Romania!

Friday, August 24, 2007

Sad News

Last week the Lord took two of my family members home to be with Him. My Aunt Margaret passed away August 13 after fighting a tough battle with cancer. She was always the life of the party and there was never a dull moment when she was around!

Three days later my grandmother passed away as well. I was fortunate to be able to spend some time with her while I was home this summer, and am so grateful the Lord provided that time for us. She was sweet and funny and would always say the most random things that would have us laughing forever.

They were both treasured parts of our family and will be greatly missed. It's always hard to get news like this so far from home, but thankfully God has provided me with an amazing support system here in Romania so I never felt alone. I'm thankful I'll be coming home in a little over a month and will be able to spend some time with my family!

Sunday, August 05, 2007

I made it!

I made it safely back to Romania with no problems! I managed to sleep a ton on the plane, so the jet lag hasn't been too bad. Tomorrow I get to go back into the hospital and see all the babies again and I am so excited! I will try to be better about updating this thing as I go.

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Fun Times in Texas

I apologize for the lack of blogging for the past couple months, but things have been busy in Texas! I've been so lucky to be able to spend 7 weeks visiting with friends and family in Kingwood and Dallas. Here is a brief re-cap of the trip home:

I started the visit getting to participate in Vacation Bible school at KUMC. They had a different missions emphasis each day, and one day they focused on the babies in Romania. During their missions time, the kids made fleece tie together blankets for the babies. It was amazing to watch all these kids in Texas making something that will affect the lives of children half way around the world. I can't wait to get them all to Romania and pass them out!
I had some quality family time at the beach in Maryland. I grew up my whole life visiting Ocean City, and we all love to go back! We had some great weather and lots of fun relaxing and reading on the beach everyday.
My brother's fiancee Dinah joined us for the trip, which was great! I was happy to get to spend some time getting to know her better before their wedding. This is my family eating one night on the bay. We found lots of great restaurants on the bay to eat dinner and watch some amazing sunsets!


After the beach, I headed to Dallas. Mary and I put together a brownie taste test that we tried out on our small group friends! We made 6 different types of boxed brownies and had them taste each one and put them in the order of best to worst. The test came complete with lemon sorbet so they could "cleanse the pallat" between tastes! In case you're curious, the winner was Betty Crocker! They claim to be America's favorite on the box, and they aren't lying. The only one that was unanimous was last place, and that was the fat free box! Lesson learned - fat free brownies are just not worth the trouble!!



All the girls holding up a sample bite. They were such good sports to play along!

Kelly and Nate came to hang out for a night as well. It was great getting to catch up with them and just to relax with friends!

So, that was basically some of the highlights of the trip home. I did a few more things, but don't have pictures from all of them! Tomorrow afternoon I get on a plane to fly back to Romania. I'm excited to get back and see everyone there and get back to the babies in the hospital!