Tanecs

Mom and I got to see a live performance of Tanecs last night. It's a famous Macedonian folk group. It was a great concert!! It has been a really special and encouraging Christmas for us. If you want to watch a clip of Tanecs just copy and paste this link into your web browser:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzlCPXXoDd4

SO blessed

We have been SO SO blessed with Christmas cards and packages! Eric's family sent us a fabulous package this week!! Thank you all SO much! All the gifts are perfect! Oh, and good news...our vonage is back up and working!

AND Mom and Wes are in the airplane flying over now! They arrive in about 4 hours! We're a little overwhelmed with excitement!

Our 5th Anniversary!

We are celebrating five years of wonderful marriage today! Eric is in the kitchen cooking up a great Italian meal for us and I made his favorite kind (Chocolate w/Reeses) of cookies for dessert:)

Tomorrow around 2:00 is going to be very interesting...Eric has paid to have our anniversary announcement put on the local Roma BTR television channel. We submitted pictures that will be shown and our friends dedicated songs to us. We will not be able to understand the songs because they are in the local Romani dialect, but I feel very loved and appreciated by my husband for making this effort!

Merry Christmas!

Make a Smilebox greeting

Caramel Apple Night

I had the great privilege of attending "Caramel Apple Night". This is a yearly event where American ladies gather to fellowship and make caramel apples. The caramels are mailed here from America. There were about 30 of us ladies this year. It was a great night of meeting new Americans that live in my same city! We all went around and told a little bit about our family and job. Hope you enjoy the pictures. One friend decided to be a little different and make a caramel pear. Isn't it huge?!

Happy Birthday Eric!

We had a great time today for Eric's birthday! First, after church, we went to eat Chinese (see pictures), and tonight we had our landlords over to eat Chicken Parmesan and M&M cookies.

A BIG thank you!

Mill Shoal- We absolutely love everything in the package you sent us!! Here are just a few pictures of the great gifts! We are so blessed!

*Side note: Our vonage is not currently working. We can be contacted via email and Skype.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Make a Smilebox greeting

Kirilica song!

If you're interested in listening to a great Macedonian song, go to www.youtube.com and put in "Vlatko Kirilica" in the search box. We really love this song so I want you all to listen to it. I catch myself humming it all the time! It's a song about the Macedonian alphabet. Hope you will enjoy it!:)

Gradinka

Here's a few pictures from Sawyer's class at school. I'm sure you will notice his boo-boo on the left eye. He fell last week but it is starting to heal well.

Our Monday grocery shopping

Every Monday Eric and I walk to the green market together to do our grocery shopping. There at the Pazaar we buy our meat, fruits, and vegetables for the whole week for a great price!:) We would really like to stock up but our fridge is small.

Museum

Today, we visited a local history museum in Skopje. It was really fascinating to see all of the many historical artifacts collected there! Many things date back to before the days of Jesus Christ. Also, there was an interesting gallery of art work by various students that show their opinions of Macedonia's relationship with the European Union (EU). The last picture shows a clock that stopped working in 1963 during the earthquake in Skopje. This building was the old railroad station and now serves as the museum. It was a good day of learning about Macedonian culture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1963_Skopje_earthquake

Sawyer today at the playground

Sawyer Update

I just want to give an update on Sawyer. Many of you know that he needs some extra help with his speech and I'm happy to say that he has been approved for speech therapy in our home. This is really a blessing! We've been praying for wisdom with helping him with his speech. He does attend Macedonian preschool so he hears Macedonian for half of the day and English the other half. God has been very good to encourage me this week with Sawyer's developments. One morning he very clearly told me to "have a good day" when I dropped him off at school:) One thing we've been practicing are shapes. He was eating potato chips and pointed out to me that one looked like a heart. Also he is getting a Mickey Mouse stamp on his hand at school regularly for good behavior. His teachers keep saying that he has great manners, which is really surprising to me!:) The teachers are reporting that he is eating his manja (hot lunch) better! Just want to share my joys with you all!

Thank you Mill Shoal!

Thank you Mill Shoal Baptist Church for your very generous packages! We were SO encouraged and excited to receive all the goodies! I have already been able to make corn casserole and M&M cookies with some of the ingredients:) Our language instructor thanks you too because corn casserole is her favorite American dish!

Prague

We're back home now in Macedonia. We traveled to Prague, Czech Republic last week for meetings. It was a great time! I, Jill, even went to Starbucks...so, yes, we were very spoiled for a few days:) The most adventurous part of the trip was that we drove all the way to Prague from Macedonia! Sawyer was great (most of the time) as we drove through Serbia, Hungary, and Slovakia to reach Czech Republic. We're very thankful for his portable DVD player:)

Fall is Here

Fall weather is here in Macedonia and it feels great! Even though the temperatures are very comfortable in Skopje, when driving to Ohrid this week, we saw that the tallest mountains are already snow capped! They are SO beautiful so I want to share some pictures with you from our drive. We had an excellent visit in Ohrid and we look forward to visiting our friends there many more times. We also stopped on the side of the road to buy some apples and honey.

Sawyer's Party

Sawyer had a great birthday party! Here are some more pictures from the party. Maya's mother hand knitted the teddy bear for Sawyer! Thank you to everyone that made his 3rd birthday very special!

View from Mt. Vodno

Here is the view from Mt. Vodno overlooking the city of Skopje. Skopje is in a wide long valley.