First Timers!

Parliament

We have enjoyed having Larry's parents here for the last 2 weeks and showing them around our great city and beyond. It was their first trip overseas, and we were so proud of them for being brave enough to come and experience life here. They enjoyed it and it was fun listening to their observations about how different things are here! What, no ice? I don't think they are ready to trade in their American conveniences and move to Europe!

Visiting Szentendre

Picnic at AISB

While they were here, we hit most of the Budapest highlights. We also took a long weekend trip to Austria, making stops in Linz, Salzburg, and Vienna. It was our first time to Linz, and we enjoyed our time there. I thought it was a nice mix of the feel of Vienna and Salzburg. We stumbled upon this cute little parade....

After walking through the main street, we took a train up the mountain in Linz. At the top is a fun little place called the Grottenbahn. It was really cute and my kids loved it. It is a little fairy tale ride and fairy tale village, with scenes from all the well known fairy tales. We had a fun time there, and I would recommend it for anyone with small children.

From Linz, we made a quick trip to Salzburg. The flowers were beautiful, as always!  We enjoyed a leisurely morning in Old Town while Geney and Wilbron did the Sound of Music Tour. 

On the way home, we spent the night in Vienna. It was a bit cold and rainy, so we didn't spend much time there before heading back to Budapest.

We have been blessed to have several visitors since we moved here....it is always fun and we are thankful for everyone who makes the long trip to visit!

As Iron Sharpens Iron...

There's a verse in the Bible that says, "as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another".  I am so thankful for friends that go out of their way just to stop in and reconnect.  Matt is a friend of mine from my home town.  He is a year or two younger than me, but we still did a few things together growing up.  After House Hunters aired, he contacted me and let me know he and his family would be in Europe and they might take the opportunity to come to Budapest if we could work it out.  As mentioned on the show, mi casa es su casa.  We're glad to host guests so we extended the invitation.

It did work out.  I had never met his wife or 2 kids, but we had a great time over the weekend.  I was so thankful for the company as Carey and our kids are in Houston catching up with family and friends.  Even more than good company though, they were an encouragement to me.  The very first morning they were here, Matt and I were up before the others.  We just sat at the table enjoying a cup of coffee and talking through things.  The amazing thing about Christians is that we can quickly reconnect by simply talking about things that are important to both of us -- namely God and Jesus.  Those conversations set the stage for the rest of the weekend, which I also enjoyed.

We didn't do anything fancy as his kids are still young and needed naps.  But we did go to the castle district, church, and also to visit the Jewish Quarter here in Budapest.  Of course, no trip to Budapest is complete without a kurstokalacs (amazing bread cylinder with cinnamon and sugar on it) and a few scoops of ice cream at our favorite cukraszda, Daubner.  

I am so glad they came to visit.  My only regret is that my family was not here to enjoy them also.

Matt, Eva, Adam and Samuel -- thanks for visiting me!

More visitors!

We were so excited to welcome our second round of visitors last week! Matt and Kayla and their friends, Nick and Holly, came for a long weekend to visit and explore our city. We had a great time!

We began with the hop on - hop off city tour. I had not done it before, but I would highly recommend it, especially for visitors who are only here for a short time. It was great and hit all the highlights of the city.

The city tour included a boat ride on the Danube. It was nice and relaxing!

Chelsea and Holly enjoyed their popsicles!

A Budapest trip is incomplete without a trip to the baths!

Ready for a swim!

We also went to the bear farm to visit the friendly bears - they liked the apples we brought and gave the carrots mixed reviews.

We made a quick stop at Godollo Palace on the way home from the bears.

Of course, we ate lots of gelatto over the course of their trip. Cade was quite happy with that!

Thanks for coming, Matt and Kayla! We loved having you here!

House Hunters International Budapest

Time to provide some thoughts back on the show.

• It was a lot of fun to do, surprisingly.  This was Carey's deal and neither of us really thought it would happen, but they kept emailing back and forth and finally we signed up.  We're glad we did.
• We're told they film about 100 minutes for every 1 minute that makes it on the show.  So for the 21 minute show, they likely filmed 2100 minutes (35 hours)!  That feels about right as we filmed 1.5 days in Houston and 4 days in Budapest.
• We did not get to see it before it aired.  If so, we might have asked that they change a few things, which is probably why they don't let us see it before it airs!
• The rock star house had carpet from Michael Jackson's villa in the master bedroom. We're surprised they didn't mention that on the show!  The owner of that house was present during filming. Larry asked him to play the drums for us and he said he only plays for money. They played pool together instead.
• We are very excited to have a DVD documenting our adventures.  Cade especially will not remember much of his time in Budapest, but we can prove he was here! 
• We are extremely thankful that they kept adoption as part of the story.  We love our agency, New Life, and highly recommend them to others!  Their education is the reason why we believe in open adoption!
• We also love our families and apologize greatly that they did not make the final cut.  You would have been there if we were editing it!
• Our Texas-sized needs have changed.  While we've got the home, we'll certainly enjoy it, but it's been refreshing to see how "needs" are so different here.  
• It's really scary how many people watch this show!
• We are serious about having guests... if the guest room is open and we know you or you come recommended from someone we know, you're welcome to it!

The Hills are Alive

Back to the Austria trip...After 2 days in Vienna, we loaded up the clown car and headed to Salzburg, aka Sound of Music land. It was our first trip to Salzburg, so we were all excited to see something new. We arrived after a 4 hour drive and immediately headed out to see the city. Our hotel was near Mirabell gardens, so we began our tour there. The flowers were gorgeous and Chelsea loved the unicorn.

Mr Unicorn is next to the Do Re Me stairs from the movie.

After walking through the gardens, we crossed the bridge into the Old Town. Old Town is just as you would imagine - narrow cobblestone streets, cute little shops, flower markets, and lots of people!

We are fans of the Rick Steve travel books, so we followed his recommended tour. We were all getting tired, but we came upon the funicular to visit the Hohensalzburg Castle. It is one of the largest medieval castles in Europe and almost 1000 years old. We decided we should go ahead and see it while we were there. Larry hiked up with Chelsea on his back...the rest of us took a quick ride to the top.

We were all rewarded with lovely views! There are several museums on the castle grounds, but we decided to take a break and let the kids play instead.
Chelsea enjoyed building a castle out of blocks...
Cade enjoyed running around and climbing things.....

and daddy enjoyed knowing that his Blackberry still worked high over Salzburg.

We headed down from the castle and finished our walk around Old Town before heading back to the hotel. We were all tired and we had two tired kiddos....

It was Cade's first time in a big bed and he did great!

The next morning brought the official Sound of Music Tour....stay tuned!