Freedoooooooom . . . . Scotland Pictures

Hi! Wow, we have been busy little travelers. We're a bit behind on pictures and blogs and will try to be better. Since we last blogged, we spent a week in Scotland, a week in France, and 4 days in London. We are still in England, staying with some of my (Krista) distant family (my third cousins!). It's been wonderful. They are absolutely great and the sights have been cool too. We even got a day at Wimbledon, which was just amazing and surreal for us. We'll get some France and England pics up here soon, but until then, enjoy the ones from beautiful Scotland. In four days we head to Norway!

Click HERE for a Flickr Photo Album from Scotland

The Beautiful Country of Ireland!

We have now been in Europe for two weeks! We spent our first week in Ireland and our second week in Scotland. At both places we were able to stay with awesome friends - friends we met in Kenya on our short-term medical mission trip with EPI this past January. The hospitality that we experienced was amazing and inspiring. Some of our friends even gave up their master bedroom for us!! We learned a lot about our version of hospitality and realized our own selfishness at times. Our friends in Ireland and Scotland are just amazing!

We just left Scotland today and are now in a little town in France near the beaches of Normandy (we flew into Paris and drove right out). I (Krista) am resurrecting the little French that I once knew :-). We will hopefully have some pics of our time in Scotland up shortly, but until then, check out the beautiful sights we got to see in Ireland. God is such an amazing creator and we are so blessed to be able to enjoy his brilliance.

Click HERE to see our Ireland photo album in Flickr.

We're still figuring out Flickr so if the above link doesn't work, try copying and pasting this one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/51235431@N08/sets/72157624284298550/

And if we did something wrong with the album in Flickr, let us know too. We might not continue using Flickr, but for now, we'll give it a go.

A look back . . .

Oh how I've missed you life of plane flights and traveling and calling credit cards to tell them where we will be going and drinking bottled water instead of tap water.....oh wait, scratch that last one. Not this time! I'm pretty sure it's okay to drink the water in Europe!

This is so crazy! We are going to Europe for almost 4 months (we leave tonight, check out our updated calendar for our schedule)!! Who gets to do this kind of thing? We are so unbelievably blessed and are so excited about this opportunity. We are learning so much about God's grace and love and how we don't deserve any of it, but how He lavishes it upon His children.

We were also so incredibly blessed by our last 7 months. Over the past few weeks here in the States, we have had the opportunity to share about the past 6 months in a variety of ways (slideshows, videos, long conversations, etc.). And speaking of video.....we were able to share a little video we made with a couple of churches as we shared what God is doing around the world and in our lives. And since we can't go around to everyone's church (well, unless you want us to come, let us know! :-)), we thought we'd post it up here. So here ya go -- our last six months condensed down to 4 1/2 minutes!

Ochocki's not-so-much-Overseas...

So, we've now officially been back in the States for one month. Not a whole lot of blogs during this time, because, really, we are clearly not very exciting people when we're not traveling around the world. This may quite possibly be the most exciting thing we've encountered in the last 30 days.

Living overseas without a car for 6 months was so much easier :-).

Not that we haven't done some fun stuff in the last 3 weeks - we had some great times with our friends and family.......

The whole gang! (Ochocki's and Thomson's)

Our first nephew (Keaton) getting dedicated!

My parents' fourth child, Dillon :-). Our fabulous running mate!

We went to Maine and had an awesome week with the wonderful folks of EPI, Eagle Projects International (www.eagleprojects.com). For those that don't know, they are the super awesome organization that decided it would be a good idea to take Justin and I under their name and send us out to visit some of their partners in Africa and Nepal (I know, pretty daring right). Anyway, their headquarters is in Maine and we were able to go visit them, do some presentations on our last 6 months (we'll try to get a video of one of the presentations up on this soon), meet their board, discuss some future options, and also get some time to rest and play on Maine's amazing coast......

The awesome cabin that EPI let us use for the week. We got some much needed rest here.

Exploring the coast around Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park

Biking around Acadia National Park

The wonderful carriage roads we biked on throughout all of Acadia National Park (so much better than the mountain biking trails that cause high levels of anxiety for me :-)).

But, ahhh, most recently, as we've been bumming at my parents house in Colorado Springs, we have spent our days immersed in maps, guidebooks, and even apps, trying to plan the next 3 1/2 months of our travels all over Europe. Yes, I realize that we can't complain about this task because many would scowl at us for it, but let me tell you, it is a job. Europe is a big place with lots to see (profound, I know), and in order to save money and time, it really is best to try to have a plan of some sort, and even reservations, etc. I never used to be the major planner, always a strong "P" on the Meyers Briggs, but Justin is infiltrating my system with his "J" ways! We have this ridiculously large spread sheet (if you know Justin, this doesn't surprise you) with information on where we'll be when, what will take place, and how much it'll cost, on every day of our currently 116 day adventure (I got that stat from Justin)! It might be a little much, but hey, you know you'll want it if you ever decide to do some traveling in Europe and if you do, we'll let you see it.....for a charge......all the proceeds will go to our future work in Nepal!

So, yeah, that's a quick snap shot of our super exciting month back in the States. We head to Durango at the end of this week to go and stay with Justin's parents, and then it's back up to Colorado Springs for Memorial Day weekend and then we fly out on June 1st for Europe!

Now, amidst this time of hanging out with family and friends, visiting Maine, and planning Europe, there has definitely been some re-entry culture shock, but we'll just save that emotional roller coaster for another, more sentimental blog. :-). We just saw Iron Man 2 on Imax (awesome by the way), and I can't seem to bring myself to talking about my feelings right now. I'm still processing them (good excuse huh?).

Till they're processed . . .

Top 10 Things We enjoy about being back in America

1. Brushing our teeth with the tap water and not being sick in bed the next day

2. Mexican Food

3. Signs written in English (not always the specific words; is it almost May?)

4. Krista getting to wear her engagement ring (come on, I am a girl :-))

5. Electricity whenever we want it

6. Sandwiches with fresh cheese and deli meat

7. Going for runs on beautiful trails and in breathable air!

(Us with my sister Lisa after a run/geocaching adventure)

8. Going to our home church, Flatirons, and worshiping in our own language

9. Hanging with our awesome friends

10. Spending time with our super fun family!

Rockies Game with Krista's Family!

Out and about with Justin's family (gotta love REI)

Oh and a bonus number 11: A NEW computer to replace our dying friend!!! Yay!!!!

Our time in Russia - Photo Album

Russia

"Friends, Countrymen, Russians" (what movie?)

We have been in Southern Russia now for over a week, and have yet to get a blog up, so here we go! Our time here has been a whirlwind so far, from the landing in Moscow to our adventure getting here, to our fun times in and around the town working with our friends here. Here is a quick look back at the last week and a half:

We spent the whole day flying to Moscow from Kathmandu and then lugged all of our bags on the Moscow Metro that same night, by ourselves! It was crazy and I actually fell getting off the escalator once with one of the big bags. I was not a happy camper. We stayed overnight in Moscow with some American friends and then, by the grace of God, we decided to stay at their apartment the next morning and relax instead of going out to sightsee before catching our afternoon flight down to Southern Russia. This was the same morning that the Metro was bombed and there is a good possibility we would have been close to the site of the bombing had we gone sightseeing to Red Square. (This is me on the Metro right after falling on the escalator, but I actually don't look that bad....still not a fan of that bag!)

We made it to the Northern Caucus region, safely and immediately got to hang out with the locals and our friends that are living here. From the airport we drove to a House Youth Group that meets weekly. It was great to meet some teenagers and college age students who are seeking the Lord, many the first ones in their family. We quickly learned that the Caucasus is a predominantly Muslim region, and since we have had several conversations with Muslims who are investigating the claims of Jesus.

Throughout the rest of the week we enjoyed getting to know the town and seeing the life our friends James and Jane Hutchy live here. We joined their English Club . . .

. . . played lots of games with 300 Chechen children . . .

.... spent Easter at a small Russian House Church, and then Easter dinner at an American family’s house complete with ham, mashed potatoes, and green beans! Justin and some guys got to take on some of the Chechen children in a game of soccer (Can you find him? He looks like a local wherever we go!)......

......while I hung out with some of the local girls that Jane has formed relationships with. Last weekend, Justin spent a day in the mountains with some of the American guys here while I got to play with our friends two adorable children......

....and then had a girls’ night once they went to bed.

I must say though that one of my favorite things so far about being here instead of Kathmandu is that we can go running! There is a huge park and the air is clean! This morning we even went with a local, Russian girl that we met at English Club, Vilka. She showed us around the city, running here and there, attempting to teach us what was what in her limited English and our non-existent Russian. It was so fun!

We are currently spending the afternoon and evening babysitting. What? Yep, babysitting! We are mustering up some courage and watching our friends James and Jane’s two children so they can have a day off. Even though they are both under the age of 2, it’s not too hard, because they are the cutest things on the planet.

We’ll see, however, if this pushes us closer to or further away from having babies ourselvesJ.