A River Runs Through It

As far as natural disasters go, Hungary is a pretty safe place to live. There aren't really earthquakes, there are no tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanoes, etc... But, every now and then there are floods.
The Danube river overflows its banks in Budapest every couple years - sometimes every year, and even here in Eger we get our own floods from time to time.
Back some time in the 19th century there was a big flood in Eger, and many of the older buildings in town have marks on them from the high water mark of that flood.
Today there was a flash flood in Eger. I (Nick) was stuck at our church office downtown and not able to come home, because the roads were under water. After a little less than an hour it cleared up and I was able to go home. On the way the roads were all covered in silt and parts of the sidewalk on our street had been washed away!
Also on our street, a sink hole had opened up in the road, and the fire department was there trying to fix things - even now the road is still closed.
Rosemary was at the house with the baby - and had a good time with the neighbors watching the river of water flowing down the street in front of our house.
Something similar happened 3 years ago, when we first moved to Eger; we had to get to church, and I had wade through water to put all the stuff for church into the car!
Nothing near a natural disaster, but for Eger, this was pretty interesting!

Are you in Hungary? Did you have flooding where you live too?

Here are some photos and a video:
The river in front of our house


Firefighters on our street and the hole (taken w/ my phone)


Video of flooded streets downtown (taken by Shane from the window of his workplace)

Poky Little Puppy

The Poky Little Puppy is a book about a group of puppies who are naughty and always getting into things they shouldn't.
More and more lately we have been noticing that Nathaniel is a lot like a puppy.
Some examples: He likes to hold his toys in his mouth to keep his hands free while he's busy with other stuff. He has sharp little teeth, and chews on everything. He started crawling last week, and now he's double trouble! He likes to lick us to show us that he loves us (probably his imitation of our kisses). He often pants loudly when he gets excited. He also pounds on stuff when he is happy - as if he had a tail he wanted to wag.
Today, we read him the book The Poky Little Puppy. Afterwards we let him play by himself for a few minutes, and when we went back to play with him, we noticed that there was something in his mouth... So, I dug it out of there, only to find it was part of the cover of the book we had just read him - a hard-backed book, supposedly made to be baby-proof. He had bitten it off!
We are convinced: Nate is the Poky Little Puppy.

Nate's Little Knives

I (Nick) recently got a knife. I've wanted one for a long time, and a friend blessed me with it a few days ago. I really like it, and I try to use it as much as possible - to carve my name in things or to open up my yogurt, letters, etc... (pretty much anything I possible can).

But in more interesting news: Nate himself has been blessed with not one, but two little knives.
Right now he has 2 teeth that have popped out on the bottom, and the top 2 are coming any day now.
Let me tell you - those little things are sharp! I used to let him chew on my nose before he had teeth, but last night I wasn't on guard enough I guess, and he chomped down on my nose - I thought I was going to die. It was more painful than having your nose hairs pulled out! I was sure that he had drawn blood - but in the end he didn't. I think I just got a bruise.
So, Nate is getting bigger and bigger every day, and getting more and more of these razor sharp little knife/teeth.
Its so cool to watch him grow. His name means "Gift of God" and that's truly what he is!

Spring in Eger

Spring is my favorite time of year in Hungary.
When I lived in Colorado, spring was actually my least favorite time of year, because it meant the end of the ski season. But here I'm actually glad when the winter's over; for one, because ski season isn't a big deal here (although I did manage to get to Slovakia to snowboard a few times this year), but mostly because it means that I can get outside and start doing stuff that is fun to do around here, like hiking and mountain biking.

Last week some guys and from the church and I went hiking in Slovakia, to a super cool national park, where we hiked up 2 canyons, in a beautiful area. For pictures click here.

This time of year in Eger it rains a lot, but that also means that the hillsides are very green, and so when the sun shines its gorgeous.

Today we went for a bike ride in the hills, and even got to see some newborn sheep, who still had afterbirth on them and were taking their first steps! Cool stuff.