Nice to meet you Northern Europe

So carl has gone. Again, we really enjoyed the time we had with him. Made us realize how much we miss our friends and family back home. Soon oh very soon!!!

Our September...in a nutshell, I promise!:)

Finished off the road trip with Carl. We did Vienna, Salzburg and Munich before we made our way south.

 In Croatia we visited 3 cities. Zagreb, Split and
Dubrovnik. I liked Croatia, particularly Dubrovnik!

We then went back to Romania for Carl to be able to visit with family. It was wonderful to see them all again!

After a few days in Budapest we arranged to move out of our little home!! The plan was to keep it through mid Oct. but once all the details were figured out we realized that we'd be away all but 3 days of the following month. It was a little on the stressful side because it was so last minute but not nearly as bad as when we had to leave Sofia and had a day to do it!



We flew to Germany to visit/meet some of my family. It was so great to meet and get to know people that I didn't even know existed!

From there we flew to Tallinn, Estonia to visit more family. This time was very special to me. I knew some of the people here because they came to the states. My mom and sisters were really close to them all so I could put faces to the names of the characters to so many stories I'd heard.

Tallinn

We spent a weekend at the "hooter" is what they called it. Its the families property out in the woods. I'd heard so many things about this place, it was lovely to be there. My sisters used to spend their summers there growing up. It was absolutely beautiful!

"Hooter"

Lele Katya. This woman reminds me so much of my mom it's ridiculous! The way they walk and talk is the same. Their love of pretty clothes and shopping. Their passion for travel. The way they prefer their tea even! When this lady was in the states over 10 years ago is when I saw this side of my mom that I'd never seen before and it shocked me! She was so wild! Lele Katya managed to get my mom to attempt a head stand!!! I will never forget that. They laughed the entire time they were together it seemed. I really felt as if I were with family while in Estonia. I was so so sad to leave.

We sailed to Helsinki, Finland for a day. There we met Veronika, the daughter of Lele Katya. Whom I also knew from her frequent visits to California. We enjoyed our time there even with all the rainfall.

From there we flew to Dublin, Ireland.  Because it was cheaper that way than to fly directly to Paris from Tallinn. Dublin was kind of what we expected. Pub after pub lined every street! (slight exaggeration) It was awkward to hear English all around and to see English writing everywhere. Felt almost like home.

Dublin

Next destination was beautiful pahh-rri!! (Paris) We spent some time with Esty and Cipri which was wonderful.

And welcomed Wes and Liza to Europe!! Yay!!!!!!! Sooo looking forward to our time together! This will be great!

August Rush

Hello all! Welcome back friends! Or welcome for the first time…either way, glad you're here!!:) Just like every other month of this past year August has passed too quickly. Can't believe we're at the point in our trip where it's time to start buying tickets for back home!! Just thinking about returning back to a "normal life" is so weird! I have to admit though, I'm kinda looking forward to a regular life again. I want to hang out with my sisters and go to my mom's for an afternoon and go out with my girls for coffee; to decorate a house with all the neat things we've picked up from all over and oh how I miss all the children in my life! Everyone has grown and is talking a ton and all sorts of new things I'm missing out on. Those are the things I think about recently. I try not to dwell on that though….I know that mike and I will never get this time back and this is the opportunity of a lifetime and all sorts of people would dream of being able to do what we've been so awesomely blessed with. Anyway, this is what our August has looked like…..

We did our last camp of the summer! This one was our favorite! There were 150ish campers and most were Christian. Churches from all over Hungary that are in the same association organize a camp annually for the kids/teens. It was really similar to summer camps I grew up going to. The people that put the camp together were awesome. They had really cool activities…paintball, quads, a cool thing I've never seen before---a human foosball court! It's a huge blow up perimeter and multiple ropes attached to the sides of the inside walls with belts attached. Players get belted in so movement is limited and they play soccer! It's really a neat invention. The leaders also organized for the entire camp to go on an airplane!! (the camp theme was "lifted up") It was almost a hot air balloon! I wish it was the latter since I've never been on one. The camp was great, organization was awesome but the best part was probably the fact that I could be included more than I have been. A lot of kids spoke English! Mike and I had the oldest campers who studied English so we were to lead small groups in English. Of course it wasn’t completely done in English but enough to where I could participate in the conversations. It was great! I also liked having the older kids. (they weren't kids, only about 5 yrs younger than us, ok maybe just a little bit more) We could have grown up conversations and talk about real life. Small group time wasn't spent shushing them and keeping them separated like with younger teens. These guys were respectful and responsible and punctual and obedient and just awesome! I loved our group! Typically, whenever I have to choose what age group I'd like to work with my aim is to get the youngest possible. With a language barrier though that’s the worst idea ever…I tried it. Cant connect, the kids just cling to the translator.

Another part of camp that was amazing…there was a team of YWAMers! From all over EU and beyond! We made friends with all of them and get along great! They live in Budapest so we've been hanging out quite a bit since camp. I love having people to hang out with and talk to! I've missed it! Mike gets by fine but I can't really talk to anyone. Through a translator is just weird and awkward and with peoples minimal English there is only so much you can talk about before they run out of words.:)

Cradling the positive pregnancy test:)

This, I'm sure, is not news to anyone anymore…since it's facebook official and everything. But come February we will have a little Baby Nagy!! We are so very very excited! I'm four months along as of today! Belly is finally starting to protrude! We were avocado size last week but are onion size this week….I think onions are smaller than avocados! Whatever…between 4-5 inches! We found out on June 21st! At 6 weeks. I started to feel all these funny things that were unrecognizable to me. I couldn’t tell if I was hungry or full or sick or needed a restroom or if it was the time of the month….turns out that’s what nausea feels like! :) My body temperature was heightened. I wasn’t hot like sweating hot…just my body felt hot all the time. And the weirdest thing…was the food aversions. I typically eat everything! Especially if we're at someone's house and if I don’t it might offend someone…but this time I couldn’t! It was strange….on the way home from that lunch is when we stopped by and got the test. My very first ever pregnancy test was a positive!!! A very very clear positive! YAAAYYYYY!!!!! We tried to keep it a secret until I entered the 2nd trimester…and aside from family and most friends we managed. I really wanted to do a special announcement….we will never again have a first baby! I just had to….Mike thought it was stupid but sucked it up and did it anyway. Took a million self timer pics of us kissing in a tree…more like behind a tree. He even drew most of the pictures. The baby carriage….all him!:) Our trip to Barcelona was a little uncomfortable but definitely bearable. The biggest thing was that restrooms aren't that easy to come by and I NEED those more than ever! Also just have to snack frequently and nausea is controlled. As long as we took it easy on the walking a ton how Mike loves I was ok. Even sleeping in the car was fine!

Since camp we've been hanging out with the teenagers in Csepel (our little part of Budapest) a lot. Mike is going through a book of the Bible with them and we don’t have much time left so we've been meeting a few times a week to catch up and ensure we'll get through it all. We also did a one day camp with the kids of Csepel. The kids that attended the kids camp we ran at the beginning of july all came back and we did a sort of recap of what we taught them and also new activities. One of the YWAMers does this cool clown gig so we had him come out and teach songs and tell stories and do magic tricks---all scripture based. It was great! My favorite part of the day!

Got to hang out with these lovelies for an evening.

On Monday Aug. 20th was St. Stephens Day in Hungary. Equivalent to Independence Day in the states! There were hundreds of thousands of people out and at the Buda Castle was a huge Folk Art Faire! I loved it! So many unique things to see and to buy!!!:) The museums and the parliament were free entry so we did that…been meaning to for a while so this was perfect! And at night was a HUGE firework show! It was probably the best fireworks I've ever seen. They were shooting them off of 3 barges in the river and also off of the bridge!! That was cool! They were like water-falling off the bridge! Overall a great day! Tiring but great nonetheless!

As of Aug 27th CARL'S HERE!!!!!! It's so great to have him! We missed him a lot! Looking forward to our 2 weeks together! Brother bonding time! AND he came bearing gifts!!! My sisters and mom passed along a birthday card and bday gifts! Mom baked my favorite little pastries and passed along so many things. I got medicine, prenatal vitamins, makeup, cliff bars, costco bags of dried fruit and nuts and some other things. I will never be without a snack again! We have quite the itinerary planned out for Carl…very little relaxing time. I think we'll have to make a few adjustments….Carl wants to actually vacation! This is the rough plan. Vienna and Salzburg, Austria. Munich, Germany. Drive through Slovenia and stop in Bled. Then we'll head down into Croatia. We'll spend a few days there in multiple cities and make our way down to Dubrovnik. Then we'll head up through Montenegro and into Romania. We'll head back to Budapest from there. Day 2 of travels and we just got to Salzburg! And the road tripping continues……