Incognito

I am sorry for being so recluse. I have been super busy at the camps and do not have much access to a computer. We have had lots to do with campers and my time is so limited with seeing Zach that I only get some good time with him in the evenings (after 9) and so therefore, I want to spend time talking and catching up with him. As I am sure you can understand.

I have a few more responsibilities put on my plate and so that is going to make internet access even more scarce unfortunately until I can figure out how to juggle this schedule...

Since I received my blog book I am super excited about using this as my online journal and so I am a bit bummed about not keeping up with things. I think I am going to have 20 entries when I finally do get to post.

But for now, I am off to talk to Zach and go to bed. I am going first thing in the morning with both boys to the beach to sign Eli up for swim lessons...or at least try. We will see how good my Hungarian is...

goodnight

happy birthday to me

Today I turn 35.

I woke up to my husband holding a HUGE bouquet of 3 different types of lilies. Beautiful and so fragrant. A wonderful way to start the day.

At the camps the orientation week is so full all the time with activities for Zach. So, my birthday is never fun. We normally go out sometime during the camp and get a babysitter but not often and especially not during the orientation week.

Last night Zach asked if he could get out of the meeting tonight so we could go out to dinner and celebrate my birthday together as a family…on the actual day and our director said YES. So kind of him!!!

I packed the boys up and we went to meet up with John and Jamie and their kids Jack and Cole. They are vacationing nearby and wanted to visit a castle nearby, so we connected there to explore. It is all up hill so I definitely got a workout carrying Jasper and a stroller. Jamie helped carry the stroller for me and John watched the active boys running ahead of us and was very good and reading to the them the signs and explaining to them what happened at the fort/castle ruins. Too bad I cannot post any pictures.

I am praying that this afternoon will be relaxing. One student offered to babysit (Mandi) and another offered to give me a massage for a birthday gift (Sarah). Such nice gifts.

I really enjoyed my boys today. We had a pleasant meal with Jamie & family… the boys got along well. No fighting, just fun laughing and playing. I got a great salad that was full of veggies and a yummy grilled chicken….yeah no camp food!!!! Jasper loved the yellow peppers. So yummy.

I am back and going to have a quiet time. God is really teaching me a LOT this summer. It has only been a week here but I have already been shown so much that I need to work on. I am so thankful that the Lord wants to work on me. But it is hard. It is not fun seeing your sin so clearly and trying to wrestle with it and examine yourself and your actions. I am weepy a lot and it is good. It is forcing me to seek the Lord and rest in Him and not people who are around but just sit before the Lord and see areas he wants me to give over to him and help me in. I hate seeing my sin. It is so ugly. I am so thankful that the Lord wants me to seek Him, trust Him and Him alone. It is hard. I am thankful that the Lord forgives us and that He desires us to reconcile with him. Such a gift. Such a gift. So humbling.

I will share more as the Lord is leading…

Update on my Mac situation. I got in touch with a Mac guy on the phone. He was nice and led me through some steps with my Disk Utility and we saw lots of things wrong. He asked me to play around on the computer and if there are issues to call back. Yesterday I played around and twice while using iphoto it went off on me. I asked a co worker here who loves MAC to uninstall and reinstall software (because the Mac guy thought we might need to do that) and he tried but the computer wouldn ‘t let him. The computer shut down 7 times while he was trying… so he did the Disk Utility thing again… was able to run it but it said at the end that it “failed.” So, that was lame.

I didn’t try calling again last night because I was having a quiet time and really not in the right frame of mind to call the Mac people. So, maybe later tonight I will. There are some serious issues with this MAC. I pray we get it resolved though. I was having fun working in iphoto.

Why I hate Mac's...

Did I get your attention with my title?

Hello all... so sorry I have been incognito. I am at out English camps and I have no idea when I am going to have time for internet now. They are still working out all the kinks and I am praying that I can get into a regular schedule soon. Right now... this is the first time since wed I have been able to get on the computer.... I want to share some highlights...

I HATE MACS...

Well, actually I am not sure if I hate them or not. We ended up getting one the 2.5 days I was home visiting my brother...the same weekend Eli was admitted to the hospital. So, I have not been able to look at it. Right before SpeakOut Zach and I both turned it on and it crashed on us.

That is right IT CRASHED.... from everything I have been told, they are NOT supposed to do this. Essentially it crashed 3 out of the 6 times we turned it on. And it always crashed within 10 minutes of it being on...or around that much time.

Then we decided that we would bring the MAC down to SpeakOut and so I would be forced to use it and we could have some of the staff here look at it because they all seem to LOVE their MACS. Zach does a lot of video editing and I wanted to do more photo editing things, so we got one.

They think we got a bum MAC and swear this is NOT normal and we need a new one. Thankfully we got Apple care, so they should be able to fix this problem for us. We will see.

I would like to love my Mac. I would like to be a convert. I would like to learn how to use all the programs since everyone swears how easy it is. We must of gotten the one bum one out there. Lucky us. Zach is so not convinced we should have ever bought one. We will see how the customer service treats us here in Hungary and when we call back to America.

Okay... since I don't have a computer to put my pictures on right now...I have to blog without pictures sorry... I will briefly share some highlights...

• the students from America have arrived and we are getting them ready for our English camps


• The first night we were here Eli learned how to ride his bike WITHOUT trainging wheels and did it within 5 minutes. How in the world? I don't know. It is amazing.


• We also got him a scooter for SpeakOut and he picked that up super quick too and we think that helped with him learning how to ride a bike. He is really good at balancing on it.


• The next day he figured out how to ride his bike without us helping him start... all by himself and he learned how to use the breaks to stop. It is amazing to watch. Now he wants a big boy bike. I am so thankful Eli is not hindered by this clot in his head. I am so thankful he is learning and growing and joyful. I love him so much and so thankful that he is alive and able to enjoy this summer. He loves playing with his friends and being outside.


• Jasper is talking like crazy and stringing what words he knows together. It is interesting watching him with all these new people, he is being a mommy's boy. He is super cute and fun. I enjoy him so much. He is such a joy it makes me hurt seeing him grow up because he is my baby. I just adore him.


• MY BLOG BOOK CAME. Eli already looked through it all. So have many staff and students. It is so fun because so many of them are in the book. I love it. I love the format, I love the look. I am disappointed in how small my collages turned out. I need to make sure I make those much bigger in the future!


• I have been able to exercise. The weather here has been cloudy and cool/mild. So, I have been more motivated than if it was so hot.


• It is super fun having other families here so that the boys have kids to play with and I have mommies to talk to. SO NICE.

We go back on Friday to Budapest so that we can see the Neurologist and I am going bring back our old laptop so that I can blog with pictures!!!

Thanks for all the compliments about the new look. I love it too, thanks!!!

Okay I asked you all to do this earlier...and I am asking you again... especially those that leave comments on my blog (Megan, Emily, Vicki, Michelle, and so many others I cannot remember)... I really want to quickly respond to what you write to me in an email but I cannot because you have not done this... please go and do this now so that I can write to you... thanks.

Okay my time is up. I wish I had time to read your blogs... please know hopefully that I will be able to sometime next week... Have a great weekend and upcoming week :)

And sorry for any typos my spell check isn't working and I don't have time to proof read.

A new look...what do you think?

I like change.
I loved the look Darcy gave me.
But I really wanted to learn how to change my own header...
and learn how to change the colors etc...on the blog anytime I wanted
Angie just changed her look to this template and I immediate said "YES, I would love this look too." (I hope you don't mind my wanting it too? Hopefully it is flattering to you :)
So, I changed the look...
what do you think?
I still don't know what to do with the 3 columns below...but I have plenty of time to think of something...or nothing at all.
I like this simpler, cleaner, journal/picture type look. Less busy...
I have a link up top to "inspire" but I haven't filled it in...I will with all my friends blogs whom I know and who live in my computer... I just don't have time now.
I have all the fun links to our ministry pages and info
I like the freedom to know I did this and can change it up (well as much as I can figure out)
I even made my own signature
Let me know what you think...and any ideas/suggestions you might have...
thanks.

Clarification and packing...

I wanted to clarify something from my last post. I write a lot on this blog as if you were in my head and had all the information that I am privy to... so to answer some of your concerns...

YES we do have health insurance, but because we live overseas, we have to pay for everything up front and then reimburse it. At this point I am not sure what our insurance will cover with these tests or not. I am just now getting slips back from our insurance saying they don't cover things like the IV Eli needed right before he was diagnosed with the blood clot. I am going to contest it, but as you probably know...this all takes time. So, we have money in our savings to pay for emergencies... and that is what we have been using. It is also our furlough fund. So, we will wait to see if we will ever get some of this money back or not. But we won't know for months.

Secondly, Zach went back to the doctor today and we found out that he is getting the right levels of medication, which is nice. We will go back in two weeks for him to be tested to make sure. The doctor also said that the preliminary blood work shows that Eli might be prone to blood clots. BUT he emphasized several times that we won't know for sure for 4-6 weeks and what he is seeing could just be from Eli having a runny nose. So, not to jump to any conclusions.

And we are in the midst of packing up to go to our English Camps "SpeakOut" for 5 weeks. We leave tomorrow morning and we have so much stuff. It is ridiculous. I really thought we wouldn't have much since I am NOT bringing down a lot of toys this time...since they are both walking and moving...they can play outside. And no more morning naps...so we will be at the lake most of the summer...Eli will take swim lessons (we think). But we still have so much. UGH. I am off to pack some more. And you know what I hate? After I have all this stuff packed...I go down to the camps, I realize "oh man, I forgot this... or that..." Seriously? After bringing down all this stuff. *sigh* off to pack