Dragos helped build a house for Habitat for Humanity a couple weeks ago.  This was taken as he returned from the building site.



He let Andrei try on his hardhat when he got home.



Andrei fell asleep with his favorite tools in hand the other day, so I snapped this photo.  The hippo on the left is also a favorite of his.  He calls it his "motomus."



My dad retired this summer, and so far he's gone packing on horseback through the wilderness areas of Oregon twice.  I just love this picture.  It's my dad in his element.  He's like a skinny John Wayne with an AARP card.  I think he looks ruggedly dashing in this photo.   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xEzGIuY7kw

Music video by "Weird Al" Yankovic from the album "Straight Outta Lynwood"

"...fluent in Javascript as well as Klingon." I heart this song. Weird Al rocks my face off.

Last September (no, not September 2008, I mean September 2007) I was given by Dragos' lovely cousins a gift certificate to The Picture People to get Andrei's photo taken professionally.  I believe they had hoped I would get his picture taken while he was still an infant, but by habit of procrastination I only just today got them done.  At first it was, "Well, I want to wait until his hair is cut," and then it was "We're just too busy this month," and then it was "..." (nothing, because I forgot about the gift certificate).  Then I remembered but we were going to Romania for three months, and when I got back, Utzu needed another haircut.  Anyway, below are a couple of the photos that I liked best.


He looks good in blue.


This is my favorite.  He looks so mischievous.  That's my wuzel!


He discovered his zipper is a choo choo train.



For more pictures see my album of our session with The Picture People on zazzle.com.

Hello again to everyone (anyone?) who reads my personal web log on myspace.com!  I have been MIA for quite some time.  I have indeed since my last post returned to the good ol' US of A from Romania, and my experiences in that country have truly enriched me in ways I couldn't have imagined.  But that is a different conversation from the one I want to have today.

I am really in love with those SAHMs that are just so SAHMy and perfect and organized and who post blogs frequently containing pictures of their family, events they've attended, things they've knitted, pies they've baked, etc.  As a SHE-SAHM (see flylady.com), I usually spend my wuzel-free time surfing the net admiring said SAHMs and their homemade potholders and making plans to be just like them.  By the time I have established a plan, my wuzel usually wakes up, and I'm back to square one with a messy house, not knowing what's for dinner, laundry that is screaming desperately to be washed, and a front yard full of weeds.  It's at that point that I usually give up on my plans to be the perfect mother and homemaker and just try to get by without any household items being broken or anyone being (seriously) injured that day.

So now I am ready to try again: Ready to try to pick back up the blog (only for a few minutes every other day or so!) to try to share with family and friends some pictures I've taken and some of the things that happen to us day to day.  I will try desperately to overcome my desire to appear put together and intelligent and perfect so that I might actually finish a post and still have time to get some chores done during nap time.

Today Andrei couldn't resist the urge to jump in a huge muddy puddle, even though Mama had repeatedly told him it was not allowed and to "make a good choice" (you may laugh, but you'd be surprised that saying this phrase actually works for me most of the time).  Consequently he muddied-up his nice new tennis shoes and jeans.  I immediately took him home to try to do some damage-control on the shoes (which are mostly white) and was actually quite successful with some carpet cleaner and a tooth brush.

Here are the shoes afterwords.  I wish I had a before picture.


Then it was lunch time, and since I am not the perfect SAHM, I quickly cooked him some dinosour chicken nuggets and let him have the apple juice capris sun he'd been asking for all morning.  After sitting him in his chair with his nuggets and juice, he informed me that he needed a fork.  "Mama, it's a fowk!"  He is not so uncivilized as to eat even chicken nuggest without a fork.  Mama is a savage.  So I gave the little prince his silverwear and left him to eat, only to come back a few minutes later to see him asleep in his chair, fork in hand.  He was tired because it's been cold at night, and he won't sleep with a blanket on, so he woke up several times during the night, as well as early this morning.  I think we will have to turn our heater on at night if it continues to be cold.



So in closing I would like to say that I love my job.  SAHMing is the best job in the world (for me).  I just wish I were better at it and could actually put all those plans into action that come into my head during the day after I've had my coffee. 
 

So I haven't posted in a while, because I've been lazy busy.  I just wanted to say that although I haven't posted a blog, I have posted new pictures from our trip to the Cross on Mount Caraiman WWI Memorial



and our trip to the Black Sea.



So, check it out, yeah?

Now excuse me, my toddler has escaped outside...

Click here to see Utzu the builder.  Finally, we'll be able to get those remodeling projects done around the house that we never seem to have time for.

I have tried to write this post three times, and each time something has happened at the last minute, and all my data was erased, so let's hope this one makes it into the blog.

Sunday was Andrei's 2nd birthday.  We had a small but lively party.  Andrei had three friends over: Theo, a two-and-a-half-year-old hurricane on legs, Maria, a seven-year-old perfect princess, and Andrei (there are a lot of Andreis in Romania), a one-and-a-half-year-old quiet, well-behaved little guy.  Naturally, Andrei played mostly with Theo.

Theo the hurricane.

For dinner, we had four different kinds of meat, and that doesn't count the salami, fish, and patte that was served with the first course.  This is typical Romanian dining.

Oh, and that's not coke.  It's Aurel's home made wine!

Andrei had tons of fun.  In place of "Happy Birthday to You..." we exclaimed to Utzu "La Multi Ani!" (literally, "To many years!") and sang the Romanian birthday song with the lyrics:

Multi Ani Traiasca, Multi Ani Traiasca! La Multi Ani! (2X)
Cine Sa Traiasca, Cine Sa Traiasca? La Multi Ani! (2X)
Andrei Sa Traiasca, Andrei Sa Traiasca! La Multi Ani! (2X)

Roughly this translates to:

He lives many years, lives many years! To many years!
That who lives, that who lives? To many years!
That Andrei lives, that Andrei lives! To many years!

(Disclaimer: This is my own, very-possibly-flawed translation.)

Andrei liked the part where he got to blow out the candle...



...and also the part where he got to eat cake.

Overall, I think it was a complete success.  La Multi Ani to my little two-zel!



(See my pictures for more party photos!)

Tomorrow is Andrei's 2nd birthday.  My how time flies when you're changing diapers!  (We are working on potty training.)  Today Lala made a very yummy-looking cake which we will eat tomorrow at his party.  Andrei wouldn't eat a sample of the cake, but loved the frosting!



He has a chocolate fettish.  He won't eat any sweets unless he's sure they contain at least some chocolate.  I guess the cake didn't look chocolatey enough. 

Tomorrow Andrei will have four friends over of varying ages and sexes.  He's quite popular here.  He already has more friends than I had in junior high.  We will have a Romanian birthday party tomorrow.  That's like an American birthday party, except it's in Romania, and no one sings "and many more on channel four..."  I will post more when I have pictures from the party.

Today we visited the vulcanii noroiosi (mud volcanoes) in the Berca commune area of Buzau County, Romania.  (See map.) 

Read this helpful sign to find out all you'll ever need to know about the vulcanii noroiosi:



For those of you who can neither read Romanian nor microscopic print, here is a bit of information I stole from wikipedia translated from the sign:  These small volcanoes bubble up methane and other gases from 3000 meters below the earth's surface.  (Aha!  The cause of global warming.)  The mud they expell is cold, since it comes from the continental crust layers, and not the mantle, and forms clay as it dries.  The soil formed by the mud from the volcanoes is very salty, so nothing grows in the immediate area of the volcanoes.  You can see in the pictures I've posted the drastic contrast between the arid landscape formed by the volcanoes and the lush greenery of the Romanian countryside.



I really enjoyed seeing these volcanoes.  They reminded me of a fourth grade science project.  Andrei liked to throw rocks in them.  I don't think I'll be able to get all the mud out of the shirt he wore.  I guess it's sacrificed to the mud volcano gods.  See my pictures for more muddy madness!

Top ten things I like about Romania

1.  The food
2.  Eating the food
3.  Dragos' family
4.  The monasteries and churches
5.  The commercials (very funny)
6.  The laundry smells better and is dried outside
7.  The water heaters which never run out of hot water
8.  The weather (very temperate)
9.  Everyone likes Americans and speaks English
10.  The countryside and mountains are beautiful!

Top ten things I don't like about Romania

1.  Costs a lot to get here
2.  The concentrated fumes from automobiles
3.  The winding, bumpy, pot-holed, congested streets with crazy, yelling-bad-words-in-Romanian drivers
4.  The prices. (Things are often more expensive here.  But not food, thank goodness!)
5.  Fear of pick-pockets
6.  Fear of vampires
7.  Fear of vampire pick-pockets
8.  Getting fat from the food
9.  Being far from family and friends
10.  Being embarassed when you are confused about RON vs ROL or misunderstand how much something costs and get the "are you an idiot or what?" look when you hand over four times as much money as required. 



Infamous vampire pick-pocket