It Happened On A Very Special Day NINE years ago...

 Wow, today is a special day, it is our nine year wedding anniversary!  Nine years ago today on a cold and blustery October's day we were pledging ourselves to each other and starting a new life together.  We vowed to stay together and by each others sides through thick and thin, no matter where life would take us. 

We wouldn't have guessed that nine years later we would be spending our anniversary in Europe, Eastern Europe no less.  Now we have spent one-third of our married lives working in Romania since we've been here for three years already.

Our fellow workers and friends Steven and Haley were married on the same day only five years later, so we decided to go celebrate our anniversary together in the beautiful medieval town of Sighisoara.  We've been there before but went by train, this time we drove and finally found it after some scenic detours, aka the road names aren't marked well here so we sometimes had to drive in circles to find the way.

We stayed at a guest house with traditionally decorated rooms.  This part of the country was inhabited by Germans from the 1200's so this looks more German than Romanian.

We had a really nice view!

This is one of the nine defense towers that form part of the wall around the citadel.  Sighisoara is one of the best preserved walled cities that is still inhabited in Europe.

This covered staircase takes people up to the old German church and graveyard.

One of the graveyard entrances, it was so interesting to see all the German names there.

This is one of the things we love the most about Sighisoara, the winding streets lined with brightly colored houses.  It has a sort of fairy tale feel to it and is really fun to explore and discover the most beautiful places.

 Here we are by one of the citadel gates with a cool neighborhood behind us.

Even the places that haven't been recently restored have lots of character, showing the bricks under the plaster and the different colors of paint, it gives a real old world feeling.

 We had a wonderful European breakfast at a nice little cafe.  With our coffee we enjoyed croissants, bread, eggs with cheese and an assortment of different meats, veggies, and jams.  The weather was really nice, right around 70, and it was really fun sitting outside at the cafe and enjoying each others company.

On the way back home we stopped by to see several of the fortified churches, just about every little village has one.  In the old days the people here didn't have enough resources to fortify every town, so they just built fortifications around their churches so they would have somewhere secure to defend themselves against invaders.

We stopped by the ruins of an old fortress, Rupea Fortress which is currently being restored so unfortunately we couldn't go inside.  It is pretty impressive though as it sits on a hill that towers over the rest of the surrounding land.

The drive back was really fun because we could just stop and explore wherever we wanted to.  

Another fortified church.

On the way home the main highway was closed so we had to take a detour - a winding road through the mountains and many small villages.  It took a lot longer to get home but we enjoyed the beautiful scenery that we wouldn't have seen otherwise.  This mountain was the standout place and it was just a reminder of God's awesomeness and how wonderful his creation is.

As we start our tenth year of marriage we want to take a moment to thank all of you who have been with us and supporting us all this time.  Thank you for praying for us especially since we have been in Romania working far from home.  Thank you so much for being a part of our lives.  Please continue to pray for us to have a strong marriage that can be a good example to the kids that we work with so that we can show them what a godly marriage looks like.