New Management -- Temporarily

While Iva and A.J. are out of town for the next five weeks, it looks like I am going to be the new sherriff in town, at least for this blog. I hope that I can live up to Iva's high standards of journalistic integrity and pithy social commentary. I will also try and include pictures of their trip in Bulgaria when she is able to send them along.

Let me introduce you to Iva's home town of Pleven.



This is the the Mausoleum dedicated to the Russian and Romanian soldiers that liberated Pleven from the Turks in the late 1800's. It is definitely the highlight of the town.



This is the Panorama. It is the best museum depicting an 1877-78 period Balkan liberation siege of Ottoman troops in diarama format that I have ever come across! And even better, it's only like $2 to get in, at least the last time I was there. I hope they haven't changed the musket exhibit!

Pleven is a pretty nice town. It has good food and nice people. It does get humid in the summer due to its closeness to the Danube, but it is a pretty cool place to hang out.

A.J.'s First Birthday!

Today is our little boy's Birthday! He is one and I can't believe how fast time flies. We celebrated his B-day last week with Grandma and Grandpa B. Today A.J. had his first cake and he got a lot of presents.

Tomorrow we may go to Red Robin. Last year we were having dinner there with our friends when we found out that he is about to be born. What a good boy, he waited until we got to the hospital. We want Red Robin to become a tradition for his B-day and this year he actually can try some food, probably just fries:)

Fun, fun weekend

Last week/end we had very special visitors-grandma and grandpa B. On Thursday Bruce went to Tuscon to take pictures of humming birds, and I had a girl day with Ginny. We went to warehouse for beauty supplies and we got new nail polishes and hair colors. Then we spent an hour at Michael's and had lunch at Sonic.

On Friday A.J. had his first professionally taken pictures. Ruby, the photographer, did a great job. We found her through Celebrating Adoption site - photographers from all over the country donate free sessions to adopted kids and their families. We found the site through Galina. We thought that it will be a good way to celebrate this special year for us. Ruby posted some of the pictures on her blog.

On Saturday all of us went to the Wild Animal Zoo and we had a great time. We saw all kinds of animals and we fed the giraffes. A.J. had his first carousel ride. He was scared but he didn't cry.

On Sunday we celebrated A.J.'s b-day with grandma and grandpa. Bruce took very, very cute pictures of A.J. 2 photo sessions for 3 days, A.J. is a real pro...

We are getting ready to celebrate A.J.'s real B-day on Friday, and this time he will have some cake, I promised Hans:)

Real Man of Genius

Today we salute you, Mr. 80 SPF Sunblock Wearer (mr. 80 SPF sunblock wearer)

There are 24 hours in a day; You're wearing 80 hour protection. If the sun fails to go down...You'll be ready. (don't forget the moonlight)

Your coconut-scented force field blocks out all the sun's rays and any stray rays from another sun, in another galaxy. (you're a star)

30 SPF? Please...you might as well be wearing cooking oil (something smells delicious)

So crack open an ice cold Mountain Dew (My mom made me change it to have no beer reference) Mr. 80 SPF Sunblock Wearer

In fact, feel free to crack one open at high noon, in the middle of the Sahara Desert

New Computer

Last week our laptop died. Over the weekend we bought a new desktop computer and I love it! Don't let the look to fool you, we didn't paid full price. The bad thing is that all our videos and pictures are still on the old laptop and since the power/baterry doesn't work I don't know when we will be able to transfer all of the stuff on the new one. Hopefully I can take new pictures soon and post some on the blog.

Things are pretty much the same around here. A.J is getting into more trouble every day and make us laugh so much. We are getting ready for his first birthday and trying to pack for our vacation in Bulgaria in 3 weeks.

More videos!

I know that I just posted some videos with A.J. but he is learning new things every day. It's fun to watch him and to take videos of him.

A.J. is a big boy!!!

In the last few weeks A.J. has changed a lot. He is looking more like a toddler than a baby. He makes the funniest faces, he is playing well with toys, loves to dance and he is....walking. Yes! He is very unstable, usually takes only few steps at a time but I'll give him credit - he is not even 11 months old yet! I didn't push him to do that...the Puffs did ;) I took some videos of him, sorry some of them are a little long...