Be back soon!

I'm so sorry I've been terribly delinquent about updating my blog. Glenn and I have been on our stateside assignment since the end of August. We are having a great time, but it has been very, very busy. Far busier than we ever expected! Because of that, I have decided just to eliminate the weekly guilt trip by accepting defeat (living life versus blog updates), and just let everyone know that I will not be blogging again until we return to Budapest on February 1.

We're having a great time with our families. Kari and Jonathan are in Iowa right now but will be back to Marietta in a week to begin packing their belongings for Senegal. They head out January 21. Chris and Kate came to Marietta to spend Christmas with us and will be here for one more week. Six and a half months from now, Glenn and I will be grandparents! That's our big news for this year!

Anyway, I've got to go, but I'll be back soon. Hope to see you in February. (I'll be here, and hope you'll join me again!)

Age has it's benefits!

You know, getting old stinks and I can think of only one benefit to it, and that is the senior citizen discount! I've heard some folks say, "I don't feel old", but I have to admit that I do! Oh, I don't feel old in my mind but I sure do in my body. That traitor!

Well, the day came when Glenn was willing to admit his age (a mere 55 years old) to a cashier at Belk's on the first Tuesday of the month, which is Senior Day, in order to receive a 20% discount on some clothes he was buying! Today was the first of many such discounts he plans to take advantage of during our time in the U.S.!

We spent a week in Virginia at the International Learning Center for reorientation back to the States. We saw about 15 families we knew from either our appointment service in September, 2006 at FBC North Spartanburg (SC), or at ILC during our 8 weeks before moving to Hungary, or from one of the many meetings we've attended over the past 3 years, 9 months! It was like Homecoming, only without the formal dresses and corsages.

Beth, one of my friends from Ukraine who is now back in the States came out to visit with Wendy and me for an evening. It was good to see her again and get caught up on her news.

The week was full of seminars on helpful information, such as how to speak in churches in 2 minute modules, where to order special display materials, what's new in S.B. circles, and recognizing stress and how to relieve it. Due to security issues for some of our personnel, I really can't show pictures of everyone there.

We had 4 days back in Marietta before we left again so I took a couple of random pictures to show you. This is the Chapel of FBC Marietta, which is our host church. Isn't it beautiful?!? Can you imagine how gorgeous the sanctuary is??? Glenn and I were married in the sanctuary of this church almost 33 years ago.

We were headed up to New Jersey to visit with Chris and Kate and to attend Chris's White Coat ceremony, and I needed something "dressy" to wear. Glenn found these shoes for me, but unfortunately, they wouldn't go with my brown dress pants!!! One pair had 4" stiletto heels with pink and blue feathers on the toes, and the others were purple leather ankle boots with 3" heels!

On Sunday, we went to West Cobb Church and I was able to catch up with my buddy, Adam. He has gotten so tall and has grown into such a polite young man. I try to collect refrigerator magnets for him and his mother from each of the countries we visit in hopes that his mother will help him locate on a map where the countries are located. I know, for me, it is more interesting to study geography if there is some connection with it, so maybe this will help Adam. Who knows? Maybe not. Probably not.

Pastor Ken is doing a series on Parenting during the worship services and had asked Glenn and me if he could interview us. Little does Ken know that it is less about Glenn and me having great parenting skills and more about God giving us great kids! We really can't take much credit for how our kids have turned out!

Kari (our daughter) was there in the congregation, and I could just imagine her wanting to add her two cents too! Maybe Ken should have interviewed HER for the real scoop!

It was good to be able to reconnect with friends from 4 years ago!

And because we do not have any pictures of Glenn and me "in action", doing member care, we asked Kim if she would pose with us for Kari to take some pictures for some of our speaking engagements. All this week, I have been either thinking about or working on our display that we will need for a World Missions Conference later this month in Valdosta. We will be using this picture in one of our displays.

And lastly, this is our bedroom after the bomb went off. No, not really. This is our bedroom after the burglars emptied all our drawers. No, not really. This is our bedroom after one of our shopping trips to buy winter clothes for our trip to New Jersey, New York, and Canada! Yes, really!

After we got back from our trip to Virginia, during which the weather went from summer to fall, I realized I didn't have any winter clothes for our trip to see Chris and Kateso Glenn and I had to go buy some! Everything for this winter is either sleeveless, short sleeve, or 3/4 length sleeve and in non-flattering (ugly) colors so I am not buying much this season! And I'm going to be freezing!

I didn't find anything that I liked so I didn't buy much. (Thanks to my sister Karin, I have plenty of winter pants already!) I'll be wearing the same 4 shirts over and over again all winter long unless the stores get pretty sweaters in stock later on!

I am writing this from Canada, but I jump ahead of myself! My next update will be of our time in New Jersey with Chris and Kate, and our day trip into New York City, and then our 3 day, 2 night trip to Quebec, Canada. Coming soon....I hope!

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!

Sunny Florida!

We've just returned from a week at Panama City Beach, Florida where we enjoyed a wonderful time of relaxing in the sun. Kari and Jonathan and Glenn's parents, Bill and Marguerite, went with us. We went down on Monday morning and returned on Sunday evening.

Glenn's mom turned 90 during the week we were there! Bill treated everyone to a seafood dinner at Boatyard, one of the more advertised restaurants in the area.

Kari has always loved the beach (like me) but Jonathan hails from Iowa so he's not had "summers at the beach" like the rest of us. However, I think he enjoyed it as much as us!

Because there were six of us traveling in one mini-van, someone was always needing to take a potty break. Kari and Jonathan took advantage of the breaks to get a coffee of some sort.

And lest you think this is a spontaneous hug between the two of them, let me just mention that they rode the seven hours down there in the very back seats where it was a little bit cramped. They were real troopers and never complained! Jonathan is actually stretching/adjusting/cracking her back to get the kinks out!

We were able to get a last minute reservation at Regency Towers on the east end of Panama City beach. Our 3 bedroom condo was on the fifth floor overlooking the Gulf of Mexico.

Kari and Jonathan helped us unload the van quickly!

And the first thing Jonathan unpacked was the Hamilton Beach Cappucino maker! Kari loves lattes and Jonathan loves espressos. The closest I get to coffee is a coffee milkshake!

Glenn and I are alike in that whenever we travel, we like to unpack our suitcases and "nest", which is exactly what we did once the bags were unloaded out of the van. While Kari and I ran to the nearby Walmart to pick up some things we needed for meals, Glenn and Jonathan "explored" the complex and walked up and down the beach to check things out.

Our first night there, Glenn and I went to dinner with Al and Dianne, friends from Marietta who happened to be vacationing 2 miles down the beach from us. Some would call it a really neat "coincidence" but I think it was a blessing!

During the week, Glenn and I walked or jogged up and down the beach at least once a day so that we didn't have to worry too much about what we were eating. We usually ate sandwiches or leftovers for lunch but almost every night, Kari fixed us a great dinner. Glenn and I never got in either of the two pools because the water in the Gulf was so wonderful!

We tried to not get sunburned so we avoided swimming in the middle of the day. However, Pa enjoyed sitting out on the balcony in the heat of the day (to get warm from the air conditioning! Or maybe to watch the girls?)

We always enjoyed the sunsets, either while walking along the beach or from our balcony.

And on Friday evening we spotted a wedding rehearsal taking place just under our balcony out on the beach. I went down and asked the bride when the wedding ceremony would be so that I could be sure to be around to "watch" it.

She said it would be on Saturday at 5:45 pm so we were all on the balcony by 5:30 with our cameras, ready to watch the proceedings below. However, they were way behind in setting up for it! We watched them haul the chairs down to the beach, put up the reception-area tent, decorate the tables, put the linoleum dance floor together, test the sound system, etc....

...but it wasn't until 7 pm that the bride and her dad actually walked across the sand ("down the aisle") to where the preacher, groom, bridesmaids and groomsmen were waiting. Later that evening we heard one of the bridesmaids toasting the happy couple, Lisa and Chris.

It was interesting to watch, but there were a couple of near mishaps with this beach wedding! First, a garbage truck drives down the beach between the two mothers being seated to empty all the trash cans. The wind is blowing so fiercely up on the condo grounds where the reception is being held that the flower vases keep getting blown over and the linen napkins are flying away. Also, there were all these curious onlookers, like us, who were hanging around to watch! And the wind was blowing so hard down on the beach that the preacher couldn't be heard by the 50 or so invited guests. (I'm not counting the uninvited guests, like us!) Anyway, it was interesting.

All good things must come to an end. We had to return to Marietta on Sunday evening, so we packed up and made the trek home.

And the first thing Kari unpacks is the Cappucino machine! Welcome home!

Home, Sweet Home!

Glenn and I left Budapest for our 5 month stateside assignment on August 28th and have been going, going, going ever since arriving in Marietta, Georgia.

We brought home with us a total of 3 checked pieces and our two carry-ons.

So the first thing we had to do was go to Wal-mart to buy some basic toilettries and groceries. We filled two grocery carts, but keep in mind that some of the goodies were for our daughter and son-in-law who are staying with us and who have also been living out of the country (they've been living in France) for the past 5 1/2 years. We had so much fun oohing and ahhing over all the new stuff! We couldn't get over how many different types of Cheerios there were!

Pretty quickly I noticed something we've never seen before, and for the life of me, I can't figure out the point of it. Somebody evidently did a great marketing job to convince all of Marietta that they needed these!

Funky rubber bands! In all shapes (letters, animals, geometric shapes, and various shapes like houses, cars, bikes, books, etc.) and colors. Some are small enough to be worn as rings on fingers, and some are called bracelets, I suppose for the wrist. Americans have more money than sense!

Kari is a great cook and enjoys cooking more than I do so she has taken on most of the responsibilities for our dinner meals, for which I am extremely grateful! The weather has been ideal since our arrival and so we've eaten most of our meals outside in the screened-in porch!

The table on which we eat on the porch is large and solid; it doubles as a dining room table and an osteopath table!

Jonathan has worked on both Glenn and me.

My sister Karin came into town from Columbia, S.C. to celebrate my Dad's birthday with us. She took us all out to eat at Longhorn's Steak House! That meal alone caused me to go jogging and to the gym for the next 3 days!

Dad and Emogene shared the free ice cream sundae for the birthday boy!

On Saturday we walked from the house to the Marietta Square to check out the Farmers Market and browse through the booths at Art in the Park, a festival where folks sell their handmade items. A large, but expensive craft fair, you might say.

This is a sign belonging to a church located across the street from FBC Marietta.

This is a new sight to me in Marietta! We've seen rickshaw's in several of our European countries, but never before in Marietta.

We attended the WMU meeting at FBC Marietta and then went out to eat after the meeting with 6 or 7 of the ladies. We also went out for lunch one afternoon with Grandma Whitfield and Anne, two ladies who have meant a lot to our family through the years, and with Glenn's parents. I am having to work so hard not to gain weight with all these meals eaten out!

One of the things we enjoy doing when we come to the States is to help our families. My sister Elizabeth and brother-in-law Brennon asked Glenn and Jonathan to help him lift and place a concrete slab he made for a counter top. I think it weighed about 250 pounds!

Brennon is making the cabinet himself, and he and Elizabeth are blocking one of the two entrances into their bedroom with the floor to ceiling cabinet. Brennon does such beautiful work!

Now our family is on vacation for a week with Kari and Jonathan and Glenn's parents. I'll let you imagine where we are until I get around to updating this blog with more pictures!