A Day in the Mountains

Two Saturdays ago we spent the day with a group of friends driving up into the Carpathian mountains to a huge dam and lake and then a little further up the road for a picnic. It was great. ;-) Although they were calling for rain, the day actually ended up becoming a little sunny. But it's now clearly autumn/winter weather here with a sudden bout of cold weather. The leaves are falling now though maybe only a third of them have fallen by now.
The day out was great. Dana had a very good time playing with our friends' 4 month old girl Alma, a beautiful baby. :-) And I had a good time building the fire, helping the guys on the grill, and taking all these pictures (below).
Over all we're doing well. Dana's job is demanding and she has to travel to the opposite side of the city and out to get there too. It's quite a stressful job for her, so we usually end up not going out with friends much, but it's been nice to do that too. I'm keeping busy with a bit of paperwork that we're working on now as well as helping out with the construction of our church's new building.
We hope you're all doing well too.

Peace




Carpathian Mountains



Dana and Joel

The Dam Lake

The Guys working the Grill

Our Picnic

Dana and our friends's baby, Alma

The Girls

At the Dam

Looking out over the edge

The view from the top of the Dam

166 meter bungee jumping platform

It's a long way down

The Bungee Jumping Platform

The Dam Lake

Birthdays!

It's been a while since our last personal update on how we are and what's happening with us. We wanted to write because today is Joel's birthday. :-)

This week has been a good week for us - full of celebration with family with special meals for both Joel and Dana's father whose birthday is a day before Joel's. This past Sunday we had a cookout at Dana's Grandmother's house in the garden with Dana's family. Joel and Tata ('Dad' in Romanian) worked the grill. We had cake and stayed for the afternoon and evening. Then, both yesterday and today on our actual birthdays Mama made special meals and a cake and we exchanged a few gifts.

It's been nice to stay here in Romania though it's been hard too. Time with family after such a long time away is priceless. It's true that you don't know what you have until you don't have it anymore, as we've learned from our years away from family while we lived in India.
But this is also a bit of a hard time for us. Dana's job is demanding and so she feels drained a lot of the time, which means that we don't have as much time to spend with friends here. We're also still in transition, not adjusted yet from moving from India. Even though Joel can't get a job here in Romania and is waiting until January to start school, he is trying to use the time each day wisely. This time here in Romania is perfect for him to work on learning the language.

Over all, things are a bit difficult, but good. We are blessed more than even we realize. We hope you are doing well (whoever is reading this) and may peace be upon you.


Below are some recent pictures of Dana with old friends, and from our cookout on Sunday. :-)

Our New Slide Show on MySpace

Just to let you all know, we've added a new feature to our MySpace site. This slide show of all the pictures that we've previously posted to our blog here. :-) The older pictures are first but to see the newer pictures first just reverse the slide. To fast-forward just control the speed of the slide show. :-)

Peace (शांति),
J&D

Pictures: Annversary party with family and a new look for Joel.

Joel, Dana and family at Grandma's house for a cook-out celebrating both J&D's 3 year anniversary and Dana's other Grandma's birthday.

Before and After

Joel's new Amish style beard is really only temporary. Dana doesn't like it!!! :-D

Greece

This is a photo of the two of us while we were in Thessaloniki for a day. The ruins of the old city's wall are at our left and the harbor behind us.



Dana had a week's worth of holiday last week so we were very blessed to be able to take a pretty inexpensive trip to Greece, where we stayed in a small village along the Aegean coast in the north of Greece in Macedonia (where Alexander the Great was from).

Most of the time there we spent at the beach relaxing, but one day we took a trip to Thessaloniki (an ancient and important city named after Alexander the Great's sister, also well known because of the two books of the Bible, (I & II Thessalonians) written to the followers of Jesus who lived there). We walked up the hill to the old city, saw ruins from the Roman times and visited the archaeological museum which was quite cool. Another day we took the afternoon to walk to the next town along the beach. Although we started out thinking it would only take 40 minutes, we found out later after walking for 2 and a half hours (and cooling off in the sea for an hour) that we had actually walked somewhere around 17 km (a little over 10 miles). It was a lot of fun though. The water was a beautiful green-blue and quite clear.
Although the particular town we stayed at did not have such nice beaches (there were a lot of rocks) there were also far fewer tourists and we were able to find a few beautiful and secluded places where we could walk into the water without wearing our water shoes.
Not knowing if we'll ever get the chance to visit Greece again, it's especially nice to be able to have those memories on film. We were able to take quite a few beautiful pictures, and will be posting some of the better ones here later.

Peace, शांति
J&D

Although we've been having some trouble uploading pictures here, we've managed to post these two from a few weeks ago.
Joel and Dana together with friends.

Joel and Dana with friends at an Indian restaurant in Bucharest

At the park

Dana

much of our time spent here is dominated by the computer, looking into visa issues, studying in preparation for school, and researching various issues of interest online.

hey all,

just wanted to let you know that all our blogger pictures will be available in one place at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/joel.dana

For now it's just the pictures we've posted since January but more will be coming.

Peace,
Joel & Dana

More Pictures

Sun through the palms

Sundown on the Arabian Sea

Arjun and his cousin looking out a window built into a ancient step well (a well which has steps going down into it - providing cool in the heat of Ahmedabad)

Elephants

Joel and Dana at the step well

Cows relaxing in the shade of an alley way

Driving by the spice market

At the Mosque in Ahmedabad, India
read #3 :-)

Muslim men doing their evening prayers

Dana and I visiting the Friday Mosque which has some amazing architecture

Beautifully carved stone lattice at the Mosque from the 1400s

3 big boys - Joel with our friends' kids Arjun and Benjamin

Dana holding Benjamin and his sister Charis

Men in skirts (Lungis are common wear for men in Varanasi - especially inside the house)

Our last evening in Varanasi - we had a few good friends over for a nice meal, some prayer for our journey, and to hang out one last time.

Arasi, Dana, Lijo, and Swami ji