Parties!

In May we had some more partying. We did our nails and Eve was our nails expert, and we also had a ZUMBA workout and sweated all the bad stuff out. Meeting with my dear friends once a month or more often makes me really happy. I'm so thankful to have them close and to be able to hang out and have fun with them!

Beautiful nails and hands

ZUMBA fun

This pretty much sums up the party :)

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.

Romanian BBQ and Baby Shower Fun

At the beginning of August a few of us got together and had a little Romanian BBQ. The Geambasu's brought delicious mici, and we also had other really good food. It was fun to see Irina, Fred and their baby Ashley, Maria, Tayler and bebe Luca who is not a bebe anymore but a cute toddler, and some of the friends who still live around in Utah but we don't get to meet too often. Ever since they found out that I was pregnant, Cristina and Eni decided to organize a baby shower for me. After weeks of preparation Cristina was able to come to Utah from DC and together with Eni they put together the shower. It took place in Pleasant Grove, at Lia's apartment and it was tons of fun. So, who came to the shower? Here's the list: Cristina Boey, Eni Hawkins with her kids Aren and Adam, my sister-in-law Charity and cousin Sara, Claudine Hatch, sora Miron Zenovia from Brasov, Lia Nielson, Eve Jaynes, Ioana Goodwin, Karina Clement, Summer Kaufman, Holly Moore and Mariana Palade. Unfortunately Irina and her sister Ioana couldn't be there but they had shown their support before the shower and I know that their hearts were there with me. We played games, had yummy treats, took pictures and of course I got to open lots of cool gifts. Thank you so much to the organizers and to everyone who came. I was really happy to have you all there.

4th of July

So, life is been interesting since we graduated. I'm working for a company called Western Standard, doing Romanian<>English translation and David still works at BYU because they let him work on campus. It's pretty complicated but it worked out for him and we're not complaining. Not too long ago we found out that David got accepted into the Ethnochoreology Graduate Program at the University of Limerick, Ireland and we've been getting ready to go there at the end of August. Keep your fingers crossed that we'll be able to go. Why I say that? Well, it's been quite an adventure trying to get student loans. Not only is it hard to obtain loans if one goes to school in the States but it's even harder if one wants to study abroad. So, right now we're in the process of applying to Stafford Loans and other loans to help pay for out plane tickets and at least the first month's rent. I will be looking for a job once we get there but for now we have to rely on loans.

What else happened since the end of April... Well, we graduated and walked on the 24th of April, went to California at the end of May for Aunt Sheri's funeral, celebrated my birthday in California, worked a lot, got some dental work done and my wisdom teeth out (which cost almost $2,000 - yeah, that's where my salary went!) and had fun at the Highland Games at Thanksgiving Point and celebrating 4th of July in Provo watching the Stadium of Fire and in Midway having hamburgers and corn on the cob. So... a pretty busy summer so far. I only got to go to the pool twice this summer and I really want to go, but I went to the gym more and actually lost 10 lbs. since February. I'm pretty proud of this particular accomplishment. A couple other things we did were spending time with our friends Carl and Karina, going to baby Adam's blessing in Payson (Eni and Aric's baby boy), celebrating Romanian and Catholic Easter with Romanian friends and having a cool Romanian barbecue in the Rock Canyon Park in Provo. Oh, one other thing I'm happy about is my green bell pepper plants that I've been taking care since they were little babies and who are now all grown and are producing very tasty green peppers. :)

I'll give you a little more details on some of the stuff that we did. I told you that we went to aunt Sheri's funeral. Aunt Sheri is David's aunt and his mom's sister. She was very young and has three kids. She was engaged to be married and died in a car crash in California. Charity, David's sister was in the car when it happened but she was very lucky to only break her arm and get some scratches and bruises. Of course that is not lucky but it's better than dying... So, we went to the funeral and it was really sad but it was good to meet and see family that we only get to see once every couple of years.

The Barbecue with the Romanian and friends was really cool though. We had a wonderful time with Cristina and Brandon, Amy and Jeanene, Viorica, familia Geambasu, Maria-Taylor and bebe Luca, Eni-Aric-baby Adam and Aren, Eni's parents si Gaby creata. Fratele Geambasu cooked mici and sora Viorica brought branza si rosii, while Eni and het family brought some very tasty chicken drumsticks and cake. It was real fun especially watching the boys playing Bocci and enjoying each others company.

This is our summer so far. I'll try to post more in the future, once we get to Ireland. I'll also post a few pictures of the events I talked about above. Love and hugs to everyone!