Happy Birthday to L!

Larry's birthday was this past Friday.  

So is Logan's.  

We got an amazing surprise text message on Friday night.  That kicked us into high gear and a short 10 hours later, we were on a plane heading to Houston.  A few hours after landing, we were heading to the hospital to meet this little fellow.  

Logan Michael

And late last night, we got to hug his sweet birthparents one more time and thank them for this incredible gift.  We're so excited to celebrate his addition to our lives and are overwhelmed at God's goodness!

Stay tuned for more details (and a ton of pictures) to come!  We can't wait to share more about how God brought us to this place.

So Happy Birthday to both our L's.  We love them very much!

Silverstein!

Chelsea's class pet is a stuffed snake named Silverstein. She had the honor of bringing him home a couple of weeks ago. She was very excited and showed him all around the house. 

They did pull ups,

played hockey,

went sledding,

built a snowman,

and finally went to sleep.

 It was a busy day for Silverstein!

Snowy Sightseeing

 We were so excited to welcome Philip, Patsy, and Travis to Budapest a couple of weeks ago!  They picked the coldest week of the winter to come, but it didn't stop us from heading out and seeing the sights.

 We couldn't all fit in my car, so they got very familiar with our public transportation routes.

            One day, it snowed and snowed and snowed, so we called it a snow day and stayed in.

                                               Cade gave instructions on shoveling the snow!

                                                Travis was the expert snowman builder.

They spoiled us with lots of yummy Valentine candy from home.  Larry and Cade fought over the giant Reese's hearts.  It was a great week of spending time together and we are so thankful they came!

Snow Days

After a dry winter, we have finally gotten good snow the past couple of weeks. It has been perfect - plenty to play in, but not enough to disrupt our normal routine. Cade loves it this year and doesn't fight putting on his snow gear. He is turning into a daredevil and loves our backyard sled path. 

It's never too early to teach the skill of snow-shoveling

Building a snowman takes team work!

                         We had fun with some special visitors..Travis was an expert snowman builder!

After some high winds, Mr. Snowman was doing the limbo.

                                                                     I like snowballs!

A Wild Day

On our second day in Bratislava, we visited the local zoo. We were about the only people there!   It was a large zoo with lots of hungry animals and a fun dinosaur park at the back. 

Here are the dinosaurs - where are the people? It felt a bit like Jurassic Park.  

 After visiting the dinosaurs, we made our way to the monkey house. They were the only animals that appeared to have had a recent renovation and they actually had a really nice monkey house.  They hung out right by the glass and seemed to enjoy the interaction.

What are you looking at?

Cutest baby monkey ever. Fascinating to watch.                                      

We had already visited the tigers once, but stopped back by on our way out. They were all inside and had just been fed. We have seen the tiger feedings at the Houston zoo, where they get a nice slab of meat that looks like it came from the local grocery store. 

Here, the tigers got a nice leg of some poor animal - fur, hooves, and all. The circle of life, I guess! 

Legs laying everywhere - yuck!                                

The tigers liked them. 

Mr. Lion was beautiful, and mad that he didn't have a leg to eat.
He was inside a tiny enclosure and roaring...it shook the room! Amazing animals. 

We got back to Budapest and headed straight to a birthday party at our zoo. At the party, the kids got to feed the elephants. How fun is that? Cade was super brave and said, "It's not scary." Chelsea loved it, too!

Giving apples to the elephant. 

One day - 2 zoos - 2 different countries. 

Devin Castle

On the way to the zoo, we stopped at Devin Castle. It is a really, really, really old castle in Bratislava

                                       

          

We hiked up to the gates, took a quick look around and decided we were good and didn't need to go any further. Much of it was closed for renovations, except there was a sign saying they ran out of money so they stopped the renovations. Funny.