America!

I am proud to be an American. This year we enjoyed celebrating the fourth of July with some other American, missionary families in Tallinn. Not only did we share some great AMERICAN food, but the fellowship was a special treat and blessing.



Ron helped do the BBQ


everything was delicious - hamburgers, hot dogs, salads, baked beans, chips....


and a beautiful, delicious cake.














We took squirt guns for all the kids...they were a big hit!


Caleb liked teaching Ryland how to blow bubbles.


We wanted to end the day with fireworks, but we all agreed that we did not want to stay up or keep the kids up until it got dark after 11p.m. We'll enjoy fireworks on New Year's Eve.
♫ God bless America, land that I love ♫

Lithuania - Day 5

Heading HOME today! Our time in Lithuania has been exciting, but we are ready to head back.
The 9 hour trip (aproximatley) went smoothly. I thought you might enjoy some of the sights we saw as we drove through Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.











An abandoned border station.

We had driven about 5 hours and were looking for a place to eat lunch. Then we spotted the perfect place....


a cafe right beside a beautiful lake with an awesome playground for the kids to get some wiggles out. The food was a little different, but very good.






This is where we enjoyed our lunch.


When we arrived in Johvi we stopped by our building to unload the trailer.





After a long day and drive, we made it home around 11p.m. We also made it home before dark!

Lithuania - Day 4

Today is Family Day! After breakfast we decided to walk through Old Town. We had been told that after walking through Old Town for about 15 minutes we would come to a castle, so off we went.



The weather was beautiful and we were enjoying our stroll to the castle. However, after 30 minutes....45 minutes....and an hour, we still had not found the castle. Finally, after asking, we found out we were just another five minutes or so away. As you can imagine, we weren't real sure we belived them! But, sure enough, a short time later we found it. WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT!!! In fact, we were so disappointed that I did not even take ONE picture. What we did see was a playground. The kids were all excited and so we let them play for awhile (Ron and I relaxed on a bench - I had hurt my foot and after walking that long it was pretty sore).





After the hour walk back to the hotel we had sure worked up an appetite for some lunch. And guess what we had found in the mall we went to on Day 2 ???? PIZZA HUT!!! That was our next stop. When we walked in the mall, we saw all the toys from Toy Story and took a picture with them.






After lunch we went bowling (it was in the mall too). The last time we went bowling was in 2002 - which means the boys were very young, Sarah was a baby, and before Caleb's time completely. It was fun! We ended up having to play two games (the first one was a practice for everyone).



Ron showing us how it's done.


Daniel putting everything in to it.


Andrew getting the hang of it.



Sarah was such fun to watch. I don't think she ever used the same ball - plus she used a different weight each time. Her goal was to get a strike...or at least a spare. She was thrilled to end up with several spares.



Isn't he strong!



Caleb was doing good to get his ball down to the pins. So after he rolled it...



he would watch it roll while jumping up and down, clapping



He made it through most of the game. Toward the end though, he found something a little more exciting and let the other kids take over his turn.

After bowling, we got an ice cream cone before heading back to the hotel. Later that evening the boys and Ron took our rented trailer and loaded up a bunch of Russian literature (John/Romans and chic tracts) to bring back with us. This was a huge blessing and saved us lots of money in postage.

Lithuania - Day 3

We spent the morning passing out literature on the street again. After lunch we had the opportunity to meet a couple other missionary families and fellowship for a little while. Wednesday evening Ron was to preach in the church. Well, to make a long story short - we got lost and never made it to church! We had a borrowed GPS with us and typed in the church address that was given to us, but...we ended up in a different section of town. Church was almost over and we still didn't know where we were in relation to where we were supposed to be. The GPS did know how to get us back to the hotel :) For dinner we enjoyed a meal at the hotel restaurant (all four of the kids had a coupon for a free meal). Another long, but good day!