End of Grandpa's Visit

A wonderful time had by all with pumpkin carving, family visits,  rainy day in Skopje, a train ride to Peja, trip to the Rugova waterfalls and general exploring in Pristina. Not to mention plenty of nice dinners, walks in the park, casual conversation on the deck nice weather was moderate Fall temperatures. The kids will miss their ever accessible Lego builder and coloring partner until we all meet up in Austria for a ski Xmas vacation.

London w/o Kids

A bit delayed on this post but still worth sharing, especially thanking our great hosts Carol and Jim (and Sammy and Lucy) and John/Tanya and Kian. 4 nights of a 4 hour adult dinner, little English pubs, The Book of Mormon play, and sushi reminded us how much fun date night can be. On our first day in the city we walked over 20km seeing all the parks, museums and general tourist attractions ducking inside a Starbucks to avoid the afternoon shower. Most importantly was late night conversations and day outings with our close friends living there which also included dear friends Vica and new husband Simon from Pranvera's Harvard days. Plus visiting with several of her cousins who actually live in the UK. Perfect weather and the extremely cheap discount airline flying into Luton from Skopje which just required an extra 2 hours of driving from Pristina.

Dad Visits Kosovo


For the first time. Having heard the stories of the country and culture for over 8 years, now it is great for us to finally be able to let my father see, taste, smell and experience Pristina and surrounding areas first-hand. Having arrived on his birthday, we kicked off his visit with a night out and cake with the kids back at the house. In between all our outings Dad is on the floor either building Legos or coloring books with the kids. A wonderful 'break' for Pranvera and I and a great pleasure for Adi and Rea.

Lucky for us the winter is holding off and we had a wonderfully warm weekend to hike to the Mirusha Waterfalls one day followed by a fantastic fresh fish afternoon super (complete with full playground) and another day of visiting the new Bear Sanctuary and fishing in the water reserve nearby. Grandpa brought Adi his first fishing rod and helped trying to instruct him on proper casting. Of course for a 5 year old, patience in the process not included.

We plan on many more adventures over the next several week stay and only pray the weather supports our action filled schedule.