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!

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!

I'm thankful for ...

... so many things that it is impossible to list them here but let me give you a few. I am most grateful for the love that God has for me and am awed by how He gives and gives while I take and take, and yet He never stops loving me. My favorite word in the Bible is lavished, found in 1 John 3: How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God! It is such an exuberant word, over the top, rich and exquisite! God truly has lavished His blessings on us and we are very, very thankful for each and every one of them!

We are thankful for friends with whom we can fellowship around the table-not only on holidays but every day!

On Thanksgiving day we joined in the festivities at the Eden House with our personnel who serve throughout Hungary. We had turkey and all the trimmings, plus some! Macy's Thanksgiving parade was playing on the TV in the background. Several of us were watching the winter storm warnings with concern as they rolled across the bottom of the screen to make sure it wasn't going to hit where our families were living, not realizing it was a DVD of last year's parade that someone had brought to add ambiance to the festivities! The only thing missing was that there were no football games for the men to watch and not enough couches for everyone to lay on after having eaten too much.

I'm thankful for a husband who takes such good care of me, who is good with his hands (ahem-this blog is rated G) and spoils me rotten. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Glenn put new curtain rods up for me in the guest room so that I could finally finish redoing the room!!

On Friday, we went into downtown to browse through the Christmas Market (and I can't believe I didn't take a single picture of it!) to start officially the Christmas season. It was a dismally gray and cold day as we headed into town.

And it stayed that way alllllllllll day and throughout the whole weekend. It was so cold that we didn't stay long (and I didn't buy a thing!)

We had to step inside a few stores occasionally to thaw out! Sleds are for sale everywhere in anticipation of the snow that, according to our taxi driver/friend Zoli, should arrive this week!

I am always surprised to see that the sleds found here in Hungary are the old-fashion style that we find only on Currier & Ives cards in America. I'm just surprised that the style has not changed here in the past 50 years! I am thankful though for the walk down memory lane that I get to take each winter when I see these sleds for sale.

And I was VERY thankful for a warm house to come home to, a couple of Swiss Miss cocoa packets, a fleece blanket and a couch 6-8 feet from a TV! I was sooooo cold!

I read an article last night that said beginning December 1, landlord's in Hungary cannot evict tenants during the winter months for non-payment of rent fees. The article said that landlords are in high gear calling on the bailiffs to evict their tenants BEFORE the December 1 deadline and that in the past 7 weeks 3 people have committed suicide because of being evicted with no where to go. As the authorities were at her front door to evict her, one lady sent her daughter an SMS to say good-bye and then jumped off of her 9th floor apartment balcony to her death.

Hungary has an extremely high rate of unemployment, alcoholism, homelessness and suicide. It breaks my heart to see men, women and children wandering the streets, particularly when it is sooooo cold here. I am thankful for a warm house, warm bed, warm clothes and warm food.

And we are thankful for unexpected blessings that God brings our way! We were sitting in front of this couple in church this morning when they introduced themselves as Wally and Jeannette, here in Budapest for 2 weeks on vacation. We invited them to go out for lunch with us and found out that Wally and Jeannette are one of ours! That is, he pastors a Southern Baptist church in Texas, and it is because of many churches like his that we are able to minister as we do. Thank you Wally and Jeannette for such an enjoyable afternoon! It was a really nice ending to a great week in which we were reminded of so many blessings that we have received!

Hope you had a great week too!

What a weak, I mean week!

I have always had a secret desire to take a week off and just hang around the house, watch a lot of movies, read as many books as I can, piddle on a few projects (I heard you laugh, Kari!), and basically see if I could ever come to a point of boredom. Of course, we'd rather spend our vacations with our families so I've never taken THAT week off, but when we got back from Turkey, I fell sick and had to take THIS week off!

While I was on the couch all week I couldn't take care of company we had from America. Erin was a former Journeyman with us here in Europe who, after she finished her two year term, went home and married her college sweetheart, Brad. They work for a university in America and were here in Budapest for the college fair at our local Christian school so stayed with us for 4 days.

But unfortunately, I didn't feel up to watching a bunch of movies, read or work on any projects. I'll have to save that for another week I guess.

After being housebound for 5 days, I was about to go crazy so Glenn took me to a movie. I didn't have a lot of energy so it was a perfect outing. When we got there, we found that the movie theatre has been sold to another company who had UPSIZED everything, including the price! The drinks and popcorn used to be reasonable sizes and reasonable prices but now they are as outrageous as in America!

By the way, this was the first movie we've seen in a theatre since we returned from our stateside assignment.

On the way home we stopped by Tesco to pick up some milk and I found a new product! English muffins! It seems that more and more "American" products are finding their way to Hungary! Wonder how many more years until Pop-tarts show up on our shelves???

We were supposed to leave for 10 days in Ukraine this past Friday but obviously we had to cancel. Hmmmm, what will I do with those 10 extra days???? Check here next week to find out!

Turkey Time

Before we left for a cluster meeting in Turkey, I took a walk through our yard which was really suffering from lack of neglect and cold weather. The only thing in bloom were these humongous, gorgeous Chrysanthemums.

The flowers are so colorful and I have enjoyed them so much each time we pass by them on our way out the gate.

We arrived in Antalya, Turkey last Friday, 10 days ago. Above are our visas for entering the country, for which we paid $20 each. This was our 4th trip to Antalya, our 6th to Turkey.

Again, because we go to Turkey during the off season, we can stay in nice hotels for a pittance. Some of the hotels close for the off-season, some try to stay open. Those that stay open want to keep their staff year-round so that they don't have to keep hiring and training new folks every year so therefore they drop the prices extremely low in order to keep the hotel semi-full. And that is how we get to stay in these nice hotels :-)

And that is how we get to see some of the most fantastic views!

At these cluster meetings, there isn't a lot of free time, but I managed to get out and peruse the tourist shops which lined the main street that passed in front of the hotel.

We peeked over one of the walled yards and saw these young children playing in their school uniforms. It was sweet and reminded me of when our children were little and attending the local French school; they had cute little uniforms too!

And one last picture to give you a good laugh! We found this one store that advertises tattoos, only they spelled it wrnog.

On another note, we have company with us for this week that we are back in town. Erin used to be one of our Journeymen, having served for 2 years in Ukraine but our connection with her goes back to when our daughter Kari was a Journeyman in Senegal. Erin worked with Kari for two summers so when Erin came to Europe, we already felt we had a special relationship with her. She and her husband are here in town for a few days representing a university in Tennessee at the college fair at the local Christian school.

Next trip? Ukraine! More on that trip next week!