Hi Everyone --

It has been a busy week with Ryan and Michelle here. Ryan is doing great in his rotation at the hospital. He is with a neurologist that has much experience and knowledge and he is seeing lots of interesting cases. He says that many of them he would never see in a regular rotation in the US. He enjoys the doctor, the hospital, the lunching experience, and the rickshaw rides home. Ryan is very brave and willing to try new things and have new experiences -- which is good since he gets them every day!

Michelle and I have been very busy getting Christmas shopping done. I have all my packages ready to mail. We will try DHL tomorrow, and if it's not too much we will have them ship all the packages. (There are only 4 -- Emily, Julia/Mom, Amber (2). I will let you know when you need to look for them.

Michelle loved the market. She took her camera and got lots of great pictures. It was early in her arrival here, so jet lag caught up to her really fast. We did get to the grocery store too, and then she crashed.

The weather turned cold here -- in the 40's so I decided we needed a comforter. We went shopping for that and found a really nice one and a duvet cover. Of course, it then warmed up and we were sweating at night. Oh well, at least we're ready for next time.

Wednesday is our day out with the ladies. We went to a narrow little street with lots of shops with Christmas decorations. We only got to go in about 3-4 stores and our time was up. We got some cute things for wrapping and decorating. I still haven't decided on a Christmas tree or not. They are available here, but they are pretty ugly and expensive. There are lots of ornaments and lots of lights, however. Maybe a ficus tree with lights . . . . . After shopping we went to the sizzler place and we had beef burgers. This is the best place we have found so far with good burgers -- really rare in India! Michelle had a sizzling brownie and Ryan was really jealous. We will probably have to go there this week so he can try it. Luckily, it's also close to the hospital so he can just pop over and try one.

Wednesday morning Doug got up early and wrote on a notepad by the bed. I asked him what he wrote and he said it was something for me to do. I asked what. He said it was organize a party/dinner for 30 people on Saturday night. I really hoped he was just joking. Unfortunately, he wasn't! I had to find a caterer and get everything organized and decided. We met the cook from the John Deere Guest house and he was willing to do it. We came up with a menu and then he took care of the pre-cooking -- chicken, veg. dish, eggplant moussaka, dal -- and I took care of all the rest of the grocery shopping for the starters, dessert, and drinks. So Saturday morning we all went shopping to get things for the party. We went to the market to get vegetables and fruit. We went to the grocery store for the rest of the goodies. We went to the sweet store for the dessert. We also had to pick up the paper products -- plates, spoons, forks, napkins, snack plates, and dessert bowls.

Nearly 50 people showed up at the party. We used up all the food. They had to make a run to the store for more pop. The kids had a great time drinking soda and eating chips. Everyone got really hungry and were a little impatient for the food at 9:30 p.m. We finally got the food out about 10:15. It was good food and I think everyone had enough, except Doug. We got cleaned up and made it to bed by midnight. Luckily, I had Mary come and help the cook -- she also washed dishes, cut vegetables, cooked chapatis, etc. I was really tired when it was over and really glad it was done.

We got Ryan measured for a suit as well. He chose a nice dark blue with a stripe. Dad decided he needed a shirt too, so he got measured and picked out a blue stripe fabric. It is to be his "sport" shirt for Saturdays. I was surprised it wasn't a plaid, but he was trying to do something different. We'll see how it turns out. It will all be done next week and we can stop by and pick it up.

It has been nice to have today for resting. We had 10 people at church today. Our once nice couple is moving to Bangalore, so that is sad. The one US guy is moving back to Utah. The one Indian guy is getting married in February -- or whenever he can get a visa -- in the US and staying there. It is possible that we could be down to just us again!

We hope you are all well!
Love, Lucinda

P.S. Deere and Companys board of directors held their meeting in India last week. They held it in a city about one hour's flight from Pune. Wednesday the came to see us. We spent about the last month cleaning and painting in anticipation for the visit. They put our transmission and tractor on display. My boss felt that I should have a chance to show off, so they gave me a company uniform and told me to stand next to the display for four hours. They drove by in golf carts, stopped at our display while my other boss gave them a sixty second speil on the program. I just smiled, they just smiled and everyone was happy.