Ana’s Blog

Today I join the International Women´s Day festivities to celebrate and honor the courageous, relentless, inspiring, talented and beautiful women and girls I met when I visited Haiti in January with a group of bloggers (#Bloggers4Haiti) and Heart of Haiti. Aside from the empowered women I had the honor to travel with, every single day we´d encounter in Haiti a group of women who would just inspire us with their presence. These women have been through or been witness toRead More ...

Note from Ana: I was recently made aware through a friend that February 29 is Rare Disease Day. This friend has a child with Pulmonary Hypertension, considered a rare disease and one for which there are no therapies available for children yet. I invited her to share with us her family´s story with this rare disease.  Our son, Lucas Miles Van Wormer, was only four years old when he was diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Hypertension in November 2006.  PH isRead More ...

A couple of week´s ago I shared the news that my girl got accepted at the language magnet school we had our hearts set on was emotional, to say the least. Not only are we a bit relieved and even relaxed because her bilingualism is now basically guaranteed, but we can also plan for the rest of the year and the immediate future—or at least for the next six years she´ll be in this school. I have to admit, though,Read More ...

I was browsing through my girl’s pictures of her first year of life—almost five years ago now—and was surprised at how emotional one can get remembering all the magical moments that come from the awe of having a baby in your life for the first time.  Everything surrounding parenthood and caring for an infant the first time is so new, awkward and incredibly precious that you feel like treasuring every single aspect of it. Well, maybe not the waking-up-every-two-hours-for-a-year moments,Read More ...

Yes, I am so, so, so nervous about this! As you know, we’re in the process of applying to dual language immersion programs in our area and we’ve got our heart set in our girl being accepted into the Spanish dual immersion program at Franklin Magnet School, aka International Foreign Language Academy of Glendale. Today is the day the public lottery is held and we’ll know if our girl’s name gets drawn to be amongst the 24 or so childrenRead More ...

Cool Whip whipped topping was looking for busy moms who, somehow, still find the time to make every day special for their families and that was something I could definitely identify with. And, well…they found me! And by “found” I mean they invited me to be one of four bloggers to be part of a their new national print advertising campaign. Yes, national…as in our pictures will appear inside the pages of magazines I actually buy. The invitation was aRead More ...

It’s hard to believe that in just seven months my girl will be starting a whole new stage in life: kindergarten. That means that we are now deep in the process of touring dual language immersion programs, applications and crossing fingers to get a spot in one of our top choices. Just three years ago when we launched this blog, I visited what was then Benjamin Franklin Elementary school in the Glendale Unified District in California. We wrote a seriesRead More ...

Last week I shared with you that I was about to embark in an adventure of a lifetime with a group of bloggers and the women behind the Heart of Haiti and Fair Winds Trading. I am now here, in the heart of the Republic of Haiti, and I can attest that even though the heart is suffering, it is fiercely pulsating. We’ve now spent two full days here and the best word to describe them is intense. Intensity inRead More ...