More food adventures

It's been a pretty quiet week for us.  We have been contacting various organizations via email to introduce ourselves and ask if they may have any work or projects for us to participate in.  We haven't received much response yet.  If any of you have ideas or know of anyone or an organization that does humanitarian work in Bosnia or Croatia please let us know.

Last Sunday evening our embassy friends invited us over for ice cream and cupcakes to reveal the baby gender.  They now have 2 boys and 3 girls so I was voting for another boy but it is a girl.  The chocolate cupcakes had a pink candy inside and the homemade ice cream was pink.

Rhett & Camie Rhees with 4 of their kids

All 5 of the Rhees children

We love the Rhees family.  They live a walkable distance from us.  He is the Branch Clerk, she is the Primary President.  Our primary is the Rhees children and the 2 boys of the other embassy family in the branch.  They welcomed us and have made us feel at home here.  We will miss them when they return to the states to have the new baby.  They will be gone all summer.

Tuesday afternoon we took the Sisters with us to visit one of our branch members in Srednje.  It takes about 40 minutes to drive to her house.  It is an old country farmhouse that has been somewhat modernized and is in a postcard setting.  The inside of the house is so cute and was very neat and tidy.  Mira is 76 and nearly blind and shouldn't drive (but does on occasion we hear) so her non-member husband brings her to church.  He is Catholic and doesn't think he needs to be baptized again but he brings her and stays for the meetings because he says he knows he will get blessings for it.

After district meeting on Wednesday we wandered around Old Town a bit.  We ate a late lunch at Željo, which is supposed to be the best Ćevapi in town.  Ćevapi is a grilled sausage sandwich.  The Serbian recipe includes ground pork, beef and lamb but the Bosnian recipe has no pork.  It is kind of like the national food here; like hamburgers think they are in the states.

Ćevapi at Željo in Old Town

This is a medium serving with 10 sausages and the huge pocket bread.  A small serving with 5 would have been plenty.  It was good and we'll know for next time.

Friday we took the car in for an oil change at the dealership.

Hyundai dealership, just like at home!

They said it would take about an hour and a half so we wandered around the small commercial area behind the dealership.  We stopped at a small restaurant for lunch.  I chose chicken cordon bleu, mostly because I was curious about how they would do the ham part.

Chicken cordon bleu with dried beef

They substituted dried beef for the ham.  Not good.  Dried beef seems to be a very popular thing here.  It's not good like the beef jerky we know.  It's just dried beef; you can chew the same piece for hours.  Or just pull it out of the chicken cordon bleu and not eat it.  The rest of it was pretty tasty.

Across the road from the dealership is a huge cemetery.  It is beautiful.  I tried to get a picture of it but it doesn't do it justice.

Part of a cemetery across from the car dealership

Saturday was a beautiful day.  We decided to go for a walk and returned home 3 hours later.  We walked past McDonalds and decided to stop for lunch.

Our first McDonalds experience in Bosnia - we have arrived!

It was pretty much the same as in America.  We didn't eat at McDonalds often at home so don't have a lot to compare it to.  I did get brave enough to ask for ketchup (well, I made John do it) and they have the packets but you pay for them.  Two little packets were 1 km or 63 cents.

McDonalds ketchup

On our long walk we passed some buildings destroyed in the war.  They have been standing there since the war and are now covered with graffiti and have had further destruction over the years.  We were told someone is planning to restore the first building.  They need to hurry, there's not too much left of it.

Dilapidated building

The second one looks like it was once a lovely home or apartment building.

Bombed building in ruins

We hope spring is on the way.  The trees in our yard are budding and we have crocus in our lawn.  We have quite a nice backyard.

Backyard, complete with doghouse-currently being used for tool storage

Blooms in the backyard grass

We think Sarajevo is a beautiful city and are excited to see it with flowers and trees in bloom and sun shining on us.  It was nice to get out and about for awhile.  We looking forward to exploring more things in better weather.

And the best for last.  We don't see much American candy here; usually just snickers and twix bars.  In our wanderings we went into a small store and look what we found.

Woohoo!  Peanut m&m's

It doesn't take much to excite us!

We are grateful for blessings every day.  We are happy and healthy and feel blessed to be serving in Bosnia.