Hello old blog-world friends.  We’ve had a terrific time with family and friends in the US during the last few weeks.  In just a couple days we’ll return home to Budapest and get back to normal life.  We have some really great pictures to post from America soon!

Last weekend Laura and I had some meetings in Vrsno, Slovenia with our Central and Eastern European Colleagues (Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Bulgaria).  It was a very meaningful time in terms of our connection with friends who are tackling similar issues in their work.  We dug deep into our CEE related issues of Identity, Community, and Modeling.  It was also a rare opportunity to bring our kids with us to such a “work-oriented” meeting.  Thanks Milan, Dusan, and Stephan for making that possible!!

Now, let’s just say that Vrsno, Slovenia is not your typical meeting location.  It is a 7.5 hour drive to the West from Budapest (because I’m a slow driver), and it is an hour drive into the mountains from the border intersection of Austria, Italy, and Slovenia (It is amazing how close all of these countries are in Central Europe).  Vrsno is a little village at the top of a mountain (population of 60 people?, possibly 1700 meters?).  We stayed in a low-key panzio which was heated by a wood burning furnace, and there was a kitchen we could use to cook meals.

We spent the mornings and evenings working, and we used the afternoons to “get out” and have some adventures.  We are really looking forward to taking a group of students to Vrsno for an English Adventure Week.  Attention students, go to the outdoor club website for details.  And finally, I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story:

Yes, we will go swimming in this pool. No, I’m not kidding.

These are our neighbors.

Our Central European Network.

creatures on the mountain

Oh, I would love to do this.

mountain lake

In the last couple weeks, we’ve been given two opportunities to see some of the most beautiful parts of Hungary and Slovenia (The next post will be pictures from our meetings in Slovenia). First, our friends Tamas and Zita took us to North Eastern Hungary into the Matras. I guess we’ve been waiting for almost three years to visit that part of Hungary. NorthEastern Hungary is about 3.5 hours from Budapest and is full of beautiful mountains, vineyards, and castles.

T & Z are the master program coordinators, and I think we took about 300 pictures of the following: Tokaji borvidéken séta, Telkibánya kincskeresés, piknik a réten a zemplénben, vacsora az ágyban mese, a panzió Sárospatakon, tengerszem Sárospatak mellett (túra), Füzéri vár, Sátoraljaújhely libegő, a leghosszabb Hu-n, Sárospatak Rákoczi vár, panzió reggeli, mesenézés, Tokaji borgyár, Boldogkőváralja várban, Lilafüred, ebéd, bableves. (In English, we walked through a Tokaji vineyard, we excavated crystals and gems from an extinct volcano, we had a picnic on a sheep farm, stayed in a panzio in Sárospatak, we hiked up to a mountain-top lakelet, we visited the Füzéri castle, we rode the longest mountain-side chair lift in Hungary in Sátoraljaújhely, we visited the Rákoczi castle, we visited the Boldogkőváralja castle, we hiked through Lilafüred and ate bean soup.)

Thanks T & Z for the great weekend!! You can see more pictures if you click here. Here’s a few pictures:

This is the Füzéri castle

Excavating gems from the surface of an extinct volcano.

This is a mountaintop lakelet near Sárospatak.

Seth lost a tooth.

Picnic on a sheep farm.

Picture by the Rákoczi castle.

Just 28 days until our visit to America!  It’s going to be so good to see family and friends.  But we still have 6 big things to do before we head home.  So we’re enjoying and living in the NOW while eagerly anticipating what WILL COME.

Way to go Daniel.  Big South Champion!

Yesterday was my beautiful wife’s birthday.  As part of her birthday celebration we had the wonderful opportunity to spend 5 hours at the immigration office (the BÁH).  And the surprise birthday gift was a two year residency permit (well…once we collect four more papers and spend two more half days at the immigration office).  Woohoo!  So we made our way home for a late dinner with some pizza from Don Pepe’s, and Joanna baked an awesome chocolate cake which featured a blue peep sitting in the middle of a pond.  Yum!  Happy Birthday Laura!

Last weekend, BKV, the Budapest Transportation Department, celebrated its 40th anniversary. So our friends took us to the BKV traffic Museum. It was so awesome. Thanks T & Z! Here are some pictures:

On Monday I turned 35.
Hmmm….
That’s almost 40…
Half way to 70…
A quarter of the way to 140…
Seven times the age of my middlest son….
1/27th of Methuselah
But it feels good too.
This was a special year because my birthday came the day after Easter.
Easter Monday.
Thoughts about birth and resurrection…
In Hungary Easter Monday is the day when boys spray girls with perfume/water, and the girls reward the boys with a coin or an Easter egg.
Laura has a special role of being the only girl in our house  :)
She got sprayed.
It was a great day!

Yesterday we went downtown to see the Easter market at Vörösmarty tér.  On the way we stopped to play on one of the many awesome (and somewhat dangerous) playground toys they have in Hungary.

We also happened to see the city’s annual pillow fight.

It was so awesome to have a visit from our Szegedi friends (the Georges) and to share an early Easter dinner.

Seth has been working hard on reading and writing.  Here’s three of his latest words.  :)

Sziasztok! Nagyon jó volt veletek lenni tegnap este. Köszönöm, hogy eljöttetek! Remélem, mindannyian túlélitek a vizsgaidőszakot! Itt egy pár fényképet a mult hétról!

Vártunk néhány honapig a bogárokat eljönni.

Csaladi nap Visegrádon.

It is good to be home.  We had a great time at the education conference in Balaton Füred, and we gained some really helpful input for coaching our boys through their experiences in national schools.  This picture is taken of Lake Balaton behind the hotel where we stayed.