My last blog update was of our time in America and mostly full of pictures of our beautiful grand-daughter, but now I am back in Budapest wonderfully celebrating Christmas with my adorable grand-son, so get ready for equal time!!!

Kari, Jonathan, and Alec arrived from Senegal on Dec. 21st and we've been going non-stop ever since!    Keep in mind that they came from the desert to 2 inches of snow on the ground and so we scrounged for winter clothes for the three of them.

We got to introduce Alec to snow, which he loves!  However, last summer when he was 1 year old and here in Budapest, we tried to introduce Alec to grass but he didn't like it one bit.  It was hilarious!  Each time we'd try to lower him to the grass, he'd lift his little legs up to his chest.  

Most days we've taken a short walk outside, but there are plenty of toys to play with and tons of books to read inside.  We've had a fire going in the fireplace every day since they arrived.

Glenn and I printed photos of Alec's grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles and put them under plexiglass on a kids table we bought from the Eden House when it closed down last summer.  Alec has enjoyed looking at the pictures and we've enjoyed trying to teach him all his relatives' names!

Alec has a nurturing side to him.  He is so sweet!

He loves the plastic food that his cousin, Jazmine, gave him for Christmas and when he opened the package, he had to taste the oranges, pizza, french fries, and tomatoes.    I'm not kidding, Kate.  He loves the food!

Alec rarely slows down, but Glenn got him in a rare mood and was able to read him a book!  

Alec is very curious and loves to touch everything with his hands and his mouth!

 

Kari made Playdough and Alec has been able to use some children's dishes he got for Christmas from his great-grandfather (Pop).

Another rare moment, and just as precious as the first.   For some reason, Glenn can get Alec to sit still long enough to read a (part of a) book, but he won't for me.    He comes to me to hold him so he can touch each of the light bulbs on the ceramic Christmas tree my mom made for me in 1993.

One day we went into downtown to visit the Christmas market.  Glenn and I kept Alec while Jonathan and Kari took pictures.

We didn't buy anything, but it was fun looking at all the goodies.

When we got home, we had one tired little boy and one contented grandmother.

Aren't they cute together?

Even though we will always remember this trip as when Alec was 17 months old, our second memory will be of the 1000 mandarins and clementines that Jonathan ate while here.  Good thing they are in season!

There are no Burger King's in Dakar, so we always treat K & J to burgers when they come.  Alec likes them too!

We have a great wooden nativity scene that Glenn's mom and dad gave us when Kari and Chris were toddlers that is perfect for little kids to touch and handle without much fear of breaking them.  Alec enjoys sitting on the window ledge and me handing him each piece one-by-one.  He and I go through the pieces at least once a day.   So cute!

We made a trip out to Ikea one afternoon for Kari to buy some things for Alec, using Pop's Christmas money.   Alec did so well during our shopping marathon.

This is a view from our stairs, looking down over Alec playing with his toy food.

It's difficult to fix a meal, bent over a toddler who is pulling everything out of the drawers and cabinets, while sidestepping fingers and toes.  Ah, but he's so cute!

He has musical talent.  He plays the paper towel rolls like no one else.

Glenn wrote a book in 2012 about the meaning of Christmas, with the help of a professional editor, Kari Masson, and Alec and I are looking at the pictures.  It's good.  Can't buy it yet on Amazon, but we'll let you know when it is available!

I didn't get a chance to do all my Christmas baking before the 25th, so I've been doing some of it bit by bit ever since then, with the help of Alec.

Alec is a great eater, and Kari and Jonathan give him a great variety of fruit and vegetables, and not much sugar.  I do believe though that this was his first time having whipped cream, licked straight off the beaters.  I must confess, I got permission first.

As I said, he is a great eater.  He loves spinach and just gobbles it up!

He used his spoon for the longest time, then just lifted the bowl to his face and licked.  This is no joke--we found spinach in his ears!

Ahhhh!  We are having a great time and are so glad that Kari, Jonathan, and Alec are here with us for the holidays!

I know, I know, I hit an all-time record of not updating my blog, but when I got ready to do it 3 weeks ago, Google told me I was out of photo space and now had to pay for it.  I'm not techy so I had to wait until Glenn could help me figure out my best option ... which turned out to buy more space.  So, welcome back to my blog.

I'm going to pick up where I left off, which was in Indiana at a Mental Health in Missions conference.  The conference was great, but the best part was that my daughter-in-law and grand-daughter were also at the conference.  I got to do a little babysitting!

Isn't Jazmine just the cutest little thing?   She is a mix of the best of her mom and dad.  Those big brown eyes from her dad and her sweetness from her mom.  :-)

However, she also greatly resembles her aunt Kari with these swingin' hips!  I have a photo of Kari when she was in 2nd grade posing just like this.  (And she loves Fritos just like her aunt Kari;  in fact, she's got them in both hands!)

At the end of the conference, we had to say good-bye at the airport, but this time, it was pretty easy because we were going to see them again in a week!

Glenn and I flew to Atlanta, spent one night with my dad (lovingly called "Pop"), next door to his special friend, Emogene, before the four of us drove to South Carolina to spend Thanksgiving with my sister's family.

Karin and Eric live on Lake Murray in a beautiful showcase home that they designed and built.   It is large enough to have the whole Brown family over for Thanksgiving and July 4th, and everyone always has such a great time!

This year my aunt Billie came over from Montgomery to join us for Thanksgiving.  The last time I saw Aunt Bill is when she came to Budapest our first year here, 5 years ago.

While we were there, Eric spotted where a beaver literally chewed one of his trees down!  The tree was about 6 inches in diameter, and unfortunately, it is NOT the first one they've lost to beavers.   I've seen drawings of where beavers have cut trees down with their teeth but I never really believed that they chisel them down to points like this!  I was wrong.

We had perfect weather and Jazmine enjoyed playing on the steps outside for as long as someone would watch her.   The view out the back of the house is so breath-taking.

  

Eric took Chris and Jazmine on a tour of the yard in Corrie's golf cart.  I'm not sure who enjoyed it most, Chris or Jazmine???

Sitting around was one of the best things we did the whole time we were in the U.S..  It was definitely the only real rest we got during the month.  Too bad it happened on the front end of our trip!

The stools around the kitchen counter were always full too, of folks grazing and chatting.   Karin always has a frig full of soft drinks and serves the greatest meals.  Always a good supply of movies too!

My niece, Corrie, was great with Jazmine too, which was a big help when we were trying to get the Thanksgiving day meal together.    Corrie leaves in two weeks for a semester at sea.  No joke.  She will travel around the world for the next four months.  What an awesome experience!  I'll be praying for her day-by-day once I get her itinerary.  (Hint, Karin!)

Eric made the stuffing (the real deal), and I got to help him stuff the turkey.  Never done that before, myself!

Glenn took his turn at holding Jazmine while the rest of us ate our lunch.  She's a good eater.  (Both my grandkids are good eaters, which makes things really easy!)

One of the best pictures I got of her all weekend.  :-)

On Saturday, we headed back to Marietta so we could spend some time with Glenn's side of the family, specifically Sarah, Chad, and Katie while they were in town.  

Five days later, we headed to Alcoa, Tennessee to spend the weekend with Chris, Kate, and Jazmine.  Chris works Monday-Friday so that's the best time for us to visit with them.  

We helped them set up their tree and decorate their house.  It took 3 of us to do that, and 1 person to play with Jazmine.  

We swapped our gifts with them while we were there.   Who'd have thought little Jazmine would like soft packages?   She's showing off her Christmas outfit.

And now she's modeling her little tutu!  So cute!  Love that smile.  

Chris and Kate live 2 blocks from a huge park with miles and miles of walking paths.   We enjoyed a couple of walks in the park, including a picnic lunch one day.  

And this is a rare photo op of my son's family.  A great picture!  

The only thing that made saying good-bye a tad easier was knowing that we would see them again in 6 months, and knowing that our daughter's family would arrive soon to spend Christmas with us.  Still, it was tough to hug them good-bye and get on that plane.  

Jet lag is in full swing but I'll be ready for Kari, Jonathan, and Alec when they arrive on Friday!

Again, sorry to be so delinquent in updating my blog.  I'm back. :-)

A little of this and that!

Let me back up a bit and add onto last week's blog update with pictures of our return to Hungary from Ukraine.  The ride home was quite interesting to Glenn and me!  Uneventful, meaning without problems, but interesting none-the-less.

Hungary actually used to be 3 times the size it is today.  In the aftermath of World War I,  according to Wikipedia, "four empires collapsed due to the war, old countries were abolished, new ones formed, boundaries were redrawn, international organizations were established, and many new ideologies took a firm hold in people's minds."  There is a large portion of western Ukraine that used to be part of Hungary, and in certain sections, 50% of the population claim to be Hungarian by birth.  Much of the signage was in Hungarian and most people spoke both Hungarian and Ukrainian.  In this photo the building with the colored window frames is the National Hungarian Theatre, but sadly, it is located in the part that was deeded to Ukraine after the war!  

However, not all signs were in Hungarian!  This one was found in a gas station inside Ukraine, close to the Hungarian border.   I'm assuming this is in Ukrainian, so if anyone out there speaks Ukrainian and can tell me what HI and TAK mean, I'd be grateful.  I'd be even more grateful though if you could interpret the sign for me!   It looks like you're not supposed to vomit in the toilet, nor throw bombs into it, but you can sit on it and shake.   

I loved this one too.  We saw it on several bathroom doors in western Ukraine.  We think it is part of their effort to be "green", but we aren't sure.  (Joe R., any ideas?)

At that same gas station we decided to get some lunch because I was starving!  Unfortunately, the stretch of road leading to the Hungarian border was out in the country and there weren't any restaurants to be found, so gas station hot dogs were the best we could do.  They take a piece of baguette about 7 inches long, and with a long-bladed knife, they dig a hole in the bread and push an 8 inch hot dog down into it as far as it will go, leaving the last two inches sticking out.  It was our first experience with buying hot dogs at a gas station (it's not something we usually do in America either...) and actually, it was pretty good.  I was also very hungry so I wasn't going to be too picky at that point.

Just inside the Hungarian border we started seeing lots of apple orchards, mostly already picked clean, and then we came upon this apple processing plant.  We were hoping they would have a sales room where we could buy bags of apples, gallons of cider, yummy fried fritters and dried apple rings ... just like we used to do in Elijay every fall in Georgia.  No such luck!

So, we ended up stopping at one of the roadside vegetable stands and buying several bags of different kinds of apples.  See those big white bags?  Those are bags of shredded cabbage!  Hungarians love their cabbage, and Glenn and I do too-in moderation, but we didn't buy one because I don't know how to make sauerkraut and I DON'T want to learn.

With all those bags of apples and us getting ready to go to America for a month, we had to do something with all the apples, so that weekend we made a batch of apple fritters.  (Yes, Karin, only one recipe, cut in half.)

We then made more applesauce for the freezer.   It took us quite a long time to peel all those apples but we were able to put away about a gallon of applesauce for the winter months.  

With the left-over peelings, Glenn boiled them, added some spices and voila!  Hot apple tea!

A new holiday decoration to Hungary that came from America this year is jack-o-lanterns!  Glenn and I took a walk in our neighborhood this week and found 3 houses with lit pumpkins with faces carved in them!    I think it is sad that THIS is what comes over from America!

During that same walk in our neighborhood, we came across this sign on someone's fence.  Now, let me explain ... there are evidently no zoning laws here in Hungary because you can have a business in your house smack in the middle of a neighborhood.  There's a pub, bike repair shop, building company, and a tiny grocery store one street over.  Budafok Fitness is around the corner on another street, and offers so much: cosmetics, massage, solarium, pilates, haircuts, pedicures, nails, sauna, jacuzzi and tarot cards!   One stop does it all!

Glenn and I were shopping at Kika earlier this week and I got a good laugh at this duvet cover and pillow set.  Yea for  Gummi Bears!

On Wednesday, Glenn and I took my friend and walking partner to the hospital to have knee surgery.  Janet's doctor gave her very limited information about what to expect as far as the surgery and recovery period, but he did tell her to go to the 1st floor (which is the 2nd floor in America) and to "sit and wait on the blue couch".  Such detail!  As it turned out, there were pale blue sheets thrown over the blue couches.   I guess it was easier to buy blue sheets to throw over the worn or broken blue couches rather than change the instructions on how to find the doctor's office in the hospital.

Friday, Tena and I hosted a baby shower for Jo Ellen.  She's having a little girl, due in February.  Glenn and I are excited about welcoming a new baby into our team family.  (Technically, she and Scott are not on our team but since we work closely with them, we consider them part of our local team.)  :-)

Becoming an aunt is almost as much fun as becoming a grandmother!

It was a nice shower and it was good to get the ladies together to celebrate this beautiful little girls' arrival!  The games were fun (hard too!), the fellowship sweet, and the cake delicious!

The crowning touch was the lamb cake that Robin made.  It was not only delicious, but it was also beautiful and creative!  Robin didn't have a cake pan in the shape of a lamb (which is the theme of the baby's room) so she designed her own lamb using cup cakes.  Ingenious!  

Well, we're off again, headed to the land of the red, white and blue.  It may be tough to update for the next month because of our travel schedule, but I will be back asap.