Sweet Corn Season!

Here's 85-years' worth of experience studying this ear of corn

Is it ready yet?

Shuckin' corn with Mom Waggoner and the nephews and niece at Steve and Rachel's home

Yes, we're in Illinois for a week's vacation. I [half] jokingly schedule my summer trips to visit family in Illinois to correspond with sweet corn season. Here are some picts from Thursday. The best is yet to come!

What We've Been Up To

The last several evenings and most of Saturday have been spent doing some fix-up jobs at the duplex between tenants. I wanted to post some before-and-after photos to brag on Nathan's skills in this area! He's been working hard and has a tender head from bumps acquired during many hours bent under cabinets and under sinks. Above, you can see Ellie 'driving' the shopping cart at Lowes. Below is a sampling of a few of the projects we finished...

I love the new floor! Though the old floor looks like it was in decent condition, it had turned some funky gray/blue around the toilet. The new floor is Armstrong peel-n-stick tiles. Amazingly easy, and it looks even better in person. The hard project was fixing a place in the shower where the backer board and tiles were caving in behind the inset soap dish. Though Nathan had never fixed anything like this before, he figured out a solution, in spite of not finding the exact replacement pieces.

I'm pretty sure this chipped porcelain sink and gold-dusted formica countertop (above) were older than I. It took several rounds with the jigsaw to get the opening cut large enough for the new sink (below), but I think it looks GREAT!

I learned a thing or two about cutting and installing counters watching and helping Nathan. Here's the completed kitchen. The floor was last year's project. We're slowly bring the place from circa 1971 to the 21st century! I told Nathan my wish list was quickly coming to an end for this side of the duplex, but he doesn't believe me.

Let me play with rocks

This is what happens when one spends the first 18 months of life in a crib.
No muscle tone = hyperflexibility. I'll say.

Since returning from Hungary we've been working nights over at the duplex making some improvements between tenants. This morning while we were cutting countertops in the backyard, Ellie crawled right over to the end of the driveway and began sifting rocks through her fingers. On Wednesday her Occupational Therapist had just recommended filling a large plastic tub with dried lima beans as a sensory activity she thought Ellie would like. Sounds more comfortable to me than playing in rocks! We'll have to get some of those next time we're at the store...

Meanwhile, we'll post some before-and-after photos of our projects later tonight or perhaps tomorrow. I have a feeling we may be pretty weary tonight! It's going to take all we have got to go back and finish everything after Ellie's naptime!

Back in KY

I don't think the jet-lag thing is going too bad. We've been home for 30 hours and I went to bed at 10:30 PM last night and woke up this morning at 6:15 -- hence, I can take a moment to blog, a quiet activity (unlike laundry) that won't wake a sleeping Ellie. Yes! In spite of her parents losing track of time and letting her take a 4.5 hour nap yesterday afternoon, she went down at her normal bedtime last night and is still snoozing! It goes to show you just how far behind she is on her sleep.

Yes, the 28-hour travel day was brutal. It was about four hours longer than the trip to bring her home from Albania and one flight-leg longer. It was that last layover (four hours that turned into six) that was killer, but eventually she did fall asleep in her stroller at the gate in O'Hare and sleep pretty much until we had to disembark in Lexington. Somewhere on this trip, Ellie developed a feeling of entitlement that for her to be in her stroller, it had to be moving at all times. God bless the poor people who stood in lines around us, though moving sidewalks and elevators were exceptions. Those were a blast until they ended and then we had to be moving again. [One of the team members mentioned how cool it would be to having moving sidewalks on campus. Ellie would be in heaven and would never want to come home.]

I can't say enough about how much I love our little Bluegrass Airport in Lexington. Sure, we only have two baggage claim carousels, but they're only about 25 feet from curbside where Siobhan and Stephanie were waiting with our van and a truck. I pushed Ellie out to them, found an old balloon in our vehicle (that was still miraculously somewhat inflated from Reunion more than 2 weeks ago) and that kept her not only calm, but actually pleasant until we got 18 of our 21 bags and filled out a claim for the missing three. We should have brought balloons to keep her entertained at the airport! Someone had even recommended that to us, but we forgot to add it to the list on our last Wal Mart run before leaving for Hungary.

It was so cool to see the excitement and recognition on her face when we got her out of her car seat, finally home at 12:45 AM. She didn't fuss while I changed her but kept her eyes constantly moving, soaking up the familiar features of her room. I don't remember exactly, but I think she almost giggled when I put her in her crib. Yes, Ellie! You are HOME.

Ellie's 15 minutes in Budapest

see parliament over Ellie's shoulder to the right?

Lookin' at the Danube

Castle Hill

Ellie loved riding the tram

Waiting for her connecting tram

Swinging with her dad before tonight's celebration banquet

Since camp wrapped up last night and we're leaving EARLY Monday morning, we thought we would take advantage of a few free hours this afternoon to take Ellie into town and get some photos to show her someday that she really was in Hungary when she was two years old. Because we wanted to get her back to the Johnson's home in time for some sort of nap, our time in Budapest was REALLY short, but I think we got some fun photos to make the trip worthwhile.

Tonight we had our celebration banquet with the camp staff and shared testimonies of how God moved in camp this week. We were thrilled to see 5 of the youth (teens) pray to invite Christ into their hearts. A number of children did also. In light of this culture, this is nothing short of miraculous. The testimony time this evening was touching to learn how hearts of our camp staff were affected this week too. This English camp ministry is special to Nathan and I with this being our 3rd camp in Hungary since 2000. Leaving is bittersweet since we don't know when we will be back again next!

Here we are with Duane and Anne Kline from Locust Grove, GA. The Klines have come for the past three summers to lead the adult program which ran every evening of camp time. Their passion for lost souls is infectious. Incidentally, it was cool to learn that Anne's dad was one of Nathan's math professors in college!

(Ellie is about ready to fall to pieces, she was SO tired). Here we're pictured with Gabor and Reni. We've known Gabor since 2000 when he was a translated at the first English camp we attended. His experience and maturity as a translator and a co-laborer in ministry was such a blessing this week. It was a joy to get to know Reni this trip (last year she couldn't get off of work to translate). When she wasn't translating, she had a special touch with Ellie and gave me a little bit of a break!

Picking Cherries in Diosd

Due to a diaper dilemma, Ellie and I had to leave camp shortly after supper tonight and go 'home' for more supplies. The weather was gorgeous (think early October in KY) so after getting Ellie fixed up, we explored the Johnson's backyard. While swinging on their patio swing with Ellie and singing camp songs, I noticed a very droopy cherry tree and went over to investigate. After sampling a few of it's abundant fruits, I ran inside to grab a Wal Mart sack and the camera.

The photos above show the fun time we had gathering cherries to share tomorrow in the staff room. In the course of gathering our fruit, I suddenly wished I had an orchard of fruit trees (okay, maybe just one) at home to supply us with convenient, tasty produce! It was an unexpected turn to the evening and provided a special memory I'll take home after this trip is over. I didn't even care that Ellie was sitting on a number of rotten cherries that had already fallen to the ground and were likely staining one of only three pairs of pants I packed for her (who would have predicted a week of temps in the low 70s in July?) While Ellie resisted trying the cherries I offered, you can see from the bottom photo that at least one made it to her mouth when I wasn't looking. Incidentally, cherry soup is one of Hungary's most famous dishes. I think I understand now a little better why.

***Click here watch a slideshow of more cherry picking photos***

More scenes from English camp

Yesterday Ellie raids Lizzy's costume closet and has a blast with beads

During a break from her responsibilities, Meredith kindly stayed with Ellie so I could run around and take some photos of camp action.

Ellie seems to be doing better with the camp schedule and sleeping her usual 11 hours at night. That makes everything more enjoyable for everyone. She absolutely loves the stroller ride to and from school and is more congenial around all the new faces. Sorry the updates are short. The days are pretty full and tiring!

Ellie goes to the beach... sort of

The English camp weekend schedule is a bit different than the weekday schedule in that we spend one afternoon in an elaborate role play (e.g. yesterday's hospital visit, see our team blog link in the right margin) and the other afternoon on a "world tour", with tours courtesy of the individual Asbury team members. In addition to tours to places like Tokyo, London, Mexico, Maine, and North Carolina, one tour featured a visit to the beach which I think Ellie enjoyed more than anyone else. She didn't even seem to notice the lack of water (though there was a cd playing of crashing waves).