Ioana and Alex's Wedding

On Friday and Saturday, H2H had its fourth wedding and the second one to be in our courtyard!  Alex and Ioana both grew up at Peris and both went through our boy's and girl's programs this last year.  Jen and I quickly became the wedding planners/coordinators/hosts/mothers of the bride and groom!  We had a lot of fun putting together this purple and turquoise wonderland for them and preparing the food, cake, and arranging the entertainment!  We could not, however, done it without all of the H2H staff, family, and graduates!

The whole week before the wedding we had people here helping us with cleaning, food prep, shopping, decorating, making flowers and all the other preparations!  

Cookies with little purple flowers for the Civil Ceremony!

Flowers, flowers and more flowers!  They made our courtyard so beautiful!

Putting the cake together!

The finished product

At the Civil Ceremony!  They are legally married!

A fun game to see how well the bride and groom know each other!  They did pretty good!

The Happy Couple

We took leftover cake and fruit salad out to the kids at Peris!  They absolutely loved it!!

More Ruthie pictures - August 2013

You might not realize it, but Ruthie is here at our house quite a bit.  Her mom works as a cleaning lady and so we keep her when she has to work.  Ruthie loves coming to "Grandma's House" and getting into all of our things and "helping" us!  We love having her and are going to miss having her here when she starts preschool this fall!

Ruthie loves this dress.  She calls it her dancing dress because she can spin all around.  She has discovered her love for shoes (she is wearing my high heel shoes) and makeup.  If she finds me in the bathroom doing my makeup she comes in and asks to be put up on the sink area and of course we put our makeup on together!!

Playing on the toys at the park!

July Tenderfoot 2013

We had a very small tenderfoot team at the end of July to help us finish up our summer ministry.  We had five enthusiastic ladies that loved playing with the kids and holding the babies!  

The sixth in this picture was one of our summer interns!

I call this little boy sweet cheeks because he is just so stinking cute!! So, whenever I say sweet cheeks he just gets a really big grin on his face.  I don't think he has any clue what it means!!  :)

This is Elena.  Jen and I met her on our cruise to the Baltics last summer.  We talked quite a bit with her and her family about what we do in Romania and she decided to come be a part of one of our teams....and she brought a friend along with her!! 

Goofy girls!!

We like to invite our mommies over when we have teams here!  This was the perfect team to do that with!  We all had fun swimming in the late afternoon with 3 kids, 3 moms and a dad!!

This was the first year that Emi would get in the pool and he had a lot of fun!!

Bridgeway Team/Transition House Graduation/4th of July

The church from Bridgeway sends a team to H2H every year in the middle of July.  They sent an awesome team that was full of energy and willing to do whatever we asked of them!  There were even three guys on the team that acted as jungle gyms for the little kids to climb on!  :)

They like to be here when we have the Transition House graduation.  Their church is always so generous in providing gifts for our graduates.  

We decided to read a blessing over each graduate.  I did one for Alex...

...and one for Toader!  They loved it!

Each graduate received a comforter, a set of sheets and a few other things

Our staff with the graduates!

We also celebrated the 4th of July with the Bridgeway team and since I didn't have enough to do, I made some special treats!

Also, included in the festivities during this time were more pool parties and we put together the invitations for Ioana and Alex's wedding!  Even the guys on the team got into the action!

Thanks, Bridgeway for another great year!!

Summer 2013

Summer is always a blessed time here at H2H because we always have lots of hands to spread the love of Jesus!  It is always very busy!  I find myself often times in the kitchen preparing food for the swim parties, in the pool, and occasionally at the orphanage!  This year was no exception.  We had dozens of pool parties and lots of grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, and sloppy joes!  We have a wonderful staff that jumps in and helps out where needed!!  We have amazing teams that help out by playing with the kids and providing hugs and loves when needed!!

The staff line-up

When Ruthie is at our house, she always wants to help!  If she sees me in the kitchen, she comes up to me and says, "Help, help?"  So cute!!

I was supposed to be in the pool, but fell asleep with Ruthie!

This is the life!!!

June 2013

We had another small break from large teams and so once again I found myself at the orphanage playing with the kids....this time at Voluntari!  The kids really do love it when we come!  I sometimes take my camera out and the kids love to have their pictures taken and to take pictures!!

One of the pictures that the kids took.  I had to duck my head to make sure it didn't get cut off!