Mary's here!

After my parents were with us last year for our English camp, they said that next year they wanted to come back and bring my aunt Mary with them (my mom’s sister).  So they made their plans and bought their tickets.  Then in March, Mary broke her ankle and had to have surgery.  She spent the next 10 weeks following surgery recovering and doing therapy to strengthen her ankle, and then when the time came, put on her boot and boarded the plane to brave the journey to Slovakia to be with us! 

Our hats are off to Mary, as she spent the week with us at our English camp, using her cane to walk back and forth to our cabin in the rain and cold!  We were thrilled that she was there with us!  Mary jumped right in and met the students, having some good conversations with some of them over dinner and during free times.  Mary helped a ton with our kids too, rooming with Shaylee in our cabin, even being on “potty duty” during the night!  She helped my mom babysit during the mornings when my dad and I were teaching a class.  We all love Mary, and are so glad that she was able to be here, despite her set-back in March.

Ready to board the plane...boot and all!

Shaylee wanted to be just like Mary!

Mary taught the kids to play solitaire...

...and do Sudoku's.

Mary and Shaylee's room in the cabin

The girls went for coffee in our town square.

Thank you, Mary, for coming to us, for loving us and our kids, for accepting the pain of walking with your bad ankle and the bad weather during camp.  We loved our time with you, and are glad that Shaylee especially got the chance to get to know you better and love you, as she was too little to know you very well before we moved away.  The other kids and Ed and I loved the time to be with you again!  We all love you, Mary!  Thanks for the great memories we’ll always have of when you came to visit us over here!

A Close Second

So, the second came first and the first came second...???  What I mean is, Ed's second brother Mike came first, and now, his first (oldest) brother Alan came second!  Yes, we've already had two siblings come for a visit!  Alan and Julie came after their work in Germany was finished.  We had a great 6 days with them!  As with all of our American visitors, we so enjoyed spending multiple days together, talking and laughing together, and exploring the town.  Like Mike and Rachael, Al and Julie came without their kids because of their work trip to Germany.  We again missed having the cousins around.  We're always thinking about how great it would be if the next trips included all the kids!

We took Al and Julie to a different castle that we had never been to before, and spent some time in our town too.  Shaylee always gets in on the daytime activities with our guests while the other kids are off at school, so she had a great week with four adults and her! Julie and I had some great times just chatting, in the kitchen, on the porch, or at the cafe in the square.  Alan and Ed bonded while fixing our 4-wheeler!  All in all, we agreed that spending a week together was really great for the family ties!

Thanks, Alan and Julie, for making the huge sacrifice to come visit us, taking time away from your busy family schedule, and from your great family, to extend your work trip to be with us!  We truly loved our time with you two...the late nights of talking were really fun!  Thanks also for the encouragement you were to us and to our kids!  They, too, loved you being here!  Our kids are so blessed to have such love and attention from their aunts and uncles!  It was fun to see them enjoying you and getting to know you better!  We miss you already, and are so thankful that you came!

Story time with Uncle Alan

Thanks, Debbi, for the clothes you sent with them for the girls!

The First of the Siblings

And the winners are...Mike and Rachael!!!  Ed's brother and sister-in-law, Mike and Rachael, gained the title of the first of our siblings to visit us over here!  What a great time we had with them!  Two of Ed's brothers, Mike and Alan, work together and have a client in Germany.  Because they had work to do for that client this month, they and their wives made a vacation out of their work trip, and extended their time in Europe in order to "swing by" our very out-of-the-way-from-Germany town of Bardejov!  Mike and Rachael came here before their time in Germany, and Alan and Julie will be coming after it.

We loved every minute of the time we were able to spend with Mike and Rachael, as did our kids!  Mike and Rach were not able to bring their three boys with them on this trip, and although we were all disappointed to not have the cousins along, our kids made the most of the time with their aunt and uncle, and were so blessed by the attention and love that Mike and Rach showered on our five!  You'll see from the pictures that the kids basked in the attention!  So, thank you Mike and Rachael for loving our kids so well!  Also, they brought an entire suitcase filled with goodies from both them and Ed's parents!  These treats are always so fun for all of us!

Mike and Ed accomplished quite a bit during our week together.  They built some easels for our English camps and made a batch of the most delicious yeast breads I have ever tasted!  Very impressive and diverse talents in these guys!  And Rachael and I enjoyed going out to coffee almost every day!  We all enjoyed great times in our town: touring the town, the square, the historic church and tower, and enjoying the town's coffee and ice cream cafes.  We also took a drive to a huge castle ruins just an hour from our house, and enjoyed a day there.

Some of our favorite times during the week that they were here were the late night talks and card playing!  We have great memories of many nights back in Morton and Tremont, when we would spend evenings at one of our two houses, doing just that.  So, to have a whole week of it was incredible!

Mike and Rachael, thank you so much for coming to see us, for spending the extra time and money to see our world over here!  We loved catching up with you, having such concentrated time with you two, and making some wonderful memories together!  We really hope that someday you can return here, and this time with your boys...what fun that would be!  Thanks for the many laughs and deep talks!  Thank you for the great encouragement you were to us.  We love you!

My cousin, my other cousin, and our friend

We have guests!!!  They've been here for a little over a week, and have 5 more days with us before they continue their travels to some other great cities in Europe.  They are: my cousin Grant Zimmerman, my other cousin Ben Getz, and our friend from our home church, Phil Schafer.  These three guys have just graduated from their undergraduate studies and decided to travel Europe before going on to graduate work and jobs in July.  And they started their trip with us!  We are so honored that they came this far east, and are spending such a great two weeks with our family!

Our kids are having an amazing time with the attention of these three great guys!  As you can see, the "big boys" are incredibly gracious to our kids: playing with them, reading to them, jumping with them, helping them with homework, holding conversations with them, even being their "horsey"!  The guys have been a huge help to Ed and I also, doing yard work, planting flowers, doing dishes, cleaning the kitchen, taking care of the kids, and tomorrow and Monday they will help us with our English camp promotions.

We will be going into the schools here in Bardejov, talking to the English classes of many of our town's public and private schools, telling them all about the English camp that will be held in July, and inviting them to come.  We let these classes know that the camp will allow them to practice conversational English in a fun and interesting way, and that there will be evening meetings lead by people from our local church.  Many students have come to camp in the past because of hearing about it during these in-school promotions.  We are praying that the hearts of the students in these schools will be open to this idea of English camps, and that they will want to join us this year.

We saw some girls from last year's camp in the town square this week, and all three of them want to come again this summer, and one of them is planning to bring some friends along with her!  That is exciting for us!  So, even though Grant, Ben and Phil won't be here for the camp in July, they will be great promoters of it with their bold personalities and energetic deliveries!  The guys have also been helping in our youth group, giving the devotion last Friday night, and both this Friday and Saturday nights.  The Slovak kids have loved meeting these guys and getting to know them.  And the guys have done a GREAT job getting out and meeting kids here in our town, even attempting to communicate with them...in Slovak...great job, Ben!!!

So, Grant, Ben and Phil, we want to tell you a huge thank you for spending these two weeks with us, encouraging our family, blessing our home, and being a true breath of fresh air to us here!  You have been so easy to have, great to communicate with, and so fun to watch as you are enjoying every bit of life here in Slovakia, from the taste of our creamy milk, to the beautiful weather we've been having every day, to the touring of that amazing castle, to the Thursday night soccer you've gotten in on!  It's been great getting to know all of you better, and we and our kids have been blessed by your presence here in our home!

For any of you who are interested in reading more details about these weeks with the guys here, you can read Ben's travel blog.  You will be amused by these posts, as Ben is a great writer, and is great at documenting details!  You can find him at http://benjgetz.blogspot.com/  He has also posted many pictures of the fun we've been having.  I laugh out loud nearly every time I read it!