More Chandler Pics and Video Proof...

Here are some more pictures (in random order) of Chandler's last few days with us... his flight just took off from Orlando... Skoobi and I will miss you Chan!

Chandler and his grandpa Shaq doing some sort of freakish water ballet. It was such a beautiful day on the beach. Florida does have some perks!




Dad and Mom and Chandler at dad's birthday and Chandler's going away lunch.



Me and the boy last night after dinner



Chandler and his cousin Skoobi got along very well. Skoob already misses him... and all the treats she won't be getting anymore :)


Back to Cracker Barrel and a mean game of checkers


Chandler and 2/3 of his grandparents...

Hahahaha... who doesn't love the Cracker Barrel staff singing happy birthday? Ok, so he specifically said he didn't want the singing... I have a lot of missed birthdays to make up for! I suppose i'll have to start paying rent now...


The Fam...


Oh, and by the way, my heels were closer to three AND A HALF inches... as you can see from the above un-touched photo. No wonder my feet still hurt :)





And last but not least, I took the above video for my dear sister Jean in Oregon. It's a little hard to hear, so make sure you turn up the volume!!

Update

I know I haven't updated these last two weeks. It's still kind of strange being here knowing I'm staying. But it's been good hanging with the parents and just kind of relaxing and trying to figure out what's next.

I love having my clothes come out of the dryer. They are just so soft and clean and smell so good. It still takes e forever to go buy a (very expensive) gallon of milk. I just like wandering around the store and looking at things. I also love customer service here. Be it in person or on the phone, the worst customer service experience here is usually better than anything over there.

Of course, there are the things that I don't love... humidity. Is it possible to drown just by breathing? And it's only April! Ants... sugar ants, fire ants... ants! The lizard shock factor... the little booger jumped out at me in the bathroom. There is a baby lizard in my bedroom. I told him he could stay as long as he didn't jump on me.

Skoobi and the cat... oil and vinegar have a better chance of blending harmoniously. But we're sharing the house between them. It's interesting - we'll leave it at that. Took Skoobi to the vet and she passed everything with flying colors (except for getting along with the other dog in the the waiting room). I like the vet. They also have a boarding kennel and so we're trying that out next week.

The 'big' news is I bought a car. I usually wouldn't put pictures of it on my blog, but I know people overseas will want to see it and it's just easier than emailing everyone. It's weird because I've always paid cash for my cars, but now I have payments. I'm committed to paying it off early so we'll see how it goes.

Below are some pictures - enjoy!



Skoobi is happy being outside. We're buying a fence to put up for here, so for now she's chained up and someone has to be with her outside 1) so she doesn't terrorize people (she is a bit territorial, you know) and 2) so no stray dogs get her. We've had scary strays in the past and so I worry about her being attacked. But mom said we haven't had any in a while, so hopefully things will be ok. But I don't leave her outside alone.

Skoobi jumped right in the car -I had to really pull her for her to come out!

She just had a really cute expression here

Checking out the back seat

Where have we been? Oh, no where yet...

Here's the car, a 2004 Mitsubishi Lancer... may it live long and prosper

I need to name the car something, but I don't know what yet. I thought about Lance, but that's kind of obvious... any suggestions, let me know!

Happy Birthday Tomislav and Petra!

OK, so it's cool to have a birthday on St Patrick's day, and it's really cool that Tomislav and Petra have the same birthday. Too bad they didn't get married on St Patrick's day as well because seriously, how often would that happen?

So in honor of their birthday, I'm posting the pictures I mentioned on my birthday blog (see two entries below)

So, above you see Petra smiling, and Tomislav kind of just looking blankly...

Now Tomislav is smiling and Petra is kind of just looking blankly

And now they are both smiling thinking of their kids in college :)

See, I don't make this stuff up - it just happens and I am the grateful blog recipient! Do have a very happy birthday, and I'll see you latter!

March 12

Here are some of my favorite pictures from my birthday shindig this evening. I just had a few friends over for a Mexican casserole and angel food cake (actually, I made cupcakes - no candles!) It was really fun, and I'm so glad everyone was able to come and celebrate with me.

Tomislav and Petra with their kids Daniel and Petar

Dragica, Me, Anita

Sanja, Boris (her boyfriend) and me

Me (again), Ivana, and her husband Zoran

This is my favorite picture of the night... The two pictures I took before this one were so funny. In one Tomislav was smiling and Petra was frowning. In the other, Petra was smiling, but Tomislav was frowning. I was trying to get them to smile at the same time, when Petra said "How can we both smile with the kids acting up?" So I said, "Well, think about when they are 18 and not living at home anymore." As you can see, both Tomislav and Petra perked right up!

Petar's "No, I'm not on drugs" look

All I asked for was a smile - it was a little tough for Zoran, but Ivana is radiant! :)

How did you know I bought chocolate ice cream for the boys?
And Petra is just so pretty in this picture.

Can you believe one of the boys is actually smiling???????

Sanja and Boris

And this is how I feel about now, so I'll probably wrap this up and head to bed.

Oh, yes, we couldn't forget Skoobi's traditional piece of birthday cupcake!

And some random facts of the day...

As of 3/12/2008 9:21:51 AM EST
I am 36 years old.
I am 432 months old.
I am 1,878 weeks old.
I am 13,149 days old.
I am 315,585 hours old.
I am 18,935,121 minutes old.
I am 1,136,107,311 seconds old.

Those 36 candles produce 36 BTUs,
or 9,324 calories of heat (that's only 9.3240 food Calories!)
You can boil 4.23 US ounces of water with that many candles.

Celebrities who share my birthday:
Darryl Strawberry (1962) James Taylor (1948) Liza Minnelli (1946)
Barbara Feldon (1941) Al Jarreau (1940) Andrew Young (1932)
Edward Albee (1928) Jack Kerouac (1922) Gordon MacRae (1921)

Top songs of 1972:
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face by Roberta Flack
Alone Again (Naturally) by Gilbert O'Sullivan
American Pie by Don McLean
Without You by Nilsson
I Can See Clearly Now by Johnny Nash
A Horse with No Name by America
Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me by Mac Davis
Me and Mrs. Jones by BillyPaul
The Candy Man by Sammy Davis, Jr.
Lean On Me by Bill Withers

My age is the equivalent of a dog that is 5.14637964774951 years old. (You're still chasing cats!)

And some interesting historical facts other than it being my birthday...
0515 BC - Construction is completed on the Second Temple in Jerusalem.
1664 First naturalization act in American colonies
1737 Galileo's body moved to Church of Santa Croce in Florence, Italy
1755 First steam engine in America installed, to pump water from a mine
1881 Andrew Watson made his Scotland debut as the world's first black international football player and captain.
1884 Mississippi establishes first US state college for women
1888 2nd day of the Great blizzard of '88 in northeast US (400 die)
1894 Coca-Cola is sold in bottles for the first time.
1917 Stalin, Kamenev & Muranov arrive in St Petersburg
1918 Moscow becomes the capital of Russia again after Saint-Petersburg held this status for 215 years.
1934 Josip Broz (Tito) freed from jail
1945 USSR returns Transylvania to Romania
1964 Jimmy Hoffa sentenced to 8 years
1994 Church of England ordains first 33 women priests
2006 Slobodan Milosevic died

Baby sitting

I've baby sat for Tomislav and Petra a couple of times the last few weeks. Here are some pictures of Daniel and Petar. Even though they didn't look happy, they really were having fun making cookies. And they had a lot of fun eating them too :)

Jan 15

Today is my first anniversary of living in Croatia. I celebrated by having cereal for breakfast and lunch... probably will have it for dinner too.

Extending Christmas...

We finally made it to the assisted living facility. A group of teens here helping with the gypsy ministry took some time to come with us to sing songs and give gifts to some of the people in the home. I'm really hoping in the next few weeks to begin going there to visit with Vesna (Vesna is Zdenka's daughter - Vesna's daughter Sandra lives here and is pictured below). I'm really looking forward to the opportunities to serve there. Please be praying for the precious people I met today...

Anita translating for one of the women in the group.

Sandra, pictured in the orange shirt, is Zdenka's granddaughter. She's is anxiously awaiting her Christmas gift while enjoying the music program!

This lady is Ana... I had a really hard time understanding her except for that she is alone and very lonely. She cried most of the time (except for the times she was laughing with me when I was trying to understand her!) and just accepted all the hand-holding and hugs that were offered to her.

Ana during the Gospel presentation.

A happy Sandra looking for her mama.

I'm sorry some of the pictures are blurry and are of the same people and from the same angle... I was trying not to distract easily distractable people with the picture taking... :)

Christmas in Varaždin

Christmas was nice... Below are some pictures and just some comments as the day went along.

The Christmas tree on Christmas morning after Santa came :)

Skoobi getting very excited about her presents

When no kids are involved, it's really fun to have a dog - she really got into opening presents!

This isn't the adorably cute video... I still can't believe I lost that one... but this one is the second cutest, but so far from the really good one where Skoobi was literally ripping into the gifts and throwing wrapping paper everywhere... sigh.

Skoobi waiting for more presents... can you say spoiled?

A very happy (and spoiled rotten) dog

Janice and I actually exchange gifts as well... but being in our pajamas and wild hair, I opted not to post pictures of myself - after all, it's my blog :) But we did have fun exchanging gifts and being in pajamas most of the day.

After presents we had special coffee from Dunkin Donuts and Christmas bread - it's SO good!

Later in the afternoon we walked to Anita's for some tea. Lots of kids seem to have received sleds for Christmas, and so it was fun to watch them slide down the steep hills of the moat by the castle. Not something I would do!

The castle in winter - very pretty

One of the trees decorating the town.

Me and Anita after tea

Anita, Janice, me in front of Anita's tree.

It started to snow as janice and I left Anita's apartment, and so we walked home with flakes falling. It was a nice, quiet, white Christmas - hope you enjoyed your Christmas!