August 15, 2025
We were up earlier than yesterday and got our act together in time for a quick breakfast at the Mirabilandia hotel. Once we made it to Mihai’s family’s home, Ollie was quick to run inside to grab the fish game to resume the competition from last night. Ollie would get frustrated and swat at Kyle’s fishing pole leading Lenny to taunt him, “Ollie you’re a cheater, cheater pants on fire!!” Soon, Hope took the boys a little ways up the hill to show them her great-grandparents’ gravesites. The boys loved this little hike and adventure.
We asked the kids if they wanted to come with us on a drive but they opted to stay back with Bună at the house knowing they would likely get to sneak in a ton of TV time since today was another scorcher. Mihai drove me, Kyle and Gabby all over the area sharing tidbits about the infrastructure and how the area has changed in recent years. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant Mihai had mentioned a few days ago that had a trout pond out front. Gabby, Mihai and I each ordered the trout and Kyle a huge beef tenderloin. It ended up being quite the lunch as we were served 2 trout each and we had polenta and fried cheese on the side as well.
Next we drove up another mountain to see one of the lakes and went on a mini hike. We were surprised to find what looked like a restaurant on the mountain and we heard music playing. As we started to walk in that direction, ~5 huge barking dogs emerged so we turned back and headed back to the car. We drove on to another restaurant for a cold drink and an ice cream outside on their deck. Next, we stopped at the dam to take in the view and look for trout in the water before heading back towards Negreni.
We got back to the house to find the boys pleased to have spent the majority of the afternoon indoors watching TV with Hope. They were thrilled that Bună also had microwave popcorn– their favorite.
Bună tore the kids away from the TV to take them to feed the goats while Gabby cooked dinner (mici/meech) on a small grill by the road. We had Ollie guess how many goats there were (he guessed 6) and we asked Lenny what color they would be and Len responded confidently, “I know they’re white!!” There ended up being 2 and they were black and a little white.
After dinner, there were a few more rounds of the fish game and some world cup soccer before we roasted marshmallows by the road. Kyle kept getting dragged back to the yard for more soccer while Bună shared stories about Mihai’s childhood in Romania with me and Gabby. A few of the greatest hits include him walking home alone at 3am at 8 years old in the streets of Cluj, peeing out a car window with his brother and locking his family out of their apartment but also leaving the water running. She shared that she sees a lot of similarities between young Mihai and Lenny!
