Ronald McDonald House

On Friday morning we drove into Bucharest to visit the Ronald McDonald House downtown. What an incredible sight. Warm lights and butter yellow walls make it warm and inviting. The director was the first person we met who wasn't nervous. She knew exactly what the center needed and how to love the people it serves.

We then went to the Mission Office to do some paperwork, had some lunch, and then to the airport to drop off Celia. I'm afraid we really ran her out of juice. I wanted to make it worth the trip so we saw as much as we could in a few days. We won't see each other again until we go to Frankfurt in June.

On the Ukraine Border

 The thing about staying in Tulcea is that it is right across the river from Ukraine. This really didn't occur to us. Not even when we enjoyed the enormous dining room by ourselves. We enjoyed sturgeon and vegetables and papanasi and lava cake. But at 3:30am the hotel shook with a boom. At first I thought it was an earthquake. But there was no after-rumble. I looked at my phone and there was an alert telling me to get to the basement and stay away from windows. So the first thing I did was walk to the wall of windows. I couldn't see anything, but every 10 minutes there was another boom.

Just over there in Izmail, the bombing went on for hours. I just stared at my phone and scrolled twitter. Knowing there was no news made me realize this was normal for Tulcea. And then I watched as the helicopter hit the commercial jet at Reagan National, about 5am. There was no sleeping after that. 

Poor Celia had dressed and made her way to the receptionist at 3:30am. They were both from Spain so they chatted awhile. In the morning we stopped by another school and a high school who had taken in Ukrainian refugees a few years back. We had donated 76 mattresses and they were still being used!

We dragged along the rest of the day and tried to catch up on sleep in Bucharest.

Tulcea Projects

 We drove about 4 hours to Tulcea to see the hospital projects completed on the Danube. There was a new hospital just about ready to open. A nice docent took us on a tour while we waited for the equipment to be free. It was a beautifully warm day for the end of January.

Celia and I pretending to be health care workers. They are serious about infectious diseases so we don these wonderful outfits to see equipment.

We needed to use the restroom, which seemed to be a strange request. They led us down long hallways to a bathroom without a toilet seat. This is what we come to expect from hospitals 

We then visited an eye clinic to follow-up on a project done this past year involving 500 children. This is a cute picture of famous movie heroes with glasses that the children enjoyed. Many of the children helped in this project had no vision screening in their lives. Some needed serious correction--to 6 diopters.

Traveling with Celia

 Celia flew in from Frankfurt for a whirlwind trip along the east to check on past projects. Our first visit was a little school in Călărași /Kull-ur-ahsh/. A wonderful kindergarten teacher has developed a beautiful classroom full of light and color. 

She painted these on the wall, cleared out the yard to make a playground, and recruited help to run the class.

Eliza Nitescu created the little book nook so they have books to read. They were all anxious to show us their favorites.

I woke up to a nice message from my friend, Sister Hill. She had made mooncake cookies for new year's. And then I looked at my watch:

FamilySearch Event

 We were asked to help with a FamilySearch event on Saturday. Most of the heavy lifting was done by Frankfurt area workers. The main address was given by Ryan Koelliker from Salt Lake. As a person that loves FamilySearch, even I was inspired to spend more time researching.

Elder Hengst came from Leipzig, Germany to support us. He shared that a family member sent him a document showing his ancestry back many hundreds of years. Because of the nature of documentation, he cautioned that the data may not be correct in the early centuries, but was still happy with it.

We helped many login and sign up for FamilySearch. Some family members were able to connect to siblings at the event! Remember, if you share family members, you need to each add living people until you reach deceased individuals. Only you can see living individuals you have entered.

We loved spending the day with these wonderful people!

My Birthday

 I spent my birthday at home working, so we planned an outing the next day to Piața Obor. We took the bus downtown and walked around the market, inside and outside.

I loved looking at all the spices. There was also a great shop with chocolate covered goodies.

My goal was to find a fur hat. Sure enough, I found this little gem and it is properly warm.

Thrifting Success

 We like to thrift around the world and Romania has plenty to offer. I've collected sweaters, skirts, and jackets here. They buy quite a bit from Western Europe and resell it here. This particular suit is from Temecula when we stopped by my parents last August. It was $15 well spent for an Evan Picone suit.

I had Paul take this photo of me as a proof-of-life for turning 56. This should be a fun year!

Farewell Dinner

On Friday night we met at Nor Sky Restaurant on the 36th floor of a nearby building. I have been sick for a week, so I didn't eat much, but I enjoyed seeing our friends. The Frandsens were leaving in the morning for Greece for some time off before going home. The restaurant thought they were running a disco club. We had to yell at each other to be heard. We asked them multiple times to turn down the music, but they refused. 

The view was very nice. And the dessert cloud was very fun. The Wards were very generous with their cotton candy.

Break for Quilting

 I've been working on these Kaffe fabrics I bought in Vienna. My friend Merry sent me a churn dash pattern last year and I've been eager to start putting them together. I have 3", 4.5", 6", and 9" blocks to arrange in some order.

I've also been working on this English paper piecing project called Mrs. Peach.

Our friends at Motivation Romania that distribute wheelchairs sent me this wonderful Christmas ornament.

And here is the finished project!

There are a few design principles at work here: 1) Small, Medium, and Large pieces; 2) Low vs. High Contrast blocks; 3) Print-on-Print chaos reined in by Grid-based design.

New Year's 2025

 So, what do Romanian's do on a nice looking New Year's Day? Apparently, they go for a walk down at the lake. It was crazy busy on the sidewalks. The temperature was about 35 F and everyone was bundled up.

We stopped at Chopin to greet him and welcome in the new year.

I enjoyed a few different walkways.

If you like to paper piece, you can create this with Apple Core papers cut in half.

This is a variation of an Apple Core shape. Red Pepper Quilts is a great place to get inspiration for EPP.

I couldn't find this design anywhere, but it would be the easiest to use a Drunkard's Path block with a small circle and large background.

This would do it.