Across the Pond

Glenn and I were supposed to go to Ukraine for 10 days to visit our families there, and while on the trip, we would have spent Thanksgiving with one of our teams up country. Unfortunately, I fell sick shortly before our departure and wasn't well enough to travel so we stayed in Budapest. That meant we had 10 extra days at home with nothing on our calendar so I got lots of rest ... until Glenn fell sick also!

Once I was "back to normal", whatever that is, I was able to spend some time with Judit. She is a great seamstress and here is a wedding dress she was working on, in addition to my bedroom curtains (yes, finally!) and several Christmas outfits for missionaries with other organizations. From the number of fancy dresses she was making, I would guess that the other mission organizations have Christmas banquets in fancier restaurants than Glenn and I usually frequent :-).

For example, we are always on the hunt for a good pizza place. All of the Pizza Huts' have closed down so we tried New York Style Pizza with Dan and Janet. I think we will keep looking :-(

After two weeks back in Budapest, it was time to head to the U.S. for two Member Care meetings, back to back. I wanted to make some Peppermint Bark to take with me to share with our member care folks since it is soooo good.

And to make it look authentic, I put it in my Trader Joe's metal Christmas tin. I think everyone enjoyed it!

We flew into Atlanta on December 3rd and spent two nights with my Dad before driving up to Virginia to the Missionary Learning Center outside of Richmond.

Isn't it cool to see my Dad working at his laptop? He's so techy!

Glenn was putting on the first week of member care meetings for our personnel who work in Eurasia with us. It went really, really well. The sessions were good and the fellowship was great!

One of our members has a sister who lives here in the Richmond area and owns over 100 acres of lakefront property with a gorgeous house and adjoining pool house overlooking the lake that she has turned into a Celebration Center that hosts weddings, receptions and banquets. Kathy's sister offered to open her place up to us for an afternoon of fellowship and rest and to put on a wonderful Christmas banquet for us (at no charge!).

There were 4 tables set up in the "pool house" overlooking the lake for our private group! Because the weather was rainy and cold, we were inside rather than on the huge pool deck where she often hosts receptions. She also gave us a tour of her personal home that she and her husband built themselves. We counted 7 bathrooms, so that gives you an idea of the size of this house. I have never seen such a beautiful home with so many interesting nooks and crannies! Anyway, we spent our first afternoon together as the Eurasia Member Care team out at Paulanne's place and had a great time!

Our meeting began Wednesday morning and continued through Friday evening, but as the week wore on, Glenn knew we needed a special treat so had Mike pick us up some Krispy Kreme doughnuts. What trip to Richmond would be complete without Krispy Kreme???

When the weekend arrived, I finally managed to get over to the Starbucks in Short Pump, the nearest town!!! My sister Karin had left a Starbucks gift card for us at my Dad's house and this was my first opportunity to get a low-fat with whipped cream white chocolate mocha with an extra pump of white chocolate! Yum! I ate a salad for lunch to make sure I could afford the calories! THANKS, KAR!N! We will enjoy using it when we are with our kids too!!!

Over the weekend we had a game night. The men played Farkle, a mindless game of chance ...

... while the women played Bananagrams, an intensive, educationally stimulating game of Scrabble played against others. (The men didn't really bet money ... Harold just threw those dollars into the pot to look like they were betting!)

On Saturday afternoon, I went into Short Pump to meet up with my best friend from high school who drove down from the Washington, D.C. area (close to where we lived eons ago) to sip coffee and reminisce for a couple of hours. I can tell you Linn has not aged a bit! She is beautiful. She was one of my bridesmaids and it is always fun to see her and to get caught up on news!

And now it is Sunday, the day before we start our world-wide Member Care meeting with folks who do member care with our organization all over the globe. We will be here until Friday at noon, at which time we will quickly load our car and "fly" down to Marietta where Kari, Jonathan and Alec will be waiting on us! They arrive from Senegal December 13th, while we are still here in Virginia until the 16th. Chris and Kate and Jazmine arrive in Marietta on the 19th. :-)

This is Alec, our grandson. :-)

And this is Jazmine, our granddaughter! :-)

We're looking forward to this week, learning new things and seeing old friends, but we are also very excited about seeing our families, making Christmas cookies together, and spending Christmas with them!