May 23

This morning, I woke up sometime after ten and took a shower. The Augostinovs already brought breakfast. When I was finally showered and awake, I joined them around the table. Katarina, their daughter, was sitting at the table shyly. When I finished eating, I propped a folded shirt on the table and started playing peek-a-boo. Soon she was giggling and playing along. Then Oma gave her a little toy car and I tried to get her to sit on the floor and roll it back and forth. She refused to do this but was quite delighted to chase it down and bring it back every time I would roll it. I soon got bored with this and so I rolled the car and then quick hid around the corner when her back was turned. She came looking for me and I tickled her. She wasn’t sure she liked this so I went back to rolling the car for a bit. Then I went and hid again. This time I acted all scared when she found me. She found this to be quite fun. We did this two or three times and then I hid under the covers of my bed. She couldn’t find me. So I helped her out a bit by calling to her. When she found me, I acted all scared and rolled off the bed. She followed me to tickle me and I pulled her down with me. She laughed for a bit but then had enough. I followed her back to the kitchen where she was by her dad. When I came into the room, she came over to me with the serious, shy look on her face and held her hands up. I picked her up and she just snuggled into my shoulder. It was so sweet, my heart melted into a puddle on the floor. She sat on my lap until she had to go. Opa decided it was time to shower so that Philip could take us to the Metro store, which is like a Sam’s Club. Oma and I took the opportunity to explore the buildings and see what they have done since Oma was here last. The compound is quite amazing. There are three separate buildings. One holds three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen and dining room, and a small sitting area. Each of these bedrooms contains two bunk beds, and closet space for four people. In two of the bedrooms, there is a sink. There is a light switch next to every bed, top and bottom bunks. I think this is an ingenious idea, because it allows you to turn the light off from bed instead of tripping across the room in the dark. The building across the way hold the washer and dryer, honey purifying and packaging machines, a plethora of donated wheelchairs, a large area for packaging food and clothing, an upstairs with two bedrooms, a nice sized balcony. The third building contains all the donated clothes that Oma and others have purchased with donated money and sent over in sea containers. It also contains all the donated garments from Germany. There is quite the assortment of clothing! This building is also home to the pallets of canned and dry foods that are distributed throughout Romania and other eastern European countries. Then the four of us piled in Philip’s van and headed off to the store. After a detour to pick up and drop off two of Philip’s girls, we made it to the Metro. That place was quite amazing. They even sold six packs of Mountain Dew two liters! It’s only the second place I’ve seen Mountain Dew since arriving in Europe. Obviously, I had to have some. We also stocked up on candy, and a few other odds and ends. In the fish section they had Octopus, and a variety of other fresh seafood. I was quite impressed with the large tanks of live fish. Philip was already in the checkout lane, and none of the rest of us know Romanian, so I’m not sure what kind of fish they were. There were some pretty large fish there though. I kind of wanted to buy one. Oma talked me out of it and we left. On the way home we stopped by his parents house. They have a large amount of chickens and a beautiful garden full of potatoes, onions, spinach, lettuce, peas and more. Their dog was wagging its tail in a very friendly manner until I put my hand out. Thankfully, I’m not completely stupid and so I held out my fist. He bit me pretty good, but didn’t do much damage because he couldn’t get his mouth around my fist. Finally, we headed back to Antioch and I got settled in the reclining chair with my laptop. It wasn’t very long before our supper showed up, thanks to Adrianna. Katarina came over and just kind of watched me till I noticed her and offered her my lap. She immediately took me up on that offer. I was in the full reclining position when she sat down, and I soon realized that I was quite stuck. I couldn’t lift her from that position, and I couldn’t move my laptop either. I had to have Oma come and take my laptop. Then we sat down and ate quickly and I went out to play with the kids. They had a beat up old soccer ball that they were using since it was less likely to break anything. We immediately started an intense game of keep away. This lasted for over an hour, leaving me exhausted and soaked with sweat. Then they all got tired of the game and started begging for a new game. So we played a game of Red Rover. This didn’t last very long, before they got bored. So we moved inside and played the Name Game. It was quite interesting. We played for about an hour before most of the kids had to head home. I talked with David for a while, and learned that he loves computer games. We discussed the various games that we both knew and then it was time for bed. We all headed to our respective homes and I got on the web and conversed with some awesome friends and then headed to bed. And now we’re all caught up!!!