two weeks

+ stayed in a hotel with a fabulous view over the danube to gellert hill and the palace

+ let reese sleep in a big girl bed for the first time [twin mattress on the floor...she did pretty well...we only went in a couple of times to find her standing up with the cushions from the chair on her bed and the curtains wide open]

+ enjoyed the breakfast downstairs [we all know how much i like hotel breakfasts]

+ said goodbye to our dear friends in budapest

+ shopped the christmas market one more time

+ took matson to the beautiful st. stephen's basilica [probably my most favorite place in budapest...each time i go there i see something different...i've seen a bride walking down the isle, little hungarian girls practicing their flutes for a performance, another wedding party taking pictures outside on the front steps and this last time i saw mass]

+ doctored a sick reesey boo for a couple of days

+ watched lots of cartoons

+ packed up 8 checked baggage, 3 carry-ons, 2 carseats, 1 stroller and 2 kids

+ boarded a plane for the usa [well, first to amsterdam and then to houston]

+ LOVED business class on the plane

+ didn't sleep for 24 hours +. [we all did pretty well on the 11 hour flight...matson and i had two seats together while matt and reese were on the other side of the plane together...i held matson almost the entire time to keep him quiet...he didn't sleep much...reese slept only the last two hours...needless to say matt and i didn't sleep either]

+ arrived in houston at baggage claim to all of our luggage already on a cart waiting for us! [a wonderful perk of business class]

+ paid way too much for a hotel room by IAH where we got up at 4 a.m. on tuesday morning

+ drove to gram + papa's house

+ enjoyed lots of delicious home cooked meals [my mom's a great cook]

+ played outside on a rainy, foggy day





+ shopped at target three times already [and a few more places i've missed]

+ introduced matson to my brother, sister-in-law and cousin

+ got behind the wheel of a car again

+ enjoyed going out to dinner with all adults [my parents, me, matt, my brother and sister-in-law...a rarity these days...my aunt marsha and cousin nicole stayed with reese, matson and brody]



currently we are enjoying...


+ the conveniences of the usa

+ the warm weather [although a cold snap just blew through last night]

+ a little relaxation [i know it doesn't seem like we can have too much relaxing with two small children, but it's possible when both parents are around and the grandparents]

+ 107.1 kgsr [good ol' texas tunes]

+ cable tv

+ target [have i mentioned that yet???]

+ english




we are pretty much adjusted to the new time zone [i've been falling asleep on the couch at 9:30 each night because i'm still getting up in the middle of the night with matson baby...he is having a harder time, but it's getting better each night...reese and matt are good to go]

european vacation

last month we took our last european vacation, or should i say european adventure?! it was definitely an adventure. this time we rented a car and hit the road for a week long trip to three different places in three different countries. overall we really enjoyed the trip, but i'd be lying if i didn't say it was stressful and hard at the same time. we may make traveling with two small children in foreign countries look easy, but i assure you it's not! this trip made me appreciate matt's brothers even more on our trip to berlin. having those extra hands really does help! i was a little worried about the car rides because our children are not used to being strapped in carseats for long periods of time, but that was probably the most non-stressful part of the trip! except when we missed our exit a couple of times just outside vienna and added 20 minutes or so onto our drive. rrrrr. we are a little rusty on our driving skills (i still haven't driven a car in over 14 months!), not to mention driving in foreign countries with different signs that we are not used to. anyway, we loved driving the roads through hungary, austria, slovenia and a tiny bit of croatia on the way home. the country side is so beautiful! austria was my favorite. reese loved the many tunnels between salzburg and bled. matson slept most of the time in the car and reese watched little einsteins and dora the explorer many times.



i'm not super happy with my pictures from this trip, which has contributed to my procrastination in posting about it, but i've managed to pick a few that are worth sharing, i guess. read the following posts about each place we visited...

sopron, hungary

it's a smaller medieval town on the austrian border with a quaint town center. it was lovely. we enjoyed a modern accommodation with a living room and bedroom - quite essential when traveling with two little ones. we arrived on saturday afteroon. most of the stores were closed, but we got to walk around a bit, play in the town center around the water fountain, and find a good place to eat. when i planned this trip, i didn't realize that we'd be spending sunday here. everything is closed on sunday, including the breakfast that was supposed to be included with our room. :( we ended up finding a good little bakery where we got to try several different hungarian breads and pastries.

we spent the day strolling around the town, watching the locals and just relaxing. the sunday feel is definitely one of a slower pace. we needed it.



here's something random from our visit to sopron: the next morning at breakfast i learned something about myself - i like my eggs sunny-side up! with toast of course. :) i hadn't tried eggs like that in years and years so you can imagine i wasn't too thrilled when they turned up on my plate. i decided to try it and low and behold i loved them! i've been making them for breakfast a lot since this trip. yum!

salzburg, austria

ah, one of my favorite places. can you hear julie andrews??? no, i hear reese. it's one of her favorite movies.


salzburg is such a pretty place with the fortress towering over the town. we stayed at a cute place in old town with breakfast included right downstairs this time! my favorite kind of hotel! we all slept in the same room here. it wasn't too bad. the first night was a little rough, which caused some crankiness the next day, but then the second night we all slept well. and then, it was time to pack up and move on to the next place only to start all over again.

the birthplace of mozart.

the salzach river

getreidegasse - such cool wrought iron signs. it's the main shopping street. we walked up and down it many times. it's great for people watching. i got to window shop a little. the only thing i bought was a much needed new watch. i was happy.

schloss mirabell

matson didn't appreciate posing for a picture. poor thing.

reese got to run the tunnel from the sound of music!

bled, slovenia

can you say b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l? bled is a small lake and ski town in northern slovenia with a church on an island in the middle of the lake. we stayed at a GREAT place called penzion mayer where we had two very large and nice rooms. this place was by far the best place we've stayed on all our vacations. the staff was very nice, the breakfast was awesome (always a plus with me!), there were good cookies at the front desk that reese loved getting every time we passed by, there were english channels on tv!, the beds were very comfortable and it was very kid friendly. what more could you ask for?

penzion mayer

the view from our room

our first day was very foggy and misty. we went up to the castle in the above picture, but didn't get to see the great views. :( i thought this picture turned out pretty cool anyway.

the church on the island... we didn't make it out there.

our second day we walked around the whole lake taking in all the different views. we stopped along the way to see the ducks, play at the playgrounds and to simply take our time and relax.

we really enjoyed bled and relaxing (as much as you can with two small children), but by the end of our time we just wanted to be back at home. it was a long trip. we loaded up the car on the last morning and hit the road again. it took us seven hours to get back to budapest with just three stops. once for lunch in ptuj, slovenia, once for matson to eat and reese to release energy and once for gas. not bad at all.

berlin

berlin is a cool city! we flew up last friday and met matt's two youngest brothers, lucas and nathan. we loved having two young strong uncles with us for our first vacation with kiddos. they were a HUGE help with reese and matson and we also really enjoyed their company. we were all able to stay together in an apartment. reese slept in our room and matson slept with his uncles. i figured they could sleep through his little grunts and sounds better than i could.





matson had a great first flight. he actually didn't make a peep the whole time. the flight back was a little different but he still did very well. reese was really good on the flight up especially when mom pulled out a new small traveling drawing board (HUGE hit with her!) and on the way back a 3 year old german boy was sitting in front of her so they played over the seats, shared food and threw the emergency information cards back and forth. great entertainment!






a quick overview with more in the photo captions...



berlin is a super cool city - very big though. it's old and new, sleek and modern at the same time. it's clean, everyone speaks english and the public transportation system is great! one day we went back to the apartment for naps, but the other days we just put reese in the stroller and dealt with her fussiness later - not the funnest, but it allowed us to be out and about so much longer. the food was good and the beer was great! my favorite is hefeweizen. the weather was perfect - light jackets were needed, but the sun shinning most of the time. matson and reese did really well. the hard part was having to feed matson all the time. it threw us into the european cafe culture whether we wanted to or not. we hit starbucks a couple of times. :)






i have lots of photos to share...

eat up, nathan! that's a huge pork knuckle!
i hope that big löwenbräu beer helped wash it down!

i love german pretzels!

the holocaust memorial

brandenburg gate

nate, matt and lucas sharing their love for football.

you can't get me, uncle nate!

reichstaggebäude (parliament building) or "the beehive" as we called it. having children was a huge benefit to us for this one. there is a special entrance for people with kids in tow so we bypassed the hour+ queue to get in. nice.

inside the reichstaggebäude

a family photo

berliner dom along the spree river.

checkpoint charlie - one of the main checkpoints to cross from one side to the other.

mom + reese cheering on the berlin marathon participants in front of our building!

first the recumbent cyclists and a few specialties came through and then the runners. we jammed to the red band in the background. you could here them from blocks away - very motivating for the athletes! note: ethiopian haile gebrselassie broke the world record again with a time of 2 hours, 4 minutes, 26 seconds! the guy can fly!

a marker on the sidewalk of where the berlin wall once stood.
berliner mauer means "the berlin wall" in german.

the wall

we met up with the boyd's (friends from budapest) who were in town for the marathon. go ross with your 3 hours + 20 minutes!


we are so glad we went to berlin and highly recommend visiting if you can.

we went to germany

and then came back.

more to come later.

szent istván day

{this may seem out of date, but i would still like to document it on my blog b/c it was a fun day.}





two wednesdays ago on august 20 we celebrated saint stephen's day. it's a national holiday honoring the first king of hungary. we started off the morning walking amidst the crowded river bank to the front of parliament to the bread festival. it was packed with booths selling bread, some making it, and activities for children.



we watched the red bull air race from our side of the river in the afternoon. it was really cool. we got to see the planes turn around at the end of the course and start their way back through. "smoke on!" that's what the announcer would say each time a plane started their run. we got a kick out of that.






the scene. there were several large screens like this one set up along the each bank of the river for an up close view. we liked it because we couldn't see the whole course.





topping the evening were the incredible fireworks! reese got to stay up past her bedtime and see fireworks for the first time. the loudness scared her at first, but we quickly turned it into a color game. budapest did it up right...there were 6 or 7 locations of fireworks. we had a great view of the ones going off of a boat in the river. we could also see them coming up over the parliament building - beautiful sight.

lake balaton

we took our first road trip in a car last weekend. we rented a little opel wagon, loaded both car seats and grandma in the backseat and drove a couple of hours to lake balaton. it's the largest fresh water lake in europe and it's beautiful. we stayed in balatonfüred on the north shore of the lake.

{please forgive the blurriness of this picture. it's the only one i got of all of us in the car.}

{reese and grandma playing in the water when we first arrived. before grandma could stop her, reese sat in the water in her clothes. so what do you do with wet clothes? take them off, of course!}

{when in europe, do as the europeans!}

{daddy + daughter}

{kick, kick, kick! reese loves the water!}


{matson and mom walked around along the lake enjoying the beautiful weather and the view.}


{matson was quite the popular guy at the hotel. everyone wanted to see him.}


{ice cream every day!}