Hungary Pictures! -fo real!

So forget all the blabber... I will now SHOW you what we have been up too!

Okay, so there will be a little blabber...Here is our house from the backyard. It is 4 stories high and we just keep wondering how we ended up with such a nice house. This is taken from the park in our back yard. We have a park and a tennis court on the compound where we can play play play. There are 9 families that can live here and they are all so nice. If there are kids already at the park, the girls will go out to play without me or Brandon, and we can watch them from our back windows. We have a high guarded fence surrounding the compound with two gates that we can control, so we feel very safe here.

We went to a festival where they closed one of the main bridges that connect Buda and Pest over the Danube river where there were dancers, crafts, and tons of FOOD! This is the candy that they had there in open buckets and they use scoops to put them in baggies to chow. We tried a few.

I am apart of NAWA (North American Women's Association) and every Tuesday we all take turns having playgroup at someone's home. A lady in my ward lives in an apartment and didn't think we would all fit, so we met at her neighborhood park which was HUGE! It was the size of a football field. The girls had a ball and I loved getting to know new people. This was 4 days after we arrived.

On St. Steven's Day (Hungarian's biggest holiday of the year) they have an air show during the day, where we saw helicopters do backflips and other insane things like barrel rollls, and then a fireworks show at night from one of the bridges. We were able to go to the Marine house (for embassy workers and their guests) for a BBQ and watch the show. Dylan was amazed and it was so cute. His mouth was open all day and when he heard one coming he would point his hand in the air and say "up! up!" The girls covered their ears and watched some of it, but they had more fun playing with their friends all day. We watched the fireworks at a friend's house that night because we weren't brave enough to fight the crowds this year. It's like our 4th of July.

They seem to have statues at every major intersection here. Some are soviet based, some are gifts, many are reminders of how they hate communism, but most are beautiful and have a lot of meaning. Sorry this picture is so blurry. It is taken from a moving vehicle through a window...

This is called "Hero's square" and this piture is at night. It is beautiful! I just went by this the other day and they had a military production for some diplomats who happened to be visiting. And it was quite a show!

This is Parliment, but my girls call it another castle. This is where the governement convenes and is so beautiful.

This is a typical Hungarian Road.

We went to the castle district and for some reason we were excited about the long line of cannons. We found a bird's nest in one of them, so we were looking in ALL of them to see if there were any more treasures to be found.

Cool statue at an intersection. That is a girl draped over a bust of someone. . . sorry for the lousy history lesson.

This is us waiting for the bus to arrive. We are quite the travelers now. We have to walk 10 min. to the closest bus stop, since we are up in the Buda hills overlooking the city, but it is worth the walk. The girls love the super fast subway, and the train is slower, but more scenic and goes even farther up the hills.

This is to show you how gargantuan Parliment is.

This is one of the bridges next to Maragrit Island where they have some amazing things. This Island is in the Danube river. Haley is going on a field trip to it on Tuesday, so I might tag along.

One of the many view points all over the city.

Beautiful garden and, yes, another statue.

THIS is the castle!! Isn't it stunning? This is yet another bridge called the Chain Bridge.

I have tons of pictures but will save some for another day. We wish we can take you all on a field trip to Budapest. :)