Some Things Will Never Change

Some things just never change. My hubster is nearly 50 and he still prefers lying on the floor to work, watch TV, etc. Must remember to get some bean bags for our home in Budapest. It simply doesn't matter how comfortable our sofas are, he just prefers the floor. Love this photo of him with our dog, Blue (9 years old) and the roaring fire. Temps outside in Budapest now are high teens / low 20s celsius but we do love (and miss) our fires...

Birthday Marathon week

Hello. I'm BACK! After a very long break from blogging, I have returned and am happy to be back journaling our family's life and where-abouts...

The long break has not been at all intentional. Life has kept all of us busier than ever. Curt and I are working many, many hours but, at the same time, loving it. The kids are busy with school, making new friends, exploring this incredible city and taking part in many new, fun activities.

On top of all of this, we have visitor after visitor after visitor after... I think you get my point. It's been a great pleasure and many of my Dubai friends have told me that this is a very popular destination for friends and family to visit. Especially at this time of year as the weather is perfect!

Our visitors have so far included: Julie (Curt's cousin), friends Sue and Peter, my dear, dear friend Kim and her family and then Curt's parents and 2 sisters. We have only 1 week in our home alone. But, if you know my personality, I love playing hostess of the mostest. Last night was our first night with no visitors and we ended up having company for dinner! So, I'm not one to ever rest...

Next visitors on the agenda for February and March are: Curt's fantastic Uncle Tim, our Hungarian friend and tennis coach (for kids) Bea - she's coming for 10 days for the Dubai Open, my sista (like a sister because I love her SO much) Nicola and her family, the kids' French tutor and our friend Rafael and his cousin. After that I am hoping we'll get a visit from my kind, handsome brothers and our dear, dear friend (and Ali's godmother) Margaret. The best part about Bea and Rafael visiting over the next month is the kids will have to be practicing their Hungarian (with Bea) and French (with Rafael)!

Okay - so the birthday weekend has just come to an end. For those of you that know us well, know that this week in January is crazy with 3 Clements' birthdays. Mia was on Jan 22 (8), Ali was on Jan 24 (5) and Curt just turned 46 on Jan 26. It was a busy, fun-filled weekend and we were oh so pleased to have Curt's parents and 2 sisters here to help us celebrate each one.

Here is a photo of each during their special days:

Mia's birthday - per her request - was to the Old Souk in old Dubai and then on an Abra on the Dubai Creek followed by the movies. There was a big group of us that took up nearly 2 rows in the movie theater. Here she is at the front of our 50 dirham private Abra (there were 10 of us).

2 carloads of family went to pick Ali up from school on Monday, Jan 24th. Curt surprised her with these 2 helium balloons. At first, I thought he got the letter S but then realized it was the number 5! She was so thrilled and I got a snap of her in front of her school holding them. More on her birthday afternoon as that has to be a blog post all to it's own!

Then, last but not least, was my very handsome husband on Wed, Jan 26th. We both worked until about 7ish and came home to Curt's mom's famous homemade mac n cheese! It was delicious and flavorful with hidden peppers and other yummy ingredients. I hope to have the recipe soon. We tossed a huge salad, some broccoli and lots of delicious Australian red shiraz vino. We filled up our table with friends and family and had a lovely, chilled evening. Here he is with little Ali (and her balloon) waiting on the birthday cake.

Our Move One Dubai office

Just a few photos of our lovely office in the Greens area of Dubai. We moved in over the summer and it's so nice being in a new, modern office. Curt and I are both working Sunday - Thursday every week. Long hours and new challenges but loving every minute of it.

More soon.... just been so incredibly busy.

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.

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!

Waterfield's Visit Back Budapest

Our good friends, Sarah and David, came back to Budapest over the weekend for a visit. They have recently been relocated to Bucharest, Romania due to David's job. Since they left (over a year ago), they have had a recent addition to their family. Little James was born in the fall of 2009 so we were all excited to meet him. It was great having them back, even if it was only for a short time. Saturday night felt like old times. We got together at the Lea's for dinner and had a great time catching up, laughing, cuddling with baby James and eating a fab curry dinner.

David had to fly out early on Sunday for work but the rest of us enjoyed another day with Sarah and their two sons, Tom and James, at the Corinthia Grand Hotel for a wonderful brunch.

Here are the photos from our soiree on Saturday night.

Above: the boys. probably all talking work... David is in the middle.

Dinner shots

Me having a cuddle with James. This is a self portrait, if you couldn't already tell...

Below he is getting cuddles from mom, Sarah, and daddy, David

We miss you Waterfields! We hope to see you back in Budapest, Romania or UK sometime in the next few months!!

Random Past Photos

It seems we have so many cameras now. I have a couple digital cameras, Mia has one, Terence has one and we have a Flip camera. It would be a full time job for someone to download all the snaps we take, organize them, post them, print them, etc. I wish it could be my full time job but unfortunately my plate is already pretty full.

After a recent glimpse at one of our camera's memory cards, I found these two photos that I took in Dec 2009.

I love the first one of the girls playing with my hats. They look so cute and little Ali still has her broken finger all bandaged up...

The one below was taken of Curt and I on our wedding anniversary on 12-12. It has become tradition for us to spend our anniversary in a downtown hotel. This year we stayed in the Kempinski where my good friend's husband is the managing director. We reserved a standard room but were pleasantly surprised to be upgraded into the top suite with a complimentary bottle of champagne, some chocolates and some fresh fruit. It's nice having friends in high places...

We enjoyed the afternoon in the city. I love downtown Budapest so much. I find it to be a very romantic city. We enjoyed our walk down Vaci utca to one of our favorite lunch spots of Trattoria Toscana. Here's a photo of us on our walk down Vaci.

Happy Belated Birthday to Curt

On Tuesday, January 26th Curt had his mid-40 something birthday... We were in Dubai and at one of our company conference evenings. As his birthday falls on Australia day, we had (not for the first time) an Australian themed evening. The evenings event took place at the Meridien Village Terrace in Le Meridien Hotel in Dubai. It was an all you can eat bbq / buffet with an Australian theme - lots of lamb, seafood (I enjoyed all the sashimi, oysters, etc), pork (an unusual food item in the UAE), and also some unique items like kangaroo and ostrich.

With a crowd of 30 +, it is always hard to find a food type that satisfies everyone's taste but this did the job. Everyone was able to chose and taste whatever they wanted and have as much of it as they wished. We kept Curt's birthday low key as he had wished. Him and I had quite a few birthday toasts throughout the evening and figured out that this was his 13th birthday since we had met. Time sure does fly when you are having fun!!

As I had mentioned before, Curt stayed on in Dubai for about 5 more days after my return home. He arrived home Wednesday evening to a nice Thai Beef Curry followed by his favorite, Angel Food Cake. The kids and I wrapped up his presents and had a belated birthday party. I only took a few photos of the end of the evening. I really like how this first one turned out of all 3 kids standing by his side waiting patiently to help him blow out his birthday candles (only 12 - no significance other than that is what we had on hand).

Happy Birthday to the best hubby and daddy any family could wish for.... thanks for always making us laugh and bringing out the best in all of us....