Visiting cousins

On the 20th we took a boat across the lake to visit my second cousin Mariann and her children and parents. The similarity between our children showed when my cousin looked at Kevin and thought it was her son Sanyika. :)

Lake Balaton

We lived right on this wonderful grassy beach, ideal for bike riding with full view of the lake and the mountains on the other side. On a windy day Kimo tries windsurfing and our friends said he had the most perseverance of all the people they had tried teaching it to. I'm so proud of him, he had even got on with both feet once.

more photos

Here are our Dutch friends Pallieter and Mark setting off on their bike trip and reading a stroy to the children.

Long hot summer part two

After getting back, we had two friends from Holland visiting. They came to cycle around the country. They left the car here and set off on their bikes. After that the cyclone of house renovation began. We had a lady come and help pack up all our stuff, and unpacked the back rooms in two days, our cellar got filled up with things just form the kids’ room, and on the weekend the painter boy came, did the painting, and then came the hard part. We decided to change the old plastic floor of the kids’ room to partly carpet partly tile floor. So far so good, got the carpet and the tiles, now we needed somebody to help lay those tiles. It also turned out that the tiles we had bought were the most difficult kind to cut and lay as well. Finally, the man from whom we originally had bought the house came and helped Kimo do it. Kimo is such a wonderful „handyman”, he can do anything, apart from messing with electricity (understandibly of course!). So while I was in the east of the country with the children, this project got finished, and when we came back, got the bunkbeds made, got some new toy storage furniture, and now the room looks much better. This whole businness took up most of July, and the beginning of August as well.

During this time we had a very long heat wave with temperatures in the 40’s (Centigrade of course), so a lot of the times we took off to a swimming pool nearby, but only after four when the sun was bearable. Even our metre-thick walls got warmed though, so the coolness that used to be in our house was simply gone. But since i’m a summer girl, I don’t mind hot weather. Good for my sinuses at least.

And the last bit of our holidays are coming up now. From August 11 we were invited to go to the summer cottage of some friends at Lake Balaton. This is like the seaside for Hungarians (without the salty bits). Being the largest lake in Central and Western Europe, it is an attracion for tourists as well. The place we were staying at was right on the beach so it was ideal for the children. The other family also has three children of similar ages, so they really had a ball. We had all kinds of weather there including a hailstorm as well. On and off Kimo and I had a sore throat, but the children stayed healthy thank God. We even had a chance o go swimming when it was pouring down with rain (not the ice). Lots of sun and water and sand and mud and cycling, it was a real beach holiday.

Now we’re back, Bella got her school books yesterday, and I came down with a cold. Kimo is making bookshelves and working and being a superdad at the same time:)
Summer was too short of couse, but I’ll also be glad to be back at our normal routine in September. And at the Veni Sancte (school opening mass) Patrick will be among the first graders next Sunday. Fancy that!

Long hot summer

Our summer holidays seem to have just slipped by us quietly. Mind you they always do if one’s not careful. Let me just give a short account of what happened in the last three months. I can’t go into too much detail, more of a general overview type.

In June after school got out, the children went to different day-camps, a week at a time. Bella had a training camp for synchronised swimming every evening, and at the end of the week they had their end-of-year gala proramme. It was really beautiful to watch, and they put a lot of work behind it. The same week the boys were in a sports camp, swimming and archery. Unfortunately, Patrick got a bladder infection after the second day, so he couldn’t go.
The week after, all three childen were signed up for a camp with swimming and horse-riding, but since Patrick was ill already, and on the Tuesday Kevin got tonsilitis, only Bella was able to go the whole week. She really is fond of horses and so is Kevin.
In the meantime Kimo was working really hard, sometimes even nights, and I was finishing up in school. It was after Patrick got seriously ill, that I finally decided to leave my job. It was a difficult decision to make since I really love teaching, but I was pushing my limits trying to be in two places at times, and as I felt in the end, the children in school will have another English teacher, but my kids won’t have a different mother if I’m not there for them. My headmaster was very understanding, I even got flowers and a present at the year-closing teacher’s party, and everyone said they’re sorry I’m leaving. Ever since then I feel more relaxed, having a longer scope in front of me.

On the last day of June we set of for a five-day tour of some parts of Transylvania. It was organised by the History teacher at my school, and she took us to some amazing places. Transylvania is a very sore issue for Hungarians, because after being part of Hungary for a thousand years, it was cut off in 1921, and to this day over two million Hungarians live there, being seconday citizens of Romania. All I can say is that when we were there I felt my Hungarianness a lot more than ever before. Castles and towns were all speaking of great names in Hungarian history, and I learned a lot from our guide hwo had all the dates and numbers and names in her head. The children had a good time too, since we had 25 teenagers to keep them company, it was easy for us on the coach, we hardly saw them for hours. The only thing that was tough for everyone was the food. Our kids could not eat it at all, because they used some sheep cheese in everything, and the kids couldn’t bear the smell of it.