Mack-edonia!!!

Well the return from Mack-edonia has been a bit crazy- my computer had died in my absence and so I have spent the last few days just trying to get it to do certain things. I have been able to get it somewhat working minus a few things(like sound) but for now it will do. I think this is the 3rd time in the past year it has completely died-what fun!

So Macedonia-amazing, incredible, a blast!!! We left my apartment at 5am on the 11th. Drove to a students house whose parents drove us to the airport. We met everyone there and got on a plane for Sofia, Bulgaria. I pity the poor other people on the plane but we were relatively quiet for the first hour(most sleeping!). Here we are in the Sofia airport grabbing our bags.

Then we loaded a bus. We were told the driving time was between 3-4 hours but because of border crossing it could take up to 7 hours. Little did we know!! The drive was more like 7 hours PLUS boarder crossing. So it ended us taking us 10 hours! The best part was when we entered macedonia. They made us all get out of the bus with ALL of our stuff. We even had to pull our bags off from under the bus. We put them on these tables and then had to stand behind them. Then they brought the drug dogs and went in the bus and under the bus and to every bag! Fun times:) So that took another 2 hours-arrggg. But we finally got to the place we were staying at 1030PM. We slept and the next day just had a fun day. Here is my cabin-Hot Stuff '09!!

Here we are after the "snowball" fight(really stockings filled with flour)

Monday we got to work building a playground, fixing fencing, building benches and painting murals. Here is the yard before our hanywork.

Here we are installing benches. Yes that's me with the level in my hand. Oh the things I have learned to do on these trips!! Anybody want me to build their house?:)

Here we are on the finished product at the end of the week!

Oh yeah- on the 2nd day the camera guy showed up and said he had walked from another work site. There is something you should know- usually our sites are hours away from each other but apparently this year there was a work site within walking distance!! This was exciting new to me:) and not for the kindest of reasons! So this thought comes into my head- we should attack them!! So I put Paul and some of the guys on the task of recon and attack plans. Wednesday they headed over to the other site(in stealth mode of course) to see where the best points of attack were. They divided us up into teams and thursday we set out to attack with water balloons in hand. It was a blast but did get a little foiled when their site leaders freaked out a bit. Here are the girls- amo in hand.

We had translators that traveled with us and were on our site each day. Geri(on the left) was with us last year in Blugaria too so it was fun to see here again. Mikael was new but so much fun. They actually fought over who would get to come with Brussels each day:) YES -we are that much fun:)

So many stories to tell. But they will have to come another time- the sun is shining and it is calling my name!!

Happy days

Spring is upon us here in Brussels. We had a string of 8 sunny days a few weeks ago and we have had sun 6 out of the last 7 days! There is not much that is cheaper in Belgium than in the US. Flowers is the one thing I have found that is! So 2 weeks ago I treated myself to 10 euros worth of flowers(that's about $13.50) for those not up on the current exchange rates. Here is what I got! 60 roses(5 dozen!!!) 20 red, 20 white and 20 orange. I was so caught up in the thrill of getting them that I didn't realize until I was home that I didn't have any vases! So I played Magyver and used a crock that I had. I had to cut the stems somewhat to get them to fit but here they are. This was before they really opened up so you can just imagine!

Here are a few pics from recent travels. A few weeks back some ladies from Brussels went to London for a few days. Here are a few of us in front of Big Ben and the London Eye. It was such a fun weekend. All the other women had left there husbands and 3 kids(yes all 5 women have the same number of kids). It was so great to just laugh and play. We even went to see wicked and it was SO great! Go see it if you get the chance.

My friend Angie came to visit me for a week so we went to Paris for an overnight trip. Here we are taking our own picture in front of the Louvre.

After church Sunday while we were walking to go get something to eat they were having some kind of remembrance thing so they set the wooden word "l'innovation" on fire. It is always amazing the things you run into around town.