So we got here fine, got settled into the house and unpacked. Spent our first weekend just kind of bumbling around the house battling our jet lag. Jet lag with a 3.5 month old and a 2.5 year old is not for the faint of heart. It took about a week for everybody to get back into a normal sleeping pattern. Zack seemed to adjust the fastest to being 6 hours ahead of our peeps on the East Coast.

Our first meal out at an English pub.
Mike's been back here to watch some premier league games. 

We headed down the steps into town for dinner on Saturday which was a nice walk. We quickly realized three things: Zoe needed to step up her game when it comes to walking, people here REALLY love kids and we weren't going to be picking up Albanian too quickly. 

Back in the States we took the kids everywhere in our double stroller. In doing so, we pretty much ensured that Zoe would be accostumed only to walking between different pieces of equipment at the playground. We should have scrapped the stroller for parts before coming here because I'll be shocked if we ever use it. There are virtually no passable sidewalks in Pristina; either they don't exist or there is a car parked along or across it. Zoe has been doing a lot better even after only a week and is now walking all the way back to our house from downtown tackling all of the crazy stairs. Last comment on our getting around...thank God for the Ergo baby carrier.

Dragodan stairs, we're all going to have great legs after 2 years here.

Right from the minute we got here, it was obvious that EVERYBODY loves kids. We were in our house for about two minutes and probably 5 different people had pinched Zoe's cheek, ruffled her hair or just plain old picked her up. It can be a bit shocking at times still, but strangers on the street will just come over and give your kid a little pinch or a snuzzle. We were walking up the steps from town the other day and this teenage boy said something to Zoe and tousled her hair while walking by. People on the Embassy compound will just plain grab the kids from you and play with them. They have been starved of kids as the USG just started allowing children under 5 years at this post. We actually had a guy from the consular section tell us he thought we were a family in some sort of trouble looking for help at the Embassy because he had never seen a family there before. Most of the kids are here at this point, we're just waiting for 2 more to arrive. In total there will be 8 US kids associated with the Embassy before the end of the year. 

The language could prove to be a real challenge for us... Luckily most people speak enough English or German (not that we speak German) or are superior at charades to make communication possible because Albanian is hard! I can barely pronounce people's names when they introduce themselves and I see some combinations of letters strung together that I've never seen before. I am hoping to start a survival Albanian class in October and Mike is planning to start learning a bit of Serbian. So far it seems that the phrase that everybody here knows in English is "no problem". I need to start keeping track of all of the ways I hear that phrase being used.

First day of work for Mike and school for Zoe.

All in all, we're settling into a pretty normal existence here. Mike's at work, Zoe's at school half day, and Zack and I are just chillin' for the moment.