The worst dinner ever....

So today was Halloween, and I guess for some of you it still is and you haven't gone trick-or-treating yet! But for us it is over and the kids are in bed. Since this is the first time the kids haven't gone trick-or-treating, I wanted to do something special this weekend for them. Yesterday they spent all day doing lots of fun stuff, and today we went to church and then we went to Burger King for lunch, and I wanted to make something fun for dinner for them, you know, a kid dinner!

So that is were my trouble started! I think I am a pretty good cook, my family eats what I make with little to no complaints, I'm not the best cook...my mom is, but I'm not the worst one either...one of my sisters is though! Anyway, I was so excited about dinner, we had pigs in a blanket with chips and junk and then we had caramel apples....none of that went as planned!

Here is the pigs in a blanket....


These look very similar to what I would have made in the States. I went and searched for what I thought looked like little weenie things, and I thought it was going to be great... But lurking inside that yummy puff pastry was a nasty sausage thing! Ray ate one and spit a little grisly thing out, and he said, no big deal and kept eating then it happened....he bit down on something so hard I heard from across the table. What happened next was so gross, Ray pretty much threw up on his plate. Dinner was over, well except for Parker who kept right on eating and never could figure out why we stopped!

So like I said before I wanted to make caramel apples, but I had a hard time finding caramel here, and I bought what I thought was caramel because it said caramel right there in the package...so not true! So here are the apples pre-dip, and yes those are spoons in my apples because I couldn't find little sticks either....


And here are my apples after I dipped them and put them in the fridge for maybe 30 minutes hopping they would harden up a bit...

ummm yep, that is the caramel, but really not caramel, all at the bottom of my apples! It was kinda like slime, it wouldn't stick to anything except the kids. Seriously, Ray gave Benjamin a shower after all this and he still had some of it stuck to his arm! So I ended up scraping it back into the pot and cutting the apples and just letting the kids dip them in. The kids loved it, Ray on the other hand didn't want to try it. I guess after the pigs in a blanket he just wasn't going to go there. Plus he thought it was strange that the caramel was black and not light brown....

It looked kinda like chocolate, but it didn't taste like chocolate, but then again it didn't really taste like caramel either...so I guess on the bright side only one person threw up my dinner, and at least that person threw up on his plate so I didn't have to clean the floor! And the kids thought the entire thing was so funny. I guess they had a good Halloween after all!

Super fun fantastic day....

Today was a pretty busy day. Ray left first thing this morning to get his hair cut...because his isn't falling out like mine, so the kids and I got busy on some fun stuff....

first we painted their pumpkins....

If you look closely in the picture you will see Benjamins pumpkin is made out of paper! If you didn't read my post a few days ago you wouldn't know that Benjamin dropped his pumpkin! Ray didn't want him to feel left out so he printed him a picture from the computer!

After the pumpkins we moved onto a craft with leafs! I shaved some crayons and the kids melted it between wax paper with some leaves....

Parker and Lizzie making theirs

All the kids and the finished project hanging on the back door!

When my mom came to visit she brought me Halloween sugar cookie mix and fun frosting for the kids, so we did that next...


I think they ate more of the frosting then they put on the cookies! At one point Benjamin went and got a spoon, I guess it was to hard to eat the frosting off the knife!


What could we possibly do after all of this excitement...

Ray and I then had a much needed date night! We went and had Lebanese food and it was so good! It was a great day, we also spent time with friends and I took a test for a class I am now done with!! Wow I need to go to bed, just reliving this day had made me tried!

I want warm legs....

To buy leg warms or not....that is the question! I love leg warms, and had not gone out of style I would have worn them ever winter...but they went out of style....until now! Until now at least in Romania! Since I have not been in the U.S. since this summer I have no idea if they are there are not, so are they? Are any of my friends thinking about this same thing...do you want leg warmers too?

And it is so cold here that they just seem like the smartest thing to buy, and they are super cute. I almost bought some today, I was really considering it. And that may be because I had my hair in a side pony tail (a low one, not a crazy high on the side one!) so I was kinda channeling the 80's today!

Crazy American....

I guess you could say I am obsessed, with people selling things on the sidewalk....because people sell all kinds of crazy things! I'm not kidding or exaggerating (who is impressed that I spelled that right??) this, just see for yourself....


I wish you could see this better, but this is a basket full of LIVE chickens, they were crammed in there. The picture would have been better, but I didn't want to be to rude and get right up in their business and take a picture, I didn't want to scare their costumers away...you know, being a crazy American and all!

I also loved this picture. No need to worry about building overhead, just sell your stuff right out of the back of you car...



The great thing about this, is that the sidewalk is lined with cars like this backed up, trunks open ready for business. And then there is even fresh produce you can buy out of the back of someones car....


Let me tell you just how "crazy American tourist" I was trying to get these pictures...These pictures were taken by our language teachers house. I made Ray stop the car and let me out before we got there so I could walk by all of this and see what they had and take pictures! I hope this blog doesn't sound like I am in anyway making fun of these people, because I'm not. This is one of the things I love about this city. It is such a mixture of old and new, of the rich and the poor. There is something new to see everyday!

Oh what a day....well really it was just an hour of my day!

I was thinking today I wasn't going to have something to blog about, but I was wrong...


This is what happened in Bucharest today. There was a huge protest and I didn't take this picture, but when I search on line for a picture I think this was todays. The only reason I would question it is because since moving to Bucharest there has been to many protests to count! And todays really annoyed me. Don't get me wrong, I love a power to the people fist pump just like the next guy, and if I was Romanian I would have so been there today...

In fact Ray and I did take my Mom to a protest while she was here visiting...


See I like a good protest, but just not today. Not when I had to go through that part of the city to pick up the kids from school. Yes there are other ways to go, but I don't know them. So of course I go on my way and I realize that one street is closed, so I think that's okay but I do know I can just go around this way...well after going around that way the road I had to take was closed because of all of this, so I just went with the traffic and it went somewhere I didn't know!

What came next was a panicked, trying not to sound panicked phone call to Ray....I AM LOST!!! So he said....calm down, to which I assured him, I am calm (no I'm not!) and he told me how to go, well the way he told me was of course...closed due to the sticken protest! So there was a third way to go. I got off the phone with him because it is illegal to talk on the phone and drive and there were police everywhere!

So I'm sure people thought I was super crazy, I was honked at to many times to count, and of course I was talking to myself, well I was talking to my only passenger, Benjamin, but he had no idea what was going on! But I made it to the kids school and home....and now I am jealous of the people who's kids go to school with Parker and Lizzie and have drivers that pick their kids up....I think I might need one of those!

six of one, half a dozen of another!

This is how my morning started....


with a little people toy floating in my coffee. Thanks Benjamin! He thought this was the best thing ever, and after I fished this one out, and by the way I kept drinking the coffee because I have discovered how to add this and that to my coffee to almost make it taste like it has yummy creamer in it...almost! So anyway, he kept trying to put more little people in my coffee....it was a long morning trying to rescue little people from my coffee and keep my coffee from Benjamin!

We also had language class today. We are gone most of the day, from 9:30-4:00. So I was also feeling lots of anxiety about all I had to do today. Lets just say laundry for 6 people doesn't do itself! I know there are people out there with a bigger familys then mine, and I feel for you!
Anyway, I had two loads in a laundry basket that needed to be folded, I had a load in the dryer that needed to be folded and then I had a load on our drying rack that needed to go into the dryer for a few minutes to get soft.....that brings me to this....

This is our drying rack. Clothes go from the washing machine to this, and they dry here and then they go into the dryer to get soft for about 10 minutes! We don't use our dryer very ofter because it can be pretty expensive, like when you are doing laundry for 6 people!

But the good news for today is that I found pumpkins for all the kids. Parker and Lizzie's school were selling them so I bought all the kids one so we can paint them....


This is the best picture I could get of them! Benjamin wouldn't sit still and Timothy had a hard time keeping his pumpkin off the top of his head! But when you give a two year old a pumpkin to hold you end up with this....


And when you end up with that, you do this....

I roasted it, but I'm not sure if this is what it is supposed to look like since I have never done it before. But this was the first time Benjamin has ever held a pumpkin so it was the first time I have had a broken pumpkin that I needed to do something with....There's no telling with Benjamin, he may drop it every year and I may be doing this every year...

Tiss the season!

Well I was going to blog about this picture of Timothy, and about Christmas but now I'm not. In fact I deleted everything I wrote because Lizzie is sitting here next to me and she won't stop talking to herself! It is making me crazy! To make it worse she is speaking in Romanian I have no idea what she is saying!


Okay this picture! He put put this hat on and then asked me to take his picture, the only thing I asked of him was that he put his underpants back on! That's right he was completely naked....for some reason he doesn't really enjoy to have his clothes on, and will strip it down whenever he thinks he can get away with it!

I love my kids so much and wouldn't trade them for anything, but there are times I look at them and think....you must get that from your Dad....

what I found at church this morning....

You will never believe what I found at church today....well before I tell you, let me give you a back story on my time at church at home and here....

I have been a member of two churches my entire live. I have never church hopped or been someone who went to all kinds of different churches. I was raised at church called McFarlin Memorial United Methodist Church...wow, that's a long name!
I loved this church, I have great memories from it. I started going there when my family moved to Oklahoma when I was in 3rd grade. I left this church sometime after I started college. So I spent a huge amount of time there, and I loved it! And then there is the church that I was saved and baptized in, First Southern Baptist, Del City....another long name, and I loved this church so much. My friends are there, it was at this church we realized we were called to missions and I really really just loved being there. Ray and I spent 6 years at this church. It is a great place!

So as you can see I'm not to experienced in going to different churches, so that brings us to our last 4 months here. And I hated going to church here. Sorry, but I did. I can't help how I felt about it.

When Sundays would come, I would get a pit in my stomach, and I didn't want to go. Let me also explain that church services here last right around 2 hours, and there is no nursery for your kids. Some churches have Sunday school for the older kids, but that didn't help us out to much because my older ones are the ones who sit there, not my little guys. I needed something for them.

I can't express to you what it is like to hear worship music that you can recognize the music but but you can't sing along. I can't sing in Romanian yet! There have been times at church here that I have cried because I felt like I couldn't worship or do anything. I didn't know why we were at church and I thought I might as well stay at home. For me there was so much I had to learn. I had to find other ways to worship and not depend on my church for that. But I missed my church, words can't express to you how much I missed my church. I know some of you may think...get over it! But it is really hard, so you get over it!

So we church hopped here looking for a place we fit in, and I just couldn't find it. We went to the International church a few times, and that was great. But even there I had to leave the room with Benjamin!

So after saying all of this, here is what I found at church this morning....a pleasant surprise! What did you think I was going to say?? Anyway...this church had a class for all my kids, and all my kids loved it! Even the little boys. They did cry when I dropped them off, and I had run out of the room and shove Benjamin back in. But there was a window in their room and I checked on them about every 20 minutes and they were having fun. Plus they gave them chocolate cookies, so who wouldn't like that.

So end the end I guess I really found 2 things at church this morning, pleasant surprise and a new church home! But don't get me started on what I saw outside of the church with a friend of mine.....

Its all random!

This is my stash of American food. It is mostly made up of things sweet people have sent me and my wonderful mom brought me! Are you wondering why I am blogging about my food stash....because I spent the better part of today wanting to eat the Pillsbury frosting from my stash. But I really need it, so I have left it alone ....for today.

The Velveeta from a few posts ago came from this shelf! I still have some left and I am going to mac & cheese tomorrow night! Let me let you in on just how crazy I am about this stuff. If you can see it, there are taco seasonings in there. I can't buy them here, so I only use half a package of it when I make tacos. But I can also buy the spices I need to make the taco seasoning here, so who knows why I care so much about it...but I do.

I think we just haven't been here long enough yet! I just can't let go. I never realized how much I took for granted going to Wal-Mart and picking up a few things I might need. I also never realized I would miss going to Wal-Mart, but I do. I have found lots of good things here in the grocery store, but there are lots of things I miss.

Most of the things on the shelf are things I need for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We all need green bean casserole right? There is no cream of mushroom soup, and no crunchy yummy fried onion things....those are really important! I have some cheese in a can stuff that my mom brought so I can stuff my celery with it for Thanksgiving. Its small things like that, that are important. I have had that cheese stuffed into celery since I was to little to even remember. I didn't think my first Thanksgiving without my parents would be a good time to start not having it!

And just because I think it is cute, here is a picture of me and one of my sisters, just for the record, I have two sister, one older and one twin. This happens to be a twin picture, but I love my older sister just as much. (shout out to you Tracy!)


And tell me which one you think I am....for awhile I wasn't to sure, but now I think I have an idea! That is also crazy, looking at a picture and not really knowing who is who! Okay this blog is so random, it must be time to finish it up....peace out!

shop from your car....

When stopping at any given stop light here in Bucharest you never know what or who you might find. There are people who will clean your windows...even if you don't want them too, and there are people asking for money. And then there are my favorite people....the people selling stuff.

These people will walk up and down in between the cars selling there stuff. It could be anything. Sometimes its air freshener for you car, or something to repair a scratch on your car. It could be little purses or umbrella hats....really its anything and everything. But this is my favorite person who sells things on the street.....


He is always at this stoplight and I have never had the chance to get a picture of him....until today...lucky him! It even looks like he is smiling for his photo! I just love the fact that he is wearing his goods! This is the only person I have ever seen here doing this. Most of the time they are just caring their products....but not this guy. This is hands free selling at its best.

I should also tell you this is illegal which also makes this method of selling things very smart. He is holding nothing, he can truck it out of there before the police can even blink....not that I think it is right that he is breaking the law....but I do think if you are going to break the law its pretty cool to do it with products strapped to yourself....

I only wish I knew what it was he was selling...I might be interested in buying something. I wonder if I do buy something from a street seller person if that means I am breaking the law too....getting arrested for buying an umbrella hat would be super hard to explain!

Say cheese....

This is my Velveeta cheese....strange huh, why would I be blogging about my cheese. Well Romania doesn't sell Velveeta, so my Mom brought this to me when she came to visit last month. The strange thing about this is that I.had.to.have.it. and I never used it when we lived in America. So I think the only reason I had to have it was because I couldn't get it here. What if I needed it, and the what if's were driving me crazy...I had to have it! But before I go any further I think it is also strange that Romania has a million cheeses and not this one. I can't believe they don't have room for a processed, not really a cheese, cheese!

Anyway, like I was saying I had to have the Velveeta, but I had no reason to have it, I had no recipes that called for it....until Wanda! My friend Wanda made a super soup the other night and it had Velveeta cheese in it. It was a cheesy potato soup and it was wonderful, it was worthy of my cheese! This is a recipe I will use for a long time, which brings me to new problem.....


The recipe also calls for this stuff. I don't really know what it is. It is some kind of dried seasoning stuff that is made up of all the healthly for you stuff, salt, sugar and dried vegetables, oh and red dye. This is what makes this soup so good. Well just like you can't buy Velveeta here, you can't buy this stuff in America! When it comes time to leave here what am I going to do? I feel the same pressure I felt about the Velveeta....I.will.have.to.have.it! So what's a girl to do.....stay here forever and have the dried veggie stuff or go home to America eventually and have my Velveeta....life is full of difficult questions...

*I want to dedicate this blog to Ray....I didn't make fun of him once in it!

trying not to catch crazy....

It has been raining here for the last few days, and I am sick of it! We had language school today and it had stopped raining for a bit so we decided to take the metro and not drive. It was nice on our way to class, a bit cool, but not raining.

But if course on our way home it is dark and raining! Lucky for me I was wearing my rain boots...I blogged about them a few posts ago. Anyway, like normal this blog is about Ray. What do you people expect...I send all day with him, we go to school together, we hang out all day, he works in an office off the kitchen...so we are always together.

Okay so that was all off the subject and random, but yes my blog is about Ray, and here is why....


Here is Ray, under my umbrella (ella, ella, ay ,ay ,ay) caring his man bag...or purse. And he is really and truly singing...in the rain! And you will never guess what he is singing. He is singing, and not softly I might add, patriotic songs! This is why I am behind him, and able to take this picture...no on wants to walk by the crazy American who is singing...in the rain! This right here folks is what cloture shock looks like! I did at one point join him in a song, but I waited until we were on our street and no one was around!!

And on a totally unrelated note I am eating Halls Defense Vitamin C cough drops because there is nothing sweet in my house, but they are citrus so its kinda like candy! But I am not eating the lemon ones becasue that would just be gross!

Frogs, snails, and puppy dog tails...

That is what little boys are made of! I have 3 boys...who are 100% boy even Benjamin who is just 2. Now I never had brothers. I was never around little boys growing up. I have two sisters...sugar and spice and everything nice!

My boys always surprise me. They have no fear...


Parker fell out of this tree, and landed on his side...no worries! He came in crying until he say his Dad and then all of a sudden he was fine! No Fear...

And then they always seem no find a new use for toys....

I really debated about putting this picture in here. But funny out weighed inappropriate! This is one of my children who is scratching his butt with a helicopter! (after taking this picture I took the toy and washed it!) You would never find my only girl doing this! She would never even think of it!

And here areis two of my boys enjoying a new game here at our house.....

This is our down stairs bathroom. In our house here, the light switches are on the outside of the bathroom doors...I have no idea why! So my little boys are trying to turn the light off and peak in on the poor child in the bathroom....Parker!

And what blog about my boys would be complete without a picture of one of them with food all over their face....but truth be told, this could really be anyone of my children and on some days even Ray...I do love my boys, they continue to amaze and surprise me. They try my patience and on some days I want to lock myself in my room so I can escape the madness...but there are poopy diapers to change and dirty toilets to clean and sweet little mouths to kiss!

Happenings in our house this weekend!

This weekend has been pretty uneventful...not to much has happened, well not to much that is blog worthy! But I will give it a shot and blog anyway!

Last night we went to a going away party for 2 masters couples who will be going home next week. We had soup! I had been there about 2 hours when I felt a little funny....I had to go home. Lucky for me home was right next door....I now am having my own set of "stomach issues"!

I felt like I should put that in today's blog because I have blogged about Ray and his issues in lots of my past blogs. I did learn something very interesting about what I think I have. It is called Giardia. But I learned from a good friend of mine who is also a doctor that it is also called Beaver Fever...weird!

This also happened this weekend....


Lizzie dropped the bar of soap in the toilet, I thought it was pretty funny...funny enough to take a picture of it before I fished it out. I wonder if this makes the toilet really clean, or the bar of soap really dirty....Ray didn't seem to notice when he used it to take a shower with this morning...hmmm!

And then there was this.....


That is Parker! He has learned to climb the wall...and he was playing spies! That is why he has the hat and the scarf on. Notice Lizzie taking his picture with her camera. Ever since I have been trying to blog everyday the kids have noticed all the pictures I take of random things, so Lizzie has now started taking picturesof things!

That's about all that is going on here. I will keep you updated on Rays pooping situation, as for mine I'm sure it is gone now!

Thanks a lot Ray.....

You might be wondering what this is...this is a cheese dip container that is almost empty. I bought this cheese yesterday. The only one to have any of this cheese is Ray. Yesterday he asked me if we had anything to snack on, so I gave him this.....I had just opened it. I didn't see him out it back in the fridge yesterday, in fact I didn't think of it again until I opened it today to have a little and I was so surprised to see all that was left was just a little.

This is why I feel justified in blogging about him and all the sickness he has had....because he eats all my cheese and doesn't say anything about it! This is also why I would hid twizzlers from him.

Now that I have complained about Ray I feel like I should say I love him very much and wouldn't trade him for all the cheese dip in the world....now twizzlers are a different story!

the schooling of Becky Foreman....lessons I have learned today!

It was a slow day around here today. Well as slow as four kids, cleaning, grocery shopping and a million loads of laundry can be....so I had some time to think about lots of stuff, and this is what I learned today

1) If Benjamin takes his diaper off before I am ready to change him, there is a 100% chance he will pee on my new, hand wash only sweater!

2) With in 5 minutes of cleaning the toilets someone is going to poop in 1 of them...or some days all of them!

3) If I feel the need to drive down the street and pick my nose, it is completely acceptable here!

4) This is a math problem: 5 blankets on my bed + 1 husband with really bad gas= one smelly bed in the morning!

5) My husband is a good sport!

6) I walked around for a unknown amount of time with my pants unzipped...

7) When my children loose their teeth I should just hand them the money right then...I make a terrible tooth fairy. Parker woke up this morning with his tooth still under his pillow and I had to double my payment for the tooth out of guilt!

8) My children don't think that I can rap very well....but then I also realized they must be crazy....word to your mother!

9) and i was going to end it with the last one until I looked down and saw my pants unzipped again....what is going on here!

Wednesday....

I had a busy day today here in Romania! We didn't go to language school today because Ray and all his sickness, so I thought I would get caught up on some stuff I had to do around here. I had lots of cleaning to do, and I had to switch out all the summer clothes and get the winter clothes out...that is a big mess when you are doing it for 4 kids! While I was doing this, the little boys were doing some of their own things...



This is what Timothy did when I was busy...he emptied out their toy cabinet and dumped it all behind the couch.Look how proud he is! Please don't look at the couch, Ray bought that before we even got here. He saw it in an email of stuff people were selling and he just had to have it. I know that being married means you have to make sacrifices, and I feel like I have done that with the purchase of this couch!

And then there was this.....



Benjamin colored all over the wall with crayon! This took almost an entire Mr. Clean Magic eraser to get off! But its a good thing my brought me like 100 of them!

So in between all of this I went to the market to buy some apples! I wanted to make a dessert and some apple sauce. I bought 4 kilograms of apples, that is equal to a little over 8 pounds, and I payed around $3 for all of it! I love to buy apples here, they are very cheap. So I made a double recipe of apple cobbler and I made apple sauce...


I love to make apple sauce. You can't buy it here and my kids love it. Plus isn't it part of the BRAT diet for diarrhea, and everyone knows who has diarrhea in my house!There are lots of recipes that call for apple sauce. So I love making it. I just got a food processor about a month ago, so now my apple sauce is smooth. There were some complaints before about it being lumpy! So here is my lump free apple sauce!

Put your poop in here please....

Most of you know me, and you all know that I am pretty much an open book. I will tell a lot of my personal business and not think twice about it, so today I am going to blog about Rays personal business and not think twice about it!

Ray has been sick off and on for going on three weeks now. It has been a lots of diarrhea (which I blogged about a few posts ago) and fevers and aches and all that stuff. Well like the good wife I am, I was getting worried and I wanted him to go to the doctor. He had emailed back and forth with a doctor friend of ours who I think is a wonderful doctor, but I just wanted him to have a once over by someone in person! Plus I was feeling sorry for our friend....how many emails a day can you read about how someone poop smells....gross!

So I made Ray an appointment at a private hospital (because that's how we roll) to see a doctor, who thankfully spoke English. Before we went Ray was a little apprehensive because he didn't want them to do a bunch of tests and all that. I told him don't worry, you will be in and out in no time with a prescription for antibiotics and that's it. I was wrong!

As soon as she found out Ray had been on antibiotics and then still had a fever she was worried and she needed to find out why. But first I would like to talk about the thermometer. She pulled this thing out a drawer and then stuck it under Rays arm. no cleaning it, or putting something over it!(I took a picture of it when she left the room so I could put it in my blog!)


Anyway at the time she took it, it was only 99 degree's and she was very concerned! She wanted to run tests, oh no! Well she wanted to do an abdominal ultrasound, and then a chest x-ray...here is the picture of it, I also took this when she left the room...I am very sneaky!


But my favorite part of all of this is when we went down to the lab to do his blood work, yes that's right there was blood work too. Anyway when we went down for it they couldn't speak English very well, but I did understand this...."in this one you put your poop, and in this one you put your pee pee!! But wait, she pulled out three different ones Ray has to put his poop in....love it!! And of course I took a picture of what he has to put his poop and pee pee in...and just so you know the ones with the blue lids and the clear lid are for poop and the red ones are for pee!


And don't worry, I won't take pictures of them after Ray makes his deposit in them! Like I said a the start of this blog I have no boundaries and there poor Ray has no boundaries!

Ray also came home with a bunch of medicine, and no real answers about anything except that he may have the flu...
Oh and we found out Ray has a heart murmur...which is weird because last time we took Lizzie to this hospital we found out she had a heart murmur....hmmm!

Once upon a squaty potty

We were invited to a different church this morning. This is the church our babysitter and our neighbors go to. It was such a great church, very welcoming, full of great people. We felt right at home there, and no one seemed to mind our 4 loud children which is a huge bonus.

Just one small thing that made it a bit of a challenge...


This is a squaty potty, and this was there only option for a bathroom! (This is not their actual potty, I thought it would be rude to take a picture of theirs....but it looks pretty close to this!) My toilet using children were not to excited about this. Well I take that back, one of my children were so happy...Timothy. He saw and said with so much excitement... "Mama, it's a squaty potty!!" A back story on this, is that there was one of these where we were living in Virgina, so people could practice and for those people going someplace where this was all there was they could get used to it. Well I thought no need for us to use it and Timothy was still in diapers while we were in Virgina so he never got to try it. So that is why he was so happy today!

Parker and Lizzie were not having it! Parker finally went and then Angela took Lizzie, and then brought her back to me and tried to explain that Lizzie would not go. I was kinda surprised by this because we went to a village church on Saturday and Lizzie used this potty with no complaints.....


This was taken after a successful trip to the potty in which Lizzie and I were both inside that little building behind us...it was a tight fit! Anyway, back to today and the squaty potty. Lizzie straight refused to go and she held it for the next 30 or 4o minutes...bless her heart! I think this is something that is going to take more time before she won't mind using it. And just for the record, in case anyone wants to know...I used it, and had no problems!

a little bit of honesty!

Can I be honest? The last few weeks here have kinda sucked for me. Am I aloud to say sucked....I can say butt, so maybe suck is okay too! Well anyway, I was having a bit of home sickness, and that is no fun. And we were having some issues with kids as well as some other stuff. I missed my family and my friends and I was frustrated with lots of things.

I stopped doing the things that I usually do here like going out and walking around the neighborhood, and shopping at the small outdoor market by our house. I started only shopping at Carrefour, where I didn't have to talk to anyone. I could get my stuff and be left alone. I could tell the person who is ringing my stuff up that I don't speak Romanian, and I could tell them that in English and they understood. Not like at the market, I have to ask for things on Romanian there. So I stopped going, I stopped walking, and I stopped liking Romania. I forgot why we came here, and I wanted to go home.

Some of you might be thinking, but wait, your a missionary, didn't God call you there. And the answer is yes He did, but do you always feel like doing what God has called you to do...be honest!
If someone would have said, Becky you can go home, and don't worry about a thing. I would have said ....done...send me home. But no one did that.

We were told this would be hard, but you can't imagine how hard it is until you do it. Until you find yourself living and trying to function in a different country. You can't imagine how hard it is when your family is home getting together, and your not there. Or when you friends are having girls nights, or play dates and your not there.

We have made some really great friends here, its not like we are alone! I not saying all of this so people will feel sorry me. I don't want you to get the wrong idea from this either. This is where we live, and this is where we will stay, but this is where my heart was until this morning....

This morning I needed some vegetables for the soup I was going to make for dinner and I had to go to the bank. I could do both of these things just by walking down the street. So I went to the market that I had been avoiding...


And I bought my vegetables and I spoke Romanian to the same girl I always buy them from. And she smiled at me, and seemed happy to see me again. As I walked back home I stopped at another store to buy a drink for Ray, I talked to the two brothers who work there. They speak to me in broken English and I talk to them in very bad Romanian, but it was nice, we laughed at each other! I walked the rest of the way home and I started to remember...

I remembered why we are here, and why we will stay here. I remember that even though I gave up lots of things to be here and made sacrifices to be here, God gave it all. So how can I not stay, even on my bad days, how can I not stay? So hopefully my attitude adjustment will stay adjusted for awhile and all the little kinks that still need to be worked out will be worked out....and we will stay until God tells us to go, whenever that may be....

Todays important event....

We had breakfast for dinner! I didn't feel like anything else was as important

as this!

We ate and ate till it was all gone!


Some of us ate more then others....Ray!


The End!