May have jinxed this thing. I wished for cooler weather and we woke up this morning to cold and windy, with a bunch of rain tossed in for fun. Looks like the greyest bit has blown over, so now we're all doing the anti-rain dance, hoping Linda and Szabolcs will have an okay first day of their happily ever after. We're still trying to get ready here, have to take Keira down to get her hair done in a few minutes. Bill is busy ironing and I'm blogging, that seems fair, no?

Had a nice evening with our friends Mary and Ivan last night - good banter about life in the home country, sushi and whatnot.

Liam playing with a great creature-building set called Zolo a Go-Go. Must try and track that one down, they had so much fun playing with it.

Here are a couple of silly videos of the monkeys. Riley is a huge sushi fan, although his appetite is getting to the point where we won't be able to afford offering it to him :) Liam decided he would give it a whirl last night, starting easy with the prawn nigiri, but he abandoned ship before he ate the first one. He ended up enjoying his own culinary creation (see video)

News to me, the whole thing about edamame (枝豆) being soybeans.

Have eaten them a million times and never pondered, just thought they were some derivitive of snow pea. I was still doubting it this morning, so had to wiki it to verify. What did the universe ever do without wiki-ability?

Had another startling revelation this morning - my twelve-year-old son has the same size foot as me. Saw our flip-flops sitting next to eachother by the door yesterday and realized they are exactly the same size (same ones, but we bought them at different times). OMG, how did that happen? Pretty soon he will be towering over me, and driving, and making his way in the world, and leaving me.

Count to ten, Kerry! For at this very moment, he's sitting next to me, writing in his journal about his trip back to Budapest and asking me how to spell the word 'flight' - think we have a good way to go before sending him off into the big wide world. Can't imagine that they are back to school in a week. What happened to the summer?

Anyone keeping up with Anderson Cooper's Lohan bashing of late? First on Regis and Kelly, and then a follow up on his own show, AC360. I love it (and him).....someone with a voice finally speaking out about the garbage that is reality television. Impossible to fathom that they would give that creature her own show, but obviously someone is watching. And I saw an interview the other day with Lindsay's little sister Ali (upon whom all of Dina's energies are focused at the moment) - one word, and it is YIKES. Sorry to digress, but I just saw another headline on AOL about it. Wonder what we ever did without celebrity sensationalism to ponder - imagine how intelligent I might be without People.com in my life :) For more in-depth coverage of this mind-boggling newsflash/feud, here's a link:http://www.hollywoodgrind.com/anderson-cooper-hates-living-lohan/

Back on task (I'm so easily distracted by hollywood gossip garbage)...

Few photos/videos of the anarchy at our house this week.

Keira and Sonia haven't hung out in a long time, probably since the last time they visited Budapest in February. Within milliseconds, they were right back where they left off. Sonia had been here a whole ten minutes before they announced that they would like to plop themselves in front of the TV with chocolate milk, a ritual they both love. In Hungarian, chocolate milk (Nesquik powder, or 'bunny milk' as we also call it) is called kakao. Sonia, although she knows what it's called, has nicknamed it kakayo. And thus a twenty minute debate quickly ensued as to the proper pronunciation of this magical drink. They finally agreed to disagree and moved on with their day, but not before each one presented a strong case for her own version of the word. LOVE these funny little moments.

In unrelated news, here's a very unusual shot. Almost looks like brotherly love (I'm certain one of them punched the other within minutes of the photo being taken).

Not much else reportable at the moment, we are having an overall lay-low time here and trying to catch up with as many people as possible in the next week.

We're headed to the Kalandpalya with the Feketes on Monday, an awesome rope course through the tops of the trees tucked way up in the Buda hills (http://www.kalandpalya.com/interface.html), then back to our place for an adhoc bbq, where undoubtedly too much Vilmos will be consumed. Strange sidenote - on their website, they have a great video of the ropes course, set to the tune of death and destruction via Iron Maiden's 'Two Minutes to Midnight', which I must confess I rocked out to at some stage in the good ole' metalhead days of yore. You have to wonder, how did they pick such a random song that is soooo not appropriate to advertise entertainment for children.

Tuesday the boys are going to Lake Balaton to spend a few days with their friend Barnabas and his family. I'm hoping for some version of a girls night out on Tuesday, although it won't be anything wild, as most of the girlies aren't in Budapest at the moment. Keira and I will head to Siofok (also the Lake Balaton) on Wednesday for a couple days, and we will all head back together Thursday evening. We will pack up and close up the house on Friday and head to the airport Saturday morning. Two weeks gone again, in the blink of an eye.

Our house is still for rent or sale by the way, in the event that someone stumbles across this and is looking for a fantastic pad in Budapest, Hungary. Here's the link to my 'rent/buy this house' blog: http://whowouldntlovethishouse.blogspot.com/

Will wrap for now, as I'm all over the place and unable to focus. On a final note, twenty days to the season premiere of Gossip Girl. Imagine that I don't even have to wait a week and download it, I can watch it with the rest of the losers in America who find it entertaining. You have to at least respect the fact that I'm not a closet fan, that I'm happy to admit to being as deep as a puddle :) Having said that, it's a fabulous show and I don't care that I'm a 37-year-old woman watching high school drama (it's pretty sophisticated high school drama). Trust me, if you watch a few episodes, you may just like it. It's not Veronica Mars, which is still top three of my all-time favorites, but it's pretty darn fun to watch. Link to some of the season premiere promos: http://www.gossipgirlinsider.com/2008/07/gossip-girl-promos-season-two-premiere/

Okay, really going to wrap it up now, but not before I share my utter disdain for whatever technical glitch is preventing me from sending videos from YouTube directly to my blog - I'm so annoyed, and nobody seems to know why it's not working, on either the YouTube or Blogger end of things. Arghhh! Will post again tomorrow or Monday with some wedding photos. xo.