The Monster Hiding in the Dryer

You may remember the issues I had in the apartment with laundry, especially the dryer.  I had high hopes that the washer and dryer in the house would be better.  And they are...sort of.  I have a fantastic laundry room.  Infinitely better than the unfinished basement laundry I had in St Louis.  But the washer holds TINY amounts of laundry.  Seriously tiny.  And the dryer, while still better than one at the apartment, is still not like I'm used to with my old (really old...like 12+ years) American dryer.  But tonight I figured out that some of the dryer issues may indeed be my fault. 

My very decent landlord provided English translated manuals for our German washer and dryer.  I did read a lot of them (since all the buttons and dials are in German), but clearly I didn't read them completely.  Tonight I was cleaning the heat exchange unit (don't ask...just a weird maintenance thing with this dryer), and something caught my eye in the door.  It looked like something was wrong inside the actual door panel.  As if something had fallen out of place inside the door.  I tried to figure out how to get into it, when I realized there was an oh so handy latch on the top.  As if one was supposed to access the door panel.  BECAUSE THAT'S WHERE THE LINT FILTER IS.  Now I'm not one of those people who only cleans the lint filter on occasion.  I clean it every time.  I had noticed how little lint was collecting on what I believed to be the lint filter.  But this dryer is a completely different animal than any I've seen (besides the cleaning the heat exchanger thing, I have to dump a collection bin of water out of it after every load), so I figured that must just be another quirk.  In fact, no.  So in the entire time I've lived in this house and done laundry (over a month)...I have NEVER properly cleaned the lint filter.  You can imagine what I found inside.  Or maybe you can't.  So I took pictures.

 

The machines

 

The strange thing that fills with water...

 

and needs to be removed and dumped after every load. (See...I read most of the manual!)

 

 

This is what I thought was the lint filter.  It's a filter.  And it does get small amounts of lint on it.

 

 

See how it looks strange inside the holes?

Because of this lint monster!

 

Is that crazy or what?!?

 

I am now diligently cleaning the lint filter, which gets a completely normal amount of lint on it after every load.  But it still takes forever to dry.  :)

Loving Spring

It's shorts weather here so we spent the afternoon basking in the sunshine.  We dug around in some garage boxes and managed to find the bin of balls.  

 

 

The kids were overjoyed and used some serious sibling teamwork to get it up from the garage. 

 

The previous owners left some soccer goals which are now a fixture in the backyard.

 

We LOVE having this great backyard!

The Buzz is Back!

 

Every so often, when there are no school pictures or major events upcoming, Nicholas gets to shave off his hair.  He loves it.  He'll sit and just rub it.  He also likes not having to do anything to it in the mornings before school.

 

At the end of our street there's a French place Tom and I went to on Friday for lunch when he got into town (another lovely daytime date...awesome!).  The food is impeccable, and you can even get a salad, which is a rarity here.  I took the kids after church today for lunch.  Nico loved that he matched the napkins.

 

 

 Charlotte would like it noted that she too matched the napkins.  Sort of.  :)

Do You See It?

 

Little did we know, but Budapest is a city of caves...and we love caves!  There are more than 100 within the municipal boundaries.  Charlotte went to a cave birthday party today at Szemlőhegyi cave.  30+ six year olds and one brave English speaking guide.  Impressive.  We can't wait to go back with the boys.  Can you tell what the room above is called?  The Witch.  See the crooked nose and chin in the lit area?  This isn't the most impressive part, so I'll be sure to get better pictures next time when I'm not with a gaggle of kids!

Nothing Says "Spring" Like Baseball

That's right, folks.  We're back for another round of baseball.  This time, however, it's a lot more like what we're used to at home.  It's outside, kid-pitch, and normal (mostly) rules.  No stealing, which bummed Nico out, but much more fun than that crazy indoor tournament.  Nicholas was the first pitcher (since he was one of the few who had ever pitched before).  He did great.  I'm honestly not sure if we won or lost the game, but it was a beautiful day for baseball!

 

The outdoor field.  Real baseball!

 

 

Off he goes!

 

Nico chose number 13.  "Because it's my lucky number".

 

Ice Cream with Daddy

Tom's been travelling a lot, but is home now for about 36 hours between week long trips.  The kids each get a little alone time with him while he's here.  Today, Charlotte had some while Nico was at cricket.  They played a lot of Barbies up in her room (Sorry, no pics of that.  Drat!), but first they went down the street to get ice cream ("fagylalt" in Hungarian) from the cukrászda, which has made room in the dessert case for ice cream now that the weather is warm.

 

 

 

Aaah, our Messy Missy.

 

One other fun thing:  our cukrászda has the cutest napkins.  See?  I'm sure by the end of summer we'll have discovered all the sports that an ice cream cone can possibly play!

 

 

Lennie the Lizard

Lennie is Charlotte's class pet.  Thankfully she is stuffed.  She visited us for the week.