Family News:

• Braeden turned 5 on December 6th. She is taking Romanian and French lessons each week, and has done excellent!

• Madeline is almost 11 months and is starting to walk. She took eight steps the other day!

• They have both adjusted very well here and fit right in with everything that we do. We have had alot of fun together this past week decorating the house for Christmas.

• The girls cousins will arrive on the 20th of December to celebrate Christmas with us. We plan on heading up to the mountains one of the days to go sledding, go ice-skating, and just enjoying some good family time together. The city is decorated with tons of Christmas lights- they're doing it up big for 2000. So we'll probably dress warm and take the kids for a walk down town so we can enjoy the Christmas spirit. They even have a big ball lit up with lights that says 2000. It will drop on New Years just like the one in New York (well, kind of)

• We attended a Christmas party at the US Ambassadors house last Saturday. There were about 300 people there. Ambassador Rosapepe was at the door to greet each guest as they walked in, showing a real interest in who you are and what you are doing in Romania.  He gave a brief speech and then we sang Christmas carols together. We were a bit surprised to see how many Americans are living and working here.