Guess where Cile is!

If you guessed that she's in Lyon visiting her daughter Kari and favorite son-in-law Jonathan, you'd be right. If you guessed she is sitting on the couch reading a good book while Kari guest-writes the weekly blog update for her...you'd be dead on. And let me tell you, I've worked with several editors in my time and she's a tough one. Not only am I supposed to update this blog on her behalf, but I'm also supposed to have it finished by 9 pm so that it'll be up when Pop and Emogene log on to read it. Oh, the pressure of working under such a slave driver!


Riding the metro across town to go pick blackberries and walk along the Saone River


Jonathan and Kari


There weren't many blackberries left, but we got a nice workout stretching to reach the last ones of the season.


Too bad Beau couldn't sniff out berries like a truffle pig.


Beautiful buildings along the Saone on the ride back across town


This is the old city (Vieux Lyon) and St Georges Cathedral.


Lunch after church with some friends of Kari and Jonathan, the Maxsons and the Sarrans.

Before leaving Budapest Mom was able to enjoy the St Stephen's day festivities. Did you know Hungary celebrated the 1,000th anniversary of the founding of their country in 2000? So this August 20th was their 1007th birthday - that would be lot of candles on a big cake! As part of the state-celebrations a large-scale fireworks display is held along the Pest side of the Danube Embankment, opposite Citadel-Gellért Hill.

Honoring Saint Stephen

This week has flown by, and speaking of flying, Glenn flies to Idaho tomorrow morning for two weeks of security training. I will keep the guest house full and running smoothly until Friday when I fly the coop too and go see Kari and Jonathan for a short week in Lyon, France. Since arriving 7 months ago, we have not taken but a few vacation days so while Glenn is out camping in the wilderness, I will be "working" from Kari's apartment.


New-found favorite restaurant!

Glenn and I had to take care of some business at the Budapest International Airport (!) this week and I spotted a Sbarro pizza place in the food court. I wondered if their pizza was as good as the one at Town Center mall. Fortunately, it was just as good. Unfortunately, one slice of pizza and a small bottle of Coke was $8! Oh well, maybe we can go there for special occasions. Oh, wait! I fly out of that same airport next Friday in the afternoon, so maybe I can just plan to eat lunch there! Going to see Kari and Jonathan is a special occasion, isn't it?


Not quite as big as the Atlanta airport!


This is the lobby of terminal 2

Actually, there are two terminals. Terminal 2 is for regular airlines going to all these different exotic places, and terminal 1 is for the discount carriers such as Wizz Air (you may remember the pink Barbie plane) going to nearby countries.



I watched a couple of children for a friend who was at a doctor's appointment, so I took them to a another friends' house to swim. The view is gorgeous from their yard as it overlooks downtown Budapest. It was really nice to cool off--the temperature was in the mid 90's.


She says it's not Krispy Kreme, but it's pretty close!

Of course, the longer you are away from Krispy Kreme, the more it tastes like it. I haven't been away long enough even to try it! Shelia has been in the guest house for over a week )and away from America for 4 years) and still has another week or two until she leaves. I think I am going to "deputize" her so she can run the guest house for me while I go to France.

Well, it's now grape season. Our grapes are ready to pick off the vines that are growing on the side of our carport. I love grapes, and these remind me of when I was in middle school, living in Germany, and our family was vacationing in a VW camper as we traveled across Europe. When we arrived in Italy, it was grape season. My parents bought a 5 kilo case of grapes(that's over 10 pounds!) for the four of us kids to snack on in the back of the camper! I stuffed myself, and that is what I am doing now with our grapes!


First apple from our new Golden Delicous tree

It's also apple season for the early varieties. Glenn and I both love apples and I enjoy making homemade applesauce to freeze for the winter months. Glenn bought me a small apple tree for my birthday in June, and it has (had) 12 little apples on it that are now full size. I have eaten 3 of them already, and I told Glenn he better eat one tomorrow morning for breakfast before he leaves for Idaho because I couldn't promise there would be any left when he returns!

I don't think I will have enough apples on our tree this year to make applesauce for the winter.

See Glenn in the middle of the line in the blue shirt?

The whole population of Hungary lined up to catch the buses that go to the top of the hill where there is a huge castle overlooking the Danube River. Why?




This weekend begins the biggest celebration in Hungary. We are honoring King Saint Stephen for bringing Hungary together and introducing the country to Christianity. I'm not sure if he was King before he was given sainthood or vice versa. Anyway, we have heard about this celebration ever since arriving. Monday is the official holiday, but the festivities actually started the Friday before. A gazillion Hungarians throughout the country and all the tourists in town go up to Castle Hill to brouse among several hundred booths selling authenic Hungarian art and crafts. On Monday, there will be an air show over the Danube as planes fly in formation, do spirals and even fly under the Chain Bridge (Lanchid). In the evening there will be the largest fireworks display I will ever see, or so they all say. Since Glenn will be gone by then, I am going with friends.

It was crowded, to say the least.

We enjoyed seeing all the different kinds of Hungarian folkart, and especially enjoyed a typical Hungarian lunch of sausage and potatoes!!!

Handblown and handpainted eggs

Massive furniture!

Beautiful handmade baskets

Hungarian dancers from around the country performed all day

Children learn the old fashion way of making paper

One of the different things about this festival that celebrates the history of Hungary is the way they not only sell handmade crafts, but they also teach everyone else how to make them! The craftmen (or craftladies) make things right there in their booths or next to it. Many had tables set up where the children could try their hands at it too!

Learning how to make wicker items

Making their own pottery

Glenn joins in the fun just long enough for me to take the picture!

Well, it's been a busy week. The guest house continues to take up most of my time, but I am enjoying it. This week we will be almost full again with 6 out of the 8 rooms full. Next week, I may show you pictures of me doing laundry!

Continue praying about someone to come run the Eden House long-term. We hope to hear this week that a couple has been approved by the Board and will go to ILC from October through December, and arrive in Budapest in January. As much as we enjoy taking care of the Eden House and our missionaries as they come, we know this is not what we came to do as our primary ministry. As much as we'd like someone to come quickly to take over, we want it to be the right couple so please pray with us!

Pray for Glenn as he goes to Idaho for two weeks. Pray that we don't have any more folks needing medical care next week so that I can go to France and not worry about them! Continue to pray for our language skills. Believe it or not, it has been hard to focus on language with all the other responsibilities we have.

Have a good week!

Down Time!

The week started off extremely busy with 7 out of the 8 rooms at the Eden House full but things have slowed down as the weekend approached. I spent a good portion of the week either welcoming or sending off families as they left, or doing laundry. I missed a wonderful photo opportunity (photo op), or as Glenn and I would say, "blog-worthy", the day I started the laundry when a mission team checked out. There were 7 sets of sheets to wash for that one group.



So, since I couldn't show you what I did all week (laundry), I took this picture to show you what Glenn did! If he wasn't taking folks to their doctor's appointments, he was answering emails or talking to our missionaries via Skype.


Cobblestone street that leads to our church

We have had such hot weather for the past month that this rain shower was a welcome relief. The weather channel here called for rain all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but we've only received rain twice during the night and a short shower on Sunday morning. It is currently 68 degrees on Sunday night at 9:15 pm. A little relief! We can tell summer is coming to a close by the changes in the sun rise and sun sets. The sun used to rise at 4:30 am and set about 9:30 pm. Now the sun rises about 5:50 am and sets about 8:30 pm. I am NOT ready for winter, but I am enjoying the cooler weather these past few days!



These little ladybugs are a gift to Glenn and me from Abby and Chloe Pollard, little friends of ours. They are so cute! I'm trying to find just the right place to use them. We had the Pollard family over for hamburgers today after church. (They go to our church.) We had grilled burgers with all the trimmings, deep fat fried french fries (!), and Cambell's Pork and Beans (my last two cans), then we topped off the meal with Emogene's Upside Down German Chocolate Cake with vanilla ice cream on top. What decadence! We didn't eat dinner tonight due to the overindulgence at lunch!


Almonds are ready!

Glenn and I have never seen almonds on a tree so it has been quite a learning experience for us to see how they develop. (I know-you'd think with us living in exotic Budapest that we'd have more interesting things about which to blog.) Anyway...we noticed that our almond tree and a lot of the other trees in the neighborhood have a blight on them, so they are not producing healthy almonds. Anyway, I found the above almond hanging on a friends' almond tree, open like this. When the almond is ripe (do nuts get ripe like fruit?), the green fuzzy outer shell opens on its own to reveal the light brown hard shell that we have to crack ourselves.

Well, as you can tell, not a lot has happened this week that was blogworthy. We did, however, get encouraging news that a couple has responded to our request to work at the Eden House as host/hostess! They have indicated this to the IMB and are waiting for approval, which should come within the next two weeks! Pray that God would confirm or close the door, so that His will be known and done!

Have a good week!

Random Pictures of a Normal Week

Nothing out of the ordinary happened this week, really. (If you are a faithful blogstalker of ours, you will recognize those words as having preceeded when I confessed to having hit rock bottom a couple of weeks ago. For those who have been praying for me-thank you! I am back out of the pit and am doing well again, but keep those prayers lifted for me anyway!)


View from our balacony


Need anything more than a bag of popcorn, soda pop and a video?

Yes! And that would be cooler weather, which we got on Monday. Darrin was out of town so Kesha came over to relax and watch a movie with us. It was WONDERFUL to wrap up in a blanket and get all snuggly with the one I love (who is also willing to rub my feet!)



It got so cold that I wore a turtleneck the next day and drank hot tea. It's got to be COLD for me to drink HOT tea. Bleeeeck! I am trying to acquire the taste for hot tea because my daughter-in-law loves it so much (and she is pretty smart-so there must be some good teas out there) and because another missionary painted me a beautiful wooden box in which to store
tea bags. So far, the only way I can drink a cup of hot tea is with a cup of sugar.


Szerdan menu (Wednesday's Special)

Wednesday is cheap date night here at the Campona Mall, down the street from our house. They often have an American movie playing in English with Hungarian subtitles, but the trick is to find a movie that is good. (Same problem in America, as I recall!) On Wednesdays the cost of a movie drops to about $5 and a bag of popcorn and medium Coke are about $2.50(we have to remember to ask for jegkockak if we want it with ice cubes.)

This Wednesday we went to see Ocean's Thirteen and they had a different special: For 1,90o forint (about $10.25) we got video copies of Ocean's Eleven and Ocean's Twelve, plus the bag of popcorn and medium Coke. Not bad, eh? Glenn and I have seen more movies at the theatre in the past 6 months than we ususually see in 2 years!



Now that the weather is cooling off a little, we are getting out and doing some more walking just for pleasure. We found this beautiful, quaint street in OUR neighborhood. As we walked down this one street, I felt like I was back in time!

I also made my first attempt at Hungarian Goulash, which they actually call Goulash Soup, or Gulyasleves. It was "okay", but not great, so I will have to work on it. I followed a recipe that I found in my Hungarian cookbook, but it didn't have as much flavor as the ones we've eaten in restaurants here. I will have the recipe perfected before I see Karin, Eric, Morgan and Corrie Heinzelmann at Christmas, since it was one of their favorite things to eat when they were here visiting us two weeks ago!

Most of this past week we spent getting the Eden House ready for all the folks coming in this coming week. On Monday night, 7 of the 8 rooms will be full. That means this week I will be washing sheets so they will be clean and ready for the next guests!

We love Saturdays. That is the day we can do yardwork, clean the house and run errands. Fortunately, it only takes Glenn about 15-20 minutes max to cut the grass. It takes me 2 hours to clean the house and do laundry if I do just the basics; 3 hours if company is coming. When I start grumbling to myself about how small my house is here, God points out that it is big enough to meet my needs, and then He quickly reminds me that it only takes me 2 hours to clean it!!

Praise the Lord with us! There is now another couple praying about coming to manage the guest house! They are currently at ILC in Virginia at a conference where they are learning about all the needs around the world, and are beginning to zero-in on a couple of them, ours being one of them. Pray that God will lead them our direction and that they will be obedient IF this couple is the one God has for this position. It is such an important ministry and needs a couple who have the spiritual gifts of service and hospitality; otherwise, it will wear them out. If they come, they would not get here until January or February.

I'm currently reading a book by Carol Kent called When I Lay My Isaac Down. It's about sacrifices and how willing would we be to sacrifice the hopes and dreams we have for our own life or our dreams for the lives of our children. Really tough reading. I encourage you to read it.

Have a good week!