Sentimentality

We had our end of the year party tonight, and John came back to join us! He's still not quite allowed to stay in Croatia, so we are headed to Slovenia tomorrow morning to spend a few days debriefing as a team. Then we'll be back in Rijeka for less than 24 hours before driving to Zagreb to catch our flight to South Korea for CM2007. More on that later...

While you wait, though, this is the slideshow we watched tonight:

Just Another Ordinary Day

Events of today:

~Three failed garbage bags: all in a row! Explosions of fermented Mexican food from the fiesta on Wednesday- one in our apartment, two in the entryway. I think it was a faulty batch of bags.

~Two soon-to-be-priests stopped by unexpectedly during our morning team prayer meeting. Here's how it went down:

Downstairs buzzer rings. [This was the 4th ring of the morning.]

Taylor answers.

Taylor says, "It's Tomislav and Dario - the PRIESTS. They're coming up!"

Sunny, Allison, and I (pajama-clad) fly into our rooms and throw on clothes as if our lives depend on it.

I skid into the kitchen just as they walk in the door, Al and Sunny follow soon after.

They are here to drop off some gifts for summer projecters and us (so nice) and we make awkward small talk for 10 or 15 minutes. We sense that they really want us to invite them to stay and pray with us, they sense that we just got dressed and aren't really ready for company. They leave.

~One spontaneous combustion. Yes, that's right. Less than an hour ago, Sunny's computer burst into flame for no apparent reason.


Thank you for reading, ladies and gentlemen. This is our life.

The End Of The World As We Knew It

Andy was just here to visit for about 2 weeks. It was great to spend some more time with him, as we haven't seen him since he left so suddenly 3 1/2 months ago. Here are some pictures from last February when he left:






Even with only a few hours of notice, we still had a chance to give the banana suit a final outing on the Korzo!









Andy with Dario and his dog, Magi (pronounced 'moggy') who also joined us for the impromptu festivities.











A classic John and Andy. Little did we know, John would be skipping town too just a few weeks later.









This dysfunctional, less-than-attractive, oddly composed photo captures the mood of that night fairly accurately.

Musicality

Waaaay back in February we a) went to a Guns N' Roses tribute concert with Sunny's friend Jenna who came to visit and b) discovered a cool weekly jazz night at a nearby café. We attended pretty regularly for a while, but haven't gone to see them recently. Even so, we seem to keep running into the musicians in unexpected places like a friend's recital, a prayer and worship night on a visiting missionary ship, the movie theater, and, tonight, with a random orchestra doing some sort of cultural performance in an alley/courtyard behind the Korzo.

One Sentence

True stories, told in one sentence. Read here.

Educational Public Service Announcement

I'm not a man so this didn't revolutionize my world, but I still thought it might be useful to some of you out there:


VideoJug: How To Give A Great Man To Man Hug

Stranger in the Night

So tonight we went running again. At about 11pm at that one soccer field up the hill. It was gently raining and too warm and muggy, but we haven't gone in, oh, I don't know, forever. And it is time to get back on that wagon.

Anyway, we were spread out, running around, when I passed a weird little stump-like thing on the track. It was pretty dark, and it kind of looked like it could have been an animal, but it didn't move at all when I ran by about 1 ft. away, so I figured it couldn't be. After another 1/2 lap, Allison waved me over because she and Sunny had discovered that it was a HEDGEHOG.

We hassled the poor creature with the lighted screens of our mp3 players, trying to get a closer look and cursing ourselves for not bringing cameras. Eventually it awkwardly scurried away. I'm not sure if it was a pet or what, it was definitely fat, though. My brother had a pet hedgehog for a while, named Louie, and he was a lot smaller than this guy. And in case you have ever wondered, watching a hedgehog climb stairs is no ordinary experience, let me tell you.

Best Day Ever!

A couple of Saturdays ago a group of us spent the day at a children's home not too far from Rijeka. We had an amazing time hanging out with the kids and tie-dyeing some t-shirts, playing soccer and frisbee, eating ice cream, and swimming. At the end of the day I think we made a pretty much unanimous decision to return as soon as possible.








Igor was popular.














Here's everyone working hard...




















...and playing hard.





This could be trouble...










This little guy had limited mobility but we played a very respectable and long-running game of Keep-The-Latex-Glove-Balloon-Up-In-The-Air-For-As-Long-As-Possible-Without-Letting-It-Hit-The-Ground. And I got to sign his cast.





















Off to the pool!



















Igor was very popular.



































It was incredibly warm that day, and, well, the sea was refreshing.

The Internet = Good or Bad? You choose…

Real-life things I have looked up:

• How to tie-dye clothing
• The Croatian word for ‘goiter’
• James Hetfield
• Statistics on foreign drugs imported to the Netherlands
• Bird clip art
• Infanta
• How to shotgun a beer
• Homeless World Cup
• The plot of Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (this was after viewing the film)
• Oxycodone and its uses
• The definition of teetotaler
• The Legend of Zelda FAQ
• Whiffle bat
• The ins and outs of correct apostrophe usage
• Brain