Hungary Part 1- Family and Baptism

So we had a big family reunion of sorts in Budapest this summer. I think the last time my parents, my sister and I were all there at the same time was in 1992 when we returned from the US for the first time. But I also mean a much bigger family reunion. While we were there, both our kids were baptized at the church where my grandfather was a minister many years ago ( he was born in 1900!) and my sister and her husband are the proud and gracious godparents. My Mom did a super job of organizing everything, and amongst many other purposes, this day was a very nice way to bring all the family together, including the newest member of the extended family, my cousin's son Marcell (pictures to come later) as well as the current oldest, my grandmother, Mami (90 and going). But it was also all the people in the middle, including all my cousins, aunts, uncles, and close friends of the family that really made this day memorable for all of us. Thank you to my uncle Zoli for making the program and the video, and our other photographers Hans and Toni (hope it is ok if I stole some of your pictures)! The kids were showered with gifts (THANK YOU) and Mikael and I with many kind words and memories.

Networking...updating...user overheating

The bottom line is that we are far from family and friends and it is important for us to try to keep in touch.
With that being said, I first started a family blog when we moved to Rome to accomplish above stated goal without having to retype the same e-mail over and over. This worked out relatively well and had become sort of a family journal for ourselves as well, as I haven't gotten it together enough to keep good (or any) record of what the kids are doing (Lili's baby album is still waiting to be assembled, in fact, our wedding album with pictures mostly from the predigital era consists of a box of photos being lugged around the world). So, as I said, the blog was doing well. Until Facebook made it (and thus the 'history of us') obsolete, that is. Not that it is the same thing, but I need to admit, posting what you are up to and a few photos on FB takes a few minutes. At most. The blog, although I have a good system of compressing and organizing photos, etc, etc, requires more time than that. So I am on FB because it is just too easy and I try to keep up the blog, because it is more meaningful and I do have several friends and family members who will never become FB users. But just looking back at the number of posts, the blog has clearly taken a hit. And I will go ahead and shamelessly use FB as the scapegoat.
Add to that the fact that I just got a complaint that my Mom does not have enough pictures of the kids. Now, she has probably at least 2500 pictures of the kids on her computer. I KNOW for a fact that there are about 1000 from the summer (Happy husband with DSLR camera!). But they don't count. Only printed photos count. So now I am assembling a photobook with iPhoto (thanks Cornell for giving me a home computer!). Which, admittedly, is a lot of fun. But still time consuming. And I am not even mentioning all the cameras (ok now I am), gadgets and editing tools that make average parents taking snapshots of their average (though cute :-)) kids think that they are a budding Annie Leibovitz and their kids are future celebrities. Or that we are yet undiscovered Cindy Shermans documenting our never aging selves. By the way, this refers only and only to how I feel sometimes, and not to anyone else's efforts at photography, blogging, etc ( which of course as all of us like looking at other people's pictures and reading up on their lives, I naturally love. And being so far away, I truly appreciate.)
But sometimes I just want a camera with a roll of film. I want to go back to the time when you think twice before you take a picture (and therefore have maybe 3 rolls of 24 exposures to organize after your vacation, naturally a third of them in the dark with crappy flash and a third with your eyes closed). And back to the time of correspondence by letters (which was not so long ago, I did it with my grandmother), when after you have written a letter and sent it via international post you have at least 3 weeks if not 2 months when the ball is out of your court. Since I check my e-mail at least twice a day, I know in this day and age this would drive me CRAZY but seriously I am going a little crazy as is...

Buffalo is the Best!

Aside from planning it all, which was extremely complicated, we had a great summer. I took the kids to Buffalo and stayed about 10 days and then they spent about 4 weeks there without us (with my parents). I was extremely nervous about this but after the initial adjustment which was really only a few days (for them, we never quite adjusted though we made the most of our 'childless' time together) they had a great time. Miki went to the same daycamp as last year and Lili also went every day (complete with backpack), hoping they would let her stay :-). The earliest age is 3 1/2 but I have a feeling she is going to be planning next summer this entire year. This is less complicated (and more relevant) when in her world, the future can simply be summarized as tomorrow and the past as yesterday. In other words, only Miki went to camp yesterday, but they will both go tomorrow.
The weekends were also full of activities- I really appreciate my parents' motivation and energy to take them somewhere every weekend and America's ability to provide a seemingly endless list of (fun/educational/safe) activities for kids, from simple things like the library (where Lili just walked around shocked saying ' theye is so many books here') to the Strong National Museum of Play, which is just an amazing place.
I have to say, over the last few years both Mikael and I have developed a new appreciation of Buffalo, from my parents back yard (which is average sized but unaffordable to us in most DC neighborhoods and simply nonexistent in NYC- which are the last 2 places we lived prior to coming abroad) to affordable and good restaurants, generally no traffic (to us anyways, my parents complain), to plenty of nonovercrowded kids' activities. And I am not ashamed to include the outlet mall on this list; always a family destination.
I am not sure if Buffalo has come a long way in the last 20 years or if it is just me. For sure, being one of a few foreigners growing up there, up until later on in high school, I always felt like I had a 'double life'. When I got to college, this whole new world opened up to me in terms of meeting people like myself- not quite foreign but not exactly all American either and I think I took out a little bit of my anger? (about feeling isolated? being different? who knows at this point) on Buffalo (don't get me wrong, I have very fond memories of my high school years, I think I experienced just average teenage angst). Anyways, the point of this not this rambling or self analysis, rather that Buffalo has become a pleasant surprise in my life over the last few years. So I have to agree with the kids- Buffalo is the Best!

PS That's them talking to Mikael. They still love us :-).

24 Hours in Amsterdam

On our way to pick up the kids and meet the family in Budapest, Mikael and I spent a day in Amsterdam. This was our first together 'vacation' without the kids (we did spend most of July without them, but we were both working). We had forgotten how easy vacationing is when it is just 2 adults-we arrived on a red-eye flight, took the train into town and hopped into a cab to get to our hotel. This is a total breeze without a stroller and car seats (or the worry about the lack of them) and 2 sleepy kids in tow. We also decided to celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary a bit early and splurged on a nice hotel with a great view of one of the canals. The hotel is actually made up of a number of row houses all linked together with an internal garden. We spent the morning walking around ( immensely enjoying the fact that you CAN walk around), having breakfast by the flowermarket, visiting the botanical gardens and a great exhibit (called 'Matisse to Malevich') at the Amsterdam Hermitage. We took a well timed nap during the late afternoon when it rained a bit (and watched a Dutch woman pedaling a bicycle, holding an umbrella, AND talking on her cell phone all at the same time. I still don't understand how all this is possible all at the same time- but it IS). We had a very nice dinner at Bussia, a restaurant where Mikael made reservations prior to the trip, but which turned out to be around the corner from our hotel (that's how we knew it was meant to be and by 'it' I mean so many things...). We enjoyed the meal. And the wine. And the grappa. Either we are getting old or our alcohol tolerance has severely diminished because we found ourselves telling our very young waitress all about how we live in Doha, how we are celebrating our anniversary and how much we miss our kids. Well, she got a good tip- she really looked like she cared. The next morning we just had time for a super tasty coffee and pastry once again right around the corner from our hotel at Screaming Beans. Even Mikael loved the coffee and he has turned into quite the coffee snob after Rome. Then once again, found ourselves striking up a conversation with a total stranger ( albeit one with a cute baby and a dog) about our kids- a sure sign that it was time for us to go to get them. But we will be back!