Florida, here we come!

We are leaving for Florida today to visit my cousin Manuela and her adorable twins. We are excited and are so looking forward to enjoying the beach of Boca Raton - about an hour north of Miami. This will be the first time that we've gone this far south in Florida. Look forward to blogging when we come back about our time there!

A special birthday wish to: Mainha do Recife! FELIZ ANIVERSARIO!!! Estou pensando muito em voce hoje e lhe desejando toda felicidade, amor e paz do mundo! Um grande beijo bem especial para voce, com muitas saudades!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FAFA!

Tomorrow, July 9th, is my dear sister's birthday and I wanted to write a special blog, just for her. She’s currently visiting my mother in Portugal and will be able to read this in the morning.

Fafa, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I'm already thinking of you today and thanking God for your life! I so wish I could be there with you tomorrow to give you a special birthday hug but I'm happy to know that mommy has been spoiling you and already started celebrating your birthday a few days ago!

Here are some of the photos that she sent me of the surprise birthday party she had for you with some of her friends, last Friday night:

Mommy surprising Fafa with a birthday cake!

Fafa, Stephen and son of a friend

Beautiful birthday woman!

Honey, I’m so blessed to have you as my sister and your birthday is a special day for me to remember that! This year is even more special because we both know that we have never been as close to each other as we are now. God used the last difficult year to bring us closer together and this too, is one of the very special things that your nephew, Jonathan David, did for us. Thank you for being such a wonderful, loving and caring sister! I will always be grateful for how you loved and took great care of me during the last year.

I hope you have a wonderful day tomorrow and really get to enjoy your day, surrounded by people who love you so much! I look forward to all the amazing things that God has planned for you in this new year of your life. Each day that passes you become more of the amazing woman God created you to be and I feel very blessed to be a witness of it. I love you so much and can’t wait to see you again in September and personally give you your birthday hug!

FELIZ ANIVERSARIO MINHA QUERIDA IRMA!

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And also to honour this day - this is my (Jonny's) first blog entry! Happy Birthday Fafa!!

I am glad that you are having a wonderful time in Portugal and I am wishing you all the best for the year ahead. Thanks so much for the support you gave us over the last year and for being the wonderful sister-in-law and aunt that you are!!

Lots of love,

Jonny

Here we are thinking of you!

Squiz's visit!

My friend from work, Hope, her husband Jacob and their cutest son Eli came over for dinner tonight and we had a lovely time with them. Eli, who is affectionately called Squiz, just turned one and the last time I saw him he was about 3 weeks old - it was so nice to see him again and to see how he has grown. He's got so much energy and is a very happy little boy. Congratulations you guys for doing a great job with Squiz!

Hope, so happy we finally got to do this! I so appreciate you and look forward to getting together again soon after you return from your trips! In the meantime, I'll look forward to reading your blog! :-)

Fourth of July Holiday!

We spent a relaxing day today with our family friend Maria Helena. Jonny cooked a wonderful evening meal - we joined most American families today by having a "cook-out", just before the thunderstorm came.




Maezinha, you will be very happy to know that I took advantage of Maria Helena's visit today to finally clean out and organize our storage closet in the living room! We've been in this house now for almost a year and have been using the closet to hide all our mess and at the same time lose everything. I'm so relieved that we finally got it organized because every time we've had guests over and I've had to "find" something, I would get embarrassed of the mess and the fact that I could never find what I was looking for! Here is the evidence of the organized closet - there is so much space now that Jonny can even sit inside!

Remembering Jonathan David: 5 months on

Saturday, June 30th, was two anniversaries related to Jonathan David: 5 months since he was born and exactly a year since we found out that we were expecting him. We remember clearly our excitement of finding out we were pregnant - one year ago we had no idea what we would go through...

But glory be to God because we have come such a long way in our healing. We remembered Jonathan David a lot (as we do every day) but this anniversary was different - much less grief, more acceptance and peace. We are a living testimony to what 1 Peter 5:10 says: "And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast." There were days and weeks that I thought I would never be able to smile again; but here were are, 5 months later, smiling and restored. We are not the same people (we will never be and are grateful for that) and we miss our son so much - but we have been restored, are strong, firm and steadfast. Thank you Lord! You are a faithful and good God and we continue to trust in you.

Last weekend of June: Catching up with friends

I can't believe we are already in July! June just flew by! We are excited about this new month since we will be going to the beach soon: first to Florida (Boca Raton) to visit my cousin Manuela and family for a long weekend and then to Chincoteague in Virginia for a lab retreat with Jonny's colleagues. Should be fun!

We spent the last weekend of June catching up with friends that we hadn't seen for a long time. On Friday night, we had dinner with Daniel, Carol and Marcelo (Carol's sweet younger brother who's visiting from Brazil) at a lovely Cuban restaurant in Silver Spring. It was so nice to catch up with them after a long time and in much happier times.

On Saturday, we spent the evening with the Hargraves in their beautiful new home. We got to enjoy their wonderful hospitality and Dirck's cooking! It was also so nice to get to know their son Connor better (6 months) and to see how Taylor has grown (3 years old)! Thank you guys for a memorable evening together! Here are some photos of our time together:

The challenge of multi-culturalism at the pool

Summer is officially here and we are enjoying it to the full. It's so nice being outdoors, not having to grab a coat when leaving the house and knowing that whatever the forecast is for the day, it will be hot. After all, Jonny and I are from the tropics and we feel most at home in the heat. What has been especially nice is enjoying the pool in the evenings after work, it's so relaxing. The pools are open until 8 pm every night and when we go, we feel like we are on vacation and our daily work stresses are washed away...

But interestingly, our pool experience has shown us the challenges of multi-culturalism... Yes, I'm proud to admit that Jonny likes to wear a speedo to go swimming! :-) He was brought up in Malaysia mainly wearing shorts, but several years ago he was converted to the speedo after going to Brazil, where most men wear them. I remember clearly that the first time he wore one he said "wow, it's just so much more comfortable!" However, we have recently become highly aware that wearing a speedo in this country, at least where we live, is not cool - definitely not. It first started with a comment from a friend last year who said "Yes, I enjoy the pool in my neighborhood but when the guy in the speedo arrives, I leave the pool!". To which I responded "Oh really, Jonny likes to wear speedos"... to which our friend smiled with a surprised and embarrassed look... And then, as Jonny recently walked by a group of teenage boys by the pool, we heard one of them say "Uhm, speedo..." I try to encourage Jonny by saying "you look like a professional swimmer in them!" :-)

But the good news is that for the first time yesterday, there was a "speedo buddy" at the pool! For once, Jonny was not alone and we were so happy with our new buddy that we asked him to take a photo of us in the pool! So in tribute to the speedo, here's the photo our new buddy took yesterday...

And here is Jonny being silly - though challenged by the speedo, not at all embarassed!

So, for any of our "non-speedo" friends who may come swimming with us in the near future, don't be shocked, you may just find that Jonny will wear his speedo! And if you are a "speedo buddy", do let us know since the club is still small. Yes, multi-culturalism makes our world interesting, but it does have its challenges...

Celebrating Ana's 30th birthday!

It's official: 20s are now in the past and the 30s are here... We've been celebrating my birthday the last 2 days and it's been really nice.

Yesterday, the actual day of my birthday, we spent the night at the Staggers' new home. Mike cooked an absolute feast on his new grill, it was sooooo yummy! Kristen baked and decorated a beautiful cake for me, so sweet! We enjoyed our time together eating out on their deck, enjoying the kids, watching a movie and going to bed on their brand new and comfortable sofa bed - it was special being the first guests down in their basement. Thank you guys for having us over, we really enjoyed it!

Here are some photos of the evening:

Mike's creation - he's a talented chef!

Dinner on the deck

Presentation of cake - Kristen is a pro-decorator!

Mikey was happy too and showed off his first 2 teeth!

And then it was time to blow the candles... Kristen said "Ana, I'm not going to be able to put 30 candles on the cake!" And I said "no problem, there would be too many to blow out anyway!" :-)

Holly's gift to me!

Very thankful for gifts - I was a spoilt girl!

Today we continued the celebrations in the afternoon with a group of friends at Centennial Park. It was so nice to get together again in much happier times - the last time I had seen many of the people who came was at Jonathan David's memorial. We all brought food and just relaxed together. The evening was perfect, warm with a nice breeze and a tree nearby provided us with all the shade that we needed. The children were able to run around and so that was great too. God's hand was evident again in all the small details - for example, a table became free just as we arrived...

Here are some photos of the memorable afternoon:

Joel Boon (just 2) is so adorable and had fun running around!

Jonny decorated the cake for me and made a wonderful fruit salad! If anyone had doubts about my age, here is the proof!

Ella Bella (19 months) on the phone - so cute!

Group photo of the last friends to leave the party...

Thank you all for coming and making my 30th celebration a special day! And it was fun singing Happy Birthday to Shenorva too - whose birthday is 2 days before mine! Happy Birthday again Shenorva!

And thanks also for the phone calls and e-mails I've received from loved ones around the world!

P.S. Hi Phil! (Was happy to hear you are reading the blog!) :-)

Jonny's first Father's Day - a surprise lunch with other fathers...

Today was a special day to honor Jonny as the father of our precious son Jonathan David. Our friend Shenorva decided to invite a few couples who have experienced a loss in the last year in relation to fatherhood - either losing a father or losing a baby. None of the men knew about this special feast we prepared for them. They were all very surprised and it was wonderful. Each father received a rose from either their children or wife. Here are some photos of the afternoon:

It was so good to enjoy a meal with Pastor Dan and his family. Dan lost his dad this last year...

Jackie presented a rose to Quill - exactly 9 years ago on their first date she gave him a rose for father's day. Quill's grand-father passed away this year...

Sivert got a rose from his kids - we remembered Sivert's dad who passed away this last year and also Stephen, their first son who is buried next to Jonathan David...

I gave Jonny a rose too and a special present...

... a mug with a picture of him holding Jonathan David...

Close up photo of mug...

It was a very special day and comforting to spend time with others who are also sad on father's day.

Jonny, I thank God for the most amazing and loving father that you are. Jonathan David is also thanking God today for all the love he has received from you, his Papa. We are so proud of you and love you very much!

Back together and some photos of the last 2 weeks...

Thank God, we are back together! It is so good to be back home after 2 weeks away, we really missed each other. My flight was delayed and I only got home after 1 am Saturday morning. We've had a relaxing weekend and I'm going to write a separate blog about Jonny's first Father's day today, after this.

Here are some photos of us back together on the tennis court on Saturday:

(Like I said, we missed each other! :-))

Here are also some photos of the last 2 weeks - most of which I wrote about in the previous blogs from Honduras.

Photos of Jonny with Linnan cooking lobsters, last Monday the 11th:

Lobsters alive before cooking:

Linnan, the master chef:

Lobsters ready to eat:

Since Jonny never wrote a blog, let me quickly write the highlights of his last two weeks - he was very busy!

- Jonny's friend from Imperial College, Niraj, visited the first week. They hadn't seen each other in years and he may be coming to Hopkins to work, which would be great.

- Lab friends came over on Saturday the 9th to play the game "Risk" - they had been planning this for several months and it finally took place. It was fun but a bit too long - and Jonny lost! :-)

- Jonny played tennis with lab friends twice at the Hopkins tennis courts.

- Jonny had dinner with the Boons and helped the Staggers move.

- Linnan stayed over for 3 nights and it was good company.

- Jonny spoke at the men's fasting retreat on Friday night for the first time, he said it was very special.

Now here are some of the photos of my trip to Honduras - June 3rd-15th:

Buffy helping me pack the night before traveling!

With colleagues Perla and Norma and Perla's daughters at a Cuban restaurant:

Visit to high school:

View from high school of nearby hills:

Visit to rural community outside of Tegucigalpa, "Divina Providencia":

Visit to health center in rural community - wonderful people:

Dinner at Perla's house with her family:

Enjoying Perla's food - the shrimp dish I'm holding was so yummy!

Photo of graduation picture of Perla's daughters - Livny and Wilsen (they are very special to me):