Thanksgiving Celebration

We were very blessed to have a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving celebration right in our own home! We had four American friends over - Kelly, Shauna, Tanya, and Rachel. We didn't eat until about 4:30, but the girls arrived at 3 to help me cook the last of the meal, and it was so much fun cooking all together!!! Of course, my tiny kitchen only holds about 1, but we managed to squeeze 4 of us working in there all at once - we're good friends!

In this picture, Tanya, me, and Kelly are working on the turkey. We decided not to try to do a whole turkey, so we just bought some turkey breasts and I found a yummy-sounding recipe on cooking.com called "Turkey Breast with Mustard Sage Crumbs." So Tanya placed the turkey breast on the pan, I coated it with Dijon mustard, and Kelly put on the crumb topping. Good teamwork, and the results were DELICIOUS. Meanwhile, Rachel was at the sink peeling potatoes.

Once the turkey was in the oven, Kelly went to the living room to work on the table decorations, and Justin helped her. She wanted to make origami turkeys, but they turned out to be more difficult than expected. Between the two of them, though, they managed to end up with one perfect turkey, and he was definitely a good addition to our Thanksgiving festivity! In this picture, he's really enjoying his apple cider.

Justin also, being the gentleman of the group, brought home some beautiful flowers to adorn our banquet, so I arranged them in a teapot for display.

Our table was a sight to behold once it was finished! We had the turkey breasts, green bean casserole, broccoli casserole, mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes with apples, Stove Top stuffing, cranberry sauce, and croissants! We're very thankful to Tanya, who had brought over many American items for the celebration, which enabled us to do the green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce! She also brought the festive paper plates and napkins, which made cleanup much easier!

In this picture, from left to right, are Rachel, me, Justin, Kelly, and Shauna (Tanya was our photographer!). The food was all delicious, and we had a FANTASTIC time together - eating WAY too much. After the meal, we watched a little bit of football we had downloaded... You can't have Thanksgiving without watching football, right?! Then we ate dessert - apple pie (made by Tanya) and pumpkin pie (by Kelly)! Both were delicious. And then we rounded off the evening with a vigorous round of Phase 10 before saying goodnight.

It was such a fun evening, and we are SO thankful for the dear friends God has given us for our time here in Moldova.

Holiday Weekend (Justin)

Saturday was the annual Wine Day, celebrating Moldova's chief export and national past time. All the Moldovan wine companies built neat pavilions in the central square for the public to sample their wine. Professional wine testers came to judge this year's vintage quality, and the President awarded some companies various awards based on quality and presentation.
I was quite impressed with the pageantry and the quality of the environment downtown. Traditional singers and dancers were on stage performing. In the park, there were dozens of mini restaurants set up selling kebab ("shashlik") and kiosks selling tons of pastries. There were also a lot of vendors selling all kinds of arts and crafts. I met up with some American friends and we enjoyed the fresh kebab and pastries. I learned I can eat way more kebab than 3 American girls combined (that may not actually be a good thing for me).

The setup was the same on Sunday for City Day, celebrating the establishment of Chisinau, but the crowds and atmosphere were much larger as the city shuts down to celebrate. Joni came with me after house church on Sunday and we did some souvenir shopping (as well as more kebab eating!). The weather got down to ZERO degrees Celsius and was very wet, so we didn't last long. These are some pictures I took on Saturday, as well as some I found on the official Moldovan Photography website.

Young and old alike engage in spontaneous traditional dancing here, gotta love it.

Notice brides and grooms are all dancing with wine glasses in their hands being amazingly careful not to spill them on their dresses."Wait a minute, that's not Moldova!" you're probably saying. You're right, it's the celebration of Kentucky beating #1 LSU 43-37 in 3OT on Saturday night. This was also a big part of my holiday weekend, as I stayed up listening to it until 3 am at which time my hollering woke up Joni and she also enjoyed the jubilation.
We topped Sunday night off by watching the latest episodes of The Office, playing a round of Phase 10, and eating delicious pizza with some missionary friends here. A very fun holiday weekend, indeed!

Moldovan Independence Day (Joni)

Last Monday, Moldova celebrated it's 16th Independence Day - August 27, 2007. It was quite a celebration, and living in the capital city, we were able to go downtown and be a part of the festivities. Downtown was PACKED with people, and the later it got the more people were there. This picture was taken looking down the main street early in the evening. On the right in the distance is the red canopy covering the main stage. On the left is The Holy Arch, that stands in front of Chisinau's main cathedral. The booths and tables were set up along that side of the street behind the arch. The Moldovans are PROUD of their independence! They even closed a block of the main street later in the evening to allow the crowds to fill the street.
When we first arrived, at about 6:30 p.m., there was a large stage set up in the main square, and there were local musicians performing traditional music. We spent about an hour strolling the booths and tables that were set up along the main street. We ate pastries, ice cream, and even found some barbecue Lay's potato chips! (Now that's a reason to celebrate right there!)

Then we went back to the stage to watch the national dance troupe called "Joc!" These dancers were amazing! There were about 12 men and 12 women performing various traditional Moldovan dances. They literally danced for an hour. They would finish one dance, go backstage to change costumes while a singer sang one song, then they'd come back out for another 10-15 minute dance. Man, they were great! My camera isn't great at capturing night-time photos (It certainly couldn't be the photographer's fault!), so these pictures are kind of fuzzy. Hopefully you'll be able to at least get the idea.
The crowd was so festive and fun - they even broke out into spontaneous dancing throughout the evening!One interesting thing about this crowd, though, was that nobody was drinking any kind of alcohol, and they weren't selling it at the booths either. Our only guess is that they must've been stopping people from bringing it in in order to keep a family-friendly atmosphere. It was so nice to be a part of a group that was in such high spirits, and nobody was drunk!

Then at 9:00, there came the fireworks show! It was seriously one of the best fireworks displays I've ever seen in my life! Part of my enjoyment may just have been because the crowd was so into it. They enjoyed it way more than any American crowd I've been a part of before. After the fireworks, more singers started, but we decided to go ahead home to try to avoid the going-home traffic. It was definitely a fun time, and we felt like we experienced a part of true Moldova that day.