Comin' 'n goin'!

Glenn and I have had a busy two weeks!

We started off in Gyor, Hungary to visit with two of our families who live there.  Gyor is about an hour from Budapest so it was a short trip, up there and back in one day.

I was amazed at the beautiful flowers on the balconies!

While Vivian walked us through town, she told us about the park they were going to build right here, but when they started preparing the foundation, they found ancient ruins!  They look Roman to me  :-)

In the heart of the city, there is a beautiful plaza with this awesome fountain that shoots water up from the ground and folks are allowed to play in it!  It was so hot that day that if I'd had my bathing suit, I'm pretty sure I would have joined those kids!

Vivian was a great tour guide and every where we went, we ran into someone she knew!

On our way back, we stopped at the Hungarian version of Sam's.   It's pretty much like Sam's in America ...

... except they aren't as worried about lawsuits!  They use those forklifts with customers standing right there, no barred aisles at all!

One Hungarian dish I really enjoy is Cold Fruit Soup.  My favorite is made with cherries, but I also have enjoyed plum and mixed berries.    This is plum season so when we found plums at such a great price, I decided to try my hand at it.

It turned out pretty good, if I can say so without sounding like I'm bragging.

A day or so later, we had a J'man come to stay with us for a couple of nights while she toured Budapest.  She finished her two-year term 2 weeks ago and will be traveling all over Europe for a month before she heads to the U.S. to start the next part of her journey in life.  Lauren was a joy to have!

The day after Lauren left, the Davidson's arrived.  They are friends of ours who were taking their son to  boarding school in Germany and wanted to spend a couple of days in Budapest, seeing all the sights.  Their grandparents flew into Budapest from America so they were dealing with a little case of jet lag but they did so well!

They were all here for our biggest national holiday, August 20th so we took them into town for the festivities.

There were huge vats of food for sale!

I loved the rustic swings for kids.

There were over 800 booths, selling Hungarian handmade items, everything from pottery, to lace collars, to wooden toys, to Christmas ornaments, and candles.   (Shhh!  Don't tell Alec and Jazmine that we got them something!)

This picture doesn't do the crowds justice.  Every where we stepped, we stepped on someone's space!  Poor Glenn!  As he tried to get us through the crowds as we browsed through the booths, he said it was like herding cats!

The grandparents are from Lake Hartwell, Georgia so we had a lot in common with them.   They invited Glenn and me to come for a visit when we are in the U.S. on our stateside assignment (which we've set for next June-September), and we might just take them up on it!

While we were out with the Davidson's, we passed an antique store and I found the perfect gift for Glenn.  He's been wanting a lamp for the living room.

Yesterday, Glenn and I made a trip to Slovakia to visit with 3 of our families that live there.   We stayed in a *** hotel (3 star) and though it was very clean and we had a great view over a small lake, the wall paint was woefully short on tastefulness!  All the walls were painted pepto bismol pink and splattered with white and black spots!  

We had lunch with one family at a great pizza place, dinner at a Slovakian restaurant with another family, and coffee the next morning with the third family.  I'm not sure what it was called, but I got a coffee with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and whipped cream.   I'm getting into this coffee scene pretty good!  

On our way home from Slovakia, we stopped for a break at a rest stop and saw this helpful sign, warning us to beware of people with masks taking things out of the other side of our car as we change tires.  Guess it happens often enough to merit warning signs!  

Going camping next week so should have a pretty interesting blog update coming soon!