bits and pieces of December...

This'll be the last December post, and it's only January 10th! Not bad, not bad... we even got our Christmas stuff down on Sunday, and it was only the 9th. I know, we're awesome! But I wanted to post a little bit more about December...

First, here's the nativity scene Nuala drew. I'm in love with it. Simple... to the point... just Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus in the manger. And a star. It has earned a place in our permanent Christmas decoration collection. Bran would not draw a nativity scene. The closest he got was a Christmas tree floating in space near a huge alien and a smaller alien in a spaceship. I should post that one, too.

(I wanted to add in here that Nuala did her drawing all on her own. Well, I showed her earlier how to make a star like that, she'd been doing them just like an X or a cross, and I just showed her that a couple of more lines made it more star-like. And she asked how to draw Mary's hair and I just said that sometimes Mary had her hair covered up, so that's what she did. And I love Joseph's toes! :)

We went to Vienna the second weekend in December to enjoy the Christmas markets. Yeah, they were great. It was beautiful, and the food... mmmmm... the food was amazing. I mean, we pretty much ate bratwursts every day, but like I said: Amazing. Each evening Z and I would say, "uuuhhhg...no more bratwursts!" And then what would we eat the next day as soon as we got to the market? Yep, another brat. The ones with little tiny pieces of cheese inside them. "Kaaswurst" in Belgium (well, in Dutch), but something else here. Oh, they were heavenly. We also drank a lot of kinderpunch, an apple cider-type drink, and ate some delicious pastries.

Pastries from here! Look at all those! It was so festive, and sooooo...delicious. Oh man, just looking at this picture has me wanting more. We'd buy 3 or 4 things and share them. The best was bringing them back to our apartment to fully enjoy after the kids went to bed. Shhhh! Don't tell 'em... it was for their own good, and for OUR own good, too... Yummmm. Alright, we usually saved them a bite or two. And they got a bunch of candy, so they weren't too deprived.

Beautiful, huh?!

There were fun activities for the kids, too. They LOVED making cookies. This cost 1.50 Euro, and they got to make as many cookies as they wanted. At the end they got a little baggie-full of the tiny sugar cookies, and actually just yesterday I ate the last one. Only because the baggies were squirreled away in "safe" places by the little hoarders. But they were still quite tasty!

Here's Nuala fire-poling on the apartment stairs. The embassy in Vienna will rent out the apartments it has available for TDY-ers (people assigned there temporarily) if there's no one using them, so we had a two bedroom, two-floor full apartment for a good price. We did NOT rent a car, which we always do, and we had fun riding the trams around. We shoulda rented a car, anyway, we decided, but it was all good. We rode a little train around, and a horse-drawn carriage. Maeve waved out the window to everyone yelling, "chau!" It was cute.

We went to the Natural History Museum, too. It was in such a beautiful building, but I didn't really get any pics of that. Maeve's favorite exhibit was this little stuffed dog. Yes, a real dog. I can't remember who it belonged to, but these three spent many minutes examining it.

Bran and Nuala had fun frolicking underneath the mastadon. They (especially Bran) were sooo thrilled to see the dinosaur skeletons. They had an awesome time there! We need to get 'em out to museums more often. Nuala really liked the gem area, and they both liked the poor skinned camels. There was an exhibit like the one that's been going around where you see the muscles, etc. of real bodies. Just like they've been skinned. Oh, what was that called?? Okay, I'll google it... hold on a sec... Oh, okay. Originally enough, it's called "Bodies: The Exhibition". But yeah, so there was a section of the museum full of animals like that, but we didn't pay extra to go to it. Just looked at the camels displayed out front to lure you in. And they were enough. Nuala and Bran were really rather fascinated by the camels, a big one and a baby one.

The weekend before Vienna, we went to Lopyan orphanage/boarding school with some embassy folk again. This is us parked at a gas station on the way there, meeting up with some of the group. We had the Rudolph movie on, and Maeve looked so cute, perched there watching it, too, munching on her bag of puffs. Thinks she's a big kid or something!

This little guy was in my previous post, and he was just as happy and loving again. AND, he has a little brother there who looks exactly like him. The kids were all having fun coloring together. That's Bran in the army green hoodie.

Maeve was still a hit. Of course! I'm not biased or anything, but the babe is pretty darn cute. The kids were so sweet with her. They really are nice, nice children.

This little sweetheart! I've forgotten her name, and I feel so badly about it, but it's difficult for me to remember all the names I'm bombarded with, especially in a different language. It was lovely, something like Letya, but not... She was the first little girl whose nails I painted. That went over quite well, too, but I didn't get to do everyone who wanted them done. I ended up leaving the polish with some of the older girls to man, and next time I'll break it out earlier.

The neatest part of this visit was after the little Christmas goody bags were passed out. The fellow who organizes all this, David, is great. He and his wife put together little bags with some candy and small toys for the children. They were so excited! Nuala and I were walking past a group of kids who had just received their bags, and one of the little boys was joyfully smacking on a piece of candy. As we walked towards him, he stuck his little hand into his bag and pulled out the couple of pieces he had left, offering them to Nuala and I. I wanted to cry. I smiled and pointed at him, telling him thank you, and letting him know he could keep them, but I was so touched by his generosity. He really had nothing, but was so willing to share what little he had, his new and exciting treats, with us. People who have MORE than we need. That was just very powerful to me.

That day was the day of the Flood. It was crazy-rain. This is the road up to the road to our house. We didn't get flooded at all, since we're on the side of the mountain and it all ran past us and flooded the streets below, but several of our friends had problems and many streets were closed. Now of course there's snow everywhere, but that was some major rain.

Lopyan Orphanage

A couple of weeks ago we went to Lopyan orphanage, about an hour or so outside of Sofia. The embassy has been helping this orphanage out for a couple of years now, donating food, clothes, toys, school supplies, etc., and we were really looking forward to going on this trip to take them the most recently collected clothes and toys. Lopyan's kids range from 2-13, and there are about 50 of them, I was told, though when we got there there were more than that.

Bran and a new friend. I gave Bran and Nuala little bags of stickers to give out to the kids, and some other folks brought some, too. The kiddos were covered in them! Nuala was a bit hesitant at first, kinda stuck by my side, but Bran jumped right in. It was really cool to see the American kids and the Bulgarian kids just playing together, because really, kids are kids. About 35 people and a couple of dogs went from the embassy. There were... let's see...13-ish children along.

Maeve was the youngest embassy visitor and was quite a hit. Here's one of the older girls holding her. So many of the kids were trying to hold Maeve and fussing over her. It was cute.

Little Petranko. I tried and tried to remember all the names I was bombarded with while we were there, but now I only remember Petranko's. He was 10, but only a little bit taller than N&B, who, to be fair, are about as tall as a normal five-year old.

The kids also loved taking pictures with the cameras.

Two of the older children.

Gwen, the fun girl who babysits our kids sometimes (N&B just LOVE her).

Playing Duck, Duck, Goose with the children.

Some of the older ones put on a dance show for us.

This boy... This is probably my favorite picture of the whole day. This little guy has some special needs and was just the smiliest little fellow. He was standing in the back of the room near Zac and I during the show, and had two stickers that Nuala had given him -- one on each hand. And he was just so thrilled with them. Couldn't stop smiling...couldn't stop patting them and showing them to us... I just had to smile the whole time right back at him, but inside my heart was breaking a little bit seeing this sweet little boy being so pleased with a couple of stickers while living with 50 other children in a "home" without his own parents to hug him and love him. I hope the other children are nice to him, and that he has friends and that he feels loved somehow. Of course, I hope he finds his family one day, but realistically, the odds aren't too high.

Most of the children in orphanages are Roma (Gypsies). The thing is, most of them have parents. The parents receive welfare based on how many children they have, so they just keep having babies but can't/won't take care of them so off they go to the orphanage. BUT they won't sign away their parental rights because then they'd lose their money. Sad and really lame that it works like that. Not that there are many Bulgarians clambering to adopt Roma children, sadly. Right when we got here, a Bulgarian who works with Zac, named Rado, was adopting a 6 year-old girl. They'd been trying to get her for 2+ years, because parents and grandparents kept changing their minds, etc., while this beautiful little girl sat in the orphanage. Sigh. She's with them now, and of course is working through all the issues living in one of these orphanages bestows upon a child. Also, the orphanages themselves can turn on the children. Lopyan not so much, which is why the embassy works with them, because we know the children will benefit from what is donated. Usually, though, much/most of the stuff given to orphanages ends up back on the streets, being sold in second-hand shops or whatever. The senior missionaries at church are humanitarian missionaries and they work with orphanages. I remember the couple who was here when we moved in helped get a new washer and dryer for one orphanage. The next time they went back, only a couple of weeks later, they were gone. Sold. Kind of frustrating...

The embassy donated this playset last year. Nuala's swinging with a little guy named Nicolai, who was pushing her for a long time. He's not an orphan. His dad was the fellow who cooked the burgers for the bbq.

Maeve poking Bran's eyes on the way home.

We will definitely be going back. It was a very good experience. Those children were so excited to see us, and play, and be hugged. It was sad to collect our three precious little ones at the end, and buckle them safely into their carseats and know that the children we were leaving were on their own. I remember asking one little boy who was so cute holding Maeve if he had brothers or sisters, and he looked so sad when he told me no. He just seemed like a natural holding her. There are siblings in these places, so it wasn't too weird to ask, though as soon as the words were out of my mouth I kinda wished I hadn't said anything about family. Poor little things :( BUT, they did seem to look out well for each other overall. I'm glad we took the kids with us. It makes it real, when we say things like: Let's pick some toys to give to the children at the orphanage, etc. They need to know what life is like for other people. It was really hard to leave... to know that we spent 3 hours there with them, but then it was back to our own safe and pleasant little family unit. They deserve that, too!