I know, I know. It's very hard to keep my readers coming back to check in when I go for months at a time without posting a single word. Sorry, but unfortunately, what you see is what you get :) As I mentioned in my holiday letter (which you may or may not have received-I'm no better with snail mail), it will be my perpetual New Year's resolution until the end of time to stay on top of the communication efforts.

But let us not dwell on my shortcomings :) Moving on ... happenings since October...

October 7th marked my ten-year anniversary in Budapest. Yes, you read that right... a decade of my life (and more than a quarter of it) has now been spent in Hungary. That, Dear People, is nothing short of kooky. Reflecting back, I wouldn't change a whole lot. I might have spent a few more hours/dollars on Hungarian lessons, but I'm still surviving in my own, deranged version of the language. And, as I've said before, I provide a great service in the way of comedic relief to the Magyar people when I try to express myself.

I went to the US for a week on October 11th, and surprised my mom for her birthday. She was truly surprised, which was fantastic. I had told her I would hopefully come for a week in December, so she had no idea. My stepdad ended up in the hospital for four days, just as I arrived, which was a bummer (mostly for him, poor guy), but I was glad that I could be there just the same. I will stop for a moment and add that I'm not overly impressed with the 'attention to detail' that members of the medical profession seem to possess these days, but that's not just in the US, that's around the world. Don't know if it's too many patients and not enough time, but in this case the whole thing could have been avoided if the doctor had been a bit more on the ball.

I came back just in time for the boys to have their two week Fall break (which is, in my opinon, one week too long). They went to pottery camp in a village nearby for the first week, which they love, and we went to Slovakia to visit friends for the long holiday weekend (Nov.1st is All Saints Day). Got some great photos of them jumping in the leaves (me too), which I have to share.

I had completely forgotten about the simple pleasure of jumping into a big, damp pile of leaves. I'm not sure the boys had ever participated in such sophisticated fun, and they spent hours just raking them back up to jump in again. Love the photo of me, almost horizontal in the air, with little Sophie looking on in amazement, like she is saying 'hey, that's not for the grown-ups'.

We love visiting our friends, Bruno and Katarina, in Slovakia. They live in a little village, where Katerina grew up, and we always have the most relaxing weekend getaways with them. We walked over to the football pitch later that day, and the boys (dads too) had a great time kicking the soccer ball. Keira got a lift from her daddy, of course, her favorite mode of transportation...

What could I possibly add here? How cute are the daddies and their little girls?

Liam taking the shot... Notice how the hair is at least six inches in the air. That's because it's almost a foot long. We're in the middle of negotiations here, I'm hoping to reach some sort of settlement (i.e. cut it) some time next week. It's just out of control.

Love this picture of Riley, although he looks like he is eighteen and that makes me very sad :(

The boys came back from an exhausting twenty minutes on the football field, completely dehydrated, and had to replenish with some Belgian beer (supplied by Dear Bruno, who is coincidentally Belgian and loads the car up when they go back for a holiday).

Oodles of Noodles...

The rest of November was fairly quiet, as it usually is when we start buckling down for the long winter's nap. It starts to get dark here at 4:00 once we hit Daylight Savings, which is a sure sign that the long cold nights are on their way. I'm usually ok through the holidays, but by the end of January I'm already looking for the first sign of Spring/life. We had a great Turkey Day with our friends Curt and Erika, as always.

Curt's favorite part, quality time with the bird...

Here's what a 30 pound turkey looks like in a European oven. Erika is far braver than I will ever be, I have no idea how she gets them to come out like this every year (it hasn't been confirmed yet, but I'm pretty sure she's got some Martha Stewart in her genetic code).

The hostess, with her turkey pumpkin. We all had to write something we were thankful for on painted popsicle sticks and then stick them in the turkey's rear end. The kids thought that was hilarious, but they were really sweet when they read them aloud after dinner.

Here's what it looks like when you're trying to get eight kids to pose for a lovely Thanksgiving Day photo. I've decided that in the absence of grandparents in the background shouting for the kids to sit up properly and smile, this effort will be eternally fruitless. I took at least ten shots, pretty sure Erika took as many, and neither of us came up with even one good one.

So, there's the Fall season in a nutshell. See, there wasn't much to catch up on anyway. Will pop back soon with some Ho!Ho!Ho!

xoxo. K.