Happy Birthday, Everyone!!

Hello once again from the beautiful country of Romania!! I take this opportunity to sent a big Happy Birthday out to everyone in my fam with birthdays during this holiday time!!

Yup, my family has TONS of birthdays around now...Mom and my bro-in-law Michael are in November and my littlest bro Andrew in January. But the biggest months for birthdays are February (my sis Melody, Aunt Brenda, sis-in-law Dayana, and both of my grandmas) and December (Dad, my bro Steve, my bro John, my sis Rebekah, and my new little niece Lydia)!! It makes for an interesting holiday season, let me tell you!! Plus, this Christmas Eve my parents celebrated their 33rd wedding anniversary!!

Well, my Christmas went by pretty quickly...since all I really did was go caroling!! Fortunately, everyone got the white Christmas we were hoping for, so it was very pretty outside for the holiday (it snowed almost non-stop for two days)!!. I went caroling on the 24th and 25th...getting home after 5 am both nights and then sleeping most of the day on Christmas and the day after!! My roommate was out of the country for a week and so it was just me and our two kittens and the cat I was cat-sitting for a friend!! I ate a McDonald double cheeseburger meal for Christmas dinner!! Hopefully next year I will get to do the works for both Thanksgiving AND Christmas to make up for this year!!

Anyway, I will be leaving tomorrow afternoon (Dec.31) with a bunch of youth from church to go to the mountains for 3 days to celebrate the New Year...we will be having Bible studies during this time, but everyone will also have plenty of time for sledding, snowball fights, and other winter activities. Should be fun!!

I am doing fine otherwise...I've recovered from my embarrassing fall on the ice last week!! I think I sprained a finger this week and I am hoping that my last wisdom tooth hasn't actually decided to start growing, but I am doing fine besides. I think I beat a cold..hope so anyway...by drinking liters of orange juice and dosing up on vitamins and cold medicine...my head is finally pretty clear, so that is awesome...no sniffling on the mountain trip!!

Well, this will be it till the New Year rolls around...so I will take this opportunity to wish everyone a very Happy New Year...here's hoping next year will be all you are wishing for and more!! God Bless!!

Happy Holidays...And God Bless Us, Everyone!!

As I write this, it is almost 6 am...which means that even though I slept in yesterday I have still been up for almost 20 hours straight...so please bear with me!! I am at an internet cafe downtown in the "bustling metropolis" of Targu Mures, Romania!! Once I head home I will need to air out my jacket as it is beginning to reek of second-hand cigarette smoke!! (On a side note, if I make it back to the States after my stint here WITHOUT lung cancer from all the second-hand smoke...it will be a miracle)!!

I have some awesome family news to impart...as of one week ago...I have a new niece!! Her name is Lydia Claire Cordero and she is a little beauty!! I was able to talk to the biggest chunk of my family on the internet this evening and to see most of them via webcam...it was absolutely great...and definately helped me to bear being away from them ALL for the first time EVER (usually the barest Christmases included at least my Grandma Seale, my aunt Joyce, and a brother or two)!! Next year Steve and Syrena have promised to visit at Christmas and the following one after that I will be home in the States...so yeah...this will be my loneliest Christmas.

Anyway, about getting to talk to my family...I was able to talk to Mom, Dad, John, Dayana, Michael, Melody, Susanna, and Rebekah. Poor little guy Andrew was feeling sick, so he only waved from across the room at the webcam. I also got to see the new little one Lydia and to see how my "big boy" nephew Josiah has grown!! It was SO good to talk to them. Suz and Beka are both insisting that they will have enough money to come here for next summer and I don't doubt but that Suz will at least...it remains to be seen whether Beka will be able to hold onto her money that long!!

I still plan on getting my previous newsletters posted in here one of these days soon...so keep an eye peeled for that. I also want to get some more pics on this page...but that will most likely have to wait till I get S&S to send me some of their wedding pics, M&M to send some pics of the babies, and my digital camera to arrive!! Yes, my Christmas present to myself...(thanks to Steve FINALLY sending my support in a lump sum this month)...is a new digital camera and a super-duper 512MB memory stick...so everyone will FINALLY see pics of TM and of the babies at Kiwi House.

My apologies to anyone who has just stumbled onto this site and has no clue whatsoever what I am talking about...but again...once my newsletters and a few more things get posted on here...it should be easy for you to figure out what in the WORLD I am talking about...maybe!! But then again, I can be pretty random sometimes!!

All right...now to the main reason I was gonna post today!! I want to wish all of you a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Hope you have the best of time this holiday season!!!Think of me when you eat your Christmas dinner...hopefully next year I can actually bake...pray for my next apartment to be fully furnished (or at LEAST have a stove and fridge included)!!! I pray you have an awesome time this holiday season...and that no one else falls on their backside on ice that is hidden under the snow and gets stared at by all the passersby!! Okay, that happened to me Thursday and I'm still sore!!

Anyways, HAPPY HOLIDAYS and GOD BLESS!!!

Adventures in Missionary Life!!

I wanted to start a blog so that people could better get an idea of my life as I am on the field of Romania. I really thought I knew a lot about being a missionary...having been a missionary kid (MK) for most of my life...but there is so much more involved in actually being a missionary...frustrations, misunderstandings, the pendulum swinging from boredom to sheer chaos in no time at all...it is fun and frustrating at the same time!!

What I want to do is update this whenever I can and then maybe take from all these tidbits when I go to do my newsletters...so for those of you who get my newsletters, you will probably recognize a lot of my info from the blogs...so I apologize in advance for repeating myself!!
God Bless!!

JULIE