Hi all. Reporting from hot and sunny, but not-so-humid, Budapest. We arrived on Monday to hot and muggy, but we got some rain and it's been unbelievably beautiful since then, like May weather. Hope it will stay this cool through the weekend, would make the wedding festivities alot more comfortable. Our flights over were good, and we're happy to be back for a couple weeks. It's 8am on Friday and I've been up since 4:00, but 11pm-4am is the best night's sleep I've had since we landed. Not sure why, but I'm the only one who seems to get pummeled by the jet lag. Anyway, we've had a fairly uneventful week, trying to clean the house and dig out the jungle which is our garden. Can't believe how many cobwebs and how much dust can accumulate in a month with the house locked up tight. The kids have had a great week, just hanging out with friends and entertaining themselves outside. We lucked out big-time, as our great friends the Feketes, who live in Moscow, are still in town (actually John arrives this morning), so they've had a blast catching up with Sean (my fairy Godson, who's nine) and Sonia (Keira's long lost girlfriend - she's five).


We went to see on Tuesday with some other friends, Peti and Barnabas, which was lots of fun. Have a bunch of photos/video, nothing exciting, but a peek at what we're up to.








Also have a TON of photos/videos of Keira's trip to Italy, but no idea how I could ever post all the great ones - they must have taken a million in the course of a week. We are SO VERY HAPPY to have our little princess back. Goes without saying, but she puts the sun in my shine, and I'm afraid I won't be convinced any time soon to let her out of my sight for any extended period of time. Seems like she changed so much in a month, although I know she didn't. The first few days were a bit hard for her, as she couldn't express herself in English the way she wanted to, and eventually I just told her to tell me in Hungarian. Funny, how much being submersed in one language for a month changes the way your brain spits out the other ones. Haven't noticed it as much with the boys, but then they have been using lots of Hungarian while we've been in Florida (they still use it with eachother).


Having lunch at Chili's at JFK. We had a seven hour layover, always fun.

Plugged in (to the PSP), and charging (the iPod)...


Queenie in her new bikini...check out the gut on that girl. She loves her new suit, will only take it off to sleep at the moment.


Here's my favorite video of Keira's travels to/from Olaszorszag (oh-lahs-or-sah-g = Italy)...

So, Keira spent a week of her summer in Lajatico, Italy, which is a small village in Tuscany, about 30 miles from Pisa. She went with Linda and Szabolcs (who are getting married - yes, married - tomorrow - sorry for obscure Sixteen Candles reference, couldn't help myself) and Szabolcs' daughter Blanka, who is nine. Now that you folks back home are trying to figure out how one might possibly pronounce Szabolcs, say it with me, sah-bol-ch. She got to go to Pisa, as well as Volterra and SanGimignano (apparently she was the only one who figured out how to pronounce the last one). Linda gave me a disc with all the photos and videos from their trip and it took me a good 90 minutes this morning to look through them all. They had so much fun...sightseeing, swimming, eating, swimming, waterparking, swimming, trampolining, swimming, amusementparking, swimming... Keira definitely had the best summer getaway, hands down. And Linda made her a big book of her adventures, complete with a journal for every day and photos of their trip. They stayed in an amazing villa, complete with ginormous swimming pool. Have dreamt of a holiday under the Tuscan sun forever, can't believe my darling 4-year-old beat me to it.
Here's a map, and their coat of arms (fittingly, a girly theme)

Here's the little lady standing in front of the leaning tower of Pisa

And a bunch more shots of her Italian adventure.