Picasa Web Albums - Rachel A - Picture of th...

1/20 This is a statue of an anonymous historian. Apparently no one knows his name, but his work was influential enough for the Hungarians to memorialize him in a statue anyway.

1/21 Picture #5 of "Things I found under my kitchen sink." Random cleaning supplies. Homemade and otherwise.

1/22 We have defeated the monster apple!

1/24 This is a church just around the corner from our church. It's kind of funny because it's this old stone building and our church just down the road is just another door in a long street of mushed together European style building.

1/25 Picture #6 of "Things I found under my kitchen sink." Random objects: Trash bags, styrofoam tray, screws, knife blade, knife handle, toothbrush, sawdust, ashtray, random plastic plate thing, and a garfield cup. Each of these is obviously implied by the term "furnished" right?

1/26 We were playing the "chase me around the chair and table in the middle of the room" game yesterday and little monkey girl fell down right into the corner of the couch. It gave her this nasty welt that turned into a nasty looking scab today. Who knew upholstery could be so mean?

1/27 We went to the Transportation Museum near City Park. They had trains, boats, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, more trains, airplanes, bridges, and all sorts of stuff. This is a section of the chain bridge that crosses the Danube between Buda and Pest.

1/28 Picture #7 of "Things I found under my kitchen sink." Pet care products and a platypus. Not so much related, I know, but I'm getting to the end and I didn't want to take a picture of everything individually. This guy REALLY likes his cat though. He decided at one point that the cat needed to come back to our apartment for a little while because "it needed a familiar place." Cat psychology - I guess I'm out of the loop.

1/29 Hungarians have this cheese that's kind of like cottage cheese, but not really. It's called turos and it's really good in pastries. It's most famous as the sweet, chocolate covered base of the turorudi - a favorite refrigerated treat here. I found a bag of it at the store yesterday and I bought it. Today I mixed a little of it with sugar and put it on muffins before I baked them. Because I do muffin cakes (see picture of 1/3) this is what it looked like.

1/30 It snowed A LOT today. Like ALL day. I think we got near a foot of snow. So we took pictures.

1/31 Falling asleep on the metro. We had so much snow we skipped the stroller this time and boy did she think that was cool. She got to sit on the seat all by herself and wave with the motion of the metro. By the time church was out and she'd missed her nap, though, the rocking motion had a little different effect. The stickers are from Sunday school :)

2/1 Hand-me-downs!!! I spent all day sorting them. We are impressed that some of them come from France. Living in Europe is a little surreal sometimes.

2/3 I bought these flowers for a friend who is having a Birthday party tomorrow. I'm realizing that it's really hard to get a picture of a flower to show how pretty the flower really is. Somehow they're always prettier in real life. At least when I photograph them.

2/4 I guess this could almost go in my "Things I found under my kitchen sink" collection, but it's the pantry. The pantry was locked when we got to our apartment and I never could get it open. When our landlord came to take some furniture away he opened it for me and found it completely full of junk. Unfortunately, his truck was already full and he couldn't take the stuff from the pantry with him. Of course it took him about a month to come back and get the stuff out of the pantry, but he did it today. It was amazing all the stuff that came out of that pantry. And there's still some wallpaper, a fishing rod and some paint left in there.

2/5 Someone found Mommy's tennis shoes... She likes to clunk around the house in them. Her entire foot, with her slipper on fits inside the shoe. The other day I found her with both my shoes on trying to climb up a chair. The shoes were a considerable hinderance.

2/6 I read that you should take a picture of yourself every month or so to see how you've changed. Since I am pregnant this is probably doubly good advice, but this is the first time I've managed it. Taking pictures of yourself is a pain! Especially if you don't have a tripod.

2/7 We went to the Sister Missionaries' for dinner. Sister Wade has been adopted as official Budapest Grandma. We like her a whole lot and little munchkin follows her around every time we go over there. It's pretty cute. This picture was originally really yellow, so I started playing with the limited effects that iPhoto offers. This is the original picture with the edges blurred and the color faded to "6," whatever that means. I like her pink little cheeks and how the color fade makes the flowers on her dress stand out.

2/8 I did some crocheting today. I didn't do all of these today, but this is my stash of dishcloths. It's one of about four things I know how to make, but I rather enjoy doing them. Craftiness - ta da!

2/9 Our electricity went out today. I turned on a light and the light bulb blew out and all the lights in our apartment went out. I couldn't find the fuse box, so the munchkin and I were in the dark for 45 minutes or so while we waited for Daddy to get home. He got it fixed pretty quickly, but in the meantime we mixed up muffin mix for the next couple months and pancake mix for tonight by flashlight.

2/10 Laundry day. Hungarians don't believe in clothes dryers apparently so a clothes rack in front of the heater is as good as it gets. Unfortunately it's something of an eye sore and has to remain so for about 2 days.

2/11 This is what happens when you call to make sure a play date is still on AFTER you run to the store at 8:30 in the morning to buy the snacks you were going to take. It was canceled. It's a good thing we like yogurt (or guka as the little one calls it).

2/12 The yellow metro line has tiled name plates at most of the stops. They're kind of pretty. An interesting note: the yellow metro here in Budapest was the first underground metro in continental Europe. Kind of cool huh?

2/14 Margit's Hid across the Danube in Budapest. It was kind of warm (relatively speaking) so we took a detour on our way to church and walked across the bridge. It was an overcast day, so most of the pictures didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, but it was a really nice walk anyway. Perfect for Valentine's Day.

2/15 I flew back to Texas today. The signs at the airport are the European train station style signs that you can watch flap through when they change the words on them. It's kind of cool.

2/16 I'm back in Texas for a while and I was going to take a picture of our house here, but as I was coming in I found this cute squirrel on a tree and started taking pictures of him instead. My dad has a new camera with a much better optical zoom than mine. It was really fun to play with and I got a much better picture of the squirrel than I would have with my camera.

2/17 Can you tell I'm in a warmer place? Both pictures since I got here have been outside... I was on a walk and saw this bush with really pretty berries. I think I might have gone a little overboard with the contrast editing though.

2/18 A cowboy hat! I love how little munchkin girl looks so in motion. She's at a stage where I almost can't take a picture of her because she won't hold still long enough for the camera to focus.

2/19 My sister said I should take a picture of this seed pod. I found some nice green bushes for contrast and it's kind of cool I think.

2/20 I've spent the last few days reading. Ironically the book I finished today (The Lightening Thief) isn't in this pile because I took it back to the library today.

2/21 My mom's piano. We hear from it everyday. Sometimes it's pretty songs from my sister practicing and others it's the pounding cacauphony of little munchkin releasing creative energy.

2/22 My dad has been repairing this guitar. The whole house has smelled like laquer for two days, but the guitar looks really good. He had to completely replace the bridge, as it had come completely off. This is the replacement he made. I think it's really pretty. He also put a steel rod in the neck so it wouldn't bend. He put a new faceplate on the headstock and sanded down the neck so he could reposition the frets so the intonation would be better. He put mother of pearl markers in the neck and took the face off the body so he could add support. He also replaced the tuning machines. He kind of rebuilt the whole thing. Mom and Dad got the guitar 26 years ago on their honeymoon in Mexico.

2/23 My dad and brothers are into guitars, can you tell? From left to right they are: my dad's electric guitar that he built from a kit (notice the customized design on the top), My youngest brother's guitar, my dad's classical guitar, my dad's acoustic steel string guitar, and my middle brother's electric base. Missing is my oldest brother's electric guitar. The middle guitar is the one my dad rebuilt.

2/25 I've started a hummus extravaganza. I found about five different hummus recipes I wanted to try and Tuesday I went to the store and bought all the stuff to make them. I finally got to making them on Wednesday and this is Thursday's recipe: parsley hummus. It was really tasty.

2/26 Some days I really struggle to find something picture worthy. Today was one of those days. I always liked how apples made stars when you cut them right though.