happy

every time i realize time is passing soo fast.. this is the song that comes in my mind..
he's one of my favorite Hungarian singer, we grew up "together" .. he became a great singer .. this one is one of his earliest song preformed at a concert in 1994..
although it's in hungarian hope you enjoy it..
happy 2009 for everybody, hope it'll be a happier, nicer and more successful year with tons of fun

bori :)

Yesterday Mary, Eva and Christian came to visit us :D Eva was a postdoc at Tom's lab, Christian is a prof at NCSU and Mary, their first daughter is 2. They're expecting their second in March :D Tom's former and current lab members were in their reproductive mood last year :D : first us, then Jim and Kristin expecting their first up in Seattle in 6 weeks, and then Eli and Kim also their first one early February and then of course Eva and Christian their second one :D I'm soooo happy for everybody .. we should get together, find a good place to live, set up a lab, where all of us can work and open up our own daycare next to the lab of course, so the kids can learn science immediately :D
oke, enough from the great ideas :D
so they left around 7pm, which was really 10pm for Mary since the time difference. and after they left, Bori was in her good mood :D screaming cause she was enjoying her time :D I'll post a video :D


of course normally she has her pants on, but I took it off for the video, cause she can't stop moving her legs, and it was blocking her... and this way it's easier to see how active she is :D

also some achievements:
I always put her down on her tummy to sleep, cause that's what she got used to in the hospital, as i wrote about it earlier.. and so a week ago in the middle of the night i woke up to a laughing sound that Bori does when she's happy and staring at her toy in her bed ON HER BACK .. yes, she learned how to turn to her back from her tummy :D and she's doing it ever since last weekend.. I think she only skipped one night.. so nowadays I have to get up at 3-4am, to flip her back to her tummy so she'll go back to sleep.. and so she does, really nice and sweet girl .. but sure she enjoys her time during the night :D it's so sweet, I'll try to capture it sometimes soon..
the other thing is that I'm giving some solid food for her now, since i no longer nursing her, so the sooner she's eating solid food the less formula i have to give her.. we've tried rice cerial, but she hates it and I'm not surprised, it has no taste (and of course added salt or sugar is not good, which I agree with actually) .. the second thing I've given her is potato puree, which was OK, she ate it but wasn't too enthusiastic about .. and this week I gave her yam :D sure she enjoys that :D and I don't blame her, it's sweet, good taste.. so that's where we are, her digestion is good, she enjoys it, and I don't have any problem with her .. :D:D:D
here's a little funny stuff for you :D whenever yam is mentioned/on the table, we always say: my two greatest enemies, Rachel Green and complex carbohydrates :D
it's from Friends, when Brad Pitt goes to the Thanksgiving dinner .. :D and Rachel enters with the yam, and Will (Brad Pitt) have this scene how he hates Rachel ..
here is it for you :D I couldn't find just that minute, but the whole scene, the referred funny part is at 2:30-3min :D but the whole piece is quite funny, I love it.. enjoy :D

Xmas

Just would like to put everybody in the mood.. so click to the left of this :D
Merry Xmas in advance for everybody! Love you guys, and miss you!!!

pictures

Yesterday afternoon, naptime ..



day before yesterday, at midnight, after the last feeding ..


sometimes this week: I was doing some stuff in the kitchen and Reka was entertaining Bori ... apparently with a bit too much animal :D


7th of December:


At a UoP volleyball game on 29th of November:


26th of November :D:D:D


24th of November: my inlaws with the kids...

don't even get me started on the Santa dress.. she wore it once, thank God is was small for her already..

23rd of November: after Bori's breakfast ..


17th of November afternoon: she's getting taller :D and bigger :D


13rd of November morning: my friend, Judit. She's in Livermore for her postdoc and gave a talk at UoP the day before. We know each other from the university, same year same chemistry MS ..


12nd of November, dinner with Judit. Andy, one of Balint's colleague at UoP came as well.. Andy is a great new friend, he helps us a lot, and Reka adores him quite much :D funny..

finally

It's been a while.. and what a busy month..

Bori: she's an angel, sweet, smiling, laughing..
she's around 13 pounds now, I've stopped breastfeeding ca. 3 weeks ago, it wasn't my choice, but I'm not too sad about it.. so she's eating 7-8 and sometimes even 9oz at a time.. amazing.. so since she's expanding quite a bit, actually seems like she'll pop out, I'm diluting this stupid formula (hey, i'm a scientists, should know what it does ;))..
she's healthy, had her shots early December. She's sleeping through the night, ever since election eve, I'm totally happy about that :D
and she's up more and more during the day... likes her animals, likes her hanging stuffs, listening and paying attention to them.. and laughs big times, so funny and sweet and can cheer me up anytime :D
car is not a problem, we can go wherever whenever we want, but sure she hates red lights.. whenever the car stops after 3-5 seconds she starts crying.. and unfortunately Stockton is not famous for its green wave.. stupid engineers.. ;)

Reka: still enjoying the daycare (Tue/Wed/Thurs morning), speaks English perfectly now, has friends, both at the daycare, and here around the neighborhood, and some of our friends from the university, like Andy and Silvio..
she has to learn how to play by herself again though, she forgot that, and I'm tired of her being around all the time from Friday till Tuesday..

Balint: enjoying the university.. his group is starting to get active, has 2 grad students and plenty of undergrad, but these numbers might increase actually.. his research is already rolling, and got some great grants from the university to go to Switzerland and to buy an automatic peptide synthesizer.. the semester is almost over, so he'll be prepping for next semester.. hopefully he'll be at home between Xmas and NYE..

me: at home :D my phd research is going great now, thanks to Karcsi and Laci... hopefully we'll be able to send out a paper sometimes in January.. and then we'll see..
that's the reason I was so busy even after my inlaws left, cause I wanted get some things done, and it's any two of the three next to the girls: blogging, working or working out :D so I choose the last two .. but this weekend I'm trying to get some other things done too..

soon

Hey Everybody,
sorry for the long absence but things are a bit hectic here with my inlaws. They'll be gone Monday evening and hopefully I'll have more time and energy to update this blog with pictures and stories..
briefly: my inlaws arrived, I had my birthday last Friday, so officially the 2X years are over and I had a haircut on the weekend, so my hair is a bit different now.. I was the entertainer on the weekdays, so it's been very very very tiring...
my best friend, Viki, give birth to their third baby girl, Kinga, last week.. soooo happy for them.. and also, my other best friend is pregnant with their second one, Congratulations for Gabi :D
anyway, I'll put more details hopefully soon.. and some new pics..
Bori is still an angel, sleeps through the nights with no problem, smiles and laughs sweet, and doesn't cause much trouble at all.. ideal child I have to say...

gas and asian market

Dare guess what's the gas price here?? :D:D we bought a gallon for $1.99 at Costco :D I haven't seen a gallon under 2 dollars since I have no idea .. probably it was still Carrboro ... amazing, isn't it? I've looked it up, and it's ca. 2.3 in Chapel Hill nowdays.. so it means that it's even cheaper here :D anyone up for a visit??
we went to an asian supermarket, it was huge .. huge huge .. it smelled awful though, but we got some good stuff: good pasta, meat, shrimp, sauces..
we're going to have a really busy 3 weeks: tomorrow evening my friend, Judit is coming. She'll give a talk at UoP Tuesday morning, and stay with us for 1-2 evenings. She lives in Livermore, works for the national lab there as a postdoc, we were classmates in university back at home..
then on Friday Csaba, Balint's gradstudent is coming for 4 days. He's visiting Tom's lab in Chapel Hill for 2 months, and he'll have a short visit at us, since the plane tickets were so cheap 2 weeks before thanksgiving.. 240 is not bad for an NC-CA trip :D
He's leaving on the 18th, and my inlaws are coming on the 20th, and staying for ca. 2 weeks... we won't have too much alone-time in the next month, but that's all right, we love visitors :D and we'll have Xmas for ourselves ..
oke, have to go now. I'll post some new pics soon.
meanwhile here's a movie Bori trying soooo hard :D

Halloween

So many of you asked about Halloween, so here it goes:
Reka had gym class the day before, and of course they were suppose to wear their costumes there as well.. so she did.. she was a fairy. She's in this period of hers that she loves dresses, she wants to wear pretty dress every afternoon and dance in it... and we got a costume last wear from Walmart, it seems quite durable, since there was a month when she was putting in on and off all day long.. anyway .. she had that, she dind't want any fancy or new costumes, so I was quite happy about it, and proud of Reka not increasing the US GDP :D
her teacher, Epy, was a witch ..
here are some pictures from the gym class...


Friday she didn't have daycare, we were at home, she was so excited about the evening that her dad will take her trick and treat, like all the other kids ... and when the evening came, we had dinner, and they left, she got cold feeted. they went first to Jerry, our next door neighbor. He's nice, we see him all the time, but now she wouldn't say a word and was hiding behind Balint.. so they came home, Balint got kind of mad at her being so shy.. after 5-10 minutes talking, I took her to the other neighbor, and elderly lady.. she was nice, and Reka was brave, and so eventually at the third stop she picked it up and had fun.. we walked the street, had ca. 15-20 houses, and then came home.. it was nice for me to walk with Reka, I got to know a few people on the street.. for example a man, across the street, I've seen him before, Rubint, he's a hairdresser.. so I guess I'm going to try him out soon :D
I don't have any picture from the actual Halloween night, but oh well, you can see the costume she had from the gym pics..
as of all the rest of the family.. we were fine without costumes and candy.. not our kind of holiday.. I'm glad it's over, since it's Thanksgiving soon enough, and that means pecan pie at Costco :D:D:D

weekend and first whole night sleep

We went to a volleyball game on Saturday and a basketball game on Sunday, since it was raining quite badly all weekend long.. it's nice that you can just decide to go to a game an hour before it starts, be able to buy ticket at the box office, not too expensive I have to add, and then just relax.. ok, it might not be a big university, with great teams, but it's for sure relaxing and enjoyable.. Pacific, or UoP (University of the Pacific) is orange and black.. and their mascot is a tiger as you can see :D

here are some pics from the weekend:



and I woke up Tuesday morning realizing that I wasn't up during the night :D my little girl slept through the night for the first time.. life is funny for sure: my girls can pick the date for sleeping through the nights: Reka slept through first on Easter Sunday of 2004. Now Bori picked the 2008 election eve.. at least it'll be easy to remember..

and as of the propositions: Yes on Prop 8 has won:
08 - Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry
YES: 5,235,486 52.2%
NO: 4,800,656 47.8%

and also for us another important thing is taking effect, which will allow CA to build a fast train through north-south CA.. so we can be in LA in 3 hours.. much better than flying..
1A - Safe, Reliable High-Speed Train Bond Act
YES: 4,971,000 52.3%
NO: 4,547,349 47.7%

an interesting, but also a bit frightening thing:
04 - Parent Notif. Before Terminating Minor's Pregnancy
YES: 4,630,908 47.7%
NO: 5,065,165 52.3%

moon river

this evening's mood .. it's in my head all evening long, can't help it but sing .. is it because 30 is closing up on me??? or is it because I miss NC sooo much.. and this song always connected to NC for me, cause Alex and Sarah were the ones who sang this while I was living with them.. miss NC.. that's life..
anyway, next piece to learn on my piano .. :)

visitor and Calaveras Big Trees SP

We had a visitor, Kati, from last Friday till this Monday evening. She's an old friend of us, also a chemists, as I wrote a week ago... She flew to Sacramento Friday evening, we had a relax day on Saturday, with walking, shopping, and a nice dinner with Andy coming over as well. Then we went for a hike to Calaveras Big Tree State Park. It was georgeous. The colors, the treest, the trail, it was perfect, a perfect first hike for Bori as well :D
Some pictures from the adventure..







Kati left Monday late afternoon. We had fun with her, she's sooo much fun. I wish she could come more often, she must learn how to drive and then she can be here in 5-6 hours... but untill then it's flying...
Also, I have my piano perfectly tuned now :D John, the piano tuner was here second time last week, after the big tuneup ca. a month ago. He fine-tuned the piano, but was short on time, so he came back today as well, to fix some sticky keys. It sounds perfect now :D I love it, I play it almost every day, if not every :D

my beautiful piano taken apart here...

John is a nice guy, 93% blind, and works slowly, but sure thoroughly. And it was quite interesting to see how this piano is build up.. I hope I can do some of the maintenance myself if needed.. there might be an engineer lost in me ;) hihi

Bori had a great day yesterday, she was eating perfectly and having a 4 hours schedule.. and in the evening she was sleeping from 9pm all till 3am.. but of course we are back to crazy schedule and mad day again.. oh well, little suprises are the best, right?
And today is my father's birthday :D :D :D we have celebrated him while they were here, but still.. it's good to say out loud :D

One happy morning... (10/20/08)







the University pool: they only have this, the outdoor one, but it's heated, so it's open throughout the year :D Balint goes there ca. 3-4 times a week, if not 5 times, I'm trying 2 times, swimming for 30 minutes before I pick up Reka at the daycare. Bori is quite cooperative so far, she usually sleeps while I'm swimming :D