Oranges

I've been trying to find time to write about what we have been up to, but for now, here's a smile for you!

Gelato

Cotter loves chocolate gelato!

Weekly Scripture

I don't know if anyone has actually pulled down the "pull" tab on our blog, but if you do, you can find a weekly scripture. I haven't actually been keeping up with it, but I plan to start. This weeks scripture is Luke 12:34. I chose that one because that is the passage that Josh preached over today at the Inzersdorf congregation. It was his first time to preach in German and he did great! Afterward, many people from the congregation came to him and told him that he did a great job. I was so proud of him!

Marten

Our car has been acting weird for the last couple of months. Some days, it would be normal and then other days, it would have no power. We drove our car full of campers up to camp and realized that there was definitely something wrong with it. We would be going up hill on the autobahn and we would lose power and slow way down. So as we were getting passed by all of the moving vans and grandpas, we decided to take it in when we got home. So Josh made an appointment at the car dealership, because we still have a warranty on the car there. We learned that they do things a little differently at car shops in Vienna. In the USA, you take the car in and tell them what is wrong with it, then they check it out and then come back and tell you what they found, and ask if you want them to fix it or not. Here, they don't ask, they just fix it and hand you over the bill. So this is what happened when they came back after fixing the car.... (translated, of course, so that you can understand the conversation a little better)

"Mr. Hensal, your car is finished."


"Oh.. ok. Thanks. What was wrong with it?"


"We had to replace a hose. There was a Marder in it."


"OK.... will that be covered under the warranty?" (having absolutely no idea what a Marder is)


"hahaha... ah, no. It will not be covered under warranty. A Marder is an animal."


So Josh had them write down the name of the animal that was found in our engine and we googled it and found out that this animal (Marten in English) was causing all of the problems.....

Apparently, this wasn't the first time the car dealership had seen this.

Blumengärtnerei

We have a flower garden right behind our house. It is really neat to see all of the people working back there every day. It is getting more and more beautiful everyday. Here is the view from our bedroom window today...

It is hard to see the flowers right now, but in another month, it will look like a rainbow back there! At the end of the season last year, Josh asked over the fence if he could buy a bouquet of flowers for me from the garden. The lady that he talked to just handed him a bunch of flowers over the fence for free! So this year, the same lady asked him one day if he wanted more flowers. He said "sure!" and since then, she has continued to bring flowers to the fence! It has been a great opportunity to get to know her. She is so sweet and we enjoy talking to her everyday. We pray that God will continue to bless this relationship. Here are some of the beautiful flowers that she has given us...

And... not only do we get beautiful flowers from her, but we also got a giant zucchini!

longest entry ever...

So, it's been a little while so I thought that I would just make one REALLY long post, full of pictures, and get you caught up on the last couple of months of our lives!

So, sit back and relax, grab some popcorn and enjoy....

The kids played dress up- with our clothes!

We went to this "Colorado Renaissance Festival meets Oklahoma State Fair"
park with our friends

Cotter got a little bored.

We had a great visit from Josh's parents and sister Jessica.

This was the coolest inflateable thing that I have ever seen. The mouth of the dragon

opened and the kids crawled in and then the mouth would close and then they would

slide out down the back! They loved it!

These next pictures are from the father-daughter weekend. Although the weekend was

cut a little short (because of Caleb's hospital visit) it was a great time where Josh and Carli made some new friends.

Before we got our residency permits, we had planned a trip to meet up with Josh's mom and Jessica in London to fulfill our need to leave Vienna every 90 days. Since we already had the trip planned when we recieved the permits, we decided to go anyway for a few quick days.

We got to see the changing of the guards and the flag that was waving means that the Queen was there- and we know that she was there, because she drove right past us!

This is a bad picture, but it is Her Magesty's Theater where I saw The Phantom of the Opera!! It was absolutely amazing!

When we got home, the cherries in our back yard were ready to be picked! I love cherries!

The kids decided to have a waterfight in the backyard (without permission) and they couldn't find Cotter's swimsuit, so they used what they could find!

That brings us to last week, where we spent a week at Schwarzwaldeckhaus at the kid's church camp that the Inzersdorf congregation puts on every year. This year, Josh was the Bible teacher for the 11-15 year old kids and I was 1 of 3 cooks responsible for feeding the 40 people at camp. It was an amazing week where we were surrounded by God's beautiful creation, formed new friendships, spoke a lot of German, played a lot of games, and hopefully showed these kids God's love in a way that they don't always see in their homes. I have never been more proud of Josh as he taught the kids 5 lessons from 1 Samuel- all in German. He had them reading out loud from the Bible, memorizing scripture, and writing notes of encouragement to each other. It was powerful as I watched God work through Josh this week.

That is a pretty good summary of what we have been up to. It is hard to believe that it has been 1 year since we first moved here. It has been a year full of adventure, full of laughter, full of tears, full of new friendships, and full of the realization and rememberance that we serve an amazing and powerful God. I can't wait to see what the next year will bring.