Anniversary Update - Warning: May contain reference to spicy food

If you had the chance to read our last post about out anniversary, you would know that it was a rough day. Fortunately we did have a chance to go out last Friday while Dari watched AJ for us.

I had been telling Iva about this Mexican restaurant that I have gone to with colleagues from work and we never really made the effort to go there. It is seriously the best Mexican food that I've had. So I took Iva there for dinner and afterwords, she told me that it was the best she'd had as well.


The restaurant is called Guadalajara's and is located in the ghetto part of Phoenix, but when you go inside the atmosphere is not too bad. It's nothing fancy, but when everyone inside is Mexican, you know that it is pretty authentic. It's on Central Ave. and I-10.

After eating dinner, we went to get ice cream from Sonic and went up to one of the lower hills on South Mountain to look at the city lights. At some of the picnic tables, a live mariachi(?) band was performing for a large family so we enjoyed the music while watching the the sunset. Iva noticed that all the Mexican men were wearing cowboy hats and thought it was pretty funny.


We had a good time. It was the first time that we've both been away from AJ like that since he was a newborn so it was strange, but we had a great time that made up for the lame day on the 27th.

6th Anniversary

Wednesday was our 6th Anniversary of our first/communist marriage. Iva's sister is in town and offered to watch AJ so we could go out and do something fun. It was not, to say the least, a good day.



I was already covering one colleague at work as he was out on vacation. On top of that, my boss took an emergency day off and had to cover for her. Finally, my assistant took the day off so I had triple the work. It was one of those days where I had a case that went bad and a client was upset at us (not my fault). Iva was tired from AJ as he was starting to get sick again.


That afternoon, I finally left but pretty stressed out due to the escalated case load at work. We decided that we would all go out, I would drop Iva and Dari off at Target while I took AJ to an urgent care pediatrician. It took three hours to see a doctor. At 10:30 AJ was diagnosed with two ear infections and bordeline strep. I don't recommend Good Night Pediatrician to anyone. It was so late that Iva and Dari were waiting outside a dark Target and all pharmacies were closed.

Fortunately we went out Friday night and had a good time, but Wednesday was a pretty rough day for everyone.

(Special shout out to the Turkish Fly on Iva's left shoulder in the first picture. Though your life was short, oh four winged one, you have joined the halls of immortality which many of your colleagues have never achieved. If we had photoshop, you would probably be forgotten).

Family Reunion

This is Hans covering for Iva again. She is not feeling well and neither am I, but we just got back from our family reunion in Island Park, Idaho and I wanted to post a few pix. Below is a pic of the Tetons that I took while driving from Jackson, WY to Island Park while returning from Denver (long story). We spent a day in Yellowstone and saw the major attractions: My grandpa was a land developer at Henry's Lake near West Yellowstone. While he sold our family cabin some years ago, we have a family tradition of carving our names into trees up in the mountains that only our family knows how to reach. We found family names in the aspen trees all the way back to 1977 and all family members carved their names once again: We also had a family night around the fire where my brother and sister decided to be funny and sing the blues.



Here are some other family pix:

The new Phantom of the Opera

The Phantom of the Opera is one of my favorite movies. Today we were listening to the soundtrack and A.J. got caught up in the music and started to sing.

He is also learning some new dance moves, video of that coming soon

Accessorize correctly

Lately A.J. has been into fashion:)

O.K. not exactly and his dad hopes that he never will, but he loves my jewelry and to wrap around his neck scarfs or anything. And don't forget the sunglasses at least two pairs at a time.

with cape:

yellow is in (and food around the mouth:):

stripes are cool:

Hat for the Summer:

And all time classic - newspaper hat and a pacifier (pants are not necessary;):

Catching up

I have been slacking a lot lately. I want to blame my iron deficiency for making me so tired, but mostly it's the lack of organization skills and the limbo we are in right know not knowing if we are moving or not.

Hmm, where to start?

1. I miss already my family and friends from Bulgaria. This is probably one of the things that I miss is to have them live close by, so we can see each other often.
I'll post some more pictures from Bulgaria soon, I promise:)

2. Here it is so hot and humid for the last week or so. We had a few big storms and a few fires in the area right before that.

3. We went to the Museum of Science and it was fun.

4. Fourth of July we stayed at home. It felt good just to be lazy and play Wii with our friend Matt. I'm getting better at bowling and pretty soon I'll have more points than Hans (I wish).

5. A.J. is eating only normal food and drinks real milk. He is addicted to oatmeal and blueberries. So happy about it! He loves our community pool.

6. A.J. is getting to a stage that he wants to eat by himself. These leave me with a lot of messes to clean after every feeding and piles of laundry.

7. I spent a lot of time looking for a new home on the East Coast. I try to be positive and do not compare our house with the houses out there.

I need a vacation:)

Bulgarian Friends

Last night I wrote a very long post and I published it but today I change my mind and I just delete it.
Anyway, while we were in Bulgaria A.J. made so much new friends. It was great to see my friends and A.J. to had a chance to become friend with them and their kids.
Irena
Irena and Petya are actually my sister's friends from school, but over the years they became very good friends if mine too. Irena still lives in Pleven and Petya lives in Belfast, IR. She has a little boy-Shei and he is so cute.


Shei, Petya and A.J.
Tsveti is married to Hans' good friend Tyson and this is the first time I saw her since she got married.

Tsveti
I know Natalia probably for almost 10 years. She came back from the Czech Republic and it was great to be able to see her and her little boy Joe. She also has two older kids Dani and Koki...what can I say, her kids really love me:)

Koki, Joe, Natalia and A.J.

Kisses:)
Lucy used to be married to my cousin. Things didn't work out between the two of them but we still keep in touch. She is an amazing person and A.J was in love with her and his cousins- Tedi and Stasy.

Lusi and A.J.

Tedi, Stasy and A.J.
Natalia was my sister's roommate from college and I really love her. She is one of the coolest people I know. She was expecting her second boy (he was born on June 25). Her older son Alex and A.J. played so well together.

Nati, Alex and A.J.


I had a great time with all of my friends and I already miss them a lot.