Friends Cruisin' Down the Danube

This week started out like all the others...COLD...but by the end of the week, we were in full-swing SPRING! Ah, but I jump ahead of myself!

On Sunday, Glenn and I decided to walk to church even though it was freezing cold outside. It had snowed 1-2 inches a few days earlier and almost all of it was gone by Sunday so we chose to walk since it wasn't slushy outside. Besides that, when the temperature drops below a certain degree, our electric gate won't open!

While we were walking home, I decided to take pictures of our neighborhood, especially of all the things that you just don't see very often at home in America. I saved all those pictures and will post them on my blog the next time Sunday rolls around (the day I update) and I don't have anything else about which to write.

On Monday we had one of our Eden House guests down for dinner and I made a red velvet cake. I'd been craving one for about a week! Do you know how much red food coloring goes into one cake? Two ounces! I have a little yellow McCormick box with the 4 primary colors, and the WHOLE box is only one ounce! Well, I didn't have anywhere near enough red food coloring so I used up what I had, and the cake was still delicious even though it was more brown than red! (Because my recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder, it was a nondescript shade of brown.)

Not having enough room in the refrigerator to store the cake (with cream cheese icing), I pulled a "Queenie" and put it out on my front steps. Glenn's mom (Queenie) used to store food outside all the time on her porch, and since it was bitterly cold, my greatest worry was whether the cake would freeze before we finished it off. It didn't!

The rest of the week I spent hunched over my computer working on TCK (third culture kids) education emails. As the education consultant for Europe, all the requests for clarification of interpretation of the new TCK educational guidelines and all the requests for exceptions are coming to me. I do the research and then make a recommendation to my boss, he makes the decision, and then I communicate the response to the parents. Some emails are relatively easy to answer, but some require getting input from others, asking hard questions, and carefully formulating a response that is not what the parents want to hear.

Glenn has been wonderful this week, fixing most of our meals, doing the laundry and whatever else needed to be done. Because we are going out of town this coming week, I really needed to get as caught up as possible so he has done almost everything around the house to free me up.

In the picture above, it is about 8 pm and I am still working. He fixed us something to eat (Nachos) and he is getting ready to watch some tv while I keep on working.

On Saturday, I hosted a baby shower (with help from several friends) for Dorothy who is expecting her first baby in a month. The cake was done by Robin, a co-worker, and it was not only beautiful but also delicious! I never knew she had the gift of cake baking! (When we were serving as missionaries in Ivory Coast, one of the men in our church asked me to make the wedding cake for his upcoming marriage, telling me I needed to use my spiritual gift of cake baking!)

We played some silly games, like guess how big around Dorothy is! I actually got pretty close-only an inch or two off...

...but Teri wasn't anywhere close! (Even though I was close, I didn't win. Robin nailed it to the centimeter!)

Right after the shower ended, we put away all the food, packed up all Dorothy's gifts into our car and took her home, then went to meet long-time friends Debbie and Joe Moss in downtown BP!

Joe and Debbie were members of our former church in Marietta, First Baptist, and they served as missionaries in Togo around the same time that we were in Ivory Coast. We've kept in touch all these years, and consider them great friends. We've shared a lot of similar experiences through the years.

Joe and Debbie flew into BP earlier on Saturday to board a ship for a weeklong cruise down (or is it "up"?) the Danube River. They would have all evening and Monday morning to sightsee in Budapest before the ship set sail.

They had emailed us that their ship would be docked between the Elizabeth bridge and the Chain bridge...but it wasn't so we had to walk along the Danube until we found their ship, the Viking.

After eating dinner in a typical Hungarian cafe on the famous pedestrian street called Vaci utca (pronounced vat-see oot-sa), we drove them past Hero's Square, through City Park and over the Chain Bridge to the other side of the river to get a good view of the Parlament building. Of course, I took MORE pictures, but I will spare you!

We then drove up to the Citadel that overlooks the city for a gorgeous nighttime view.

By now, it was about 10 pm so we parked our car close to where their ship was docked and walked them over to it to say good-bye BUT THEIR SHIP WASN'T THERE! (My first thought was, "Phew, I have clean sheets on my guest bed! My second thought was, "Oh, but I have pink and purple balloons, streamers and "It's a girl!" banners strung all over my living room and dirty dishes in the sink from the baby shower! )

Did they misread their departure time and we'd have to drive them to Vienna to catch up with their ship? Fortunately, Joe and Debbie had a phone number for the ship and Glenn and I had cell phones, so we were able to call the ship and ask, "Where are you?" They told us they had moved to Pier 2, which was all the way down at the other end of where passengers board and disembark, a half a mile away! Oh well, we got to walk along the Danube at night with some great friends! All's well that ends well!

Glenn and I head to Spain on Tuesday for a member care conference that will be attended by counselors from all across Europe with many different organizations. We will be there until Saturday, and then on Sunday we are driving to Germany for the Germanic cluster meeting where we will do member care appointments. Busy, busy, busy.

Please pray for us. We will be traveling A LOT for the next 2 months. Currently, I'm battling a sore throat and not feeling well, but have a thousand things to do before we head for Spain on Tuesday, none of which I feel up to doing. Glenn and I both will be leading some small seminars in April and need some time to prepare for them but with our travel schedule, it will be difficult. Pray for wisdom, grace and compassion as I respond to parents requests concerning their child's education. Pick a prayer-any prayer! Just pray!