Life lately

 

                                                The back of the church in the town square

 Esterhazy Palace. It's right in downtown Papa. The Dutch had a big party here to celebrate the Dutch kings birthday. It was pretty fun.

They painted the dutch flag on our faces and we were supposed to wear orange. We didn't pack much orange...

Since Nate didn't have any orange, they sprayed his hair orange.

A beautiful sunset from our bathroom window.

There were fields and fields of these yellow flowers a few weeks ago. I guess they make some kind of oil out of them.

Hanging out at the park in the town square.

This is the inside of the church that is behind Alyssa in the last picture. Its crazy that they have a beautiful church like this in tiny Papa.

The circus came to town. They were very proud of their transformer.

The kids have been playing soccer. They have played a couple games against local teams and they got beat really bad:( They got to go to a soccer clinic that some college girls put together during their spring break trip to Europe. They enjoyed that.

Our air shipment finally arrived about 7 weeks after it was picked up. We were hoping it would only take 3 weeks. The kids were excited to get their bikes. Unfortunately, we live on a gravel street so we've had several crashes already.

Mason doesn't mind the gravel road. He loves the pot holes:)

Budapest

 

We took a last minute weekend trip to Budapest and we stayed in this lovely apartment.

 

The inside square of our apartment building was so pretty.

 The back of Matthias Church. The tiles on the roof were beautiful.

                                                               The parliament building

We bought tickets for a bus tour and a day and night river tour. We took a boat to Margaret island, a small island in the middle of the Danube. It's a really beautiful place, fun for the kids. We played at the playground, walked around and ate lunch.

 A view of the Danube

Me and my buddy on the river cruise.

The front on Matthias church

Fisherman's Bastion

Dinner in Budapest. We had some issues with parking and got a boot on our car. Luckily, we found a restaurant right near the car and we ate while we waited to have it removed.

Then we got back on the boat for the evening cruise. It took a similar route as the day cruise, but it was amazing to see everything all lit up at night.

The parliament building

 

It was so gorgeous!

 

It was a busy day, and we just got a small taste of Budapest. We are looking forward to going back and exploring some more.

Dobronte

 

 

We went to a cool old castle ruin near Papa. This fortress was originally built in the 1200's. It was really neat. This has been Mason's favorite place so far.

 

 It was super windy!

Can you imagine what this was like 800 years ago?!