New Cuts and New Couch

Hello Hello!! Sorry that we have not posted in while - just craziness and sorting through emotions, vocation, visitors and our job situation.
Well, Spring has sprung in Latvia - and we have our new Spring hair-cuts. Courtney's was done by a professional and Dan's friend, Rihards, cut his hair in the kitchen of the church.




In other fun and exciting news - we finally found a couch for our apartment. We moved in over two months ago, yet have not had a couch for the living room. Up to this point it was okay- and the Sunday School kids who had a home-made-pizza-party

here last week enjoyed all of the space to jump, wrestle, and play. However, we realize that we could not have people sitting on the wooden floor forever. Furniture prices in Riga are absolutely ridiculous (even the uncomfortable and ugly ones start out around $800). Even though we knew we needed one, we didn't want to spend a lot of money on something we wouldn't enjoy - and couldn't justify spending $2000 on a comfortable one... Sooo, we had some friends show us a used/defect furniture store a while ago. Well, after 5 trips to the store, we found one that had a 'defect' (read: minor tear in one cushion) and that reduced the price by about 75% of what it would cost in the retail store. A real blessing, especially now that the summer is beginning and we will have people sleeping on the couch.
Again, sorry that we haven't updated this in a while. We have a full summer ahead and we will try to post a few times a month.
That's all the rambling for this go around.

We have internet!

The internet folks just left, and we now have internet in our apartment. This means we can make phone calls and do a better job (hopefully) of keeping in touch with friends and family - woohoo!
We will write some tales of vacation in another blog.

Going on Holiday!!! WooHoo!!!!!!!!

Can you tell we are excited? We leave in less than 10 hours for vacation. We fly to Paris via Hamburg - excited to return to see some familiar places and old friends - and then we meet Dan's parents in Germany for a few days before we return to Latvia on the 7th of May.
We will then spend a few days with Dan's parents in Latvia.
We have waited for this break and time away, and to be completely honest, some times we didn't think it would ever arrive.
Don't know how much blogging we'll do in the next two weeks, yet we will try to write when we return (That is if we finally get the internet in the apartment...)

Latvia's J.J. Reddick

So I (Dan) went to a Baltic Basketball League playoff game on Friday night with some guys I have met here. One of Riga's three teams - "ASK" - played a team from Estonia.
This Latvian player named Sandis Valters drained 8 three-pointers in the game. It reminded me of watching an on-fire J.J. Reddick play in Cameron at DUKE. Nice and Smooth shot - either open or double-teamed - basically at-will shooting. It was awesome. The team as a whole hit 12 or 13 three-pointers that night.
Well, that's about it for now. : )

OUR VISAS!!!

WooHoo!! With an unexpected phone call on Thursday we changed our plans and went down to the Office for Migration Affairs, and they gave us our residence permits valid for one year - no hassle, no huff - just "Sign these papers" and "Here you go."
So this past week has seen some nice up-turns - a new apartment, our resident visas... We give thanks to God!!

We've MOVED!!

Hello - unexpectedly (in a GOOD way) we moved this past week. We had considered moving into an apartment with an extra room to use partly as an office and so guests will have a more personal space to stay when they come. So, two weeks ago I fiddled around on the internet looking at different offerings in Riga - we went to look at one last Monday, signed the Lease on Friday, and moved (for the most part) on Sunday and Monday. (THANK YOU to the Hargans for the use of their vehicle and to Rihards, Joe, and Nick for their braun moving items to the 4th floor!)
We still have to get some things sorted and settled, yet we have enjoyed the new space and the higher floor.
Our new address is:
Gertrudes iela 69/71 - dz.63
Riga, LV - 1011
We will try to post pictures later.

a late winter blast...

I think Latvia gave up 'winter' for Lent, because ever since Easter morning the snow and the temperatures have continued falling.
We actually thought we had missed winter this year - or, rather, that it had missed us. I shaved my chin and had my hair cut about two weeks ago thinking Spring was just around the corner. As the snow piles up outside our window and on the street I think I should have waited another week or so before the Spring shearing. Oh well, I have a nice hat and a scarf...