I met the American Ambassador

Well, I didn't really MEET her but I went to hear her speak. I sat on the second row in front of her and I was about 10 feet away, so does that count???? She was holding a Town Hall Meeting and all Americans registered with the Embassy were invited via email a few weeks ago. I made reservations for Glenn and me just because I was curious about who she was and what she would have to say.

There were only about 250 people in attendance; two small handfuls of missionaries, a few students studying at the Central European University, a cluster of business expats, a large number of foreigners married to Americans, and quite a few Hungarians who fled to the United States at the time of the Hungarian Revolution (against the Russians) in 1956 but who have since returned to Hungary to live. They introduced themselves as "56ers". They have dual citizenship in both Hungary and the United States.

The U.S. Ambassador didn't speak so much as she answered general questions posed by individuals. Most questions dealt with the tense political climate in Hungary and the failing economy. For someone who doesn't read the local newspapers, listen to the radio or watch the news on TV, it was a rather enlightening evening and pretty interesting. Ignorance is bliss. If anything happens to this country, I hope someone will call Glenn and me and let us know!

Other than going to hear the Ambassador, it was a calm week.

We have had snow flurries just about every day, but no accumulation. It's cold and gray, which is perfect weather for Glenn's homemade fish soup!

Before the icing...

I was in the mood for some gooey sweet rolls so I made HALF a batch of Cinnabon rolls which made waaaaay more than was good for our waist lines so we froze some of them in individual squares for later in the month :-).

In the fall of 2009, I met a young American lady who had just arrived in Hungary 5 days before. (You may remember them from a previous blog update.)

Melissa' s husband, Scott, is working on his Ph.D. in Ottoman Turk History at the Central European University and Melissa was teaching English. (As an interesting personal connection-our son-in-law, Jonathan, was Scott's Bible study leader at Iowa State University years ago.)

Anyway, Melissa gave birth to a beautiful girl named Ellie earlier this week. Here she is, just 4 days old! She is maybe the 5th most beautiful baby I've ever seen. A head full of hair! (Chris, Kari, Jazmine and Alec, in case you are wondering about #'s 1-4.)

Glenn and I have had several folks over for meals this week but I keep forgetting to take pictures, and we've worked on emails a good bit. Over the weekend, we did some home projects that were long overdue! (And yes, Kari, I'm needing a picture of Glenn and me for the middle, circular empty frame) :-)

We're home this week and I will try to find something new and interesting to write about for my next update. Having written this blog now for 5 years and the newness of living in a foreign country having worn off, it is hard to come up with new "fodder" about which to write!!!

I am often amazed when one of our co-workers tell me they follow my blog. I want to ask them, "Why????"

My friend Judit has a 17 year old daughter that studies all things dealing with textiles. She submitted an entry in a national competition that was open to anyone in Hungary (children through adults, amateurs to professionals) and Nikki's project was selected as one of the top 100 submissions! I'm not sure of all the details but each entry had to be made from natural materials and dealing with the Christmas theme. The top 100 entries were on display in a museum in City Park during the month of December.

Nikki made entirely by hand this marionette puppet of Mary and the baby Jesus.

Nikki fashioned the wire body and covered it with paper mache, painted the face and hands, and designed and stitched the clothes. I think she did an amazing job!

While we were in town, we stopped by the outdoor ice skating rink to get information on cost, hours and such. The location is beautiful but it is sooooo cold here that I wouldn't even consider going ice skating this week.

Even though it was in the high 20's, Judit suggested we walk around the lake. Fortunately, the sun was shining, the wind was blowing and it was bitterly cold, but it was a crystal clear day, and we've not had very many of them lately!

On Wednesday we took a trip to Keszthely in the western part of Hungary to visit with a couple of our family units there.

We stayed with David and Tina and had a "lovely" time (Tina has a British accent) visiting in their home and seeing the local sights.

They took us up to a mountain top where there is a small church and in the "garden" are almost life-size, wooden, carved statues depicting Christ on the cross with the two thieves beside him and several grieving women at his feet. It was so weird seeing it outside of Israel!

Keszthely sits on the shores of Lake Balaton, a huge resort area that is the heart of tourism in Hungary. We saw swans, geese and ducks on the lake but not a lot of tourists. All the smart ones were inside and warm.

On Thursday, Bethany and Michelle showed us around town and took us out to eat at this truly Hungarian tavern.

There were six of us in Keszthely: David, Tina, Bethany, Michelle, Glenn and me. What are the chances that 3 of the 6 would have ever lived in the same city years ago???? The odds are even smaller when it is a European city. Michelle, Tina and I all lived at one time in Mannheim, Germany!!!! What are the odds???

We had a great time getting to know those folks in Keszthely and enjoyed seeing their beautiful city!

We're home for another week and here's to hoping for some SNOW!

Bath time!

Well, we've been back almost two weeks and it has been wonderful to be home. A couple of months ago we decided that for the month of January we were going to stay close to home. Hopefully, this would allow us an opportunity to do some local ministry and to visit with our co-workers that live elsewhere in Hungary. I have found a ministry outlet for the end of the month and we are headed to Keszthely later this week, both of which I will tell you about in later updates.

Earlier in the week Glenn saw that Tesco was having a Winter WOW Sale on their children's clothes. Being ever so frugal (Glenn) and not wanting to wait until the last minute (Cile), we decided to pick up a few clothes for Alec (our grandson in Senegal) that he will need NEXT CHRISTMAS when he comes to visit us. We got a winter coat with coordinating fleece hat and mittens, 2 pairs of pants, a red fleece shirt (that matches his grandpa's!), and two gray shirts. I hope we did a better job at guessing how big he will be this time next year than we did at guessing how big he would be this past Christmas. Almost everything we'd bought him was too big! It sure was fun to shop for baby clothes :-)

We had co-workers from one of our countries come to Budapest to shop and for the husband to catch a flight to America. We enjoyed having Carl, Julie, and Kelli with us for two nights. I told them I was going to put this picture of Carl lying on our couch on my blog, and that I considered his lying on the couch to be a high compliment to us; he felt at home in our home! We like it when friends feel at home with us!

On Thursday, I went to one of the thermal baths (Szechenyi) with Denise, one of our ladies who lives here in Budapest. She lives behind the famous Gellert Hotel and from her apartment you can see the Danube River. (She lives IN Budapest and I live on the outskirts of the city.)

Denise's family used to live waaaay on the other side of Budapest from us, and it would take forever to get to her house, which meant we rarely saw them. Recently, they moved into downtown and now we see them every other month or so, which is good--for me! We had a good time at the thermal bath even though the temperature outside was freezing cold!!!

At the end of December a water pipe burst in the wee hours of the morning and flooded the main floor and the basement apartment of the Eden House. The carpet in the basement needed to be taken out, sheetrock replastered, ceiling tiles replaced and walls repainted. One of our couples in town for medical care was having trouble with an allergic reaction to the mold and mildew so they stayed at our house Friday and Saturday night. Zoli, our taxi driver, picked them up at 5:00 am to take them to the airport to catch their flight back to their country. We've had a busy week, but it's been good. I think things are back to normal!

Have a great week!

Christmas in review

We had a GREAT Christmas! In addition to celebrating the birth of the Christ child and enjoying all the hullabaloo that comes with Borders/Brown Christmas traditions, we rejoiced in seeing our children and grand-children. A side note-I hope my children noticed I put them first :-).

Chris, Jaz, Kate, Cile, Glenn, Kari, Jonathan and Alec

Ever since our kids were little ones in Ivory Coast, we have made Christmas cookies as a family. I'm not talking about the slice and bake kind, but rather, sugar cookies cut out in all the familiar Christmas shapes and then delicately and artistically painted (using children's kindergarten brushes) with dripping colored powdered sugar and heavily coated with sprinkles of all kinds. (My favorite sprinkle topping is Red-Hots!)

Through the years as our kids grew up, we've continued our tradition of decorating cookies, inviting our younger nieces and nephews as they got old enough to handle a paint brush. They're all grown up now but we continue the fun! At this years Christmas cookie party of 18 people, not counting our two new grandchildren, the ages ranged from 18 years of age to 79!!!

Chris, Kate, and Jazmine flew down from New Jersey for a week. Chris graduates as a P.A. in May and then will be looking for a job. Wonder if there is an opening at First Med Center here in Budapest???

She was the most beautiful present under the tree!

Such cute expressions!

Kari, Jonathan and Alec flew in from Senegal and spent two weeks with us in Marietta before going to visit Jonathan's family in Iowa.

Alec has a quick, beautiful smile!

Both Alec and Jazmine were into the full drool thing! No teeth yet, just lots of "liquid sugar".

They return to Senegal on Monday, the 11th.

We are so proud of our kids and love their spouses as if they were our own. It was so hard to say good-bye to our kids and their families.

We didn't do much running around during the holidays but we did get to visit with extended family. Jazmine sat quietly in Glenn's mom's lap (Queenie) one afternoon.

Both of our grand babies are swaddled before they are put down to go to sleep. Little Alec likes to play for several hours before he finally collapses! My Dad took a few turns at holding Alec while his mom was getting dressed.

As I mentioned earlier, we didn't do much running around. With two grandchildren, one or the other was either nursing or napping! Aren't my girls beautiful?

In between holding the babies, we let them have some tummy time on the floor. They enjoyed playing together, and six years from now, they will love this picture!

My girls, up close.

My sister Karin and her daughters Corrie and Morgan helped us with the babies. They are both good with babies, but Morgan has decided to be a great aunt to CORRIE'S KIDS.

My sister above is the one who got me hooked on Starbucks' no fat, with whip, white chocolate mocha with an extra pump! She gave us a Starbucks gift card that was "filled to the brim" (if you're old enough to recognize the coffee jingle) that never ran out. Just about every day we would go with the kids down the street to Starbucks to enjoy some sweet, hot java! Thanks, Karin!

Grampa Glenn takes a break with Jazzy.

I had to fight with Chris to hold his little girl!

The grandkids had a blast playing together!!!

We never succeeded in getting the "perfect" Christmas photo because it was impossible to get all four of us smiling and looking in the same direction at the same time but we loved holding them!

We managed to get out one afternoon to visit a few friends, such as Mr. Chupp, our next door neighbor on Big Oaks Drive. He is very special to our family.

I was able to visit with Amanda, one of my favorite students from North Cobb Christian School, and her cutie son. She is very special to me. Thanks, Amanda!

I managed to get by Walmart once or twice and was floored by the new size of marshmallows! Can you believe the size of these things???

The house Glenn grew up in all his life is being remodeled by Glenn's nephew and the foyer is about to get a covering of wallpaper. While all the family members were in town during the holidays, Stephen asked everyone who had ever lived in the house to write something on the wall that is being covered.

100 years from now when a new layer of wallpaper is being put up, the new owners will find and read the messages we left in 2011. Cool idea, eh?

Yes, it was a great Christmas and the best gift of all was getting to hold and play with my two grandchildren all day long! Of course, growing to love them so much just made it that much harder to say good-bye so we're just going to have to schedule another visit to see them this summer :-)

Hope you have a wonderful new year and that 2012 is the best yet!