Summer Days

Since last we met ...

... our visit with the Godins, our family in Ohio, had not happened. They were a highlight for our summer. After sending us on quite the emotional roller coaster with their "we are coming"/"we are not coming"/"we are coming for sure" routine due to the uncertainty of military space A travel, we enjoyed 7 wonderful days with them. It was fun showing them around our city, getting to experience a weekend ER visit with Mike, finding an open Pharmacy on a Saturday, taking a picnic in the hills, having a monster day of sightseeing, sweating like pigs, laughing like madmen, drinking too strong coffee, taking dates with our nieces, and ... did I mention laughing like madmen! I don't know what it is about the Godin presence, but whenever they are around we laugh better and harder than when we are with anyone else on the planet! Oh how sweet our memories of our time spent with them.

... we had not yet been on our vacation to Kapolcs, Hungary. This was another highlight for our family. Staying in a rose covered cottage in a valley village, we swam in the nearby Lake Balaton, got tan, ate Langos (a local fried bread dripping with garlic), visited Tesco (the European version of Wal-Mart) way too many times to count, enjoyed a typical Hungarian dinner prepared by our hosts who just happened to be a native born Hungarian that immigrated to the U.S. during the 1956 revolution and his American wife from Chicago, shopped a flea market not knowing how to ask "How much is this?" in Hungarian, rode in a boat in an underwater thermal river, and on our last night ate S'mores under the stars with new friends Gaston and Linda (he is Hungarian and escaped the revolution in 1956 to make his fortune in New York, City and met his native New Yorker wife.) while listening to American Rock-n-Roll from a nearby Hungarian village festival!

This rather simplistic version of the last few weeks doesn’t capture the sights, sounds and emotion of the happenings … only a chapter in a novel could capture the true experience. Suffice it to say we feel rested in mind and body and closer to one another because of the time spent.

Here’s to the rest of the summer!