Early Father's Day

Terence and Mia couldn't wait to give Curt their father's day gifts. I agreed to let them give their presents to him this morning instead of waiting until tomorrow. They both made some great presents at school for their Papa (this gets a bit confusing as 'Papa' is what they call Curt's dad but Papa is Dad in French). Mia decided to hide the CD (with about 25 recorded songs that her and her class are singing in French) and the beautiful card that she made. She designed a treasure map to help Curt locate the 'treasures' that she hid in 2 different locations around the house.



The treasure map.


Mia explaining the treasure map by saying, 'Here is your bed and the pillows. One of the presents is there. Here is the path from your bed to the fireplace. Your other present is in there. Okay, go try and find them."


On the hunt.


Terence also made some really cool things. The key chain has our entire family drawn out on it. He explained that they could draw anything on this large plastic rectangle. Then, his teacher, Celine, put it in a machine and shrunk it down, connected a key chain ring to it and VOILA! He also made a mosaic mirror during one of his field trips this week to an artist's home. He loved going out there and didn't even mind that it replaced his favorite class: Gym. He said the artist also spoke Hungarian, French and English like him and they spoke all 3 to each other (I think he liked fooling his classmates). He also loved all the cherry trees in the artist's garden. He has an interest in art but not necessarily talent or need to do it. He is just interested in the creation and methods and found it fascinating to learn and watch this artist in action. I still don't know who exactly the artist is. Only his 1st grade class went (not with either of the other two 1st grade classes in his school). Hope to find out more details from a friend this week.



Holding 2 of the 3 presents he gave his dad this morning. He also made a great card that he wrote out a note in. Will scan and forward to all of you later this weekend.

In the meantime, Happy Father's Day to all of you dads!!!! Have a great weekend.

Apologies to a Dear Friend

I've decided I needed to make a public apology to a great guy, dedicated blog fan and faithful Facebook friend.

John Fekete has been a friend of Curt's since BE (Before Erika). He, like Curt and many other Americans, arrived to Hungary in the very early 90s. Our friendship with John and his wife, Imola, strengthened when we started having children. Their brood consists of 4 children and ours, as you know, 3. The kids all get along great even though we are living miles and miles away from each other now - their new home is in Moscow.

This week John paid a short visit to Hungary and we were lucky enough to meet him out for dinner on Thursday night on the Spoon boat / restaurant. We had a partner company in from London so we combined the group into a larger group of 6 so that we could combine business and pleasure all in one evening.

Suddenly, towards the end of our meal, John pointed out that I hadn't yet taken a picture. I too realized this and looked in my bag. I have one of these huge bags that Curt always says would make me the perfect contestant for the Let's Make a Deal show. If you didn't grow up watching it in the US when you were a kid, Let's Make a Deal asks audience members to look in their bags for odd items like a screwdriver. Whichever audience member can pull this item out of their bag becomes the next contestant.

Anyway, back to the story... I didn't have my camera on Thursday night. John's face showed disappointment. When I urged him to explain, he confessed that he was a big blog fan of ours and was hoping to be added in a post. Realizing that our get togethers are few and far between I too became disappointed. The emotion spread to Curt and we've decided that a public apology needed to be sent to John Fekete. A guy who always makes us laugh and has an incredible immunity to the poison that palinka seems to have on the rest of us.

Thanks for meeting up with us on Thursday night. Hugs to the family and we hope to see you somehow, somewhere in the near future. Wherever that may be, I will have my camera ready! We hope you remain a fan of our Clements Family in Budapest blog site.

Warmest Regards,

The Clements Family


John Fekete in some remote location in Russia

Morning Ali

I had to capture this photo of Ali this morning. Our morning routine consists of Curt or I driving Terence and Mia up to the French Lycee while the other one waits for Ali's school bus. When Curt travels, I either take Ali with us in the car to the school and Marcsi meets us with the bus there or we arrange for her to come a bit earlier for pick up. Terence and Mia have to be at school at 8am (or even as early as 7:45am) and Marcsi comes in the bus for Ali at about 8am.

About a week ago, Ali started jumping on this chair on our front porch to wave good-bye to Terence and Mia while they pulled out of the driveway. Then, we continue to sit out there or walk out to the street to wait for Marcsi's arrival.

Work

Today I am at home and taking off of work (and everything else) due to a strained / sprained ankle. It's wrapped up and I've received anti-inflammatory medicine. The cause, the doctor guesses, is over exertion due to a lot of tennis, running, etc lately. I'm too young for my body to break down like this... Now I'm off of all of the above... boo hoo. I guess I'll have to get back into swimming again for exercise!

Anyhow, shortly after Ali's arrival home from nursery school, she started laying out the newspaper. It was really funny to watch her work. She just got to the stage where she talks and sings all the time. So, while she is working/playing she will often talk out what she is working on - usually in Hungarian.

After she laid out the papers across the floor I asked her what she was doing. She answered in her little voice, "I'm working, mom". She was sighing in an exaggerated way like she was doing hard manual work. She then counted out how many papers she had laid out, "one, two, three" She looked at me and said, "Three works mama". She goes back and forth between 'mom' and 'mama' with me. She's also not mixing up Hungarian and English as much lately. It's so fun to listen to her. I love this age!

One thing she does (sort of) mix up but it's so funny that we don't correct her is that when I ask her something and her reply is okay she answers the 'okay' in Hungarian which is 'Jo'. Jo is pronounced 'Yo'. So I will say something like, "Ali can you please get a spoon?" She will reply with "Yo mama". It's always a great giggle for everyone!

Here are her pictures of 'work'

Mia's Dance Performance on Sunday

Mia has been taking a dance class with the Dance Craze Academy (run by a British woman and her Hungarian husband) here in Budapest. The class is in English and she's made quite a few new friends through it as there are no children from her school in her class. She's in the 3 - 4 year old class even though she turned 5 in the middle of the year. It works for her as she is not a serious dancer and likes it more for social reasons...

Their end of year recital was on Sunday at the American International School (they have a great theater). I wasn't sure what to expect as I've only heard very little from Mia. I did know the theme was Disney. Mia's teacher had confided in me a few weeks before the show that she wasn't sure how much Mia would participate as she (like Terence) was a bit of a dreamer and would lose focus often. This is what happens to kids when both parents are marketing people!

Anyhow, she did well. Curt and I laughed as she was almost always the first one on stage urging the others to join. She even directed a few others as to where to go on stage and she had a solo part. Okay, so her solo was to sit on the stage dressed as a pumpkin during the Cinderella performance when the fairy godmother turns the pumpkin into a horse and carriage. We were still impressed!

I'm not saying Mia has a future in dance but she certainly had a great time. We all loved watching too. Terence lost interest about 75% through but Ali was glued to the performance. Mia's younger group was only on stage about 15% of the time as there were lots of older ones performing too. They were all great.

I'll upload the photos at a later time. In the meantime, please enjoy these videos of Mia's group performing.


Little Mermaid


Cinderella's little mice friends


More mice



Helping Cinderella with her dress. Poor Mia kept losing her mouse ears.


I'm a Little Teapot. Thought these were the most adorable costumes. Mia wasn't so sure about this routine. It's cute to watch them all looking at each other for guidance.


Take a bow

A Monday Laugh

I'm not much for forwarding jokes. So, this is my alternative way of sharing things that I find funny. This was the perfect comic for Monday am.

IWCA Charity Ball

As many of you have heard, I was one of the committee members of this year's IWCA (International Women's Club Association) Charity Fundraising Ball. It was a lot of work to get it organized but it was worth it. The theme was James Bond and it was held at the Marriott Hotel in Budapest on May 17th. We had to return early from our Rome conference in order to make it.

We had a great committee this year and sold out of tickets (just over 300 total) a month before the ball which is unusual. We're still counting the money that was raised but it will be somewhere between 8 - 9 million HUF (today it is around US$57,000!) that will go to the Make a Wish Foundation of Hungary and also to one of the hospitals here for some cancer research equipment that they are in need of. Very good feeling to know that we are making a difference!

I've just received 2 CDs filled with photos from the Ball. Here are a few that I came across that I thought you'd enjoy.


Aahhh...


We had this model painted in gold to come and pose for photos. Curt and I had a good laugh at this photo of him with her.


The majority of the ball committee (from left: Maria, Sam, Stacy, Amanda in a wig, and me). We dressed as the flight attendants from James Bond's Pussy Galore film.




With 2 more committee members.