Happy New Year!

Hello & Happy 2013 from Brande Central Station!
In case you're wondering why things have been so quiet over here, let's just say that it's been an incredibly busy two weeks.

We had a great time celebrating Christmas in Washington, DC, with Christiana's parents & Phil's sister. It was also fun to catch up with many HCA friends & former colleagues from Russia. We wished we could have stayed longer, but we had commitments in St. Louis, MO.

We spent five days at Urbana '12 (which is actually held in St. Louis!) exhibiting & recruiting on behalf of our sending organization, RCE International. If you've never heard of Urbana, it's a ginormous missions conference, with more than 16,000 people in attendance. Here's a look at our booth:

The RCE Team at Urbana

It's hard to tell exactly just how many people we actually talked to over the course of five days, but we're guestimating at least 500 brochures went out, and at least 300 people signed up for more information about future opportunities at international schools. That's not too shabby! Christiana will have her work cut out for her, following up with all of these new contacts.

One of the perks of being in Missouri for New Year's is SNOW! We've enjoyed encountering winter again (although one of us likes snow a little more than the other...)

Enjoying St. Louis Snow

We're now in Jefferson City, MO, enjoying some time with family, and some much-needed down-time after the very busy week at Urbana. Next week - back to Niceville!