This weekend, Valerie is attending a retreat with the other American women in Campus Crusade from across our area (Eastern Europe & Russia). It is a weekend to minister to the women that serve in places where there isn’t much American contact. They value a weekend to speak English, sing in English, and just relax.

Since Valerie is gone, it means that I’m holding “Wife Appreciation Weekend” as I am continually reminded of the amazing job that she does taking care of, nuturing, feeding, and loving our family.

The weekend got off to a bad start last night. In order to save money on parking, I volunteered to drive her to the hotel in downtown Budapest. I’ve driven there many times before and it takes 15 minutes with no traffic and maybe 30 minutes with traffic. We left our house just after 4pm and were off to pickup Kirby Ann at preschool. We left the preschool around 4:30. After we had driven about halfway, all of a sudden, the traffic came to a complete stop. Busses weren’t moving, cars weren’t moving, and it was backed up as far as we could see. After 10 minutes, we started trying to cut off on side streets to find a way out. Everyone else tried this as well and so we sat on a side street without moving rather than on the main street. When we finally got to the hotel, it was just before 6pm. That’s almost 2 hours. My back was really starting to get uncomfortable and I was going crazy.

Kirby Ann, Reed and I took a 15 minute break and we were back on our way home. As we left the hotel, I almost pulled out into traffic that was going 40-50 mph. I got about a quarter of the way into the lane when a car sailed passed. I realized what I had done and I about passed out. It could have been a tragic mistake. The Lord was watching out for us. After this, I drove by the spot where the traffic was so backed up and I realized that they were digging up the road. They had taken a major 3-4 lane road and reduced it to 1 lane during rush hour. AARRRGGHHHH!!!

Then, since it was so late, I decided to visit the official restaurant of Wife Appreciation Weekend, McDonalds!!! As we pulled into the parking lot, I saw that the drive-thru was overflowing into the parking lot. Since it was about 6:45, I decided to bail on McDonalds. I didn’t want to wait another 30 minutes. I decided to drive to another McD’s and I finally got some food.

We returned home just after 7pm after 3 hours on the road. I was totally wiped out and spent the rest of the night on the couch and letting the kids wait on me. They went to bed and just vegged out. It was a rough start to the weekend.

The good part of this is that things can only get better as the weekend goes on Gotta go, more appreciating to do.