How Do You Eat Your Chili?

We had chili for dinner after our worship time last week at our supervisors house. It was interesting to see and talk about how each team member liked to eat their chili. We have one who likes spaghetti noodles in her chili. Some put french fries in it. Others crumbled chips in them. Some put cheese in theirs. Some even liked theirs plain I think. I used to eat mine with just saltine crackers on the side but since moving to Poland where there are no saltine crackers I have switched to crumbling corn chips into mine. So, the question is - How do you eat your chili?

At Church This Morning....

I saw something interesting. I have noticed it before but since my recent lack of stuff to blog about I went ahead and decided to let you all in on what went on this morning. We arrived and took our seats just like we always do. We usually sit in the same area towards the back because of the kiddos. They used to have children's church for them but recently stopped so the kids are out in "big" church the whole time. Mikaila and Ethan usually sit in front of us with the other kids on our team and are easily entertained for a while with coloring and such stuff but as time goes on they get restless. They did really well this morning in the 2 hour 20 minute service! That's right - the service was 2 hours and 20 minutes long. This is pretty normal but we had been spoiled the past two weeks with shorter services. It was hard for even me to stay put for that long. We all managed except maybe one of our teammates who has been know to be able to sleep with her eyes open. She was sitting by me this morning and I don't think she fell asleep but I know she wanted to after getting up to listen to the OU vs. Mizzou in the wee hours of the morning here. It would have been easier if she had been routing for the right team though.

Anyway, to the interesting part..... There are several young kids in our church and I still have a hard time knowing which ones belong to which parents. Why?? Because most of the adults help out in the role of caretaker while at church (and probably a little even outside of church). It is normal for these kids to be wandering around during the service and going to different people all the time. This morning a little girl wandered up to the front and a lady went and got her and sat down with her and another girl headed to the back at some point to sit with someone else. All while the service is going. It just struck me as interesting this morning for some reason. It reminded me some of while Bryan was on staff at FBC Perkins and how Mikaila was passed around alot at church when she was a baby. It seems different here. I guess maybe because it changes during the service and it is no big deal. If someone needs to go the the bathroom during the service they have to walk past the preacher to get there so it might be just a little more relaxed atmosphere that makes it different too.

So not bad at all, but just interesting to me this morning. Also, we sang one of my favorite songs in Polish this morning which was a blessing I enjoyed.

2 weeks until we leave for Oklahoma. We are getting excited.

Until next time...

Writer's Block!

I hate it when it happens. I have had a hard time coming up with something to write on here or I haven't had time to sit and post when I did think of something to blog about. I know I haven't even posted pictures from Ethan's birthday back in August! It's crazy. I will try to do better.

Thanksgiving was great and I am getting excited about going to Oklahoma in 3 weeks for Christmas.

One Crazy week!

This week has been crazy and I can't wait till tomorrow! TGIF!

We have been working to get all kinds of paperwork together for our applications for our new karta pobytus - which allow us to be able to stay here in Poland. We have been to several offices, had pictures taken, had someone come over and help us fill everything out, several emails have gone back and forth between people for items needed and we just returned from a trip to the embassy in Warsaw for some needed paperwork. Tomorrow we will go pick up some things being translated, take our application to the office, make copies (3 each I think) of everything, pay some money, turn everything in and wait. Hopefully all will go well.

On a fun note - We got to eat at Burger King, we bought a new Wii game and tomorrow we don't have language so we can relax a bit. Also, we have a new team member coming on Monday! Our SC is going to sign on an apartment for her tomorrow.

We are ready for this week to be done.

And now it is actually tomorrow! I am going to bed because I have to get up at 5am! Should have gone 2 hours ago but I've been catching up on stuff from while we were gone.

Volunteers at Gietrzwald

Sorry to those that have been waiting on this. We have been really busy. All is going well and today is the volunteer teams last day in Olsztyn. They will leave tomorrow morning for Warsaw and then down to south Poland for a couple of days.

On the first day we visited Gietrzwald which is a small community about 20 minutes away from Olsztyn. In the town there is a shrine to Mary and is also a validated (I don't know if that is the right word.?) location by the Vatican where a sighting of Mary happened (I think it is the only one in Poland, but don't quote me on it!). If you want to find out more about it you can visit the website- www.gietrzwald.3c.pl


Here is the church/shrine and some of the grounds that it includes.


This picture is the focus of the church. It shows Mary holding Jesus as a baby.


The volunteer team walked along paths and prayed all the way around the grounds.


One more of most of the group.

Looks a little familiar.....

We live really close to Ameryka! - Which is pronounced just like America.

What about this Ameryka? It is nothing like the America we are used to but you take what you can get here sometimes. The main thing here is a place where people send their kids for a month or so or the summer to get some fresh air and relaxation. I just took a picture of the sign so you guy could see. We pass through Ameryka every time we go to Warsaw. Which we are doing today to get the volunteer team from our home church. We are excited that they are coming to prayer walk in different villages, cities and areas in Olsztyn. Should be good. I'll try to post some pictures while the team is here for you guys in Perkins so you can keep up with what they are doing.

Vacation to Gdańsk 2007

So here are some pictures from our vacation. It was a much needed time of relaxation and fun. We were not able to do all that we wanted because of the weather (unseasonably cold and rainy) but it was fun and will be remembered by all. Our hotel ended up being really close to a beach which we were thankful for because we could end our day there with a little playing in the water and sand and looking for amber. We went to several beaches and we liked the one by our hotel the best and the one in Hel. Yes, you read that correct. Hel, Poland is on the tip of a peninsula and we drove all the way out there just so we could say that we had been and we planted a geocache there too. It ended up being cool because there were some bunkers still intact and a it had a big gun on one of them. You can see the picture of it down below to know what I am talking about- I don't know exactly what its kind is called. Anyway... I will start off with a picture that should be in brochures!


Isn't this just a beautiful pic. We saw some beautiful sunsets. This was taken at the beach by our hotel on our last night. The waves were really choppy.


This is a picture you wouldn't want to see in a brochure! It is raining really hard in the pic just in case you can't see it really well. The rain did not stop us from getting out though. We went out armed with rain gear.


Here are the kids playing along the beach. They might be looking for jellyfish at this point - I really don't know. I pointed them out at first because there seemed to be quite a few and I wanted them to be aware of them, but after that I didn't have to say anything because Ethan would scream "JELLYFISH" everytime he saw one.


We were walking to dinner our first night after arriving and this huge green and white lion came out of nowhere and went after Ethan and Mikaila. Ethan was a little concerned but Mikaila seemed to know there was nothing to worry about.


Here are the kids while out looking for a geocache. We had to dig for this one so we were glad that we had the beach toys with us. We thought a beach was going to be nearby but we never got to it. The geocache was at the mouth of the Wisła river which runs through all of Poland. It was neat to see.


Here we are at a "good" polish mexican restaurant with our complimentary chips and salsa. Needless to say it wasn't Ted's! We miss the neverending setup that Ted's offers and the food. It was pretty good though. The salsa was the best I have ever had.


Here is the big gun that I don't know the exact name of. It was huge and sat on top of a bunker. It was neat to see. I don't know when it was last used (maybe in WWII).


Bryan, Mikaila, and Ethan wondering through the forest in Hel looking for a cool place to plant a geocache. The mosquitoes were terrible!


Here is the beach at the tip of Hel. It was the busiest beach we had seen but also the nicest day of our vacation too.

So, hope you enjoyed these few pictures of our adventures. We really had fun and we are looking at going back sometime but probably not to the same hotel since there was a robbery just 5 doors down from us on our last night there. We might stay on the peninsula. Fun times!

FYI

I am going to work this weekend on getting the pictures of Ethan's birthday party off of Bryan's computer so I can post them here - also the ones from our vacation. There are a few of those already on Bryan's website if you don't want to wait to see them here. I would recommend going and visiting his site anyway! You can learn more about Poland and our ministry at his site.

In other news....
We are so excited about some visitors coming in a week! A volunteer team from our home church in the states is coming to prayer walk several cities and villages. We can't wait.

We are going to be alone at Christmas - again. We were excited that we would finally get to spend a Christmas with our "overseas family" - our team and not be "just us" (which is good and fine) but we got word this past week that all the other team members are planning to go back to the states for Christmas. That is great for them but I am a little bummed about it. I will get over it!

School starts in a couple of weeks! For all of us. Bryan and I are looking forward to starting back to language. I am going to be home schooling Mikaila in 2nd grade and we are putting Ethan in Polish school again. He needs the socialization of school buddies since he is the only boy on our team. Please pray for Ethan. He did not like the school here in Olsztyn and really had the hardest adjustment to Olsztyn of all of us because of it. We are going to try some different things this year to see if it helps him. We'll keep you posted on that.

All for now

On the way home....

Here is a picture of one of the many lakes around our region of Poland. You can see it peeking through the trees and houses. I took the picture on the way home from church one Sunday when we visited the baptist church in Olsztynek (a church about 30 minutes away). What a beautiful sky!

What is wrong with this picture?

We were out and about and saw this interesting sign. It is totally upside down! We have passed by it several more times this past month and a half and it is still upside down. Don't know why and don't know if it will ever get fixed. Thought it was funny.

Bryan's Party and 4th of July

YES - this is a catch up post. Bryan's birthday was a while a go and the 4th of July was a while ago too. I know I need to be posting pictures from Ethan's birthday here now. I will get to it in a few days because I have to get the pictures off of Bryan's computer. We had a blast though!

Anyway, we had a volunteer team here from VA when it was Bryan's birthday so we decided to wait and have a birthday party with our team combined with our 4th of July party. We had the party at our supervisors house. We had some cookie cake and fun for the birthday part. Then had a fun time celebrating the 4th as Americans in a foreign land. We blared "God Bless the USA" from someones ipod and had a cookout complete with smores and a flag cake too. It was fun.


Here is Bryan blowing the candles out on his cake. Couldn't put the needed amount of candles on because we had already cooked the cake!


We have really got into cooking since we have moved here (it's a stress reliever) and Bryan was wanting to try his hand at chinese food. Our friends got him a wok for his birthday so he could! It has been great!


These are the 2 journeygirls who are here in Olsztyn with us - Jessica and Amber- They are a blast and were so patriotic on the 4th of July. They were all decked out in red, white, and blue!


Here is Amber "dancing" around to "God Bless the USA".


And the flaming cake! How wonderful.

Vacation, Here we come!

We are off for our vacation tomorrow morning! We are excited since it has been a long time since we have really had one. We are in need of some rest and relaxation. We will see how it goes. The weather looks to be cool and rainy for at least a couple of the days so we are taking some back up stuff to do (board games and puzzles) just in case. We will try to take plenty of pictures so I can post them for you to see.

See ya!

Visitors from the North and fun with the Wii

We were excited when we got the call that some of our friends from Estonia were going to be driving through Poland on their way to visit someone and wanted to stop by and say hey. We gladly offered them a roof over their head for the night, fun and a good American breakfast before they had to be on their way. It was good to visit and catch up with the 3 of them. Andri, Brain and Raivo had a fun time playing on the wii and we enjoyed watching them. Did you guys know that Brain is now the mayor of Keila? Very Interesting!


Here are the guys infront of our place before getting back in their car to drive some more! Raivo, Andri, Bryan and Brain.



Here they are playing something on the Wii. It might be tennis.



Raivo and Brain boxing each other. It's a real workout!

Before and After

Ethan's hair had gotten too long! We were calling him "fluffy noggin". Anyway, Bryan gave him a haircut and here is a before and after picture to show you just how much he needed a haircut and how grown up he looks now.



BEFORE.......





AFTER......

I'm FREE!!!

Today was my last day of language class for a few weeks! I am taking about 5 weeks off for the summer and I will start back in the beginning of September. I am grateful for this break. Bryan has been on break already for a few weeks and now we get to enjoy being on a break together! We are planning to take a vacation to Gdansk (on the Baltic coast) at the end of July/beginning of August. We are excited. Also we plan to do several day trips and fun activities during August as well. We will all start back to school of some form in September.

Happy Birthday Bryan!

It was Bryan's birthday on the 24th and we celebrated a bit by having some cupcakes and eating dinner out as a family. We just had a party for him with our team yesterday (4th of July) so I will try to get some of those pictures up in a few days. He had a great birthday and the kids had fun helping make the cupcakes - or as Ethan called them - pupcakes.

Welcome to.....

Olsztyn!

I think this is really cool the way it is done.

Beautiful Smiles

Here is Mikaila with her friend Rebecca. They have a great time together and I just love this picture of them. Pure joy out at the day camp in Platyny. She is just a couple of months younger than Mikaila and they get to play together alot now that we live only a few blocks away. She's the youngest daughter of the Stevensons who are our team leaders(SC).

Newest Additions to the Family

Introducing Curious George the Gerbil! Better known as George.


We think he likes his new home! He was living up in Ethan's room for a couple of weeks until one day last week Jasmine decided to get a little too interested in him and pushed his cage off the dresser he was on! The cage didn't bust open (I was very thankful for that) but the litter stuff went everywhere. We have moved him downstairs until we can figure out a better way to secure him and also something better to contain his mess in.


Jasmine was curious from the beginning but would usually just stare and follow George with her eyes. Here is their first meeting. We will see how it all goes. Do you think we are crazy for having a gerbil in the house with a cat? We must wait and see I guess.

We also added a fish tank as well. We have 5 fish including a one eyed neon. No pictures yet. It was a Christmas present to Bryan from the kids but we waited to set it up unitl our move and once we moved we really didn't have a great place to put it except in one of the kids rooms. So Mikaila got the fish tank in her room (she had the fish theme going already too) and we got the gerbil for Ethan's room. I know we are crazy!

Drugged Cat

Here is Jasmine during our long drive up to our new home. (yes I am trying to catch up on some older photos) We gave her some pills to help calm her for the drive. We thought they would put her out so she would sleep the whole way but that didn't happen. She would sleep a little and then meow for a little and then get tired again and fall back asleep sometimes like this. She was biting at the cage a little and all of the sudden stopped and slept like this for a while. We were all glad to finally get to our new place except Jasmine because she was still a little out of it and we were not able to move into our house for a couple of days so we stayed with our friends and they have a cat too. So needless to say she was stressed for a little bit but she has/was settled for a while until we added to our zoo.

Ethan and Wesley

I love this picture. It was taken while in the states for our medical leave and I think these guys have the greatest smiles! We Miss you Wesley!! And your family! Do they still look alike? When they were younger they looked alot alike.

Random Pics

Here are some random pictures of our time geocaching while in Oklahoma.


Ethan found this one!



Getting a read.



It was a little windy and cold when we first got there and we did not take our coats with us so we were quite chilled the first few days.



Ethan kind of looks like he is on his way to trouble.

That's Incredible!

While we were on our short medical leave to the States we made a trip over to Tulsa to visit Bryan's brother and his girlfriend. Bryan's parents were with us as well. Jeff wanted to do something special for the kids so he treated us to "Incredible Pizza"! If you don't know what this is, just think of "Chuck E. Cheese" and then multiply that by 10 and that is how huge this place was and how much it had in there. Here are a few pictures from our time there. The kids really had fun. Including Bryan!


Mikaila wacking the moles!



Ethan riding a "roller coaster"



Mikaila is getting help from her PaPa.



Ethan playing a jet ski game and he did really well. He had to stand up to play it but he amazed me how well he did.



Here are the kiddos feeding the machine to count all their tickets.

Google Image Search Fun

So here is a little bit about me in picture form. I have seen other people do this and thought it was neat and interesting to see what came up. I did this by typing in exactly what I wanted and picked the first picture that came up on the google image search. Try it and see what you come up with for your info!


City and State I was born in:



City and State where I currently live:



First name: I didn't pick the first one because I picked the most decent one!



Last Name:



Favorite Food:



Preferred Drink:




Favorite Smell:



A place I have lived:



A place I have worked:



A place I want to visit: