Seeing Folks from Budapest

We are spending the night with some ministry partners, who live in the same town as the Winters (friends who just moved here from Budapest). We went to their house for dinner this evening. It was so good to see them again, and it felt like we were all in Hungary (except for the chocolate chip mint brownie ice cream- yum! yum!). I figured that some of you Budapest folks may enjoy seeing a pic of the kids (well, some of them).

Their oldest is quite interested in football, so watched a game after dinner, but the younger three wanted to play with Ethan the whole time. It was fun to watch them interact with him (and sometimes argue over him).

This was just a fun picture I thought I'd throw on here too. Some people from Gary's parents' church leant us a bunch of baby things for our time in CO. This jump up thing was one of them. Ethan doesn't like to stay in it for long, but has got the hang of jumping around some. He is also rocking back and forth on his knees and will probably begin to crawl before we leave the US. One advantage to that is most American homes have carpeting and sometimes he falls foward on his head while trying to maneuver on his knees. We won't have the carpeting in Hungary, so it's nice for him to have some cushion. The disadvantage is that once he starts crawling, one of us won't be able to really have a conversation with people we are visiting (due to Ethan being so mobile). So, we'll just see how it goes over the next month and a half.

Rocky Mtn. National Park

We were glad that we had a chance to go to Rocky Mountain National Park last Saturday to do a little hiking. Sadly, it will be the only time that we will have for that during our time in CO. Hopefully we will have a chance in NC.

The hike back got pretty cold, so we tried to bundle Ethan up as much as possible. As you can see he's getting his nap in too.

On our drive back we saw some elk in a field and stopped. People drive up to the mountains just to hear the bull elk bugle, which happens every fall. Ethan didn't pay any attention or even notice the bull elk.

Aunt Lori

Many of you know and have been praying for our sister-in-law, Lori, who has stage 4 cancer. This is a picture of Ethan and his aunt the first day they met. Please continue to pray for Lori. She has A LOT of pain (even with medication) due to tumors in her bones that have eaten through some of the them (mostly in her back).

Ethan hasn't been around dogs much before visiting his aunt and uncle's house. He became enthralled with Ginger. Too bad we can't say the same for Ginger with Ethan. His squealing with excitement was just too much for her.

Flight to States

Our flight from Frankfurt to Denver was a little over 10 hours. Ethan did great during all of it. We even had someone walk past us in the customs line and tell us how well he did. We were really thankful for that. Thanks to those of you who prayed for safe travel and for Ethan.

Ethan didn't have his own ticket, so he had to be in our laps during the flight. Thankfully the airlines provide a bassinet if you request it ahead of time. We tried to cover it some with a blanket to keep out the darkness in hopes he would sleep better. We thought this was so cute where he had his hand on the blanket and was looking out of the hole.

It did take him awhile to get over the 8 hour time difference, plus he cut his first tooth last week, so he was up some during the nights. Now, he's back on his usual schedule of sleeping around 11 hours during the night. He's still doing his typical 30 minute naps during the days.

1st Hair Cut

We're staying with someone in CO tonight who has wireless, so I am staying up late to update our blog. Before I get into our time back here in the States, I need to post pics from Ethan's first hair cut that he had at 7th months. He has needed a hair cut for a long time, so I finally got around to cutting it on September 16th.

Ethan's hair was longest on top, but this section on the side was about to make him look like a girl.

Here is the after photo. It may not look like I cut much, but I actually did cut a good bit from the top. Of course, now it needs it again.

First Flight

We flew from Budapest to Tirana, Albania a week and a half ago. We were going for Gary to teach part of a new course to the Albanian staff. This was Ethan's first flight. It was a short flight, so a good 'practice' before we leave in 3 weeks for the States.The plane was pretty empty on the way there (though overbooked on the way back).

Ethan slept much of the flight. One of the flight attendants thought he was so cute sleeping like this that she told another flight attendant so she could look at him. In fact, evidentally they thought he was so cute that surprisingly they didn't even make us put the tray table up when we were supposed to. Course, we did on our own so his head wouldn't hit against it when we landed.

We stopped in a small village during our 4 hour drive from the airport to just across the border into Macedonia. This woman gave us permission to take her picture. Some of the men in Albania still make women do the hard labor.

This bridge is believed to be a part of the Egnatian Way, an old Roman road that went from present day Istanbul, Turkey to Durres, Albania, which the Apostle Paul used in his travels.

Pot Luck Dinner

We invited the school staff over for a pot luck dinner so the new teachers could meet people before orientation began. There were 66 people who came. Thankfully the weather was nice, so we were able to have people inside and outside. We're so thankful that the Lord has blessed us with a home where we can entertain.