Well, Sunday was my birthday. I’m now… one year older than I was last year. I’m actually in that age frame that people begin to stop fighting that “I’m not old” comment. Where you’re finally “too old” to do various things. Hmm… eh, maybe 34 won’t be so bad… dang it, did I say that out loud. Oh well, now it’s out… yes, I’m 34 now.

Chris, Ieva and Elita made lunch after church, which was so nice not to have to cook… and it was so good! They also did a good job planning a somewhat surprise party for me on Sunday evening. It’s not their fault that, when Knesis called to say that his hitch-hiking venture to get here wasn’t going well, that he spilled the beans. “Oh, there’s a party?” I actually didn’t know. While I took a nap on the couch, and Elita crashed in her room, Chris and Ieva ran to the store to get some last minute things… and people arrived while they were gone. Kinda strange since I didn’t know what to do with them!

In the end, Chris, Elita & Ieva were here, Knesis did finally make it, spending about 8 hours hitch-hiking from a city 2ish hours away… (bless his heart), and Kristaps, Egita & Martiņš came from Talsi. I looked around at one moment and realized that, other than me & Chris, the next oldest person was… about 20. Hmm…

Andis is in England working so he couldn’t make it… Peteris is in America, but he did call me, which was so sweet! I did get text messages/sms’s all day long, too, which was really nice.

So, there you go. Another birthday. I wonder when I’ll have another in America… seems I’m always headed there at the wrong time.

I don’t know why I’ve been staying up so late. Last night I was up talking to Ieva until 4am. And, if you were wondering, the sun is indeed starting to come up around that time.

Yes, Ieva’s home. Yeah! Chris and I took Elita and went to the airport to meet Ieva and Daiga on Wednesday night for their 11:30pm flight arrival. So nice to have them back. Attempting to be good Latvians, we need we needed to have flowers to give them. (Flowers are a very big thing here.) Well, we forgot to buy them before all the stores closed. Elita’s dad said we should just pick some along the road on our way. I don’t know if he was joking or not, but we went for it. In the progressing dark and drizzling rain, Elita and I would jump out of the car whenever we saw a patch of somewhat usable wildflowers. We pulled in to the town of Pūre, and saw a gas station and thought to check there to see if they had any for sale. While we waited to ask the lady, through the glass window, Elita & I noticed that they had some nice flower boxes full of pretty flowers. We half joked about using those as a back up. When the lady said they had none for sale, I encouraged Elita to go for it… so she asked the lady if we could cut 2 flowers from each of the 2 kinds they had there. The lady working was a little surprised, but said, “Well, just do it so they look good, so it doesn’t look like you cut them off.” So, we did! Talk about fresh flowers! We laughed about that for quite sometime. Can you imagine pulling that off in America? Only in Latvia!

Elita… she’s been staying with us this past week and will stay another week, I think. She’s a young friend from Riga and also Peteris’ girlfriend. We’re kinda doing an “immersion English” type thing with her. It’s going ok. Nothing formal, but just getting her to speak all the time and correcting her as we go. She’s pretty good overall. It’s been nice for her, too, as she, her parents and her brother and sister all share a 1 bedroom (2 room) apartment in Riga. She’s essentially got her own room here (as Chris’ office) and a spare computer, so she’s living the high life.

If only our hot water would get turned back on…

Yeah, so Ieva’s home and it’s so nice.We’ve spent time with her each day, and most of the evenings until late. (Chris just took her home, now, at 1am.) I’m loving hearing her storied about her first missions trip and what God showed and taught her. Now she’s focusing on pulling together the support she needs for DTS. It’s a tall order, but she’s got the faith for it. Check out the video Chris did for her here. Pray for her… she needs about $2000 in about 3 weeks.

Going to bed… I have a feeling something is going on tomorrow… later today. I’m just not sure what. :)

Yesterday I said good-bye to one of my closest friends, if not my closest, here in Latvia. I picked Andis up at 8am and took him to the airport in Riga. He’s going to England to work for a few months. Unfortunately, we’ll head to America in September and he won’t come back to Latvia until October, so we won’t see each other again until we get back to Latvia in March.

It’s sad. Andis is like family for me, for us. He’s like my little brother and I’ll miss him terribly.

If anyone is up near Derby, go to The Bulls Head in Wilson and look for a really tall guy either waiting tables or working at the bar… and say “Hi” to him for me.

Take care, Andi.

So, yeah, last night we were watching the Travel Channel (hey, it’s in English and it’s one of the only channels that is SAFE to watch after 11pm). They were doing a Globe Trekker “compilation” show of the best stuff to buy in different places. I found myself saying things like, “You can buy that same thing cheaper in this other city,” or “That must be an old show because that’s not what that city looks like anymore,” and my favorite, “That’s NOT how you say it! It’s Izmilovski! And last time I was there you didn’t have to pay to get in!” Yeah, we find ourselves correcting a LOT of their pronunciations of various words. :)

It reminded me of the castle incident. I flew back to America for 2 weeks last April. While there I had dinner with 2 gals that I graduated with, and whom I hadn’t seen in 15 years. We had planned it, so they asked me to bring pictures. When we were flipping through, I showed them a picture of Pernštejn Castle in Czech… to which I commented, “This is my favorite castle.” They looked at each other and jokingly said, “As opposed to the other castles you go to… right? I guess they just weren’t good enough.” Of course they were joking, but I started to think there was something wrong with me…

There’s this show called “Biking through Easter Europe” (also on the Travel Channel) where this really arrogant Brit is riding a motorcycle through Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. His popular thing to say is, “I’ve seen this a million times, I’ve been here a million times!” So my question is, “Then why can’t you pronounce the name of the city you’re in at least well enough for me, who used to LIVE there, to figure out what city you’re even talking about?!” Then it hit me… we really are NOT normal people!

Eh, normal is boring.

Need to hit a new country… haven’t been anywhere new in almost 3 years!