Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Texas Tidbits

After leaving Florida, we all headed to Texas and then Larry came back to Budapest. He was flying in style, so we didn't feel too sorry for him going back and forth. We did miss him, though!  While he was away, we filled our days with family and friends and food and fun!!! 

Roughing it across the Atlantic

Some highlights...
Lots of laughs, water play, and swimming, including swim lessons for Cade

 Golf camp for Chelsea and going golfing with Papa - so special. 

Fun day for all at the Woodlands Children's Museum

 Celebrating July 4th and watching fireworks

Other highlights with no pictures...VBS for the big kids, trip to Harlingen and Schlitterbahn, time with all of the kids birth families, Logan learning to walk and say more words, food, shopping, friends, family...it always goes fast but we always have the best time! Lots of love to our Texas peeps!




Sunday, July 28, 2013

Two Magical Days

We spent our last 2 days in Florida at Magic Kingdom with just our little family. To be honest, I really wasn't looking forward to it. We usually go in the off season, so crowds plus hot didn't sound so fun to me. :) But, we had the best (sweaty) time! I used the website Ridemax and I would highly recommend it! We never waited more than 15-20 minutes for anything, which helped everyone stay happy. Legoland was pretty strict with their height requirements, even on seemingly baby rides. Magic Kingdom was great because we could ride almost everything together as a family, or use rider swap for the few things that Logan couldn't ride.



Ready for the new Little Mermaid ride!


On our second day, we took a mid day nap break and returned to the park at dinner time. At that point, the crowds were down and we were able to last until the 11 pm Electric Lights Parade. Little man conked out, but the rest of us enjoyed it!
Our new favorite thing was Enchanted Tales with Belle. The kids each got to be a character and perform with Belle, and then have their picture taken with her at the end. It was so precious!!! 

Such a fun week, then off to Texas!!

Legoland Florida


While in Florida, we spent a day with my sis and her fam at Legoland Florida. The kids all had a fun time and loved spending the day together! 



The whole sweaty gang - it was super hot!!!





Friday, July 26, 2013

More Florida Family Fun

The main reason for our Florida trip was to visit my grandfather, Pappy, and his wife, Lois. 
Pappy is 96 years young! Growing up, we would travel to Arkansas every summer and Christmas to visit Pappy. We fought over who got to lay in the window ledge of the car on the way, and it is amazing we survived all those road trips without seat belts! I have fond memories of getting to drink Coke at Pappy's house, and we would always have homegrown tomatoes and watermelon with salt. We spent evenings by playing dominoes or other games together - no computers or iphones for distraction in those days! We also loved playing in his motor home and collecting pecans in his backyard. 
Logan enjoyed using Pappy's walker. 

The girls always put on a show for us. 




 Pappy with the grandkids and great-grandkids
We loved having an afternoon to spend together as a family, catch up, and reminisce. 


A funny side note...this gathering was the afternoon after we landed in Florida from Budapest. Our flight from Budapest to Frankfurt was a bit delayed, and we landed in Frankfurt with 30 minutes until our flight to Orlando. Anyone who flies through Frankfurt knows 30 minutes is pretty much impossible. Nevertheless, we decided to give it a try. We RAN through that airport dragging carry-ons and 3 kids.  I finally told Larry to run ahead, thinking that if he could make it, maybe they would wait for us. He made it just as they were closing the door...amazing!!! The rest of us were not far behind.  We were so thankful and breathlessly boarded the plane. 

Needless to say, our luggage did not make it to Florida. So, we needed to quickly find clothes for all of us to wear to the family get together. Target to the rescue! We spent about an hour at Target and had fully outfitted everyone from head to toe. Target saves the day!


Thursday, July 11, 2013

The Loveliest Layover


After a fast and furious finish to the school year, we left for the USA on June 15th.  My travel-savvy husband booked our flight so that we had a 4 day "layover" in Florida on the way to Houston. Who knew you could do that? We stayed at the wonderful Hyatt Grand Cypress and it was, by far, the best layover ever. 
 




Florida and family....doesn't get much better!

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

The Great Flood




The first week of June brought record flooding to the Danube. It was crazy to see it rise day by day as we were out touring with Jeff and Erin, and it soon enveloped the roads that run parallel to the river. We took a nice walk after returning from Vienna to see the flooding first hand. Thankfully, it receded after several days and the impact to the city was minimal. 

Weekend in Vienna

Once again, I am horribly behind in blogging. We have been in the US for almost 4 weeks and have so many fun things to blog....maybe I will catch up this week.

For now, we rewind to early June when Jeff, Erin, Hunter,and Chandler were in Budapest. We took a quick weekend road trip to Vienna and had the best time. We always love Vienna and there is always more to discover!
We started our road trip with a 2 car caravan, with Larry, Jeff, Chelsea, and Cade in Larry's midget car and the rest of us in my car. Logan had great entertainers in the back seat. These 2 were buddies until a major diaper blow out that headed for Chandler's seat (yes, really major!), at which point Chandler jumped out of the car in a drive thru lane....so funny. 

The Vienna Prater is always a fun place to go!

Schonbrunn - always beautiful and still one of our favorite places 

Extra arms to carry tired children would be great on all of our vacations!

One of our new Vienna discoveries this trip was the House of Music museum  - very hands on and fun for all ages.  Another successful weekend in Vienna!