Four Kids and a Candy Store

Yesterday was another beautiful fall day and we decided to head to the Rynek (the Market Square in downtown Krakow) for a visit to a candy store called Ciuciu (pronounced choo-choo). We had heard about this candy store from a few different people. This store makes hand-crafted candies, and they do demonstrations in the store where you can watch the candy-making process. As you can imagine, the boys were pretty excited about a field trip to a candy store. Here they are outside the store before the demonstration started:


We arrived at the store a little early, and had twenty minutes before the show started. So we decided to walk around the Rynek for a few minutes while we waited. The Rynek is such a beautiful area, and there's always something entertaining to do there. Like climb inside a giant head.....
...or watch clowns walk on stilts and make balloon animals.

After our stroll through the square, we headed back to Ciucui to check out the demonstration. (Isaac gives candy store field trip a big thumbs-up.)
Naomi had a great view of the demonstration from Luke's shoulders, but she was so upset by not getting to immediately eat all the candy she saw that she got a little fussy. I ended up taking her to the back of the store where she continually said "Bey!" (translation: Please!) at every bag of candy she saw.
Luke and the boys stayed up front and watched the demonstration. Luke took a bunch of pictures of the process:

After the show, we let the boys pick out some flavors to take home. They were very excited.

Ciuciu was a very fun place to visit, and I'm sure we'll be back!

It's finally here!

This summer has flown by and our departure for Poland is here! We fly out this morning and should arrive in Krakow Saturday morning. We are excited to get there and see what God has in store for us, but it has also been hard saying good-bye to our family and friends. We are so blessed with wonderful family and friends, and especially our church. I'm sure we will make new friends in Poland, but we know lots of people who will be missed here in the U.S.A!

If you think of us today, please pray for us as we make this trip. Please pray that Naomi will do well with the long flight. (I'm sure the boys will do fine, but an active toddler on an international flight could get a little troublesome.) Also, please pray for safe travel and that Luke and I will have patience as we travel with four young kids.

Lord willing, at this time tomorrow we'll be writing from here....

Our Trip to Poland

Luke and I returned home from our house-hunting trip to Poland last night. It was a wonderful week, but we were so glad to see the kids last night! We'll try to give a more detailed write-up of our trip later, but until then here are some pics from the beautiful city of Krakow.

This is a picture outside Wawel Castle. To give you an idea of how huge this place is, that is me standing at the bottom of the stairs on the right. I'm the speck wearing the blue shirt.

Here are some shots of the beautiful Market Square. It's the biggest market square in Europe and has over 650 restaurants in this one area. There's a lot of historical buildings to check out, and the architecture is stunning!

This was a picture of Wawel Castle and the Vistula River. This was right outside our hotel.


And finally, some shots of our home for the next two years.....

The front view....

The views from outside...you can see Wawel Castle from our patio!

One of my favorite views from last week was Andrew running out the door to greet us when we got home! Love that kid...and the other three who were waiting for us as well. We had a great week, but it feels good to be back home as a family. We also got to meet with a missionary family while we were there, and are excited about some friendships that are already starting with some believers there. The Lord blessed us abundantly this past week, and we are excited to see what He has in store for us over the next two years!