Last Day with Papa and Nana

Sunday was our last day together before Kent and Debbie returned to the US.Ethan loves to sweep and vacuum.  Debbie was just going to vacuum the rug, but Ethan wanted to vacuum the rest of the living room.  This chore may be able to start really soon. :-)My mom made a little picture book from Ethan’s time in NC last fall.  He likes us to get it down so he can look through the pictures of people he knows… mainly himself.  He wanted to look through it soon before it was bedtime, so showed us that he wanted to see it and climbed in Gary’s lap to look.Ethan picked a book out to read while sitting on Papa’s lap before bedtime.  Kent and Debbie had to leave before he woke the next morning, so this was their last time together until we return to the States next fall.

“Helping Papa”

The family who use to live here left an old vacuum cleaner.  We have always used it for the rug in the living room because it’s basically the only thing that works to keep it clean.  It messed up this past year, and we didn’t know how to fix it.  So, Kent, being the handyman that he is, took a look at it and discovered that the belt had broken.  I thought these pictures were cute of Ethan trying to “help” him. “So, Papa, this is where you start to take it apart.”“I will watch to make sure you are doing it correctly.”“OK I’ll show you again.”“Yes, that is right!”

Thanks, Kent, for all of the handy things you did while you were here!  We hope your grandson takes after you in this area. :-)

Finally Getting Out

I wasn’t able to to to Vienna with Gary and his parents, but I was able to get out Friday night for a date night.  Wahoo!!!  I had been looking forward to this since before his parents even came… free babysitting!  So, we decided to go to a restaurant that we had never been to before and a ballet version of Gone with the Wind.  I was able to order a dish that sat well with my stomach, so that was good.  Afterward we went to the ballet.  We both enjoyed it a lot.  We weren’t sure how Gone with the Wind would be in a ballet, but we knew the story.  Well, at least I thought I knew the story.  I saw the movie once on TV about 15 or 20 years ago, but it was where they show it over several nights or something like that.  When watching the ballet, I kept thinking that they were going through the story pretty quickly, but then about 1/2 way through, I realized that I must not have seen the 2nd part of the movie.  Actually, I remembered a couple of things from the end, but I never knew that Rhett and Scarlett got married or had a daughter or what happened to their daughter.  My pregnancy brain isn’t that bad, so, somehow I missed a major part of the movie when I watched it.

I thought it was a wonderful evening.  We have only been out to eat once on our own since Ethan was born, and that was to a local restaurant when our friend, Emily, offered to babysit him for free.  We have paid a babysitter a couple of times to go to the ballet for Gary’s birthday last year and then to go to one or two movies.  We end up spending over an hour just driving to the place we are going and then back home since we live outside of the city, so it ends up costing a good bit to pay a sitter.  If we would have paid a sitter for Friday night, we would have paid them the same amount that it cost us for dinner AND the ballet (course, we did get the $5 tickets too where you sit way up high).  The only bummer about the evening was that when we came out of the opera house, we had a parking ticket.  We thought that parking in the city was free everywhere after 6:00, but we found out that we were wrong.  So, in a sense we didn’t save the money from paying a babysitter.  That was very disappointing.  I’m still thankful that I was well enough to even go out with Gary.

I was also able to go with everyone to the Covered Market on Saturday.  Here is a picture of Ethan touching the hot peppers that are common in Hungary.  Thankfully I thought to wash his hands off before he touched his eyes or put them in his mouth, or we probably would have had a crying child on our hands.

The main floor of the Covered Market is a bunch of different kinds of food stands.  You can see a fruit and vegetable stand behind Gary and his parents.  Over to the right is a meat stand where you can see sausages hanging down.  The upper floor has a bunch of touristy stalls.      This is the Danube River with a famous hotel (Gellert) and the Freedom Bridge behind.  Ethan is pointing to a tram that is going by (he loves different modes of transportation).  Kent was more focused on the tram in this picture too.Gary and I thought this was a great picture of Kent, Debbie, and Ethan in front of the parliament building.

More Sickness

As soon as Gary’s parents arrived, Gary got sick that night, and I got a cold the next day.  The cold ended up being worse than normal due to being pregnant (mostly just zapping all of my energy).  Gary got better, then on Monday he got sick again.  Ethan also got a cold on Monday.  Yesterday, I got sick similar to when we returned from Albania (except liquids stayed in my system this time), and Ethan got diarrhea too.  I was pretty much in bed all day yesterday and haven’t been able to do much today.  It’s hard to know if the vomiting is pregnancy related or part of a different sickness.  We had a team meeting yesterday, and had planned for Gary’s parents to watch Ethan during it.  They did watch Ethan, but I wasn’t able to take part in the meeting.  By the end of the meeting I didn’t have the strength to even pick Ethan up or walk down the stairs on my own, so I’m glad that they were able to watch him while I was in bed.

Gary took his parents and Ethan on a day trip to Vienna today (just 2.5-3 hours away).  I was too sick to go, so I stayed home.  The weather was nice, so I opened up the house in hopes to get some fresh air in and bad germs out.  A friend from the embassy (who gets American items at the commissary- such a pity that we can’t shop there) dropped by a “sickness” package for me a few days ago.  One of the things in the bag was Clorox wet wipes (which you can’t get over here).  They are wonderful to wipe door handles, light switches, toilet seats, etc…  Much easier than mixing Clorox and water and doing it with a sponge.  You can’t buy Lysol spray over here either, but we do have some of that from the States, so we’re trying to keep things disinfected.  I tend not to use the things we bring back from the States too often because they are so precious.  But, in times like these I have to tell myself, “This is why you brought them from the States to Hungary!”

Gary’s Parents Visiting

Gary’s parents came to visit last Monday.  This is the first time that they’ve seen Ethan in a year.

They took the Children’s Railway one afternoon.  It is a train that is “operated” by children and goes a short distance in the hills of Buda.  It’s not really operated by children, but they do have children dressed up in uniforms who take your tickets to punch, etc…Here is a picture of Kent, Debbie, and Ethan with 2 of the children dressed up.There was another little kid on the other end of the see-saw.  I think the kid was slipping or something and Kent was reacting to that.Kent has enjoyed building things with these soft blocks more than Ethan does.I’m not exactly sure what Ethan was doing here (trying to be helpful or to destroy).The final product… to only last a minute or two before…… it gets destroyed.  Ethan is definitely in the stage where he would rather demolish what someone has built than build something himself.  He and Kent have been doing the building and tearing down thing every day.