W26 of Y5

Spring Break Continued....

My absolute favorite part of our trip was sitting out here for 2-3 hours every morning before anyone else woke up. 

Belgrade, Serbia

We spent a day exploring Serbia's capital city, Belgrade

We were surprised to see so many tennis courts tucked away in the strangest places

We found a nice little Italian restaurant for lunch (not my choice!)

Picking out his newest piece

Back in Novi Sad we enjoyed our back yard so much!  Especially Kayla!

This was a far as they could go.  Too Cold!

I enjoyed the diversity of our neighborhood.  There were so many large, stray dogs though so it was scary going out on runs or walks by myself!

Timisoara, Romania

We wanted to visit Romania while we were so close (about 2 hours away).  

The kids really wanted to go to Transylvania or the capital, Bucharest but they were both at least another 5-7 hours away. 

We had some trouble at the border and wondered if we were going to even get in!
They wanted to see the original title to our van.  We kept telling them that it was at home and we don't keep it in our vehicles in America but they were just so confused about this and have to get every employee working that day in on the discussion!

Finally we got through the border!  We parked next to this market and set off exploring a new country. :)

We went to a traditional Romanian restaurant for lunch.  

Cheese and bread overload! 

These were REAL egg shells!  

Opera House

Novi Sad, Serbia

We spent a day exploring Novi Sad.

We thought it was so funny to see random animals right next to the road all the time in Serbia and Romania.  Horses, cows, goats, chicken, and dogs.  Sometimes the horses had a rope around their neck attached to a stake that was in the ground - sometimes not. 

The Petrovaradin Fortress (nickname: the Gibraltar of the Danube)

The clock hands are backwards (the long hand is the hour and the short hand is the minutes)

There was a small museum at the top where we read about the history of the fortress

We went back to Sremski Karlovci for lunch with Olja's family - this was the highlight of the trip!  Olja was born and raised in this home and her parents have lived in the same home their entire married lives.  They both also grew up in this town and had such interesting stories!

It was fun watching my kids play with Denis.  He is such a cool, little kid!

Whitney enjoying some homemade cherry juice

Olja keeps this picture of the kids at her parent's house.  This is how small they were when she was our au pair. 

A little starter: Gibanica - a traditional Balkan pastry dish.
This was DELICIOUS!!  The kids all asked me to get the recipe. 

This was a special treat from India.  Very sweet and spicy mangos.  An interesting blend of flavors!

Relaxing after dinner

We enjoyed looking at the photo albums of their Indian wedding.  Amazing!

After lunch we took a walk through the neighborhood and couldn't get Jeremy and Olja's dad apart! 
He loves talking about the history of his town and Jeremy loves learning about this stuff!

This was such a cool tree!

Olja's dad said his father helped construct the doors to this church!

Another random horse

More stray dogs!  We had to protect Kayla from these guys.

A group of Serbians welding something together

Such a fun day and a wonderful family!

The kids were thrilled to stop at McDonald's on the way home.  Connor finished this entire lunch in 15 minutes! lol!