So much to blog

My girl has been visited by the tooth fairy for the first time! She lost exactly the same tooth that came out first and the one next to it is loose too, she keeps fidgeting with it. Also, she discovered the fun in trampolines and she hops around in the one we have occasional access to whenever she can. This Monday seen the closure of the ballet course and the little ones gave us a performance to celebrate it. I cannot believe how good she is and how much her moves and coordination have improved!

On a side note, does anyone else use Picasa? It was my favourite image viewer/organizer until recently, but has gone mad in the past weeks. I like correcting my photos, as in removing red eyes, straightening the slanting photos, cropping out what is irrelevant, that sort of thing. Picasa even turned my photos automatically in the right direction depending on landscape or portrait orientation. It still does for itself, but not any other program. You see in my previous post that the photos are sideways. Very annoying. Also, when I change something, it automatically saves the original version in a backup folder. Which is okay, but it doesn't automatically save the changes I made, which means that if I don't manually save every piece myself, I will end up with hours of work wasted and two versions of the same crappy pictures I started with.
On a more positive note, the water is receding, but this process is a much slower one than the rising one. You see, here is my school that I wrote about earlier. The building is safe, but the yard is still flooded, the water will have to soak in the ground because it has no other exit. Maybe someone will pump it, I don't know. You can see the hedge in the front, all grey with the dried mud, shows you how high the water level was.

Oh, I almost forgot that I got my PIF gifts from Carol! I got this lovely cushion and an adorable snowman ornament. Thank you very much, I love them!

I also have some progress pictures on Feasting Frenzy. As you can see, I have some new birdies and the roof is almost finished!

And last but not least, this is a drawing by my DD, and this is how she sees me. Amazing how she got the details right, the green eyes, my favourite turtleneck sweater and the white sneakers with the red stripes on the sides. What a budding little artist I have!

Needless to say, I am very proud of her and this picture is on my wall where I can always see it!

Rush post

I have very little time, so few words, more pictures. Most importantly, our home is safe now. Thank you for all the prayers and good wishes! The photo above shows you my hometown. The trees show the outline of the island and you can see it's under water. The opposite side is Slovakia.
And now the stitchy pictures I owe you.

Flood update

The flood is supposed to peak in our town tonight, but most places affected are not going to be safe for a while. So once again I am asking all of those who pray, please include Hungary and its people in your prayers this week! Loads of people have lost everything they have worked for all their life. It's a tragedy and my heart goes out for all of them.

My hometown, Esztergom, is not yet doomed, a lot of it is under water, but those are the parts that get flooded almost every year, either with the spring flood or the early summer, when the snow on the mountain tops of Austria melts and the water flows into the Danube. So the people who build/live there, pretty much know what to expect and are prepared. 

For example, my old elementary school:

Is on an island in the Danube that is at least half flooded every year. And it is a modern building, the engineers were aware of the situation, so, as you can see on the close up, it was built on a bunch of huge, massive concrete columns. See?

Another part of the town that usually get flooded: this lovely stone bench on the riverbank and is loved and visited by locals and tourists alike:

Looks like this by now:

If you are interested, you can see a lot more photos of Esztergom fighting the flood HERE.
Pictures about the situation by locals are collected HERE and by professional photographers HERE.
Photos of Budapest, where the water is still rising are HERE.
The language of the sites is Hungarian, but the pictures really speak for themselves.
As far as my family's situation is concerned, these pictures were taken from a bridge that is just a block from where they live:

I really hope the water won't rise any higher, and that those age-old trees will not fall, as the soil is soaked and no one knows if their roots can hold them for long. Should one of them fall, the dam will definitely not hold.
I will visit them today so I won't be able to write an update in the next few days.
To lighten the mood, here is a photo of one of many flood watchers: