Johanna Speaks

Nicholas proposed to his girlfriend, Noemi, about a month or two ago, and of course, she said yes! The wedding date is October 4th. They will be having the wedding in Lake California at the Lake Club, out on the grass. 

Noemi will move to California sometime at the end of September (since she lives in New Jersey). 

I'm excited to have another sister-in-law!😁 It's going to be awesome! She's super sweet and awesome to be around. She also has a beautiful singing voice and hopefully will sing for our church. And she cooks amazing Mexican food. She's perfect for Nicholas because he has more of a quiet personality, and so does she. But she can also be extroverted when she needs to be and can socialize really well with people. And she's a Christian, of course. She's perfect for him. I'm so glad my brother picked such a wonderful person to marry. 😊 I'm already imagining the little, cute children they're going to have. 😂 Imagine a Nick Jr. So cute! 

Okay, so for Noelle and Cameron's wedding, I wrote a poem for them and recited it out loud on the mic. And for Nick and Noemi's wedding, I wanted to write a poem for them too. I haven't started writing it, so I'd better do that. But it would be cool if I made it a tradition for the rest of the boys when they get married. Just write a poem for each wedding. 

Here are the engagement photos:

My family and I just got back from our trip to France. We spent two weeks with our grandparents. Sophie, Dad, Mom, and I all went. Ezra stayed back to take care of the business and my dog, Ria. 

My mom joined us the second week in France because she had her mom's birthday party to go to in Florida. 

We took three plane rides to get there. Sacermento to Colorado. Colorado to Germany. And Germany to France. All of which took about seventeen hours. Yeah, it was long. 

We arrived on a Wednesday afternoon and had a delicious dinner with my grandparents. My grandma made such good food while we were there. 😊 After dinner, we rested and hung out. We eventually went to bed, and I woke up and realized what the time was. We had slept until 12 PM. I guess that's what you call jet lag. 

In France, they are nine hours ahead of us in California. So whenever I text Ezra or something, I have to consider what time it is for him. Because if it's 1 PM for us in France, it would be 4 AM for Ezra. 

In France, everybody has shutters for their windows. It's to keep the houses cool. Our grandparents have them, and one time, I thought they had the AC on, but they don't have AC in the house. It's just naturally cool. And it got to almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside, but it was nice and cool inside. 

They also have a super nice pool! My grandpa makes sure it's always nice and clean and ready to be swam in. It's seriously crystal clear. Sophie swam in the pool almost every day while we were there. Here's a vid and a pic of it:

Our church friends have a son who got married last Sunday. They asked if my friend Abbygail Mintz and I wanted to play violin for it. Of course, we both said yes! We only had less than a week to practice. 

We did three songs, one as the bride walked down, two songs the congregation sang, and one more as the bride and groom walked out. Abbygail did melody, and I did harmony. We only got together and practiced a couple of times. So we were a bit nervous. But everything turned out great! 

Here is the link to the wedding: 

Here is a pic of Abbygail and I playing violin:

I had a great time! We ate delicious food and also danced. We watched the bride and groom dance together, which made me cry a bit. I was trying not to, but it was hard. After they danced, a lot of people got up and danced, too. It was mainly swing dancing, with some slow dancing. We also did the chicken dance. That was fun! :)

Then we all said goodbye to the bride and groom as they left in their car.

Our friends, the Mintzs, and I wanted to go back to dancing, but to Lala Land music, which is my favorite type of music by far. It was so much fun. Ezra and I stayed until almost 11:00 PM. Ezra was the tech guy, and he was in charge of the music, so we stayed pretty long. 

I got to take back a big bouquet of roses!! I love roses so much. It's my favorite type of flower. That made me so happy! :)

Everything was a blast!

I love to watch the Icing Artist. She does many videos on baking and how to make cool designs on cakes using frosting and different baking tools. I love to bake and want to learn how to structure my cakes and have a smooth surface when piping frosting, not a lumpy surface. I also want to know how different flavors can work together and taste delicious. 

She posts her videos about once a week, which are about eighteen minutes long. 

Here is a link to one of her videos:

I've wanted to learn how to make good buttercream that is nice and stiff but not too runny. In some other videos, she explains how to do that and also tries different flavors. 

Watching her videos makes me want to bake a cake, and I keep getting ideas for decorating. 

Ezra's birthday was yesterday, June 1st. He turned seventeen years old. We had a big party at our house after church, with delicious snacks and food! We all played a game called Bang. It was so much fun!!

All of our siblings came except Gideon, who lives in Alabama. Some other friends also came. Caleb and Risa brought their baby, Benjamin. He's so cute and growing up so fast! He was always smiling at someone, and he is almost seven months old.🩷

Ezra got a sailboat for his birthday! He's been wanting one, and so we all pitched in and now he has one. I also got him nice tennis shoes since he plays a lot of pickleball and has needed a new pair. 

Here are some pics and vids I took of him on the sailboat. It's pretty cool! Noelle also tried getting a cool pic of me on the kayak. 

We went to our lake ( which is about five minutes away ) to sail the boat. It was windy enough, too. We all sang Happy Birthday super loudly over the lake to Ezra while he was sailing the boat. He totally loved it. Even random people heard us and told Ezra Happy Birthday. 😂 

Had a great time!