Getting Older

I celebrated my 28th birthday in Romania and had a wonderful day! My entire day was filled with activities and spending time with my friends here. Sarah and Steffi organized a lot of fun things and truly made me feel special on my birthday.

I started out the morning in the hospital as usual. My current favorite baby, Ionela, fell asleep in my arms for almost 30 minutes - a record for her! We had a great time just cuddling in the playroom and ignoring the chaos of the other babies in there!

After the hospital, Sarah came to pick up Steffi and I and we headed out to lunch. We met up with some other people and enjoyed our favorite Italian food (no pics from that).

Later in the day, they had a party for me downstairs. It was so much fun! There was a cake (box cake from America - what a fun treat!) with sparklers for candles.

Costel, Beca, and Roxi all made me cards that they had colored. Roxi even learned how to write my name!

Sarah and Steffi bought me a bike which will be so useful once we move into our new house. We had discussed the possibility of my looking for one once we moved to make the trip to the hospital shorter, but I never imagined they would buy one for me. I love it and can't wait to get to test it out!

Later in the evening, a group of us went out bowling. It was a lot of fun (even though I completely lost!)

Sarah, Nicola, and me

Me and Steffi
I had a wonderful birthday and could not have asked for a better day. I love the friends that I have here and it was so much fun to get to celebrate with them all day long. I'm excited to get to come back to Texas in a week and a half and get to celebrate all over again with my family!

A New House

I know I've moved around a lot since I've come to Romania, but hopefully this will be the last time for a while. I mentioned in my last newsletter that we were trying to rent a house, and God worked everything together perfectly for us to be able to rent this gorgeous place! It's so big and has a ton of space outside for the kids to play. I will be moving in with Sarah and Steffi and the kids at the beginning of November. The rent is a great deal for how much space we are getting and the area the house is in. It will be less expensive for all of us to live there than it would be for us to stay in the 2 apartments we currently live in. The only down side is that you have to climb a HUGE hill to get to the house, but once you make it up there it is definitely worth it.
There are 2 terraces outside like this one. They are one of the main things that sold us on this place. Inside the house is nice and spacious, but the outside it what makes it all worth it.

This is the veiw we get anytime we look outside. You can't ask for anything prettier! We literally look right down on the center of Brasov. God was so good to bring this along!

Costel's Family

Last weekend, we decided to take Costel's siblings out for lunch. They love to see Costel and how he is doing, and it's nice for them to get out of their village from time to time. This is a picture of 4 of his siblings and a cousin that came out with us on Friday. He has 2 other brothers who did not join us. One is younger than Costel and the other is 6 but was in the hospital. These kids are so sweet and they had a ball being able to walk around the town and see what Brasov was like!
We started the day with lunch at McDonald's. The kids were so excited to have hamburgers and french fries! It was sad to see them each save half of their food so they would have it for later. It was definitely a reality check for what kind of conditions these kids live in at home.

Then we went and sat by the fountain in the center and all the kids had ice cream. It was a beautiful sunny day and we all enjoyed being out!

It was hard to see the drastically different life that Costel now lives compared to his family. We are working on trying to get sponsors for his famliy so we can help them out more at home. If you are interested in helping, please let me know!

Nicola

This is my current roommate, Nicola. She is from Scotland and is so much fun! She has been here since the beginning of August and will stay for 3 months. We're trying to convince her to stay longer, but so far have been unsuccessful. It's been great to have someone in the apartment and have a friend around!

Playing Mom Again

I got to spend 10 days taking care of three of the cutest little kids I have ever seen! Sarah and Steffi went to Denmark to visit a friend and I was on kid duty. It was hard at first to learn to manage all 3 at the same time and take them everywhere with me, but they were great and we had a blast together. There was never a dull moment!

This is me with Roxi and Beca. We had a whole night where we just took pictures of ourselves over and over again. Roxi was such a ham and would make funny faces and laugh at herself forever until we took another one.

Costel and Beca love the teeter totter at the park. The two of them sit on one side and Roxi gets on the other and they think it's so much fun!

Roxi really liked to attempt the monkey bars for about 5 seconds before she would start to panic about falling to the ground. She did manage to move one hand one time!
3 little climbers getting out their energy!

We took a walk to the center where the kids got to participate in one of their favorite activities - chasing the birds. They are hilarious to watch just running in circles after the poor birds.

Beca and Costel love to get right by the water at the fountain. They both left completely soaked this day, but they had a good time!

All 3 dressed up and ready to go to church.