Another week flies by!

I can't believe we've been here for 4 weeks! The time has flown by, and I hate to think that we only have four more months if this is how fast the time is going to pass! I haven't even seen Kristin or talked with my own brother who lives here in this same town! I've not written a newsletter to our prayer partners, many of who live here in Marietta, to let them know that we are even in the U.S.! Akkk!

We had lunch with friends Albert and Martha earlier in the week and that was a lot of fun. One day we hope to have Albert and Martha come for a visit in Budapest and maybe stay for a while (hint! hint!)

One of the best memories I have of raising our kids is going as a family to the north Georgia mountains to pick apples. Well, I think we only got to pick them once or twice; the other years we had to just "pick" bags of them off the floor! Anyway, on Friday morning Pop, Emogene, Kari, Jonathan, Glenn and I drove an hour up the road to Elijay to get apples.

Kari and Jonathan love Mutsu and Glenn and I love Stayman Winesap so we got 2 pecks of apples, total. Yum! Nothing better than fresh, crisp apples!

We stopped at several apple houses to find one that also sold apple fritters because they are also part of our memories. Talk about "yum"! Glenn found two pumpkins (also for sale) on which to sit to share his fritter with me. There weren't enough seats for all six of us, so we moved to the picnic tables nearby.

On our way out, Glenn just had to get some boiled peanuts. A real southern treat! I saw at one of the apple houses FRIED PEANUTS! How can we take something that is so laden with oil and calories and make them even more fattening?

In past years we would often stop at Poole's BBQ, a small hole-in-the-wall place on the side of the interstate for some of the best BBQ around.

Pop and Emogene enjoy BBQ as much as Glenn and me!

Col. Poole knows how to make an extra $3 per person! He sells small, thin plywood pigs on which customers paint their names to either hang from the ceiling of the porch or stake into the ground on the hillside next to the building as proof that they were there. Never bought one myself because of a little ditty my mother taught me when I was a child. It goes, "Fools names, like fools faces, are always found in public places." For this reason, I don't ever scratch my name in trees, on bathroom walls, or on pigs.

Everyone was tuckered out after our hard work picking apples! I kept Glenn awake while he drove but everyone else dozed. (This is not a staged picture!) After they all woke up, Jonathan should have worked on their crimped necks!

On Saturday, Glenn and I went to Pop's house on Hickory Drive to swim and sun and did a little yard work while we were there. Pop will be closing the pool soon, so we wanted to get in one last swim before the weather turns cool. The pool water was too cold to enjoy for long, but the jacuzzi was perfect!

His house is up for sale and whoever buys it will get a great play area!

The highlight of our week is remembering the birth of our son, Chris, 28 years ago. I was so looking forward to being able to actually pick out birthday and Christmas presents for our kids since, for the past 4 years, we've had to send them money. That's no fun! Unfortunately, I couldn't pick out and mail the top for Chris and Kate's jeep, which is what he wanted! Oh well, there's still Christmas! Anyway, we hope Chris had a great day today and knows that he is loved very much by his family in Georgia! We can't wait to see him and Kate, which will be in two weeks!