March Top 10 (+1)

Sorry we've been MIA, people.  You're about to see why.  Spring is here and we've been livin' it up!

Here's our top 10 fav's (+1) from March 2012:

1.  Martenitsi.  We finally saw our first stork last weekend, and have tied our Martenitsi on a budding fruit tree.  Woohoo!

2.  Flowers.  Lots of them.  It's the simple things, right?  These little white flowers were the first we saw after winter.

3. Banitsa Training.  We're determined to make Banitsa from scratch before we leave this country in a year.  Vania's mom was generous enough to walk us through it.  It's still a work in progress, but we did get our hands dirty!

4.  Muffins.  One of our buddies, Dorrie, wanted muffins to cherpi at work for her name day... so, Joy and Vania got to work!

5.  AGRA.  Randall's organization held a booth at the local agricultural fair.  These are just a few of the MANY things he found:

6.  Women's Day - March 8th.  At school, Joy's colleagues planned a pot-luck.

And, in the evening, we went to our local Mexican Restaurant and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!  Other than Liza (she couldn't make it), here are all the ladies who celebrated that day:

7.  Dimitrovgrad.  All three of us + our local buddy, Joan, went to visit our buddies, Jacki, Dave, and Brenda in Dimitrovgrad.  We ate lots, played our favorite charades game (if you come to visit, you will see how fun it is!), and even visited the famous market down the road.  Thanks, guys, for having us!

8.  St. Patrick's Day.  We are so lucky to have an actual Irish Pub in Plovdiv.  Terry and his brother run it.  And, yes, they are from Ireland.  We spent this St. Patty's Day there with quite a few other volunteers.  So fun!


9.   Tsalapizza.  This is Vania, Stefan, and Marty's village, just outside of Plovdiv.  We packed the car with work clothes, warm PJ's, and delicious goodies, and headed out to plant potatoes, garlic, parsley, onions, and peas one Saturday and Sunday.  It was absolutely wonderful.

10.  Spelling Bee.  Randall was the announcer for our friend, Miglena's, spelling bee.  Being a native English speaker and all, it made sense.  He wasn't planning on being the announcer, but since Joy got sick, he came to the rescue!

11.  Language Refresher/1-year Anniversary in Bulgaria.  So much fun!  Sadly, everyone has already went their separate ways, as of this afternoon, after our Bulgarian language refresher.  But, 7 of us were "refreshed" by our fearless teacher, Vessi, this weekend, plus, we were able to celebrate our 1-year anniversary with some of our PC buddies!  Yes, we went to the Mexican restaurant.  We can't get enough it!

We've had a busy month, but we've loved every minute.  We miss you guys back in the States, and can't believe it's been a year.  Thanks for all your support and for following us along the way.

Here's to another year!

Joy and Randall

Happy Baba Marta!

Today has been filled with our, thus far, favorite Bulgarian tradition.  "Baba Marta" Day (Grandma March Day) is on the first day of March, and everyone gives you a Martenitsa.

What is a Martenitsa, you ask?

Here are just a few...

You can, of course, read the official description of this Bulgarian holiday, here; however, this is what we've learned about it in the last 12 hours:

• The red and white of the Martenitsa represent good health (a.k.a. if you're skin is white and your cheeks are red, you're healthy!).
• When someone ties these on your arm, they wish you all good things: health, life, happiness, love, good luck, etc.  And, you're supposed to wish something as they're tying it, and be finished with your wish by the time they're done with the knot.
• Married people are supposed to wear them on their right side.  Single people are to wear them on the left.
• You are technically supposed to only take them off when you first see a stork or a budding bush.  But, since our arms were pretty full, we asked and our friends told us we could just wear our favorites.
• In general, it's an exchange; I give you one, you give me one.  However, even if you don't have a Martenitsa to give, you're always given one!
• This might be the happiest we've seen people in a while!  Spring is on its way, and you can see it in their eyes when they give you the Martenitsa.

We'd love to start this tradition in the US.  Wouldn't you?  We do love a good winter, but spring is looking brighter than ever this year; especially with our Martenitsi!

Happy Spring!!

Gettin' Creative in Bulgaria

So, one of our motives in doing Peace Corps was to have a slower, calmer, lower-stress life.  Well, we think we got what we were looking for.  Bulgaria has been great for us.  One of the best things has been having more time to enjoy each other and our hobbies.  So, without further adieu, we want to show you what we've done!

Joy's been refining her domestic skills and  Randall's been developing his programing proficiency.

The other day, on our Valentine's date, we realized that we should journal and track what we love to do.  You never know when it might come in handy!  So, whether you read this blog or our new ones, we look forward to having an online journal of our inventions, creations, and what we do for fun!

We're off to whip up something new...

Marty Madness!

Last weekend, we were invited to quite the eventful birthday party.  Not just any birthday party... this was our good buddy, Marty's, 12th birthday party!  We had a blast, and we're so glad he invited us.  So, this is our tribute to him... better late than never!

  

Happy Birthday, Buddy!

Your friends,

Joy, Randall, and Liza

Happy Anniversary, Blog!

We can't believe that it's been a year since we launched our Bulgaria blog.  How time flies!  To celebrate, we have given our blog a new look.  Hope you enjoy it.  On top of that, we wanted to reflect back on the past year and see what all has happened and be thankful for all our blessings!

February
Lots of packing and prepping.  We still can't believe that everything was ready for us to leave America and live in Bulgaria for two years.  We couldn't have done it without many people helping us pack, thinking through all we needed, and, especially, a very full closet belonging to a certain set of gracious grandparents :)

March

The month of goodbye's.  We tied up loose ends at our previous jobs.  We said goodbye to Boston, to the D.C. area, to South Carolina, and to good Mexican food...  We were still in disbelief that we were on our way to be Peace Corps Volunteers.

April
We finally arrived!  All the planning and anticipation and one can't really know what Bulgaria's like until you step off the plane.  We were greeted with introductions to our new Peace Corps buddies, to our Bulgarian host families in Borovan, and to Bulgaria's wonderful hospitality! And, we even got to celebrate Joy's birthday with all 40 volunteers from our group, B27 :)

May

We finally met our counterparts, visited Plovdiv, and picked out our future apartment.  We're so blessed to live in such a beautiful place!

June

We said more goodbyes, this time in Borovan, swore in officially as Peace Corps Volunteers, and moved to Plovdiv!  We got to know our new neighborhood here, here, and here.  But, most important of all, we got to meet our current best friends, Vania, Stefan, and Marty!

July

Cultural exchange, people!  We made some delicious hamburgers for our friends to celebrate the 4th.  Plus, we got to go "na gosti" in the village.  Fresh air, relaxation, delicious fried dough + honey, and ice cold beer.  Let's just say July was filled with lots of eating :)

August

One of the best decisions we've ever made, we made this month.  We got Liza!!  We brought our little angel home and haven't looked back since!

September

Our summer finale.  It was quite a hot one, so we were ready for it to be over!  We went camping one last time and Joy got ready for school to start!

October
The heat stopped, and the parties began.  We celebrated Stefan's birthday and we also had quite the Halloween throw-down at Ilka and Chris'.

November

New nephew for Joy + Thanksgiving  party!  It was a great month, but we missed the US even more... especially since we have yet to meet Joy's new nephew, Luke.  We made up for it by throwing a large-and-in-charge Thanksgiving party for a handful of volunteers :)

December

Christmas finally came!  And, so did Randall's parents!  We had such a blast relaxing and celebrating with them.

We also welcomed into the world ANOTHER little nephew... Paxton!  We're just so blessed!

January

We celebrated our 3rd Wedding Anniversary.  Again, time flies!  We also celebrated Randall's birthday AND Vania's name day.  All of these things were WONDERFUL because, since it's been around 5-10 degrees outside, there hasn't been much more to do than to have parties and celebrate!

Writing this post has made one thing very clear: there's always a reason to be thankful and to celebrate!  We hope and pray that this next year is just as full.  Thanks for walking with us along the way!

With love from Bulgaria,

Joy and Randall

Happy Birthday, Randall!

What do wine + appetizers + 5 Peace Corps Volunteers + 3 colleagues + 5 friends make?  A smashing birthday party!  On Saturday, we threw a wine-tasting party for Randall's 29th birthday.  What a hit.  Half of the wine brought to the party was homemade.  Delicious.

Randall led us through the wine evaluation process, enjoying each as we went.  Some were fruity, some were flowery (a first for a lot of us), and some were especially for dessert.  Mmmm...

It was fun, throughout the night, to mix each of our birthday traditions... Randall handed out chocolates to his guests as they arrived (this is the Bulgarian "Cherpi" tradition), we wore snazzy party hats (American), we toasted several times throughout the night to Randall (mostly Bulgarian, somewhat American)... 

... we sang happy birthday in both languages...

... and Randall made a wish before blowing out his candles (Bulgarian + American).

 

And, as you can see, this party involved more than just delicious wine.  We enjoyed some Wii...

... and we also enjoyed our little Liza!

Take away from this birthday party: There's no better time or place for a wine-tasting party than a winter birthday in Bulgaria! :)
 

Good News, Everyone!

Liza's tumor was benign! We just found out this afternoon. We are so thankful she's going to be fine!

Thank you for your prayers and thoughts!

Joy, Randall, and Liza

Liza made it!

For those of who knew about it and for those of you who didn't, Liza came through surgery like a champ.  The doctor ended up wanting to take the whole mass out today, since it was easy to get to.  We were in agreement.

Now, a few hours later, here we are pampering our little Liza :)

Thanks for praying for her and her parents!