Wednesday Afternoon Fun

Had an afternoon with 9 kids yesterday. It wasn't a straight forward 'hang out and play' sort of day as T had tennis from 12 - 1pm; Mia had dance from 12-2pm then a bday party from 3-5:30pm; Ali was in nursery school until 3:30pm when she came home with Keira; Liam had a party from 3-5:30pm; Riley had a party from noon-7pm; Fiona came with her trio and left them with us for 2 1/2 hrs while she went house hunting with a realtor (in our area)... So, it was a lot of in and out but it was lots of fun and the kids all had a home base from 1pm - 9:30pm! Our 3 kids were the only (out of the 9) to have to wake up for school this morning. Tomorrow is their last day so we are dragging...

Anyhow, it was a fun day. Again, my video didn't work. I took a great one of 4 of the boys (T, Tom, Liam and Riley) playing this fun game on the trampoline where 2 were on it and 2 were outside on the ground. They'd have to throw the soccer ball back and forth and counted points for every time the ball hit the ground. It was great to watch and I wish I could have shared the video. Oh well, next time...

The kids ate pizza, played a ton and managed to get in the hot tub for a long time (before the rain storm started at about 8:30pm). Then, they all moved in to play video games and / or watch a movie.

Crazy Last Week in Budapest

This has been the busiest week in Budapest ever. Not only is it our last week at school (for Terence and Mia) but it's our last week in Budapest before our 2 month long holiday to the US. So, there is lots to fit in...

On Monday, Mia's class invited the parents for a picnic from 11:30am. Since the weather was cold and rainy we had to remain indoors. Her class performed some lovely songs and stories for us then we sat together and ate lunch. After the kids danced, shared cakes, etc. I took 2 videos but for some reason they were corrupt and didn't work... bummer. Therefore, the only 2 snaps I have are these from her class. The first is her posing and the second is her and some of her classmates with their teacher Agnes. They were getting ready to do another song...

After school, Mia, Ali and I went to visit Linda and her new baby, Matilda, while T went and played with Liam in the afternoon.

Linda is the daughter of Marcsi (the owner of the Heidi nursery school) and the sister of Brigi. Both Linda and Brigi teach at the nursery school. This is Linda's first baby with her husband Szabolcs. Little Matilda was 2 weeks old when we finally got to go and visit her on Monday. The girls loved seeing her but Mia especially wanted to hold and cuddle her. She loves babies!

This is Linda with little Matilda.

lots of cuddles and also present opening time. Mia, Ali and their friend, Keira, all helped Linda open the baby presents.

Camp for Mia

Over the weekend Mia went to camp with her Dance Craze Academy group. The theme of the camp was High School Musical and they went out to Lake Velence (about 1 hour outside of Budapest) from Saturday 9am - Sunday 5pm. Her BFF, Keira, is in town visiting so she went to the camp too. Here are some photos of them getting picked up with the bus on Saturday morning. They came home Sunday shattered but full of fun stories about bicycling, swimming, painting, baking, dancing (of course) and they even had a disco party on Saturday night.

He's Finally 21!!

These are 'Happy Birthday' banners in our entrance way....

Steve is finally 21. I know he had a fab time in Prague but we needed to celebrate Clements' style and give him a proper meal and homemade dessert to really celebrate numero 2 . 1 . He returned today - on Father's Day - to Budapest so he got an invitation over to our home for a full birthday spread: apricot dijon chicken, roasted potatoes, salad, homemade bread rolls,

So here it is.

Champagne . . . and wine . . .

And, home made cake with home made chocolate frosting....



I love how he cut it like a pizza...

Ali's Friends

Every morning (M-F) while Ali waits for Marcsi to pick her up with the Heidi Ovoda (nursery school) bus, she tries to figure out which of her doo-doos (kids picked up this word at the French school - it sort of means cuddly animal) she will take with her for the day. Fortunately none of our kids have ever been attached to one comfort doo-doo (ie blanket, cuddly animal, pacifier, etc). I don't think it would work in our household as too much seems to always go missing and / or temporarily lost. We have been lucky with their flexibility in this sense and have always tried to dissuade them from ever getting attached to one thing. We've seen too many cases with friends when their child's attached item went missing and their child's whole world collapses. Actually, one of the girls' favorite books is Knuffle Bunny (we also have Knuffle Bunny Too) and it's about this topic exactly... Anyhow, I'm off on a tangent... as always...

It's funny to watch what doo-doo Ali decides to take for the day to school. Recently she's been attached to this rubbery lizard which we picked up in Kiawah 2 summer's ago. It's a favorite toy for the pool as it's rubbery and you can throw it far. The kids love throwing it and swimming after it...

Ali recently found it, slept with it for about 3 nights in a row and took it along to school for a couple of days. It didn't last but it was pretty funny while it did. A rubbery lizard is probably not a favorite 'doo-doo' for most 3 year old girls!

PS She now loves hair bands (even though she calls them by their Hungarian word which I cannot remember right now). They are the best at keeping her massive amounts of hair out of her pretty face. However, we will be getting it all cut off before our big trip to the US this summer...

My Green Thumb

After 7 years of living in our home, I finally figured out which window / area of the house to put my orchids in to get them to rebloom!! I'm now rotating them around so when they lose their flowers they get sent up to the front window or T's bedroom window (he's so excited that they like to rebloom in his room) until they get buds. Then, they are brought back into the family room for us to all enjoy (bottom right).

The other flower which I have not moved but is very happy to rebloom on it's own is a beautiful Medinilla. I had never heard of these before but loved it when I saw it. When I bought it (about 1 1/2 years ago) it had a few of these big heavy flowers hanging off of it. The flowers, like the orchids, stayed in bloom for a long time. However, once they died off, the plant, again like the orchid, that remained was not so pretty. I'm so thrilled that it has another flower on it that we are all enjoying. Even the kids get excited when our flowers - both indoor and outdoor - rebloom.



Curt and I recently found a Dogwood tree at the plant nursery. We are so excited as they remind us of the states when we were kids. You don't see many Dogwood trees around here. We've planted the gorgeous tree (about 5 ft tall) and hope that it'll be happy in our garden for years to come....

Two Fun Videos

Just a glimpse at some fun to come. Terence and Mia were in the same end of year French school olympics day. They do it every year yet this was Mia's first year as they never offered it to the younger grades. This was T's 3rd year at Olympics.

They had three grades together so Mia was the youngest group and T was the oldest group. They mixed the teams (I think there were about 8 total) with kids from all three classes so they were somewhat even. I absolutely loved the tug-of-war competition. It's always been one of my favorite activities to watch or participate in... I just loved watching them and can watch these videos of them over and over again. I'm posting these first and will post the rest of the fantastic photos and videos sometime in the very near future (this is the 'fun to come' part).

The first one is Mia's group who gave it a great effort but ended up losing after a tough struggle. She's in the blue jumper in the middle.

Here is T's group. He was in the front and you can tell he tried really hard. You can hear all the parents cheering them on and shouting 'Allez' in French. This means 'Go!' or 'let's go'. The French women that I play tennis with usually say 'allez' when we are starting a new game to pump themselves up...

The great thing was that several moms came up to me to compliment me on T's strength, coordination and athleticism. For those of you that know him know that he's never been a really strong or coordinated athlete despite having two athletic parents. However, I'm starting to see him slowly improving and developing. This makes me very happy...

His hands were burning after that long tug!

Sunday in Somlo

Last weekend we went back to our favorite little get away: Sue and Peter's vineyard in Somlo. We went up with our long time friends, the McGanns, who are back in town from Tampa, FL.

I am starting backwards... On Sunday we went to Veronika's first communion party. As there was a big crowd of us, we opted to skip the early morning church part and instead join them for lunch and the after party celebration. Veronika is the daughter of Laci and Rita who have now become great friends. Their family of 4 (Veronika has an older brother) live in Somlo and take care of the Tatrallyay's and the Neider's (and a few other's) vinyards. They are one of the loveliest families around! Here is our joyful Sunday with them.

The above shots are of the girls (Ali and Mia with their BFF, Keira) all ready to go and the adults, below, all dressed up for the party.

Below is Veronika - neither she or any of her family members speak English so it's great practice for us and the kids.

Food and drinks. Above is Curt with Peter and in the back is Bill and Laci (back right). Below T is with his buddy Liam (10 yrs old) enjoying all the delicious home made Hungarian foods.

Lovely Rita must have cooked for a week. My favorite was her walnut cake (top left). The top right is Rita with me and Kerry.

Curt is always so good at playing with the kids. He played 2-on-2 kick ball with Terence, Liam and Riley (12 1/2 yrs old and in the red above between Curt and T).

A typical well in a Hungarian home's garden. Above right is Peter and Sue.

THEN, Laci pulled out Old Betty. This is what I nicknamed the big red tractor that everyone had a turn riding. The funny part was that instead of just letting everyone have a ride, he set up obstacle courses for each driver to go forward through and then reverse through. The kids did it in 1st gear but the adults had to do it in FULL speed. Very funny for all of us...

T went first and did a great job.

Mia also rocked it and handled it much better than I would have thought. However, the video of her is not working for some reason but I do have the below still shot.


Then, it was Curt's turn. Peter was running to close the gate as Bill drove it prior to Curt and ran into it several times as he couldn't figure out the brake (was required with the clutch). Peter didn't want anyone else making the same mistake. The gate withstood the Old Betty but his car probably wouldn't have... PS Curt managed to avoid hitting the gate...

I love taking our kids up there for old-fashioned fun. No video games, TV, electronics. It was another fantastic weekend in the beautiful Hungarian countryside.

Mia's Dance Recital

Last Sunday morning was Mia's end of year dance recital through her dance group called DCA (Dance Craze Academy). This is her 2nd year there and I cannot say she's a super dancer nor is it her absolute passion but she does have a lot of fun. She has a lot of friends in her dance group plus she's made loads of friends (it's in English so a lot of English speaking friends) through the program.

I didn't take the first 2 photos but they were sent to me by Wendy who has a daughter in the younger aged group. Wendy's hubby, Carl, is a manager in our cargo division.

She doesn't have a rash... All the girls wore pink and sparkly make up for the show.


Here are several short video clips of some of the performances she was in.

After the performance she received her certificate from the dance instructors.

This is the entire group on stage. On the back wall is this year's theme: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.

They've Arrived

Curt's nephew Steve and his buddy Eric are taking their summer break and spending it in and around Hungary. They arrived on Tuesday and have had a great introduction so far into Budapest day and night life. Today we move them into their new flat near the Margit Bridge.

Steve is in the above photo on the right

T's Saturday Tournament

This weekend was very busy with Mia's dance recital on Sunday and T's football (or Soccer back in the US) tournament on Saturday. He plays for the French league and this Saturday's tournie was against 3 other teams: the AISB (American International School of Budapest), ISB (International School of Budapest) and the BISB (British International School of Budapest). T's age group got the 2nd place medal. Or, so he thinks. Curt watched only for an hour then had to run some errands. He came to get me and Ali so we could come to watch him but we only caught the last 20 - 30 minutes of his final game. At least we made it for the awards ceremony. As these things always become a social event for parents - especially when we don't see each other all the time - I missed the announcement but T confirmed it was the 2nd place (bronze) medal.

We were lucky with the weather as it's been raining on and off all weekend. As soon as we got in our car it started to rain but it was the perfect temperature all morning during his tournament. He had to be there on Saturday morning from 8:30am which was not easy as he had a friend spend the night and they whispered and giggled up in his room until far too late. They finished their tournament at about 1pm.

Here are the photos of the awards ceremony.

Waiting for their medals.

Another one to add to his collection. He loves these things and must have about 7 or 8 from football and skiing. He still doesn't have any from tennis or any other sports but I am assuming he may start playing in tennis tournaments next year.

His team. Not sure why they wore different color jerseys. I think maybe they had two teams in their category...

The AISB campus. It's by far the nicest in Budapest and they keep building on to it! Not only is it the nicest but it's also the priciest at about 18,000USD / year / child. This is even from grade 1.

2 more... This is T later in the day after he and Curt got home from the store. He slept in the car (we opened all the doors of course) in the drive for almost an hour!