October 3rd 2018 - Celebrating 28 Years in the US!

Today, my mom and I are celebrating 28 years in the States!  💙 🇺🇸 ❤️

28 years ago today, the two of us moved to Los Angeles from Romania, with one suitcase and a few words of English between the two of us, but with so much excitement to be here we could barely contain it - an impossible dream that all of a sudden became our incredible reality! October 3rd is easily the happiest day of my life, followed by a close second, March 16, the day I became a proud American citizen more than 17 years ago.

The happiness, the culture shock, the disbelief that we actually moved to the promise land, aka California, to start the better parts of our lives are still so vivid in my memory. I remember telling myself on that miraculous day, almost three decades ago, that anything I will EVER do or accomplish from that day forward will be just the cherry on top. Because, as far as I was concerned, I had made the biggest, greatest dream I'd ever had come true!  A true miracle! 💙

‘Gib, Gib, come to California!’ was playing over and over in my head as we arrived at LAX in the middle of the night. The line Anthony Edwards says to John Cusack in ‘The Sure Thing’ as he’s hanging out by the pool in the dead of winter - one of the few but precious references I had to lead me as a young girl on my quest to some day live in LA, and it was actually, finally HAPPENING! ❤️

And here I am, so many years later, as grateful and incredibly happy to live an amazing life as a proud American, in this beautiful country of ours that I felt was home long before I moved here, celebrating each day and thankful I get to live here. On top of it all, it feels amazing to be going on 6 years since moving back to my beloved LA again, where it all began 28 years ago, always an LA girl at heart, and to live my dream in the only place that’s ever felt like my true home. 💙

Happy 28th anniversary, mommy! @ariclia 🥂 I love you and thank you SO much for all your sacrifices and for your constant unconditional love and support! Here’s to 28 more amazing years here at home! God bless America!  😘💙🇺🇸❤️✨