Merry Christmas

We would like to wish all of our friends and family near and far a very happy Christmas!

There is a Hungarian tradition called betlehemezés, where the young people dress up in costumes and go from house to house performing the Christmas story. In the Bay Area, the children perform once at the Hungarian Catholic church in Portola Valley and once at the Hungarian Protestant church in Redwood City. This year we had a shepherd and an angel in our family.

I had to help with the singing during the play and was actually behind the children and unable to video the performances. I did get some clips of the rehearsal.

Here the angel tells the shepherds the good news:

And the shepherd says that he will go find Bethlehem:

The shepherds are on their way:

The shepherd tells Jesus, "We would have brought you a nice gift, but we are as poor as you are."

Traditionally the performers are thanked with typical village hospitality, such as sausages and brandy. We got macaroni and cheese, chocolate, and bottles of water, but the spirit was the same.

Kellemes karácsonyi ünnepeket kivánunk!

Happy Halloween!

We've been very fortunate to have a family costume maker (Najm) to bless the children with creative Halloween costumes over the years. We've had a ladybug, a cheetah and a tiger, a koala, a giraffe and a lion, and a prairie girl. This year they were going to reuse costumes from previous years, so Najm thought she was off the hook.

After going back and forth, Alexander decided to be Waluigi, a character from the Mario video games. (When I asked Alexander, he insisted that Waluigi is not a bad guy. Now that I've done some research, I see that his name means "bad Luigi". Maybe this wasn't my finest parenting moment.) We bought his costume, and it just needed some hemming and velcro added, so I did that myself.

Halloween morning, ready for school

We also bought Charlotte a Native American costume, but she hated it when she put it on. We returned the costume to the store and within a couple weeks one arrived to Charlotte's specifications. Najm to the rescue!

Halloween evening, ready for trick-or-treating

Good Morning

I have taken piano lessons since January of 2011. I like piano lessons because they are fun. I like to learn new songs.

This is a video of me playing Morning by Edvard Grieg. I like that it is instrumental.

Here is another version of Morning. Which do you like better?

Go Giants!

It took all summer, but the children finally had enough good behavior points to earn tickets to a San Francisco Giants baseball game. We went last Sunday, during Labor Day weekend. The day started out overcast and cold, but the sun came out and we were able to shed our layers.


The Giants starting out strong, with Alexander's favorite player Cody Ross hitting a home run. Unfortunately, the Giants did not score again in the game, and the Arizona Diamondbacks scored 4 runs in the last few innings. We still had a great time!

It was the official back-to-school game, so all children were given free lunchbags that look like Giants jerseys. Charlotte is holding hers in the photo above. In addition, the children were able to run the bases after the game.


It hasn't been the great season we had expected from the Giants, but we are still great fans!

August in San Francisco

Nothing says August in San Francisco more than ice skating. So when my sister-in-law's sister Emese was here visiting from Toronto, that's what we decided to do.

The kids still need some hand-holding on the ice, so it was helpful to have one adult for each of them. Sándor got quite comfortable, although he looked more like he was running on the ice rather than skating.

Sári was relieved when it was break time and she could give her legs a rest.

We look forward to many more fun times with Emi néni when she moves here in January!

First day of school

Today was the first day of our 2011-2012 school year. We got caught up in a bit of first day heavy traffic and only managed to get a single shot before the kids raced off to join their friends.


We had more time after school, and took some individual photos. Alexander had a great day in second grade. He was just a bit disillusioned at the end of the day when he realized that he wasn't going to fit in all the playing he still wanted to do.


Charlotte had been nervous about starting fourth grade. She is in a combined 4th and 5th grade class. There are 30 students, but only six of them from her previous class. Fortunately, one of her good friends is in the class with her. She had a good day as well, but is still nervous about the year.

Foggy day bowling

Since our summer has been so foggy, we've had to entertain ourselves indoors at times. We spent our family vacation at home in San Francisco. One day we went to the Presidio Bowling Center for a couple games of bowling.


Charlotte surprised us by winning both games. She and Alexander used the bumpers, so she did have a slight advantage.


Alexander's favorite part of the outing was his first racing game. He could just about reach the accelerator by sitting on the very edge of the seat. He has been asking almost daily whether we can go bowling again. We all know that it's actually the racing game that he is asking for.