----------------Swiss Family Palmer------------: March 2008

What a whirlwind week--Agi and I & the kids are returning to Utah, looking forward to finally "nesting" in our Nephi home! After 4&half great years for TNI in SE Europe, my expat period is up. I guess I knew the day would be coming sometime, considering the typical expat for our company is abroad for only 2-3 years. We've exceeded that by almost 18 months already. We should be home around the 1st of May.

We leave Hungary with a ton of great memories, great friends, great experiences, and great pictures. We'll miss our branch dearly. As fate would have it, our branch is emptying out as well--most of the families are leaving this summer as well, so we are in good company.

I do regret having to change the name of our blog--somehow the "Nephi Palmers" doesn't have quite the ring to it as "The Budapest Palmers". But in light of our great exciting new chapter in life, we'll always still be on some level...

"The Budapest Palmers"...

Fun fun fun. I finally took a long delayed trip to the Croatian island of Hvar to do the final site-survey and approval of our Big Fall Event. Once in a while I'll take a couple of kids with me on these trips to get them out of the house and their mother's hair, and Aidan and Ali drew the lucky straws... These pics were all taken earlier today.

Its now 9 PM and both kids are completely conked out here at the hotel room. LOOOONG 24 hours for them! This trip started last night (Friday) at 6PM, when we left Budapest for Zagreb. We got in to Zagreb after 10 and crashed at the Zagreb apartment--waking up at 4 AM for the 4 hour drive to Split, Croatia, with my Croatian Assistant Manager Jasmin (despite the stripper name, he's actually a guy and a really really cool one at that...). At 9AM from the Split Harbor we boarded the large passenger Ferry to Hvar, an awesome island with 3000 residents, and about 20,000 tourists and sun-seekers in the summer.

We arrived at 1030 AM to Hvar, disembarked, checked into the hotel, met our hosts, did a thorough review of the facilities and technical capabilities, and wrapped it all up around 330 PM. We spent the rest of the day checking out this awesome stone village that, similar to Dubrovnik and the hundreds of other picturesque locations up and down the coasts and islands of Croatia, is a millennium old. This included a HUGE hike up the side of the mountain to the old castle fortress overlooking the city and bay.

Afterwards I took the kids swimming in the hotel's indoor pool, which is really cool--crystal-clear seawater is pumped in and heated. Ali, fish that she is, did not want to come out. Two very happy kids have now crashed into bed, even before the pizza for dinner arrived.

This gives me a little time to throw these pics on the blog and finish writing up my Big Event Plan and site review. WHOOOHOO!

Enjoy!