Boating in Annapolis

And some swing time first to boot!

In honor of our friend (uncle) Andrew's 40th (very belated) bday, a small group of us chartered a beautiful sailboat for a 3 hour tour of the Bay. Perfect weather and company. Adrian's first and as you can see he settled in quite well with a beer and baby bjorn. Almost felt like we were on holiday!

Weekend Activities in DC

Daddie and Adrian being silly at the Kennedy Center for a piano performance.

Day hike along the Potomac with a stop at the waterfall. Adrian enjoyed his new backpack ride.

Sunset happy hour at the Sculpture Garden Jazz session in the DC Mall. Adrian spent most the time playing in the fountain.

Day at North Beach about an hour away from DC with Kat, Tim, Sam and Alex. Unfortunately the sand and waters were nothing like what we are used to in the Adriatic.

Grammy's Visit

Had a nice long weekend with Grammy coming in town to play with her grandson. Was a welcome relief to us to have a date night and just an extra set of hands to hold and entertain Adrian allowing Pranvera to actually read an article, write an email or take a long stress free shower.

We went to music class, a visit to the White House, a walk in the park, a visit to work, a piano concert at the Kennedy center, a fruitful shopping trip to purchase his new stroller and just spent a lot of quality time around the house.

Visit to New York

The great thing about the East Coast is how relatively close places are vs. California. So on a long 3 day weekend we packed up the car and did the traffic infested 6 hour drive to Manhattan to stay with our dear friends Jim, Carol and Sam Lewis. With our kids less than 2 months apart it makes a weekend visit very easy as we could use much of their baby equipment and we had to adjust all our activities to our kids.

Even though for all intensive purposes we could have been in Kansas since we didn't really get to experience NY as an empty nester couple might. None the less we took some great walks out in the park, enjoyed the plethora of unique New York shops that line every street and felt the energy of the Big Apple.

Our second day involved a fun ferry ride to Staten Island where we caught up with Pranvera's cousins, Kennie and Shkurta and their 9 month old and 2 year old. Great fun to see the kids play with one another and for us to enjoy quality kid time on a nice carpeted floor. We ended out that evening with a visit to Arta and Oki and who work for the Kosovo government with the UN and have set themselves up quite nicely as diplomats. We enjoyed lovely meals and conversations to catch up since our last visit there almost a year back.

On our drive back to DC we were able to break up the trip with a visit to another dear Kosovar friend Ilir and Arbresha and their newborn and 2 young children. We were able to get a nice afternoon swim in the children's pool and partake in yet another nice home cooked meal. Pranvera also drove us from their place all the way back into DC which was her first US highway drive.