Ali's Reading Skills

Yesterday morning, Ali and I were home alone as T was at football and Mia was at her dance rehearsal (practicing for her big show today!). While I was cleaning up the kitchen, Ali told me she was going to practice her reading. I stopped to watch what she was going to do and got such a kick out of her attempt. I think she really thought she was reading. I love how she pretends to sound out the word like she has heard her big sister do so many times this year. Unfortunately for little Ali, the word on these cards did not match the pictures. I didn't have it in me to break this to you. Instead I just went along and filmed the entertainment.

Our 10th birthday celebration in Albania

Here are some more photos that were taken by Marta, one of marketing coordinators, who was in town from Skopje for the event.

Above left is the entertainment, above right is Curt and I with the Prince.

Below is a shot of the venue at the very end of the night. It was a lovely setting.

After the party, the Move One team (10 of us) went for dinner in this amazing castle-like restaurant.

The Girls' Dance Recital at School

All year, or at least since about October, Ali was in a young dance group with her grade (3 and 4 year olds) and the class one year above her. Mia was also in a similar dance group with her age group. What I didn't realize was that they shared the same dance instructor and over the last month have been practicing together and combining their routines... I felt so lucky to have 2 little beauties in this year's dance performance at school. Mia and Ali were in the same show and it was great fun! They both were so happy to perform together and both did very well. Here are some photos and videos of their performance on Monday afternoon.

I adore these costumes! We had to pay for them but we keep them. They are just gorgeous!

Ali is in the middle in the above left as well as in the shots below, when they changed costumes.

Love her face in the above right and below left as she looks completely confused and slightly embarrassed. They were all so adorable together that it didn't matter!

These next 2 are my favorite shots of each of them. I got to try out my newest zoom lens which worked out incredible!! Terence was next to me and we were getting really excited about the shots I captured. Mia was a bit more of a challenge to get good snaps of as she was often behind other girls.

If you can't tell, Ali is right in front of Mia in this shot above.

In this next one, Mia and Ali are in the back row next to each other (towards the right of the screen).



Here Mia is in the 2nd row (right side of screen) and Ali is in the back row (towards the left). Ali looks completely confused as to what she is supposed to be doing.



This one was super short but cute. Ali starts in the front middle of the screen. You can catch a glimpse of Mia as she walks off stage in the 2nd row. She told me she was put in back most of the time as she is one of the tallest girls in her class. There was one very tall girl in the front but she was older and there helping her mother, the teacher, with the younger kids.

Back from Albania

We literally took a whirlwind trip to Tirana, Albania which began yesterday afternoon. We were there for just over 24 hours but it felt like a few days worth of meetings and events!

It had been over 10 years since Curt was there and my first trip. The purpose of our trip was for our Albania office's 10th birthday celebration. It was a great cocktail reception held poolside at the very popular and classy Rogner hotel in the center of Tirana. We had almost 100 guests come to join our celebration. It was a lovely, warm evening and a thrill to meet so many great people with such wonderful things to say about Move One. Even the Prince of Albania joined us for a couple cocktails. He's a young, charismatic 23 year old that I really enjoyed meeting. He could possibly be the first real prince I have ever met...

The pictures from the evening are coming soon as they were all taken with one of our marketing people's cameras.

In the meantime, I have a few other snaps to share with you...

We stayed very near our office at the new Sky Hotel which is the first hotel to have a revolving bar on the top floor!

We had a cocktail on the top floor last night and breakfast this morning. These are some photos of the view of Tirana.


Above left is a shot of the stadium and in the foreground the Rogner Hotel where our reception was held.

Tirana amazed me. It surpassed my expectations and I enjoyed the thrill of such diversity. It's been a while since I've been in a buzzing place like Albania. It reminded Curt and I of the early days in Budapest when it was filled with entrepreneurs, little infringement rules or laws, and lots of unique and unusual business ventures. Oh, the glory days... It was exciting to be back in that type of atmosphere.

The city was very colorful (literally). When we asked one of our local employees about it they informed us that the head of Albania likes color as he's a former painter. The buildings looked like a tub of neapolitan ice cream! The streets were crowded with people all with enough time to linger in the cafes and sip their coffees. The outdoor, street side cafes seemed full at every hour of the day.

Very happy that the Albanians really like the Americans. There were lots of American flags and even some American-friendly graffiti like in this next shot.

Even though the Macedonians may disagree, Albania was Mother Teresa's home country. Here we are with a statue of her at Mother Teresa square.

Our Move One Tirana office. Curt with Nikola, our Balkans Manager, heading in this morning.

We had a chance to take a quick stroll around town with our Albania Country Manager, Glenda, today before boarding our flight back to Budapest. Here are some things around town that I found interesting.

No wonder they always have problems with their electricity....

Having a coffee at the Sheraton - Albania's only 5 star hotel. I thought their water glasses (check the photo below carefully) were amusing.

This was in the Sheraton lobby. Very cool! This Michelangelo picture was made out of thousands of nails!! Loved it! Gorgeous! The Albanian artist apparently made it to get into the Guiness Book of World Records.

Here we are today at the Tirana airport. First airport (maybe Honolulu was too but can't remember as I was busy chasing two little ones around) that had an outdoor cafe. It was nice sitting out in the sun, chilling while we waited to board! And, this was after passport control!

Their new airport (designed and run by a German group) is very nice and modern!

School Photos 2009 - 2010

Here are the three kids' 2009 - 2010 class photos.

Terence is in the back row, 2nd from right. We had a choice of 2 photos to chose from and he overruled my choice and picked this one instead. He thought it was funny that he wasn't looking directly at the camera. Don't get it... He's in CE2 / 3rd grade and his teacher's name is Jean-Luc. So far, this is his favorite teacher. I think it may have something to do with the fact that he is his first male teacher.

Here is Mia's class photo. She is in the back row, 3rd from left. Her teacher is in the back row, all the way on the left and her name is Marie-Pierre. She's rather strict but then again I think it's a huge shock when the kids go from Kindergarten / GS to 1st Grade / CP as they go from playing and having fun to learning, grades and the serious world of school!

And here is my little Ali. This is her first year at the French school and even though the first few months were tough, she now likes it and has many friends. I do think she has more Hungarian speaking friends then French speaking friends but she is still learning French slowly. She is in the middle row here, 3rd from the left. Her teacher is lovely. She is in the back row on the left and her name is Isabelle. Her assistant, Erzsebet, is also in the upper row but on the right hand side. Ali adores Erzsebet and almost always speaks Hungarian to Erzsebet as she is a French speaking Hungarian.