Summer has officially started! - Summary of the week of June 18-23 (Tuesday - Wednesday)

Tuesday found us all excited to try out our summer schedule. The kids did awesome with their school and chores; I didn't hear any complaints and that made my day. It took way longer to get those chores done, however, than it normally takes me. Hopefully they will get the hang of the things soon and start getting them done without my assistance. I was already tired by midday, and then without thinking too much, while the kids did their quiet time, I attacked their school work files. This was way bigger job than I had anticipated or had the time. We were due to take Gillian to her piano lesson. I took the kids to my friend's house so they could play with friends while Gillian had her lesson, but my friend wasn't home, so I had to take the boys with me. It was a warm day, and as Gillian was having her lesson, the boys and I sat on the front yard reading books. Neither of us enjoyed it though because we were just too hot. Thank goodness Charlton was asleep. I left all the doors open for him to have fresh air, and prayed the lesson would be short. As we were about to leave, my friend texted me and upon learning about how her forgetfulness had impacted my afternoon, redeemed herself and invited us for dinner. I dropped Gillian to a birthday party she was invited to, and then my boys and I relaxed at my friend's house. When we got home, we were all tired, but we had survived the day.

Wednesday is a fun day for us. A few ladies in our ward have compiled a list of activities to do and see on Wednesdays, so we've made this day the designated fun day of the week. The first field trip was to Mrs. Grossman's Sticker Factory located in Petaluma. This wasn't an exciting place in itself, but it brought a lot of fun memories of past stickers used in my youth. I didn't have them back in Albania, but when I got here to the States, I became an avid collector of Mrs. Grossman stickers. I even saw most of them displayed on the wall with stickers for each year. The kids enjoyed watching how they were made, but they mostly loved receiving free stickers. My older children were never very fond of stickers. Charlton on the other hand loves stickers. It is the highlight of story time when the librarian invites the little ones to get a sticker for being good listeners. So, I have to say this field trip was mostly for Charlton. I even saved all of my stickers for him. As soon as we got home, my older boys stuck all of their stickers on the rails of their beds. Welcome to the boys' world!

In the evening, I attended my friend's farewell party. It was bittersweet. I'm so happy for Amy to have found a place she loves, nearby her family and surrounded by great schools. But I'll miss her. She has a happy disposition that is very contagious, and we have become great friends these past two years. She will be missed.

Busy, the kind that makes one happy

These past two Fridays I've babysat all day young children for a couple of my friends. I'm normally unafraid of taking care of kids, no matter how many. On both of these times, however, I was a bit apprehensive since I was going to take care of an infant and toddlers (plus my own toddler), and all of this without the help of my sweet Gillian. In the end, it all worked out, but I was exhausted. We had at one point, after my kids got back from school, and their friends came to visit, about 9 kids running around, playing and needing attention. The hardest part for me was feeling confident once more about taking care of infants. Charlton is almost three and he takes care of himself pretty well. He has learned to entertain himself, look at books by himself, pour milk into his bottle on his own, and he has even practiced grabbing food from the fridge and feeding himself. I don't have to do much with him, except have fun. For this reason I had totally forgotten to take care of a baby, and I had to think about the feedings and remind myself to change their diapers often. It all came back and I didn't have as hard of a time as I thought, but I told myself that babysitting my friends' infants was as far as I would go for now. I am very happy with my life, the number of the children I have, and the age that they are at the moment. I know infants are sweet and adorable, (and those babies I took care of were truly sweet and very low maintenance,) but right now I'm so enjoying my kids, the relationship I have with them, the long talks about everything, from school lice to Shakespeare to chore robots, that I feel this is the life for me. I have found a wonderful balance between my personal life, growing and developing my own talents, and giving attention to my four kids. I still read to all of them, one hour to Charlton and James each, and then in the evening to all four. I take them to activities and field trips. They help with every chore in the house from laundry to dishes to cooking. I go on dates with each of them, and I truly enjoy being their mother. It is also a blessing to have a husband who takes care and loves me. After each of these two specific babysitting experiences, he took me out for dinner so I could relax and spend some time with him without being disturbed by kids. So if I ever get baby fever, I've already found the solution - babysit for my friends.

These past two weeks I've enjoyed looking for gifts for a few of my friends. It seems these were the weeks when all of my friends had their birthdays. I was able to share six gifts, four for birthdays (3 local and 1 by mail) and two "just to say hello" kind of gifts (these are my favorite kinds). I love receiving gifts of any kind, but the thoughtful ones are especially appreciated more, so when I give others gifts I try to think of them and what they like, but also something that is a signature of mine. For example, I like books, so every gift among other things has a book in it, but of course the book has to be something that that friend would like to read. I don't think Elijah would get truly excited if I gave him a Jane Austen book! I think the process of thinking and finding something perfect for that certain person makes my experience of giving even more enjoyable. It takes time and thoughtfulness, but it is all worth it. To make someone happy and feel loved is one of those things that brings joy into my life. I can still see in my mind one of our friends' face getting all red and happy when we surprised her with a birthday party at my house last week. Although we had about 20 kids running around in the house, all of us ladies had a great time, and I think our birthday girl was very touched by our love. I will cherish forever the warm hug my friend from Virginia visiting me this week gave me when I presented her with a birthday gift. She might not receive many gifts, but she knew this one was given with love. The love and the hug made us teary, and we both realized and appreciated the importance of our friendship. In the words of Apostle Paul: Charity never faileth.

Last week-end I was touched by the words of God through our modern day prophets and apostles as spoken in General Conference. I was filled with gratitude for my blessings, love for my family, longing for Heavenly Father, humility and desire to be better, and a refreshed commitment to God's commandments. My heart was overflowing with the Spirit as I listened to story after story, testimony after testimony, each bearing witness of the divine love that God has for us and the perfect sacrifice that Jesus performed for us so we could make it back to our Heavenly Father. The word of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and their application into our lives can truly change us mere mortals from something ordinary to something remarkable, to divine beings.

This week we celebrated Easter, starting with Palm Sunday, and remembering Jesus, His atonement and resurrection throughout the week. We read scriptures and talked about our Savior and His love for us. I had the children help me perform service to our friends. And we attended a fun egg hunt organized by one of our friends. It's fun talking to my children now because they have started to ask questions and wonder about things in life. I didn't even have to approach the topic of Easter eggs; they asked me about the significance on their own. After explaining it to them, they seem to really understand, and when they went to the egg hunt they knew that the party was for all of them to be together and have fun. And fun they had!

We continued our Easter celebration early this morning by having the kids get dressed and be ready with church clothes right away. Our church doesn't start till 12:30, so we had time to share presents with the kids and have fun dying eggs (each of us chose our own color).


Sacrament meeting was very special today. The Spirit was so strong that I couldn't hold my tears, from being overwhelmed by its presence. We had a returned missionary speak to us about offering to God a humble heart and a contrite spirit. It is a miracle to see these 19 year old boys going through trials and coming out of them polished and truly men of God. And then the ward choir sang "This Is the Christ" a song that added powerfully to the Spirit of the meeting. Our concluding speaker was a member of the ward who spoke about Easter and its importance in our lives. It was a very good talk and I was again touched by divine love of Jesus Christ for all mankind, for me. In my later years in Albania, when religion was finally allowed, Easter is the one holiday I remember the most. I've beautiful memories going to attend various Catholic masses on Good Friday (we called it Black Friday there because of His death) or Greek Orthodox vigil on Saturday night "waiting" for Christ to be resurrected, watching tens of people holding candles and saying prayers till midnight. My church experience today was as beautiful and even more powerful. Members, young and old, sharing their testimonies by word and music and bringing the Spirit by their humble and simple act of knowing their Savior. I know Christ lives! He is my Redeemer. I'm grateful for his birth, life, atonement, and resurrection. I'm grateful that we have living prophets today who testify of Christ to all the ends of the world. I've seen miracles happening in my life by simply following Christ's teachings. The divine hand of God is everywhere; we just need to have our eye focused toward Him and we'll be able to see clearly.

After church, we spoke about the atonement, took pictures, had a delicious dinner and finished our day by reading in the scriptures.

I had all of these ideas I wanted to do for Easter which didn't happen. However, looking back at our week, I'm happy we kept it simple. It helped us keep the attention on the Savior and His love for us, which is what Easter is all about.

To close this post I want to wish you a wonderful Easter by saying how the Greeks greet each other on Easter morning: Christ is risen!

Dates, farewells, and Christmas presents

For a while now, I have been taking each child on a date on Saturdays. This Saturday it was James' turn to go on a date with mom. He was very excited and kept saying that we couldn't take Charlton with us because this was his time with me. We held hands and started our date by eating a Cinnabon. James ate only a little bit of his; he wanted to save the rest for his brothers and sister. It touched my heart and I was so grateful for his sweet and loving personality. After that, we headed off toward a book store. We read a few books and then tried to choose some to buy and bring home. Again, James asked me if he could choose a book for Gillian and Jefferson. I helped him in finding the right ones for them. As for himself, he wanted to buy several, but we had to be satisfied with just two. We read those at the bookstore and then a couple times tonight. He kept saying to Elijah tonight that those were the books that mom bought for him when we were on a date together. He looked and sounded so proud. Knowing that the third child usually gets the least attention, I have always made sure that James spend a great deal of time with me. We read together, we play board games, we talk. However, Charlton is always with us, unless he is sleeping. I didn't realize that that was a big deal to James, till I saw him today feel so happy to have me for himself.

After dropping James off, I got a ride with a friend to a luncheon. We were throwing a farewell party to a friend of ours who is moving away. The day was absolutely beautiful, the food good, the company fabulous, and everybody seemed happy. I have to say, however, that farewell parties make me sad. It's so hard to build true friendships, and after you do, you want them to last for a long time. I'm so good in building relationships, but not so good in keeping them when life requires us or our friends to move. I think of many friends of mine that I haven't kept in touch for many years very often. I wish I could do better in calling or writing emails to them just to keep in touch. I know most people use Facebook to do just that, but that isn't what I mean just knowing what your friends are doing. I want to have and keep a relationship with those friends as if they were here. I would like to develop that quality.

When I got back from the luncheon, I got the kids ready to go and play at the park. They had been all day in the house playing soccer and basketball with my mother. I felt they needed to just go and run around without any purpose. I also wanted my mother to get some fresh air. Elijah had left the house early in the morning. He was attending a cooking class at the Sur La Table restaurant downtown San Francisco. He was going to learn how to make French pastry. As you may have guessed that was a Christmas present from me. I love French pastry and he loves to cook, what better present than to combine those two desires in one cooking class. He loved it. They had made a bunch of eclairs, napoleons, palmeras, and many more. I can't wait to taste the fruit of his labour.

Goodbye friends, hello school!

The Cannon family left yesterday. We had a wonderful time together. Our children and Paul's children get along well with each other, and we didn't hear any bickering between them the whole time they were here. We all enjoyed Yosemite and San Francisco, parks and mountains, waterfall and water fountains, restaurant food and home cooked meal, as well as each other's company. We'll miss the Cannon family.

My children's school started on Wednesday, but because we had guests and we were going places with them, I kept them out of school. With the Cannons leaving yesterday, I thought it wise for the kids to attend school. Actually, I wanted to keep them out today as well, being hot and all, but they were too excited and happy to meet new friends. Gillian started 3rd grade and Jefferson is attending 1st grade. Gillian's class has about 20 students, Jefferson's class has about 14, and 10 of them are kindergartners that finish around 11:30 a.m. With four students in the classroom for the rest of the day, Jefferson gets as much attentions as if he were at home. I love this charter school. I put Gillian's name in the list; maybe she'll get in next semester.

Having had so many visitors for two months non-stop, I decided yesterday was going to be a relaxing day. I tidied up a little and rested, read, and took care of the children. Today, I had every intention to wash sheets and towels, clean bathrooms and mop floors, and whatever else needed to be done. However, when I woke up this morning, our water heater wasn't working, so we had no hot water. Since I couldn't do my laundry, I decided I would rather go to the birthday party we had been invited than do any other chores. I know it doesn't make sense; I could have at least finish the other cleaning. I guess I hadn't had enough fun yet. I can actually imagine Elijah as he reads this post saying a shocking "What!!!" and shaking his head at the mention of the word 'fun.'

The children had a wonderful time playing with their friends that they hadn't seen in a while, and I enjoyed talking to my friends that I hadn't seen in a while. There isn't anything better to get you of the house than knowing you'll get to see and talk to your friends. Here are some of the pictures I took at the park:

Ice cream and music

I went out last night with some friends to celebrate Jenny's Birthday. We met at another friend's house for an ice cream party. There is nothing better than eating ice cream and exchanging news and jokes with your girlfriends! I had such a good time getting to know better all of those women, talking and listening to their stories. They all came from different background, different age group, and different stages in life. We had women ranging from just married to first pregnancy, to mothers of four kids to mothers with adopted children, women with interests from dance to journalism, to finance to literature, women with challenges and successes in their lives, and all of these women with a desire to be better mothers, wives, and friends. It was so fun to share stories from our lives and see that we are not that different from each other, and laugh at each other's funny adventures and anecdotes. One such funny story involved James and a 3 year old girl, daughter of one of my friends. One day we had them over for lunch, and while my friend and I were talking we hear these two little ones conversing. At one point, the little girl said to James that when her mother gets really angry she yells very loudly. James, in response, said that his mother yells louder. They were trying to outdo each other, unfortunately, in something not that good. We laughed, nevertheless. It was sad that they were comparing notes on their mother's weaknesses, but it was encouraging at the same time that we, mothers with a bit of temper, were not alone. We all had a good laugh. When I got home, I reflected on my week and my evening in particular, and felt grateful to be who I am with a loving family and kind friends.

One last note on this post. Tchaikovsky's birthday is today, and although most of you may not care about this fact, I'm pretty sure that most of you like his music. His personal life was one that involved all sorts of controversies and issues. He was engaged and then betrayed, married and then divorced, was thought to have had homosexual tendencies as well as insanity breakdowns, had a lady benefactor as well as the czar's support. However, he was never happy, and as it happens with many genius individuals, he found joy in his music. His musical accomplishments were as diverse as his personal life was controversial. Everyone has heard, if not seen the Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, 1812 Overture, and my mom's favorite "Eugine Onegin" (an opera). In honor of this great composer, I'll share with you a popular piece from the Swan Lake:

"My friends are my estate." - Emily Dickinson

The weather continues to be amazingly beautiful here. The mornings and evenings are chilly, but during the day one can go out in short sleeves. I had offered to help Alice take care of her two children while she finished an errand in the nearby town. When she got back, I told her I was expecting my good friend, Carolyn, one of my Virginia friends, to visit us for couple of days. Carolyn has been in Sacramento for few days teaching a seminar and while in Virginia we had planned for her to come and visit us when she was done with her seminar. She is going to be with us till Saturday, so I'm very excited to see her and catch up with her happenings of these two past months. I wished Cindy were here, too. Carolyn, Cindy and I attended Shakespeare plays together. Cindy and I would get angry at the play sometimes especially if it wasn't done right, or few times we would get angry at the injustice portrayed in Shakespeare plays. Carolyn would always be the one calming us by expressing her opinions in a very diplomatic tone. I have truly enjoyed becoming good friends with Carolyn and Cindy. They have always been there for me, encouraging, offering sound advice, making me laugh, and having fun. I love and respect them dearly.

As Carolyn arrived and we started talking, the children went out and started playing with bubbles. Sometimes, looking at their happy faces, I wish I were a child. Simple things make them happy: friends and bubbles. Somehow, even us adults aren't that much different. All we need to be happy is good friendships and sunshine. Thank you friends for making my life special. And to you Carolyn, and Cindy, thank you for being great friends to me at all times.
"Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour.
For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up." Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

Virginia is for lovers...

As we drive away from Virginia and travel from one state to another, I stand in awe at the beauty of this magnificent country. I'm so grateful to live in it. I'm grateful to have had the blessing of traveling in so many places, and look forward to seeing many more. But I have to say, I truly enjoyed my stay in Virginia. I love Virginia! I felt more at home in Virginia than anywhere else. I loved the driven and goal oriented people. I enjoyed visiting the historical sites, the museums, the parks, the monuments. I took pleasure in attending the many arts that the Northern Virginia/D.C area has to offer. I loved the fact that I could wake up in the morning and decide right there and then to take my kids out and learn something first hand. My favorite spots, and they are many, include Shenandoah Park, Great Falls, Williamsburg, Monticello, Jamestown, Mount Vernon, the Botanical Garden, Arboretum, the WWII Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln monument, the Washington D.C Temple, and many more.

However, my stay in Virginia has been so special primarily because of all of you, my friends. Thank you for all of your friendships, love and kindness you've shown toward me. I'll mention few names, with the full knowledge that I might forget some, so forgive me. I value so many of you for so many reasons, but for the sake of time and space I'll mention one quality that I like in each of you: Jenifer-brilliant, Katherine-understanding, Cindy-funny, Carolyn-diplomatic, Elizabeth-intuitive, Marcia-gracious, Aubrie-generous, Amy B-driven, Hillary-sweet, Emily H.-talented, Nicole- calm, Kylee-beautiful, Heather M- my liberal twin, Heather B-organized, Stephanie P-happy, Charish-amazingly mature, Suzanne- a bosom friend, Sharise-pure, Ann Marie-faithful, Jana-easy going, Rebecca Y.- capable, Bishop S-quick in understanding human nature and fun to be around, Paul- great father and a doer. I know I'm forgetting many more, but thank you to all of you for making my life in Virginia wonderful.