Todd's Birthday Celebration

Well it is true the older you get, the greater chance you have for actually forgetting what number it is. Pranvera and I had to briefly debate this and realized this makes us officially middle aged. As a dear friend just attested, it only means we can no longer say, "Well when I grow up...".

Pranvera arranged a surprise happy hour at our local favorite pub for some close friends and family. Was great and a simple quick break without the kids (as we celebrated at home earlier). But the real treat was her finding a family we could rent a very nice house from at our local mountain Brezovica only about an hour south of Pristina . Another family joined us whose son is a classmate of Adi's. Since Pranvera's job kept her in town till the next day, the kids and I had 5 days down in the fresh air and stove heated house. Ironically we went there to get several days of skiing and snow play in but the warm weather left no snow around the house and relatively little up on the mountain top. There was enough for a sledding afternoon but not enough to get ourselves up on the lifts only to avoid all the exposed rock, grass and very bad skiers.

The kids had plenty of playtime in and outside the house and we all cooked great meals including fresh fish caught just up the hill from us in the local river. Plenty of wine and time to laze around the house talking, reading, resting and watching movies. Disappointed to not get any boarding in for the third try in the last 2 years at our local mountain even though the last night we got 10cm of fresh snow a bus in the morning slid off the road blocking access to the mountain top for anyone wanting to ski the powder. Such is our luck. Till next year I guess since it seems like winter has almost already left us (really can't complain).

Happy New Year--Gazuar Viten e Ri!!!

It was really nice to return from since a great Christmas vacation to a (Muslim) city with more lights and decorations than most we passed through on our 6 European country return. The central pedestrian boulevard (Mother Theresa Boulevard) is full of lights, Christmas huts selling all type of holiday treats including the best and cheapest Gluvine we've found. Many of the Diaspora come back for the holiday so the street has been packed and wonderful to stroll, despite the freezing cold. Our New Years Eve was traditional spending it in the house Pranvera grew up eating with her parents and visiting with both her brothers families. We were safely tucked into our warm house and since we now live a bit outside the city on a hill we had a front row view of hundreds of private firework shows being launched from all the different hills surrounding the city. It was such a magical sight we woke Adi to enjoy the ringing out of the old and the in of the new.

We are so blessed to have so many of you still involved in our lives in some way shape or form and we hope our paths may cross sometime this year or the next.

Christmas in the Alps

Never thought I would be saying this, especially after having spent a fair amount of time in Africa. Ironically (and by pure luck) we ended up selecting a small Austrian ski village, Obertauern, which was one of the only places in Europe to have a white Christmas. The adventure began with a 2 day 14-hour drive across 6 countries with several hours of thick soupy fog and a burned out headlight. Despite being Europe we seemed to experience some of the challenges that hit us in Africa such as a 40 minute wait to get temporary plates in Serbia since they do not recognize our Kosovo plates and registration. And to enter the EU in Croatia we had to pay 240euros for 15 days insurance, and then upon the return drive to be 'caught' in Slovenia without a road vignette (ticket) resulting in a 150euro fine. This said, the road conditions were fantastic and the scenery wonderful, although without the white blanket we were expecting. Only upon our approach to the final destination did we actually see any natural snow.

Fortunately my sister and dad were able to join us as well. As this was our first Christmas without mom (and she was always about tradition) it was important that we celebrated together in her memory. Adi and Rea loved having them around as did we to allow Pranvera and I time for ourselves. The hotel was perfect with its own spa (only used twice), large pool with 100m waterside (all just next to our room), a play center for the kids, wonderful bar/restaurant, main dining room and best of all, a ski-in/sky-out location where I just walked out with board and boots and hit the mountain.

We had Adi in school school for four days complete with a bus pick-up/drop-off and lunch. He was coasting down the blues by the end of the week and I was able to do a run with him as he sped ahead with his coach. As for myself, I had 4 unbelievable days on the largest most expansive mountain range I have ever seen. Almost all the runs were  open and with 26 high-speed lifts and 100km of trails I was able to spend each day almost without repeating any run twice and making my way all the way down and back around to where I started. Having a Weiss beer and sandwich mountain top each day to recharge it was picture perfect blue skies and the cleanest air and most incredible views. Too bad I was skiing solo this trip but I ran into by luck Pranvera and Rea with Stacey and dad at one of the mountain top restaurants that they reached by gondola which as a nice break in the day.

Of course this was enjoyed not without incident. Having just done about  6 runs my rear binding broke mid-slope but I was able to not crash and had a tool with me to rescrew the straps back on. Then I noticed that both the souls of my boots literally pealed off as I walked to get on the next lift since the rubber was so old it deteriorated. So my Xmas present to myself was new boots and bindings to compliment my already new board that was given to me earlier in the year for my birthday. Making over 50 runs I walked away with only a bruised rib and a jammed toe (from the spa;-)

All this high altitude adventure was complemented by hours in the pool with Adi racing down the enormous water slide and Rea not getting enough of the pool and Aunt Stacey. Since there was no fresh snow the sledding was a bit more challenging and icy and Pranvera and I weren't able to use our snow shoes. We walked around the little town a bit but mostly hung out at our place which was slightly out of town. Santa even arrived in a horse drawn sleigh with heated wine for the parents followed by a gourmet 5 star meal. Santa arrived in full force with dad and Stacey bringing a ton of presents from the US (much of which we ordered) and Amazon.de delivering a number of gifts direct to the hotel. Luckily we were able to pack it all back in the car to drive all the toys and memories back to Kosovo.

Although it was only a week it was a perfect family vacation with all the warmth and love a holiday is supposed to have. The kids couldn't have been happier and it was restful enough that Pranvera was able to forget a bit about the intensive start-up for her project and I took a deep breath after crashing on a 2 week intensive market study for the USAID Mission in Uganda. A great ending to a year of transition and transformation.