Feb. 20th (from Kim)

We are developing a routine.  Get up around 6:45-7am, play for 30-45 minutes and have breakfast.  Then we play for a little longer before going outside.  This apartment is too small to be in all day.  Even though it’s cold outside, we bundle up and take a walk for an hour or so.  We head back to the apartment for lunch, play or watch a cartoon then it’s nap time around 1:30pm.  Both boys have been taking a nap every day.  They will sleep for about 1-1.5 hours.  Then we play more before having supper around 6-6:30.  After supper, it’s more play time or a bath before bed time around 8:30pm. 

You might notice we are doing lots of playing and that’s because we don’t have any TV.  There is a TV that gets the local real estate channel, but none of us have any interest in it.  Luckily, I brought the DVD player but we don’t rely on it too much and the boys aren't that interested in English cartoons.  So far, they prefer Barney over Bob the Builder and Thomas the Train.  This is hard for me to watch because Gus never watched Barney – I know, poor kid, lucky me!

I guess this is karma since I complained earlier about having only CNN in English, so for the next 30 days, it’s nothing.

On Sunday, Aaron and I decided to attend church separately since we weren’t sure how the boys would do in church.  Aaron went at 8am and I went at 10am.  The church was built in 1788 but has been well maintained and even has radiant heaters in each pew.  It holds maybe 100 people.  One thing we’ve noticed here and in Miskolc is that the priests enter and leave from a door on the side of that altar, not processing out of the back.  This means that we haven’t had a chance to talk to a priest yet.  We’ve been hoping that one of them will speak English. 

Yesterday we walked around Hajd… but most of the stores were closed since it was Sunday.  Today, they were all open so we enjoyed walking around this morning.  We are just amazed at the number of clothing and grocery stores.  Every block has its own grocery store and the only difference is the size of the store. 

Directly across from our apartment is a small fruit and vegetable store.  I was really excited for it to open today because I’ve been thinking how handy it would be to have it just steps from the apartment.  We all really like fruit.  It was closed yesterday, but we went in this morning.  What a letdown!  Everything was brown or black because it was so old and many items actually had mold growing on them.  The only ‘fresh’ things were the ones sitting out in wood crates in front of the store and even some of it was suspect.  I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.  The strange thing is that I noticed people going in there all day and leaving with bags of fruit and vegetables.  Maybe the store owner kept the good items in the back for the locals.

We also walked to the Aqua Park today.  This is the main reason we moved to this town.  Google the town name (Hajduszobozlo, Hungary) to see what I’m talking about.  We will go to the indoor area, the Aqua Palace.  We plan to go here 1-2 times a week. 

The boys are learning some English faster than we are learning Hungarian J.  But I’m pretty sure they don’t know what most of it means – except “time out” and they don’t like that at all.  They can also count some because we try to count out loud when we do different things, like giving crackers or going up/down steps. 

Tonight I made homemade chicken nuggets for the boys (chicken rolled in crushed corn flakes and baked) and they both really liked them.  We gave them some ketchup and they liked it too.  Both eat vegetables really well.  We were told that they pretty much like everything and that’s true.  They both can eat a lot, way more than Gus ever ate at their ages, but they are only in the 25% for weights.