Snow Fun

Yesterday started out pretty yucky. We had freezing rain and hail. Lots of fun for driving Katie to school & Anna to work. However, by the time VJ & I made it back home it had changed to snow! By late morning we were able to go out and play in the snow for the very first time.

Katie had been in school all day and because of the weather they had indoor recess so she did not know that it snowed until I picked her up from school. I wish you could have seen her excitement. She went on and on about what fun we were going to have when we got home.

Today it warmed up so we have a nice muddy backyard.

Here are some more pictures from the past few days.

Buying a Car

So this weekend we went and looked at new cars. Buying a car in the US is so much fun, you know that I could not wait to go car shopping here. Luckily Anna did most (all) of the research, with some help from the folks at ExxonMobil.

As we've been driving around Budapest, we have been checking out the different types of cars and discussing their pros and cons. However, this all stopped when I saw the perfect vehicle for us:

Now, I know what your thinking. It's an ugly gray Van. It's also a Mercedes which puts it well above our price range and it's actually listed as a Light Commercial Vehicle. But it has one quality that no other vehicle can match. It's name. Let's zoom in and check it out:

The name of the car is the VITO. Which is, as we all know, the best name EVER. Those of you who have made the mistake of asking me why I don't have a middle name have already heard my feelings on this matter (the short of it is, when your first name is already the BEST name that there is, any middle name can only be a let down).

Now Anna was reluctant to go along with the Mercedes Vito as our first choice for a car for all the reasons I stated above. However, I have a strict policy that anything with my name on it, I must buy it. I should note however that this is the first time that this policy has ever been in danger of being enforced since the people who make mugs and pencils and bicycle license plates, etc. don't recognize the preeminence of my name. (One of the coolest gifts I ever got was a rubber stamper that had my name in a rocket ship. I'm pretty sure my mom had to special order it. If I ever get my scanner working I'll scan in a copy of it as I know you are all dying to see it).

Any way, cooler minds (Anna's) prevailed and we bought a Toyota Corolla hatchback. And when I say bought I really mean ordered as we won't receive it until about March 8th, which is actually quite fast for Europe. The buying process was not that bad as the one car salesman that spoke English was going on vacation the next day and the fact that he was too busy trying to wrap all his work up (& that the new model year is being released over here in March) meant that he was too busy to screw us too much.

We're Moving Again

At first we thought our new house was wonderful. And in most ways it is. It is really big by Budapest standards. The living room is HUGE with tons of room for the kids' toys. The kitchen is cool and our bedrooms are a good size. I like the location (OK it could be a little closer to Katie's school) and the 24 security was an attraction when you don't know the city that well.

However, one big problem has come up. There's this black cat that keeps coming around. No pets are allowed in our complex so I have no idea if it's a stray or what. It seems friendly enough but everyone knows that cats are evil. Black cats especially so. I can't be having the devil's minion coming around the house all the time so our only choice is to move.

Huge living room. On the right of the picture you can see part of the large area where the kids play.

One downside to the house is that there's no separate area for a kitchen table so we have to eat every meal at our dining room table. This has given Anna a little bit of heartburn as she loves her dining room furniture and we have to watch out for Katie-the Ketchup Queen (guess which chair is Katie's...I'll give you a hint...it's the one with the towel draped over it).

Playground Fun

The kids love the playground that's (relatively) near our house. I like it because there's a fence all the way around it so no worries about running into the road. Here's a few pics from last week.

The see-saw is Katie's favorite. She laughs at me when I call it a teetor-totter.

We Resume Our Broadcast Day

After an agonizing delay, we have finally gotten the internet connection up and running at our house. I wish I could tell you what the delay was, but since I don't speak Hungarian I have no one to yell at about it. The most I could get out of the maintenance guy for the complex was "2-3 days." I stopped believing him after the second week.

You don't know what a relief it is to be able to know what is going on in the world. The free satellite TV in our house sucks. Well, that's not fair. It actually looks pretty good for free TV but if only I could speak German. It doesn't seem to bother the kids as they will watch German Disney Channel with no complaints. VJ & I watched "Der Schlumps" the other day. You may know them as "The Smurfs." It was actually pretty funny to hear the Smurfs speaking German, but a little of that goes a long way.

I was speaking to my Dad one day and he asked if I had heard that Anna Nicole Smith had died. I told him that I had no TV & no Internet, so unless she had died in my living room I would not know about it.

The internet was hooked up yesterday afternoon, which worked out for the kids since they only got ignored for half a day. After doing general maintenance (reading email, downloading virus protection updates, etc.) I immediately went to iTunes and bought the 2 "Grey's Anatomy", 3 "Heroes" & 3 "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" that we had missed. Because when I say "know what's going on in the world" I of course mean the TV world.

In retrospect, it worked out that we didn't have the internet for a month since "Grey's" started a 3 part episode arc and parts 1 & 2 both ended in a cliffhanger (and what a cliffhanger!). And we only have to wait until Friday to download part three. So there's your silver lining.

That's it for now. I'll hopefully be making a few more posts over the next few days as well as responding to emails and surfing the web for all those important things I've been missing...like the Superbowl commercials. Luckily Katie is off from school this week and she knows how to work the DVD player all by herself.

Traveling to Guatemala

OK, so I am in Guatemala and I can tell you that after traveling for 23 hours, I don't really care how nice it is. Not really, it is gorgeous, about 75 degrees, not at all humid, sunny.

The most interesting part of the trip was filling out all of the customs and immigration forms. I felt like such an idiot, because everything was different. As I briefly passed through the US - what a nice chance to hear English, and American English no less, I actually had to claim my luggage, go through immigration and customs, and then re-check my luggage.

The worst part of the trip was London. The security people were pretty rude, that I was only allowed one carry-on bag - and that I had to shove my purse into my already packed laptop case. It only marginally fit - but as soon as I passed security, I pulled it out again.

And, hopefully, this post will satisfy our readers - at least for a little while. Vito should be getting the DSL connection at the house this week, but don't hold your breath.

Laundry

Well, one of our first priorities after getting into the house was to get a washer and dryer. After doing some comparison shopping - not easy to do with the features in Hungarian, we decided on a Whirlpool set. Vito purchased on Tuesday and asked for delivery on Wednesday. He also got an adapter to stack the units - because he thought they would not fit side by side - he was still applying American dimensions - they fit just fine.

Now, Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, he tries to contact the delivery guys to confirm the time. Vito cannot get through until Wednesday morning, at which time he realizes the guy doesn't speak English.

So, Vito calls me and asks if I can have my admin call the delivery guy to see what time they are coming. Luckily, my admin is great and she gets confirms it will be delivered between 11 -12. Perfect.

Then, Vito tries to read the instructions and again is challenged. I try to find English manuals on-line, but no luck. But, luckily, when I get home, we find the English section - hidden in the back.

Then, I find the program guide and holy cow. A standard load of wash will take about 2 hours to run and clean about 1/2 the amount of clothes. Then, the dryer is a condensing dryer. Which means we have to empty the water that is extracted after every load.

Needless to say, we do laundry all the time.

Food, Glorious Food!

First of all, I have to say that my kids are great. They have been fantastic through this whole move process. Of course, seeing their toys again and being able to play with them with plenty of space after six weeks of deprivation does not hurt.

We are settling in. I do not yet have pictures - don't want to scare people off from coming to visit by seeing the house in its current state. Hoepfully this week we will be able to post some.

The best part of being at the house is cooking our own food, eating at our table and most importantly, being able to play while dinner is being prepared.

Of course, the first meal (Saturday night) was something simple - salad, spaghetti and garlic bread. You would have thought that was a 5-star gourmet meal. The kids loved it - almost licked their plates clean - and Vito and I were not too far off from that either.

We had eggs for breakfast on Sunday, which was heaven for me, since we have not had them since we left the US. I was definitely going through withdrawal.

Last night, Monday, I made salad, sauted chicken breast, roasted potatoes and peas. In starts Katie, pointing to the potatoes saying "I don't like that." Too bad, I say, you are having some. Now, as dinner progresses, Katie asks for more chicken. I do a double-take. My children are good eaters, but not so much with the meat. And certainly never seconds - unless it is chicken nuggets - and usually not even then. So, we proceed to give her a little bit more. She finishes all of the second portion and proceeds to ask for more. Now, I ask her "When did you start to like chicken? In the last six weeks?" She says, with all of her now ever-present sarcasm, "No, for the last 100 weeks?" I think to myself, "Yeah, right." but let it drop. Who am I to complain that my child likes chicken?

And the Winner is...

Every Friday morning, Katie's school has an all school assembly. They make announcements, sing songs, recognize birthdays, welcome new students and say good-bye to ones that are leaving. Parents are welcome to attend and for the past two weeks VJ and I have. We skipped today so that we could get to the house and continue to unpack.

So naturally it's the day that Katie won a prize.

The Kindergarten classes have been studying transportation. One of the classes made some graph about transportation based upon some surveys that all the students filled out (I'm a little fuzzy on the details). By filling out the survey you were entered in a drawing for "a prize". Today Katie was one of three students whose names were drawn. She won a Children's Thesaurus. She was so excited it was the first thing she told me about when I picked her up this afternoon.

I can't believe we missed it.

Moving Day

The movers came and delivered all our stuff on Thursday! They assembled the beds and bookshelves and unpacked 90% of the boxes. Anna & I spent Thursday afternoon and all day Friday finishing the unpacking and finding places for everything. We officially check out of the hotel tomorrow (Saturday).

VJ was there with us while the movers did their thing and all day today. He was EXCELLENT. Not Good, not Very Good, EXCELLENT. On Thursday he sat for most of the day in the kitchen watching the portable DVD player (which, let me tell you, is worth it's weight in gold). He listened, he helped out, he stayed out from under foot.

Both of the kids were wildly crazy to see all of our stuff. And not just their toys. Our couches, their beds and their Disney cups all got excited welcomes.

Most of Anna's time was spent getting the kitchen together. Our new kitchen, which is a very good size by Budapest standards, is about a 1/2 of the size of our kitchen back in Houston.

The kid's rooms are actually bigger than they had before and we have used the extra room to put more of their toys in their room since we no longer have a game room.

The blog will not be updated as often until we arrange for internet access at the house, but Anna will be checking our email when she is at work. As soon as I get connected again, I will post more pictures!