Look Mom!

While I was away in Romania. Ava learned to ride a two wheeler. She was very proud to show off when I got home. Ryan had been taking the kids to the playground a couple of nights a week and working on bike riding with Ava. It is fantastic to have an elementary school right behind our house. Starting is still a bit of an issue for her, but overall she's got it down pat.

Oktoberfest

I swear I didn't book the tickets, I just made the best of the situation. The Marine Corps Reserves uses a travel agency that is known for coming up with the most complex, idiotic, and inconvenient travel itineraries. While is it completely possible to fly from Romania back to North Carolina in one day, they had me spend the night in Munich, Germany. My layover just happened to coincide with the last weekend of Oktoberfest, and my sister happens to live in Germany an 1 ½ away from Munich. So I told her to get her butt in the car and drive down to visit with me. She brought the dirndls and mastery of the German language and off we went to the mother of all beer fests. There we finagled our way into a beer tent, made some new friends so that we could find a table, and enjoyed and evening of big beers, giant pretzels, and dancing on tables. One fact that I couldn't get over was that the band played more America songs, than German polka music.

Romania

Romanian Summer Palace: Actually built in the early 1900 complete with central vacuum system and movie theater

Dracula’s Castle

Vlad the Impaler’s burial place, small monastery on an island

Bucharest: Old Inn 

Bucharest: Parliament Building it rivals the Pentagon in size

While my job was to ensure that 120 Marines and their equipment got home safe and sound from Romania, my real goal was to explore Romania.  For most of my stint in Romania, I lived and worked on a small U.S. military base next to an airport, but I did get two days at the end to explore a bit. I really liked what I saw.

As far as cities go, I liked Tallinn, Estonia better, but Bucharest has its charm. Most of the medieval city (1500's) has been destroyed, but the old (1800's) part of the city is lovely and they are doing a lot to revitalize the area.  However, you don't need to walk far to see the marks that communism left on this capital city.  The communists built lots of huge buildings but none of it is pretty by normal conventions. Still, there is a beautiful city park and a lake, and lots of tree lined boulevards.

Once you get of of Bucharest and away from the traffic you will still find Romanian who drive mule carts.  As you move towards the mountains you will find gypsy communities, citadels and castles high on the hills.  Towns like Brasov are much more quaint and charming with their old town square, city walls, and cobble stone streets.  The small mountain communities remind me of pictures of the Swiss Alp villages.  I wish I could have explored farther north and west. Romania has a lot to offer in terms of history, hiking, caving, birdwatching, and boating.

The make claims about great beaches on the Black Sea. I wasn't impressed with where I went to put my toes in the sand, but I think exploring the Danube Delta would have been interesting site in eastern Romania.

Overall, this would be a country that I wouldn't mind coming back with Ryan to explore for a week.

Labor Day

After Ryan watched the kids all week, I thought I would give him a break for the weekend, so the kids and I took off for a long weekend at the beach. Actually, Ryan just wasn't allowed to leave Fayetteville. The family time would have been nice, but we didn't want to pass up a nice weekend at the beach, since we won't be going down again until the end of October.

Gabe spent most of his days, snoozing on the beach. I wish I could have joined him, but someone had to keep a watchful eye on the other kids. The beach didn't disappoint. We were out from sun up to sun down every day. The kids played individually as well as together, and even met some old and new friends.

On Saturday night, we headed across the street to the local Tiki Bar for some free hot dogs and music. The kids then proceeded to steal all the bean bags from some folks playing corn hole.

Fighting and arguing were minimal, and they feel asleep each night as soon as their heads hit the pillow. Just the way I like it!

I can parent 4 kids, no problem. If only every day was a day at the beach.

Oh, and Elizabeth lost a tooth at the beach, but it turns out the tooth fairy doesn't stop by our beach house. The other side of the story is that I used up the last of my cash, buying a beer at the Sand Bar.

P.S. We had breakfast the last morning at the pier. While we were strolling out over the water, the kids managed to guilt two fishermen into letting them throw their catches back into the water. The kids have no problem eating fish, but they were a bit concerned about the fish flopping around on the deck gasping for breath. Lizzy was the only one brave enough to pick up the fish and toss them back, but they all felt better about letting the fish live another day.

Look what I can do

I leave for a week long business trip, and when I come back my baby boy can do all sorts of new tricks. Gabriel can now sit all by himself. He can almost transition between sitting and laying down and back again. He get up on all fours and rocks. He can definitely roll. If you leave him alone for 2 minutes he will be halfway across the room.

He can hold his own bottle. This a huge deal for me. I can pump and give him a bottle, so that I can get dinner ready. Half the time, the kids would get bored feeding him, and would run off to play, leaving me with a screaming baby and burning food.

Another big plus is that he is now sleeping 12 hours at night.

**Except for when I go on business trips, and he gets sick which leaves Ryan waking up every two hours. Not cool when you just finish working the 3pm-midnight shift.

Now for the stats, Gabriel is 6 months old. Weighing in at 15lbs. (15th %tile) and 25.5 inches (10th %tile). He seem so much bigger to me, than Casey was at this age, but I guess he is still a small fry.