Haiti

Our church's Haiti mission team is probably in Miami right now. They left early early this morning to spend a week doing VBS in Haiti. Please keep them in your prayers during this coming week.
Also, please especially pray for Jennifer. She broke 2 bones in her arm last night and they have put a temporary cast on her arm for the trip and they will put a permanent one on when she gets home.

The zoo

Last Saturday my mom, our exchange student Angela, Alecia's mom Bonnie, and their exchange student Elena, and I went to the zoo. It turned out to be a perfect day and we had a good time.



Wallabees...the dad, the baby and the mama. The baby still fit in it's mom's pouch and the lady at the zoo said that it will go in there until it is 3 times the size it is now!!








We went to the petting zoo area and the goat took a liking to Bonnie!











I love the penguins!









The bears were really cool to watch. This one was taking a bath when we got there. The other one had seen the zoo keeper and thought it was going to get food, so it was pounding on the door for literally 15 minutes! You could hear it at other exhibits!










Gorilla







Angela and Elena










They have a new lion exhibit. It was cool but there is so much room for the lions to hide that it was difficult to watch them.









I thought this was interesting about the turtles...

Busy Busy Busy

I haven't had any time to update at all this week! But I promise, sometime soon, I will update.
About
-the zoo
-Anniversary dinner
-VBS
-and maybe some more about Romania
Just bear with me as this is a very busy week! I will resume my normal blogging soon! :)

Picture meme and Personality Quiz

I saw this on Jennifer's blog and I thought it looked like fun.














The rules:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

And I saw this on Diane's blog, so I thought I'd do it too :) It's really accurate!

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion: You have high extroversion. You are outgoing and engaging, with both strangers and friends. You truly enjoy being with people and bring energy into any situation. Enthusiastic and fun, you're the first to say "let's go!" Conscientiousness: You have medium conscientiousness. You're generally good at balancing work and play. When you need to buckle down, you can usually get tasks done. But you've been known to goof off when you know you can get away with it. Agreeableness: You have high agreeableness. You are easy to get along with, and you value harmony highly. Helpful and generous, you are willing to compromise with almost anyone. You give people the benefit of the doubt and don't mind giving someone a second chance. Neuroticism: You have low neuroticism. You are very emotionally stable and mentally together. Only the greatest setbacks upset you, and you bounce back quickly. Overall, you are typically calm and relaxed - making others feel secure. Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is medium. You are generally broad minded when it come to new things. But if something crosses a moral line, there's no way you'll approve of it. You are suspicious of anything too wacky, though you do still consider creativity a virtue.

The Five Factor Personality Test

Holiday weekend fun

I can't believe it's Monday already...this weekend went by way too fast!!! We still didn't have power at our house on Friday, but that wasn't too bad because we were out enjoying the day. I went to the parade with Alecia and her family.



Alecia and me waiting for the parade to start







Our church's praise team had a float and they sang and played as they went down the route. It was my favorite float

A good reminder for all of us

After the parade, we went back to Alecia's house. We relaxed for a while and then had a delicious lunch of grilled chicken and grape salad. It's a good thing so many people grill out for the holiday because we didn't have power! It finally came back around 3 on Friday, so we were without for almost 48 hours. We decided to go to the township park and walked around for a while. We went to the car show, watched the tractor pull, and just enjoyed the day. Mike called me when he got out of work so I went over to his house. We went to another friend's house to watch fireworks. A bunch of friends had gone and bought a ton of fireworks, so we launched them off for about 2 hours! It was a lot of fun!!

Alecia's dog relaxing :)

After church on Sunday, Mike and I went up to Big Star Lake. His friend's family has a trailer up there so we went to meet them. We spent the day riding the sea doos and just sitting around being lazy. We had dinner up there and then went out for ice cream on the way home. It was a great way to spend the holiday weekend!

I'm home!

Well, I'm back in A-town again! I got in on Wednesday night. I was supposed to get in at 6, but due to a mistake with the airplane and then because of that, being delayed because of the weather, I did not get in until almost 9. I had a nice welcoming party waiting for me. Jennifer and her daughters, my parents, and Mike were there. And also Cheri and Dawn because their husbands and Cheri's son were coming in from Guatemala. It is good to be home! When we got home though, we were without power until about 3 yesterday afternoon, so that is why I am so late in posting. I will try to get more pictures up this week as time allows. (One bad thing about my limited computer access over the past 3 weeks is that I had almost 800 blog posts to read! So, as you can imagine, I will probably not be commenting, but I will read as much as I can!)

Mountain pictures

I told you about the mountains the other day, so now I will show you some pictures.
Today is my last day here. I went to the market and I will spend the rest of the day packing and relaxing around here. I will leave here tomorrow morning at 5 and my plane leaves Cluj at 9:25. I will get into Grand Rapids at 6:23 tomorrow night.


The cabana we stayed in











The view from almost the top of the mountain











These girls clung to me the whole week. They were so sweet... Melita (Romanian version of Melissa), Ioana, and Adelina.










This is the view of the mountains I went to on Saturday

A week in the mountains

Today I got home from a week in the mountains. We left church around 10:30 Monday morning and got to the camp around 1. We had a nice cabana. It had a kitchen and a larger room we used for storage, a cellar, and 1 bedroom downstairs. Then there were 2 bedrooms upstairs where the little kids slept. And then the adults slept in the attic. There were matresses for us and blankets and it was quite comfortable. We had no running water but we had a well. The water was safe to drink, I drank it all week with no sickness. For toilets we had an outhouse and for a shower we had the river. We had a generator so we had electicity to cook with and lights when it got dark but that's it.
We fell into a sort of routine. Breakfast and then the Bible story. Then we had activity sheets related to the story and then craft time. Each day we had a different craft. After that was free time until lunch which was around 2. Then the kids had a rest time for about an hour. Some days they rested more than others. Then we would go for a walk and usually to the river. I got thrown into the river two times!!! Neither time was I expecting it, and the first time I had my clothes on! The second time I had my swimsuit on under my clothes. The water was very cold but it was so hot, about 30 C each day, and sunny. Except for Friday morning when we had a storm with marble sized hail. But the afternoon was good again.
We went on walks and saw some beautiful things. It was relaxing but also a lot of work. We constantly had to watch the kids and pay attention to them. I had a great time with the children and I grew very attached to them. I learned a lot of Romanian and everyone is surprised when I say a sentence in Romanian or answer their question with out a translator. I guess that's what happens when that's all you hear for a week!
Today I went up into the moutains with Nelutu, Evi and their son Robert. We left camp around 10:30. We drove for about 45 more minutes to the base of the mountain and then up we went. We stopped quite a few times on the way up. It got colder the higher up we went. We stopped and played in some snow too. And we went through the longest tunnel in Romania and then to the very top of the mountain. There was a beautiful waterfall and snow on the moutains and the roads were so curvy! I took so many pictures! On the way down we stopped at a lake but it was so foggy we couldn't even see the lake! We did some climbing to get a better view, so we were very hungry for lunch. On the way home we stopped at a few stores so they could get groceries and then came home.
It has been a busy week and I have not had much rest. So now I am very tired. I have to get up early for church tomorrow morning so I will go to bed soon. Noapte buna :)

Romania

Today was a very busy day. I met the CERT team at 8:40 this morning and we went shopping and for a tour of Medias. Then we went and spent the rest of the day in Sighisoara. They are leaving tonight so after I said goodbye I came back to the apartment. Now it is 11:18 and I'm tired, but I will put up some pictures from the week. I'll add a short description to each. Monday we will leave for camp in the mountains. It is supposed to be hot, today it was 30C, and very sunny, so the weather will be perfect. We'll come home sometime on Saturday. And I will arrive back in A-town on Wednesday evening.


This girl, Ela, was in Axente Sever last year. She remembered me and gave me a big hug when she saw me on Monday!









This is the kids eating their snack in Tarnavioara. They had graham crackers and fruit snacks to represent Noah's ark.











The kids in Saes.











People waiting for the medical clinic in Saes.









Dinner on Thursday night. It was cucumber and tomato salad. Beef chunks in sauce, and mamaligita, like a corn meal hash that you mix with the beef. And also fresh apricots.











On Friday, the women in Saes baked bread just for us in their brick oven. It was the best bread I have ever had!









The pastor in Danes wanted his picture taken with me.









Playing games in Axente Sever










The bridge going out of Tarnavioara. Also a good picture of the scenery.









A cute little boy from Tarnavioara.

Romania update

Today was day 3 of VBS. We have been in the same 2 villages since Monday and today was our last day in those 2. In the morning we are in Axente Sever and in the afternoon, Tarnavioara. Today we had games, Bible lesson, crafts, and snack. The children love it so much. Some of the kids I remember from last year and they remember me too. It was hard to say goodbye to them today because they hugged me so tight and asked when I would come back.

Tomorrow we will go to 2 different villages. I don't know the names but somewhere near Sighisoara. It will be good.

On Saturday, I will spend some time downtown with the CERT team in the morning and in the afternoon, we will go to Sighisoara (birthplace of Dracula).

Monday, I will leave for camp in the mountains until Saturday afternoon. Then I will have only 3 more days and I will come home on Wednesday.

I will burn pictures onto a CD for the CERT team probably on Friday, so I will try to post some pictures then.

It is late now, 11:05 and I still have things to do, so this is all for now. :)