How long have we been here?

Waiting for our makiatos on a lazy Saturday in Pristina.

As of today we've been in Kosovo almost 3 weeks. Part of me feels like we've been here forever. Not in a bad way, just in the "we're pretty settled in and back into a normal. boring routine kind of way."

Not a whole heck of a lot to report really...here are some general updates.

• Grammy Jo and Tootsie will be arriving on October 4th and we are all very excited!
• Our nanny, Vala, started this week which has lead to a lot more Facebook posting, playing with videos on IMovie and also getting some billable time in.
• I will be starting a survival Albanian course on Monday, which will be two hours per week for 22 weeks. My expectations are pretty low, but I'm going to work hard at it and hope to be able to muddle through some basic conversations by the end of the course. 
• Our UAB shipment arrived on September 23rd so we got some more of our stuff. A few things we wished we had packed in this first shipment...more toys, bigger coffee cups (the cups we have now are glorified espresso cups), umbrellas, clothes hangers, more toys and more toys. We could have done without the 3-6 months clothes for Zack as he has already grown out of them. It was fun unpacking the stuff as every little bit makes our house feel a bit more like home. 
• We got our first package in the mail here. Grammy Jo sent us a bunch of goodies and the box arrived in about 1.5 weeks. The favorite item in the care package was a recordable book. Grammy Jo recorded herself reading the book and Zoe LOVES it. I highly recommend doing this if you know of people living overseas.
• We had a courtesy call with Ambassador Dell. It is really a nice gesture on his part to meet everybody that comes to post here. We only spent about 15 minutes with him as Zoe started melting down and screaming, "I have a booger" over and over again. Awesome. 
• We got our Armed Forces Network decoder box which is pretty great. There aren't many channels but all of my favorite shows (DWTS, Glee and Modern Family) are broadcast usually a day after they air at home. Mike gets his fill of Sports Center, NFL, MLB and Tosh.0. Zoe is quite pleased with the kids channel which has all the best from both Disney Junior (Special Agent Oso, Handy Manny and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse) and Nickelodeon (Dora, Diego, Blue's Clues). 



Waiting in the Chancery for our meeting with
Ambassador Dell.

• Zoe and I started sharing a ride to school in the morning with the Bucha Family who's son is at her school but in the pre-K class. Once we get our car we'll probably work out a better carpooling system. It's been a huge help and a big cost savings for us. I was paying about 12 Euro per day getting Zoe back and forth to school which wasn't sustainable.

A few of our new favorite things:

• Macchiatos or makiato as they spell it here. I will likely leave here highly addicted to these.
•  Ajver. This is a DELICIOUS roasted red pepper and eggplant spread that we are spreading on everything. 
• Taukbashçe park.

Things we could do without...

• The bidet.
• The 15 different keys to different doors in our house. 
• The traffic downtown. 
• Our electric range, boy do I miss gas.

Strolling through Taukbashçe Park.

Apologies for overuse of CAPS for emphasis. I am aware of this problem and hope to find a way to stop the insanity!

Hope to post soon about our day trip to Pejë and get some pictures up from around our house.