Our Trip Begins

Ani and I spent our first 2 days of the trip in Hungary with my dear cousin Saci.  She is my age and was my first ever "sister" when she lived with my family while going to high school.  We had such great times together and I loved having her in my life, especially since all I knew before was a life with 3 brothers.  We were very close and it was really hard to lose her when I got married.  But like with almost all other relationships, once they turn into e-mails only  they change no matter how important or cherished that person is.  And so it meant a lot to me to finally see Saci and talk for hours although our talks were very much affected by our motherhood we both live in.  And that is ok.  Sometimes it feels funny when you don"t see someone for years and then when you do you realize you are both in such different stage of life, more mature, more seasoned with life.  To me it is the beauty of life here on Earth and in situations like that you can see how much someone has changed, grown, and how their life has made them stronger.  It also reminds me that we are all here for such a brief moment and just how important it is for us to use wisely the time we have with the people we love.

Anyway, we had a wonderful time catching up even though it is never enough time and we could talk, cry, laugh and talk some more for days without stopping.  Both Ani and I were pretty jet legged when we got there so our first day was very restful.  Saci is the best hostess and we felt just spoiled by her.  One day we went to an inside playground because it rained and the girls loved playing there.  Ani was a bit scared at first but she soon giggled and was enjoying herself.  Saci has one little girl, Emma, who is turning 2 soon and she is just the cutest thing.  She is very shy but Anika still liked playing with her or by her.  Ani also loved their dog who was just the perfect size for her and so nice and calm, unlike the dog I remember from somewhere. :)

The second day we all slept way in and then made a trip to the Tropicarium which is always so fun to go to.  Ani loved looking at all the animals there and I took way too many pictures of them.  She didn"t want to touch the sting ray though, little Emma was a bit braver than Ani.  :)

After that my parents came to get us and I am not sure why Ani thought they would have kids living in their house but she was very disapointed to see that their house was all empty and there were no kids anywhere. :)
Poor girl was pretty out of her place for a bit but everything was better yesterday when she got to see kids at a moms&kids class and then spent the rest of the day playing with her 3 cousins.  Tonight she gets to see my other brother"s kids so it will be a fun weekend with everyone and I will try those pictures on here too.

taking a bath with Emma

playground - I kept thinking how fun it would be to have this
in TRF, all our kids would love it

of course she loved seeing all the Nemos

24 hour trip

I finally have a moment to write or a moment I felt like writing. :)  Everyone is sleeping and I am hoping if I go to bed a little later it will help me sleep all night.  Since I"ve been here I woke up early each morning and could not go back to sleep but hopefully tonight will be different.

It has already been so wonderful being here.  It is so nice being with my parents again, I got some great quality time with my cousin in Budapest and I am just so relaxed. :) Ehren told me I don"t have a jet leg, I am just finally totally relaxed and that is making me tired and I think he is right.  I love not having any worries when I get up, no schedule to follow, meals to plan and make, or anything.  It is a true vacation for me and the only thing better would be if the rest of my family was here.  It is not easy at all being away from the boys.

But, back to our BIG trip.  Anika was so excited about her big trip and it was all she talked about for a week.  So I should have known that with all that excitement it was not going to be easy for her to sleep.  We had to get up at 2am on Sunday morning and head to Fargo.  I thought for sure Ani would just go back to sleep once we loaded her into the van but no, she could not sleep at all.  She could not wait to get on the airplane.  And the first airplane, going to Chicago, was actually pretty good.  She loved everything about it and was just all excited, talking nonstop.  I started telling her early on that there will be 3 planes to get on so she kind of knew that but I am pretty sure she had no idea how long that would actually take.  We got to Chicago right away and there was our very long layover, around 5 hours long.  We tried to kill time as much as we could looking at stores, having lunch, then reading books in a book store (I think the clerk wasn"t very happy about it so I at least bought one book for the kids).  During times when Ani was entertaining herself with coloring I was kind of enjoying people watching.  It"s amazing how many different people you come across at an airport.  But most of all, I was wishing I had Ehren"s laptop or another device that would play kids shows for Anika because she was bored with her big activity bagpack after so many hours.

Next up was our LOOONG flight which took about 8 hours, flying to Frankfurt, Germany.  It started out ok and Ani was once again excited to get on a new plane but the excitement didn"t last too long as she was getting overly tired.  I myself was barely lasting staying up, but I only managed short spells of resting my eyes. Soon it was time to eat "lunch" which was a pretty crazy thing.  First of all, that must have been the worst food I ever saw on the plane.  The chicken looked like it was thrown into some boiling water and had pasta that was half dried up.  Of course I asked for Ani"s meal since I wasn"t going to gamble and see if she would throw a fit about not getting any food even though I knew she was way too tired to really eat.  So needless to say she barely touched her food and when the stewardess came to get it she had a pretty rude remark about Ani not eating anything.  I politely smiled and said "sorry" even though I was at a point I wanted to scream at her and say that she has no idea how tired this little girl is who"s been up since 2am.  And what does she care anyway, she didn"t pay for the meal.  After that Anika finally took a little nap, about 2 hours where she would rest her head in my lap and I was so glad she is finally quiet.  I still didn"t sleep much because my back hurt a lot in that position.  After Ani"s little nap she started fussing and crying which I knew was because she wanted to sleep more but couldn"t get comfortable.  We were also running out of her entertainment workbooks and stuff to do and unfortunatelly out of 8 movies they showed there was absolutely nothing for little kids.  So she started saying how she doesn"t want to be on a trip anymore, she wants to go home.  I didn"t blame her at all, I didn"t want to be there either.  So after that we started having bathroom breaks every 20 minutes where Anika would push out a tiny bit of pee  each time even though she would cry that she had to poop when we were sitting down.  I knew she must have been constipated and just had cramps but we had to keep going to the bathroom and luckily it was very close to our seats.  Finally, it was time to land in Frankfurt and once again Ani got all excited about our last, third airplane ride so that was good except we had over 2 hours of time to kill before then.  We got to our gate and thankflully it was pretty quiet and empty so I got Ani"s coloring books out and I lied down next to her.  I was so out of it I couldn"t even keep my eyes open but there was our little chipery Anika, her mouth not stopping for a minute. In a way I was glad she kept talking because that way I knew she was still nearby and I just kept thinking to myself if I had Kason with me who runs everywhere I would be a total basket case.

So our final airplane ride came and we were heading to our destination - Budapest.  So far the 2 flights were with United airlines and our last one was Lufthansa.  Man what a difference!  I"d fly Lufthansa anywhere, especially with kids.  They were all so nice to Ani and even brought her a special toy and fruit snack.  Finally, Ani"s energy was running out and she pretty much slept through the whole flight which was fine by me other than when it was time to land I could not wake her up and she cried pretty loudly that she had to get buckled and couldn"t lie down anymore.  But after a bit of waking up she was all ready to meet my cousin Sarlota, who Anika"s middle name is after.  When Ani saw her she said "she looks like on the picture" and I thought that was so cute.

As for me, I was more than happy to end our 24 hour trip.  I know people flying to Asia or wherever have it way harder but for me, this must be the limit when flying alone with any number of kids.  In the end though, it is always so worth it to be with my family and see my home country again but man, is it far. :)  I have to say Anika did awesome for how long of a trip that was, with how early she was up before we flew.  She is a trooper and going back will be so much easier.  The trip did confuse her with sleeping and day time-night time because she still asks me sometimes "is it day time now?" and "is it time for bed?" but she is doing great.

I will post some pictures here in the morning of our big trip and will try to post some other ones soon too of our little adventures since we got here.  Hope you are all doing great!

having some breakfast before we take off

the first airplane

Easter

This year our Easter is very different because me and Anika are flying from Fargo tomorrow, on Easter Sunday at 6am.  That means we have to leave our house around 2am so we are going to start our long trip being tired. :) But that's ok because I'm thinking no matter what we'll be tired so what's a few more hours thrown in there.  But nevertheless, it makes it hard to celebrate Eater tomorrow as a family so we did our little Easter celebration today.

It's been weeks now that we have been talking and reading about the real meaning of Easter and it was so great to talk about Jesus daily and His life here on Earth.  I really hope our children understand that and the huge sacrifice that was done for them.  It brought up some good conversations with Kade and Anika I think is trying to grasp the meaning of death more at this age.  It is cute to listen to her and Emily talk about Easter and Jesus dying for them.  They were talking about him being in heaven and preparing a place for them so that when they die they can be with him.  At one point one of them said that after we die it's ok because we come back to life like Jesus. :)  I had to smile at that and tried to tell them we won't be walking around the Earth like before and we'll just be enjoying Heaven with God.  But I think they get the point about dying because to us it is just the beginning of forever after, the life here is just a blink of an eye and nothing that happens here or nothing we have here will matter in the end.

Anyway, we couldn't miss the traditional Easter egg hunt so we went to Ehren's parents to kind of celebrate Easter together, even though it was early.  Some people just give their kids big Easter baskets and since I kind of refuse to do both because our kids don't need more stuff, we usually just do the plastic egg hunt.  We fill them with treats, once in a while a tiny toy if I find it or else each child has to find their "price" that is hiding along with the eggs.  Our kids get so excited about this and usually weeks after Easter they still want to hide empty plastic eggs and try to find them around the house or wherever.  Growing up my parents hid the Easter basket (one for all of us) in our apartment but to me that's not as exciting as looking for dozens of eggs, especially since it's not very hard to find a big basket lying around.

So here are some pictures from today.  I just got back home and Kade and Kason are staying overnight at Mark and Audrey's.  It broke my heart to say good bye, especially to Kade because he cried so hard.  He really didn't want me to go and it was so hard to see as a mom.  Poor Kason didn't understand what was going on, he doesn't understand how far I'm going or how long I'll be gone.  In a way it's easier on him that way because Kade is very sad.  So I'm going to finish packing and cry some more and hopefully sometime in the next 24 hours when I'm up in the air I can start getting excited to see my family.  It's been way too long since I've been home and I am really looking forward to seeing everyone.

the rabbit cake I made

getting ready for the hunt

cousins - Emi and Ani are so cute together

the gang

Kason and shapes

This is just to show some people who haven't seen this video.  It's our little smarty pants Kason who got pretty good at recognizing these shapes.  At first I just worked on the numbers and the basic shapes and then when Kade was telling me the correct names for the shapes I thought why not try teaching the kids the correct names and I was surprised how quickly Kason got it.  He loves playing the game when I ask him what shape is what and he has to know it and I think that's why he got it so quick.

I'm going to miss this little guy so much when I'm gone.  The last couple of days I've been trying to spend as much time with him and Kade as possible and I already miss them.  It will be the first time in their young life that I will be away from them for more than a couple days and it is not easy at all.  In some ways, it is harder than leaving just Ehren behind.  I have been gone for lengthy times away from Ehren since we have known each other and we always missed each other a lot but when it's your kids it's a lot different.  In my mind, I know they'll be ok and yet in my heart I don't wan to leave them behind.

Well, here is the little video.  I haven't even heard of a quatrefoil (a fancy word for "four leaves")  before and I mispronounce it on the video because that's what Kason always calls it, but I started correcting him since then and now he says it right. :)  

Mother Language

I've been thinking about writing about this for a while, mainly to just sort through my thoughts about it because it is a very emotional subject for me.  Seems like as the time goes by it gets easier but when I am really faced with it like I am right now, it always comes back and I feel like a huge failure.

Of course, what I'm talking about is my mother language - Slovak.  Ever since I knew I was getting married to an American and later moving here, I thought an obvious thing for me to do was to teach our kids my mother language.  I am a very goal oriented person and when I set a goal I need to accomplish it and sadly, this might be one of the few big ones I miserably failed at.  It makes me cry when I start thinking about it and I feel like the worst mother ever, but to tell you the truth it is harder than I ever thought it would be.  First, the issue is that I am all alone speaking Slovak.  There is no friend or family to talk to which makes a world of difference.  When my mom comes for a visit the whole thing turns 180 degrees and I am able to speak Slovak to the kids so much easier.  They listen to me and my mom talk and they pick up so much that way.  And then she leaves and I'm back to square one.  Every time I think I'll just keep going with it but every time I slip back into English way too fast.  I also feel like I don't know anyone who understands what it's like, to be the only one speaking a certain language and not having family closer.

But I know the main reason is that I am just not a talker.  My parents had to dig words out of me growing up and now Ehren has to dig in order for me to start talking.  :)  Of course, I can have spells when I won't shut up, but that doesn't happen very much.  And I really think that it affects my ability to teach our kids another language because it is harder for me than other people to just keep talking which is what kids really need to get the language.  Just someone who would talk their ears off and I am just not wired for it.  I've read some articles on multi-language homes to try to get some ideas on how to do it right and one suggestion was to say every sentence to the kids twice.  Once in Slovak and then translate it to English.  Well, I tried this again and again and I can never stick to it and after just a multiple of translations I give up.  After all, if I have a hard time saying much in English, saying everything twice would be almost impossible for me. :)  But I know that is just an excuse, an easy way out saying I'm just not good at it.  I don't ever want to think that way because it doesn't make me grow as a person and as a mom.  I know the most effective way would be to have our kids spend time each year in Slovakia but that won't happen either because of the cost of that.  So I am not quite sure how to accomplish this.  Maybe I need to look at it as a daily challenge and instead of trying to go big right away I need to just do tiny steps and remind myself it's ok to do little bit at a time, like teaching them simple words in Slovak versus the whole phrases or sentences.

Well, I am about to go to Slovakia with Anika in 4 days and thoughts about this once again creep into my head because truthfully I am embarrassed that Ani is not going to understand her cousins.  I know she won't care and she'll still have fun with everyone but I care.  So I think the only thing for me to do is to get up every day and try harder.  Now is the time to do that, not 10 years from now when it will be their choice to try to learn it.  But at the same time I know I have to give grace to myself about it and forgive my shortcomings in this area or else I'll always feel bad about it.  It is more important for our kids to know that I love them unconditionally no matter what language I speak to them.  It makes my heart smile that Kade still can't go to sleep without me and him saying to each other "dobru noc, lubim ta" which means "good night, I love you."  To him, it is our special greeting that only we have and I love that.

My first tiny step (one I've done many times before) for today is to go over the flash cards that show pictures and the kids have to remember the Slovak word for it.  Kade can actually read the Slovak word I wrote on it but the little kids can't read so they just go by memory.  Hopefully this time we can progress from there.  At least Anika will when we're in Slovakia but I need to stick with it once I'm back.  My hope is that writing this out will remind me to do it daily, little by little, and will remind me of how important it is for me.
  

Friendships

I just have to share about my day on Tuesday because it was one of those overly crazy days but at the same time it was so worth it, even the tiredness that followed the next day.

Sometime late morning on Tuesday I got a call from my mother-in-law because we've been trying to decide when to get together one last time before Seth (Ehren's oldest brother) had to fly back to New York.  It seemed like the best idea to get together at our house for a quick dinner of pizza but it ended up pretty rushed because not everybody came on time and then Ehren's parents, Seth and I had to leave for the night around 6pm.  It was good to see Seth again, but a pretty crazy time from the time my couple daycare kids got picked up until 6pm.

So off I went to my Zumba class that takes an hour.  On my way there I'm thinking how in the world am I going to do this because I was so tired from a busy day with the kids and on top of that trying to keep the house as neat as possible for the company.  But, I got through it and actually thought in the middle of it that this is the best thing for me right now, to relieve some of that tension from the day and just take care of myself for a bit.  When it was done I headed straight to Walmart because it was my only time to go pick up some groceries we needed.  That took almost an hour and I think partly it was because I was just dragging my feet after dancing for an hour.  And usually my evenings end there and I head home ready for bed, but a good friend of mine was painting a house they're about to close on so I offered to help.  A couple other friends came too and it was the best girl time in a long time.  I'm not sure though how much we actually helped her painting because we only did one bathroom but we sure had a great time talking about all sorts of things. :)  We just don't get enough time together at this stage of life when we're all busy with our own children and families.  We decided we have to start getting together some evenings like that, after the kids are in bed until whenever.  I'm so thankful Ehren lets me go out like this when I need to and he takes care of the kiddos.  Sometimes it is the only sanity break for me.

So I didn't get home until 10:45 that night which is pretty late for me during the week but it was so worth it.  My socializing tank was full that night. :)  It is just a good reminder for me how important friendships are and how important it is to keep them growing at every stage of life, even when I'm too tired to do anything and even when I don't feel like it because in the end my friendships bless me more than I could say.