May 24 and 25

Yesterday was pretty uneventful. I managed to talk Opa out of taking us all over the place. We visited the store for some basketballs, and an old folks home. The nursing home was requesting four hospital beds. We happened to have them in inventory at Antioch and gladly granted their request. In the evening, I played games with the kids until nearly midnight. This morning, I got up before ten and took a shower. When I got out, Adriana was here with breakfast. It was fantastic as usual. Then we loaded up and headed out to a piece of ground that we own. They raise bees on it. It's about an hour and a half, to two hour drive. I slept the entire way there! When we arrived, we had to drive way out in the middle of this field. There was no road, just a series of muddy tire tracks. When we arrived at our destination, the bees where everywhere. Since I'm allergic to bees, I stayed safely enclosed in the van. Before we left, they gave us a 1.5 liter bottle full of fresh honey. Then I asked for a small piece of honeycomb. I should have known better. The bee keeper opens one of the hives, takes out an entire 1 foot by 6 inch tray of honecomb, smacks it a couple times to dislodge the bees (all in short sleeves), and then gives the entire thing to me. It's absolutely awesome. It is full of the freshest honey I've ever eaten. I've never tasted anything so deliciously sweet in my life! Then we drove to Timischwara to Philip's brother's house. His house is spectacular! They have a large, lush garden in the back, some chickens and a few pigs. The inside of the house is as nice as anything I've seen in America. To make it more impressive, he has done nearly all of the work on the house himself. They sat us down at the table and gave us some absolutely delicious ice cream, a fruity bread of some kind, and the best coffee I've had since I left the US. They also have an adorable baby, who immediately took to Oma. I even got to hold her for a little while. Then we left to see the machine that we helped finance for this man. On the way to the shop, it poured rain and even hail a little bit. I was surprised at the hail since it had been very hot all morning. When we arrived at the shop, it was every bit as neat as his house. The machine puts laminate on the side of countertops and such. It was quite impressive. I posted pictures of it on facebook. From there, we headed home. After a brief, but delicious, meal, we simply relaxed in the shade on the porch. It was very nice. Then Philip took me to his house, and I got to drive his car! We drove out to a field that he owns where a couple of the boys were picking flowers for tea. When we got there, they all wanted to play soccer. So I loaded back into the car with Christian, and we went back for my shoes. When I got back, Philip jumped out from hiding in the bushes and scared us. After helping pick a few more flowers, we walked down to the river. After a half hour of skipping stones and having distance throwing contests (both of which I won;), we walked back to an open field and played soccer for a while. My team lost of course. Then we all went back to the Antioch compound and had dinner. After dinner, I taught the kids how to play Mafia. This lasted past eleven, before it was time for them to head home. So I went inside, got ready for bed, posted some pictures, updated my blog, and am now going to bed!