Chatter Box: Fancy Schmancy

After spending 2 weeks in Toronto with Nagyi and Papo, we hopped back on another airplane (#3 of the summer, Clara will tell you, she's keeping count) to head to Halifax. We are spending 3 weeks here at Granny and Grandad's, then we'll be heading back to Toronto for another week before going 'home' again to Budapest. (An aside: I guess it feels most like 'home' now, since it's our own little family home. Chloe's never lived anywhere else, and Clara doesn't remember living anywhere else.)

Unfortunately for us girls, the very next day after we arrived here, Andras had to leave VERY early in the morning to fly to Miami for a conference. It's unfortunate for us, as we miss him, of course. But it's fortunate for him as he's getting to go to a fantastic IB conference on international education at a VERY fancy hotel right on the beach (it's called 'Fontainbleu' if you want to check it out), in a very fancy 'junior suite' with beach view balcony - poor him!

And the best part is that the keynote speaker at the conference is Greg Mortenson - the author of 'Three Cups of Tea'! I'm soooo envious that he got to go and not me!! (Especially since I'm the one who read the book and raved about it to him months ago, trying to get him to read it too, and he just started reading it on the plane to Miami!) Plus, unexpectedly, Greg Mortenson brought his friend along to speak too - Khaled Hosseini - the author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns! How cool is that?!

Anyway, while he's off enjoying the sun, surf, sand, and mental stimulation, the girls and I have been doing kid stuff. We took Clara to the public library (her first library experience I realised!) to see a puppet show and look at books (surprisingly, she wasn't as excited about the books as I thought she'd be - she was more into the ride-on toy in the kids' section - go figure, I guess she's normal after all!). Clara wasn't quite sure about the puppet show, I think, as there was a monster in it, but Chloe was really interested in it and didn't take her eyes off the puppets.

We've also just been hanging out at home, going to the playground, shopping, etc., but today we had a 'fancy' tea party for Clara. She's been talking about tea parties since I went to a couple this spring 'for Mummies only' and since she started her addiction to Mary Poppins. So she had requested having a tea party on the ceiling (like in Mary Poppins). Well, we had to use our imaginations for the ceiling part, but we did have a fancy 'girls only' tea party this morning. Clara, Mummy, Granny, Auntie Kate, Great Aunt Carol, Carroll Coffill, Stephanie Coffill, and Teri-Anne (Uncle Ucky's new girlfriend) all came (and Chloe popped in for a bit between naps). Everyone had to dress up and wear a fancy hat (except Clara didn't want to wear hers in the end! ha!), and we ate fancy little sandwiches, very fancy cookies, and watermelon cubes, and drank fancy tea in fancy teacups. Quite appropriately, Carroll Coffill even brought a 'Fancy Nancy' book for Clara.

Great Aunt Carol, Granny, and Clara

Granny and Clara

Stephanie, Clara, and Auntie Kate

All the 'ladies' at the fancy tea party

Teri-Anne and Mummy

Carroll and Carol

Then Clara went off to tramp around the garden in her fancy fairy princess dress. After the tea party guests left, we changed into swimsuits and went down to the lake for a while. It was a good day all round.