friends who came to celebrate with them and they would like to thank everyone who sent presents for being so nice and thoughtful.

Daliana is a senior in College. She just decided to change her major to Humanities with a French language emphasis. Besides her major, Dali is working on a World Dance minor and a TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) minor. As a result, she still has a few more semesters to go until she graduates. Dali still works at the Open Access Computer Lab on campus and starting January she became a Shift Supervisor. She enjoys her job very much.

David is a senior in college as well, majoring in Exercise Science and planning to go to Medical School afterwards. He is working on a World Dance minor as well. David works as a Lab Attendant in the MAC/PC Humanities Computer Lab and as a web programmer in the Humanities Department. In May 2007 David went on a one-month folk dance tour to all the Elementary Schools in the Utah Valley. He enjoyed his experience very much and is excited to be doing it again next year. He thinks that this time it will be an even better experience because he will get to do it with Daliana.

Together, Dali and David went on a trip to California where they had a wonderful time with their grandparents and other family members, and before that they went to the Arches National Park and other National Parks in Southern Utah.

As you can see, we had a great year. We hope that you and your family had a prosperous year as well.

Marry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love,

David and Daliana Johansen