The Clements Family Life

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

I bet this title caught your eyes!! On Sunday we went over to our friends' home for a nice relaxing Sunday lunch. We have become big fans of Sunday lunches. It's a big thing for Europeans and I think since all our British friends are big fans, it's grown on us too. I prefer it over brunch.

After we returned home from Bosnia very late on Saturday, it was nice to relax at someone else's home with all our kids on Sunday. Our friend Fiona, the hostess, has been working through her new favorite Jamie's America cookbook. Jamie Oliver cooks American style in this new cookbook of his and one of the recipes that Fiona's family has become fans of is the beer butt chicken (or so they call it)! I've actually looked it up and discovered it is called Beer Can Chicken. The chicken actually sits on top of beer cans while the beer steams it through. The combination of the spiced rub and the steamed, moist chicken was delicious.

Check out some of our Sunday fun...

The hubbies removing the chicken from the beer cans

Then, Fiona handed out Christmas crackers (not a typical tradition in mid-March) as she had just been given them by another British friend in the process of moving to Geneva. The surprises inside are never anything too exciting but the process of pulling them apart and hearing them pop is always lots of fun!

Everyone got these little paper hats. Ali was more busy eating red velvet cupcakes that Fiona whipped up. They were delicious!

It's hard to capture a good, natural photo of Terence. Usually he sees the camera and hides. I love this one that I managed to snap during all the cracker popping excitement!

We then had fun watching a few videos of Ali's skiing and also looking up who was right in our mountain height estimates. Jim won with Mont Blanc - which he is hiking up and skiing down this weekend!

Seasoning the Grill

The weather here is still rather wintry but the birds are chirping and the sun is shining. The temps are just not cooperating. In fact, we woke up to more snow this am!

Regardless, we decided to act as if spring were here and to bbq burgers outdoors. Even the kids dreamed of spring and jumped around outside all day! It was lovely. But, again, it was pretty cold...

The burgers (we did hot dogs too) turned out great! Now our grill is ready for the true bbq season upon us to ARRIVE!!! We will be feeding many, many good friends on it this spring!

The kids jumped on the trampoline most of the day!

A typical drive through the Sarajevo hills

The roads were just about as wide as our land rover. And, these were the 2-lane roads!! I'm glad Curt was driving and not me. Here's just a short example...

Monday, March 15, 2010

Curt's old home and Old Town

Curt and I walked around old town Sarajevo for about an hour as it had been so, so long since we had been there...

above photo from our hotel balcony

below Curt is at the first Move One Sarajevo house where he used to stay and where I stayed the last time I went down with him. The view from up there is amazing.

Even though there was snow and it was still cold, we found these crocuses popping up nearby the old house.

The drive and our conference hotel

This is where we all stayed in Jahorina (just outside of Sarajevo) where some of the 1984 winter olympics games were held.

driving and crossing over from Croatia

We met Fuad on the road and followed him and Valdet (in the red car) up to our hotel from Sarajevo. Turn down your volume as we were listening to some music rather loudly. It had snowed the entire night before and most of the day so we were driving into heaps of fresh white powder.

Friday Night in Sarajevo

Our trip to Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina was very successful. It had been over 10 years since we were last down there. It was great to return. At the conference, there were about 30 Balkan country managers and sales representatives that came in from neighboring countries. Curt and I arrived on Thursday evening after a very, very long drive down from Budapest.

After a really great conference day on Friday, we all went out to a fantastic restaurant in the Sarajevo hills called Kibe. It was a beautiful venue and the evening, company and food were all excellent.

Here are many photos that we took throughout the evening.

This first was was our Bosnian country manager presenting Curt with another gift (they were all so generous to us). It was a Move One Relocations sign in Arabic.

Below is our entire group at dinner

Erik (with the camera) experimenting with my new camera. The photo was their reflection off the window.

And the view of Sarajevo. You can see our car parked below.

Erik and Curt with Fuad and our lamb being cooked

Valdet from Pristine, Kosovo with his wife and the entertainment

The restaurant had tons of huge pumpkins and gourds all over. Nikola, our Macedonia country manager, is on the right.

Some of our Bosnia original team who all started over 10+ years ago!

Other snaps of our team

And some photos of the beautifully eclectic restaurant.

What a great night...

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

For Captain John

A friend of a friend (Jay's best friend and Asta's cousin), gave T this cool Norwegian tank operator's helmet several years back. T must have only been a couple of years old so his interest was minimal but it sat on his shelf in his room. Recently, he's developed a huge interest in the helmet and war (like every boy). Yesterday, he composed this message to John who is out there in Afghanistan right now. I apologize for the echos but he was running around with it in our basement (under renovation) and without the furniture, rugs, flooring, etc. it has a major echo. I hope you can still understand his message.

2 More Great Videos - especially the 2nd one!

If you get tired of our videos or photos from France, I totally understand. We just had such an incredible time! One of the best vacations EVER! Skiing was incredible, people were wonderful, the kids were all so great (I think their ages right now are absolutely fantastic and they are all so fun to be around), the weather was nice, our chalet perfect, the food and wine were always amazing.... and sooooo on....

Two people made our trip so much better: Michel and Zuzana. Michel is born and raised in Meribel so his knowledge of the area was so helpful. Zuzana, as I mentioned before, helped each kid learn to ski and she helped Ali tackle the challenge last week in Meribel.

This first video is of Michel handing out candies to the 3 little beggers! You can hear me barking (do I really sound like that?) at the end for the kids to pose for a photo (the one with Zuzana)...

This next one was the highlight as it captured Ali racing Terence and Mia 'to' a pole. She was winning and didn't understand the objective of the finish line. Instead of just reaching the pole or even passing the pole, she went straight into the pole at top speed ('her' top speed). Good thing there was the padding around it as she bounced off but it looked painful!! She literally face planted into the padding! The funniest part is when Curt asks her who won. Her or the pole.... She is a funny little thing!

Monday, March 8, 2010

Renovation Time

Okay - this is a really boring blog post but I want to include the before (and after will come soon) of our basement renovation. Actually, I wish I took full photos of the entire area when we moved into our home 7 years and 10 months ago. For those of you that have been here know that we've completely renovated the bathroom downstairs (actually, we've renovated all our home's bathrooms over the years). I love how the downstairs bathroom turned out. It is really nice and everyone who comes and stays with us in our downstairs guest bedroom finds it comfortable.

Since we had the basement water leakage problem repaired last summer, I've been on the hunt for new flooring. The flooring in our home is not one of my favorite features, however, since it costs a fortune to replace it has not been a priority. You may or may not know, but I am not one to make quick decisions when it comes to interior design. Actually, Curt selected the material for our basement's new flooring. My order for new walnut floor boards was almost complete when he suggested cork. Part of me didn't even want to look at another option as I had already spent months hunting, shopping, researching... But, it's not that often Curt gets involved in the interior design of our home so I owed him the time to look into his cork suggestion.

Everything I had read about cork was positive. It's a great product and I had to learn all that I could before I made a decision. Some of cork's benefits when used on floors are: comfort and softness (so great for child's play); noise reduction (again, great for child's play); durability and ease of maintenance; and, some of the most important features for us is it is anti-allergenic and resistant to insects. It also does not rot when wet for a long time and it is fire resistant. Lastly (are you bored yet?) cork does not release any toxic off-gassing when it burns (let's not find out).

Our Wicanders cork tiles are now here and will be laid later this week. I'm very excited! In the meantime, the kids are having a great time in the wide open spaces of our basement (view video below)...

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Ali Skiing Videos

As promised, here are some of the videos of Ali skiing in Meribel!! T and Mia were so excited and encouraging...

.

QUOTES OF THE DAY:

Today, July 1 2010 while driving through McD's drive through Terence and I got to talking about what a job at McD's would be like. I told him that my brother worked there and that was one of his first jobs. I explained how he was in charge of the french fries and used to come home with lots of grease burns. T told me that if he ever worked at McD's he wouldn't be able to work on the Big Mac assemblies as they would all end up disappearing. The Big Mac is his favorite!! He's not a french fry kind of guy, just a burger boy!

June 10, 2010. Ali has been a bit curious about dying lately. Fortunately, she doesn't remember anyone close to us that has died but she hears Mia and T sometimes talking about it. The other day, she came up to me very sad and said, "Mama, I don't want you to die." I told her that I don't want to die either and this is why I have to exercise and take care of myself so that I can stay alive and healthy longer. She nodded in agreement and then, while playing with my pink wallet on the table, she followed up with, "Mama, if you DO die, can I please have your wallet?" Glad she jumped back so quickly...

Today, May 24 2010, is a public holiday (Pentecost). Ali woke up - only at 9am - and since she had no idea of the time I reminded her that there was no school today. She smiled and said, "Yeah! I'm going to stay in my pjs ALL day". Later she asked me about the cat's birthday. I told her I did not know. She then asked me when Blue, our border collie's bday is. I told her it was in August. She smiled and said, "Let's have a birthday party for him. What kind of cake do you think we should make for his party?" We decided to make him a dog food cake! However, she is now trying to figure out if it is better to give him a cake with or without candles...

This Saturday morning (April 17, 2010) I am at home with Ali while Curt is doing the dance and football taxi service. My main responsibility is to work on our US visit travel schedule (flights, rental cars, hotels, etc.) It always takes a lot of coordination but it's all worth it as we love our summer returns to the US. Anyhow, I was telling Ali what I was doing and she asked me to remind her who we were going to see again. The main people I mentioned were Nana, Papa, Aunt Sally and Uncle Mike as these are the first people we will visit. I asked her what we should take to Nana for her birthday present. She thought for a second. Then, her eyes grew wide as she thought of a great idea. Her animated answer (she always uses lots of hand motions when talking - is that from me?) was, 'A nice hat, a scarf and if you have a dress that you out grow then we can take it for her!'. Funny little monkey... Don't worry Nana, I won't be bringing you any hand-me-downs! x o x o

Yesterday (Feb 24, 2010), while Ali went to visit her old nursery school, I took Terence and Mia for lunch before picking up T's new passport at the US embassy. There is this little cafe that I really love and they have great wraps, onion rings (I have a weakness for good onion rings), burgers, salads, smoothies, coffees, etc. Terence decided on a plain burger with onion rings and Mia decided on a bacon cheeseburger with onion rings. I got a smoothie and hoped for some bites of both of theirs... When the burgers arrived, they both lifted off the top bun and frowned. T grunted, "I asked for a plain burger. Not a burger with this sauce!" The sauce was sort of a 1000 island dressing type of tangy sauce. Mia pouted about this matter, too. I immediately got upset with them and told them not to judge it until they tried it. Then, I followed with, "you both need to become more adaptable." After a second of silence, Mia told me she was going to tell dad. I asked her to clarify and she told me that she was going to tell dad what I had said. Again, I asked her to clarify as I hadn't said anything rude or even a bad word (I sometimes have trouble with the latter). She then told me very angrily, "I'm going to tell dad that you want us to be adopted!" Adapted ... Adopted ... Pretty close!

During our ski trip to Schladming, Ali and I often spent some time together in the afternoon (after her morning ski school) drinking hot chocolate at the top in one of the restaurants. One afternoon she made a funny observation. Actually, she made 2 observations that went like this: "Ma!" she began. After I responded "yes", she asked me, "why are there some teenagers working here?" Before I had time to answer, she asked me another question. "And, why are there so many teenagers kissing?!" I looked around and there were 2 young couples nearby kissing... on the mouth! She was very interested. I answered to her that many teenagers worked when they were on break from school and regarding the teenagers that are kissing, they must love each other. She took this in and thought for a while. I told her that I'd like it if she also worked when she became a teenager and asked her what she thinks she'd like to do. The response has had us giggling for a few days. With little hesitation, she answered that she wanted to be a penguin when she was a teenager. I asked her where she would work as a teenager and who would pay her money. She thought for only a second and then answered, "the Four Seasons Hotel. They will pay me and I'll work there." I bit my tongue and asked her what she would do in the Four Seasons dressed as a penguin. She looked at me like I was an idiot and said, "Ma! I would swim!" She said this with a slight roll of her eyes like I was born yesterday. What else would a penguin in the Four Seasons be doing???

Just yesterday (Sept 18, 2009) I heard Ali saying to Mia, "drink me". I had to turn around and see what they were talking about. Mia was holding Ali's cup while she sipped out of it. Ali must have thought 'drink me' was the way to ask to be fed (?) a drink. We do say 'feed me' but what do we say if it's a drink item and not a food item?

The other day (early June 2009) the girls were taking a bath together and Mia blurted out "Oh Man" about something. Ali thought she was referring to her as a 'man' and shouted back at Mia, "Me not a MAN, me a LADY!" For obvious reasons I have never called her a 'lady' but she's somehow picked the word up. Loved how she defended herself as being a lady...

Yesterday, March 31st 2009, Terence, Ali and I were sitting at the table and talking. Terence made a joke about going to jail. After Ali laughed, I asked her if she knew what 'jail' was. She answered 'yes'. So, I asked her if jail was a place for good guys or bad guys. She correctly answered 'bad guys'. Then, I asked her, "How does Brigi call 'jail'"? I know this is correct but this is the way Ali would understand me asking how would she say 'jail' in Hungarian. Brigi, by the way, is her Hungarian nursery school teacher who she has a very close relationship with. Her answer to my question, "How does Brigi call jail?" was "with a telephone".... Very clever she is...

This afternoon (Jan 28, 2009) Ali pulled out a DVD and asked, 'we watch this when dada come home?' I looked at it and said, 'Ali, that's not a good one for you. It's a little scary.' (it was Men in Black II). She had recognized it and was ready with her quick reply: 'Don't worry (pronounced woowwee) Mama. Me cover my one eye with a pillow (piwwow).'

On Ali's birthday (Jan 24, 2009) while we were driving to Aquaworld, I turned around and offered the kids a stick of gum. I guess normally I / we say a 'piece' of gum. Curt then followed up with a joke asking if any of them wanted a 'stick of dynamite'. The girls were a bit confused but T, without missing a beat, said 'we can't buy dynamite, only people like miners can buy sticks of dynamite.' This is something he got out of one of his books that he loves to read. I believe it's the Richard Scarry What do People do All Day book that he has practically memorized and still goes to bed reading it and examining all the detailed pictures every night.

This morning (Jan 27, 2009) when we were hunting for Ali's shoes for school she looked outside and said, 'Mama, it's raining'. I turned to look out the window she was looking out and replied, 'Ali, I don't see rain'. She then followed up with something in Hungarian that I didn't understand. When I asked her to repeat it she looked at me, switched back to English and said 'It starts snowing after Halloween'. Not sure what this meant, why she said it, how she even remembered what Halloween was as that was ages ago in her little lifetime. Very sweet.

Mia's newest line (as of this first week in Sept 2008) is "I'm having the worst day ever". She's also been saying, "I feel like an idiot". She tends to say the latter when she's feeling a bit shy or lost for words. The first one is usually after she falls, stubs her toes, gets hurt or drops something. I have no idea where either lines have come from. Very funny to hear a 5 year old talk like this...

Every summer we take our 3 kids back to the US to re-familiarize (I'm sure this isn't a word...) them with their American roots. They were born in Europe and have only lived in Hungary their entire lives. Terence, our 7 year old, knows he's American. However, sometimes when he's asked 'Are you English?' he answers 'yes'. I think I've finally gotten it through to him that just because he speaks English doesn't mean he is English. In America (and several other countries), English is spoken... He now gets it and corrects people if they guess he's English. You may think that they would recognize his American accent but I think this misunderstanding usually happens when he is speaking Hungarian or French.

Mia, on the other hand, thinks we are Hungarian. When we were talking about Hungary beating America for the gold medal in water polo, she shouted out 'Yeah, we won!'. We had to explain that Hungary won and not America and we are American. She answered something about us living in Hungary which makes us Hungarian. Needless to say, she is a work in progress.

Then there is Ali who is only 2 1/2 and is still trying to not mix up English with Hungarian in her speech so she has no idea where she's from but will in time.

Anyhow, going back to our trips to the US. Curt and I like to give them an all-American cultural experience whenever we are in the US which includes baseball games, summer camp, carnivals, dunking machines, donuts, bagels, catching lightning bugs, looking for Cardinals and Blue Jays, spotting alligators in the lakes in Kiawah and this year a rodeo and a demolition derby. In addition to introducing our American favorite pastimes to them, we also have to teach them how to talk about it. For example, when our plane was landing in Kansas City on July 4th 2008 we had a perfectly clear day and could see everything. Terence looked out the plane's window and in his loud voice shouted to me, "Look at that baseball court mom!" I could hear heads turning wondering why the American accented boy who should be in at least his 3rd or 4th year of little league just called it a baseball 'court'. Well, that was at the beginning of our US summer trip... ;-)

Tonight (July 11, 2008) on our way home from the Sedgwick state fair (hee haw), Ali shouted from the back seat, "Mama, home now! Me tired!" It was about 9:30pm so way past her bedtime. I told her that we were on our way home (or at least Nana and Papa's) and would be there soon. I followed up with something about daddy is driving as fast as he can. Then, she shouted, "Dada, faster!" She is so funny and so expressive. It's funny to hear her bark her commands. And, when she is tired, she tells us....

This morning (June 24, 2008) as Mia was changing from her PJs to her school clothes I noticed her PJs had several holes in them. I mentioned it to Mia and suggested that maybe we just toss them in the garbage as it was so torn and damaged (plus small on her) that it wouldn't be easy to repair. Mia nodded her head in agreement but then asked me to do one favor for her. She asked, "Mama, can you please just toss them after I go to school? If I'm not here, I won't see it and then I can't get sad."

One morning while we were near Notre Dame in Paris (May 29, 2008), a group of school kids walked by where we were sitting. I heard T say to Liam, "Don't they sound like the kids at the French school?" Gee, I wonder why? haha

Two nights ago (around March 27, 2008) while Terence was getting ready for bed he said, "Mama, you know what?" He always begins his stories like this. After I asked 'what?' he proceeded by telling me the sweetest thing. He said, "I really like being a kid". I have no idea where this came from or why it occured to him at this point but I think it was really sweet. I know earlier in the evening his stomach was hurting him a bit and I was nurturing and taking care of him. I think maybe that is why he decided that being a kid and having a mom (and dad) take care of him when he needed it was okay!

Mia woke up crying 2 mornings ago. She was actually whimpering. I gently stroked her back and kissed her face while whispering in her ear "Mia, you're dreaming. Wake up. It's okay. I'm here. It's mama and I'm here". I repeated these soothing words over and over until she half opened her eyes and started mumbling. I leaned in to try and hear her better. I asked her what was upsetting her. She then said a bit more clearly, "The Easter Bunny pulled my hair!" Oh no. Poor Mia. "Why did the Easter Bunny pull your hair?". "He came in through the bedroom door and pulled my hair while I was sleeping in bed!" I reassured her that the Easter Bunny would NEVER do such a thing. I explained how gentle and giving good ole EB is. However, this morning (2 days later) she asked me how many 'night-nights' until Easter. I told her it was 2 weeks away (aka about 14 night-nights away). She then looked relieved and then asked me if she could get her hair cut short!!

I've been wanting to add another funny Mia quote that occurred over our New Year's (Dec 2007/Jan 2008) ski holiday. One night when Mia was having trouble falling asleep she crawled in between Curt and I as we were still awake talking. She explained that she couldn't fall asleep so we told her she could stay in our bed until she did. She closed her eyes for a couple of minutes and then started smacking herself in the head with both hands. I asked her what she was doing and she replied that she couldn't get it to stop. Curt and I were confused and asked her to elaborate. She said, 'I can't get the voices in my head to stop'. It was so funny as I immediately knew it was her thinking that was in her head. Curt asked her what the 'voices' were saying and she said it sounded like 'blah, blah, blah, blah, blah'. Curt couldn't resist by saying that he knew the feeling!

Last week (January 10, 2008) Mia came with me to the Indian Embassy in Budapest to pick up Curt's and my passports with Indian visas. She always makes me laugh as she's full of questions but never discreet. One of those kids that have to announce to an entire room that she has to go to the bathroom - even though she's only talking to me. While at the Indian Embassy she looked around at this new environment taking everything in. She had so many questions, "Mommy, what's that for?" or "Why is that over there?" She then noticed two paintings. At about the same time as she noticed them one of the consulates sat down next to her and said 'hi'. She returned the gesture with a shy 'hi' and then turned back to me to ask me who those people are in that painting. I had no clue and didn't want to embarrass myself in front of this Indian embassy employee. So, I asked him if he could answer my daughter's question. He looked at her and said, "That's our president". So then I showed Mia the map of India and told her that was the country we were going to. She returned her attention to the man and the woman in the painting and asked who the woman was assuming it was the man who was the president (reminder - she's still not 5 years old). The nice man had to explain that it was the woman who was the president and the man was the prime minister. Then Mia had to ask why the president had the red dot on her forehead and the prime minister had the pretty blue scarf (turban) on his head. She then saw a statue of Ghandi and asked me who he was. I knew that answer but had trouble explaining in 5 year old language why he was so famous. On and on and on she went... She had all the employees listening and entertained as not only was she interested but she was extremely complimentary. Many kids would say, 'that's weird or strange' but Mia found it all interesting and beautiful. They loved that she thought the turban was pretty, the red dot looked nice on the president and in another very Indian photo the traditionally dressed Indian woman looked so pretty with her gold bangles, henna covered hands, and gold outfit. Phew, I was on the edge of my seat nervous she would say something that might not be so kind. Instead she left them all with a smile on their faces and a very proud mom!

Yesterday (Nov 23, 2007) Terence came up to me and said, "Mom, I know America is one of the newest countries in the world but which is the oldest?" I said, "I'm not really sure but what do you think?" This kid is too much. He replied, "I'm not sure either but I would guess China." Not sure if this is right or wrong but it amazes me that he can even come up with something that is a really good guess. Will google it tonight for sure! If anyone knows, please send me the answer.

Last night (Oct 19, 2007) Terence asked me the loaded question: Do we come back to earth after we die? We spent a long time after the girls went to bed talking about it. I explained how different people believed different things and what I believe is that we do. He then asked me if we'd still come back as a family. I realized he had tears in his eyes with worry that he'd have to be part of another family so I answered 'yes'.

Terence asked me the other day why so many ants were eating our tree. He asked how they got onto our property when we have a fence all around it.

In first grade Terence is working on days of the week and months of the year. I asked him to recite what he's learned in French. After he said the days of the week perfectly I asked if he knew them in English. He couldn't think of them but suddenly I heard Mia's voice without hesitation say, 'Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday... etc'

Ali's word of the day was purple yesterday. Okay, so it didn't really sound like purple but it did sound like 'poopoa'. We were both wearing purple shirts and I pointed it out to her. That's how she repeated it after me.