August 16, 2025
Kayleen headed out around 8AM with Gabby and Bună to the Bratca Saturday Market while I stayed back with the boys. The market had produce, food trucks, clothes, and home wares. They bought a new outdoor stove for Bună’s house after the glass top of her previous one spontaneously combusted a few days ago. Kayleen found a shirt for Ollie that she thought had a Romanian school crest on it (Bună thinks it is English, whoops!) and a tank top for herself. Both shirts cost $1 total! They each had a cheese lángos and picked up a few to bring back to everyone at the house.
I had breakfast with the boys at the hotel and then headed to Mihai’s house. Everyone arrived home from the market shortly after we arrived and we sat around having a cup of coffee and cheese lángos while deciding what to do today. We landed on a trip to Huta Slavia, a Slovak town in the mountains. Gabby and Hope passed as they had been before and knew the 45-minute drive was filled with winding roads.
Mihai asked the boys if they wanted to go and Ollie said yes but Lenny was a no. I told Lenny that he would be coming and not getting another day of TV. The five of us set out with me in the backseat with the boys and oh boy was it a winding road. By the end everyone in the back was not feeling their best but we made it with no sickness.
We grabbed some waters at the store and headed to the bakery to get a cheese turnover that Mihai had been craving. The boys were not interested but they were enjoyed by the adults. The boys got their excitement during the bakery stop when I spotted a long snake in the creek that used to power the bakery mill wheel before electricity. It gave us a good show before slipping under the rocks.
We headed to the paddle boats next for a ride around the pond. Kayleen was on edge after the snake sighting so any unexpected noise or swift movement by a duck made her squirm and yell. Lenny went with Mihai in a boat shaped like a dragon while Kayleen, Ollie, and I took the old blue car boat. The dragon had a severe listing problem with the mismatched weight so it looked like it was about to tip from a distance. We fed some popcorn to the ducks and the boys jumped back and forth between the boats a few times without incident.
We walked the rest of the loop stopping to see some old tools, old Romanian cars, and a very handsome (and loud) donkey. There was soft serve ice cream for sale before we got back in the car but it was cash only and we were light on Leu, one cone was 10 and we only had 9. The man working was very kind and offered to give us one for 9 Leu and when he noticed the two boys offered to make two small cones instead of one big one. We thought it was creamsicle soft serve but after a bite realized it was cantaloupe! It was delicious and I’ll be searching for more all over.
The return drive was easier than the driving going, Mihai took a different route. Once back home we planned to go to the pool at our hotel for a bit. That plan was changed when a neighbor invited us over to see their baby bull that was born four days ago! We all headed straight over there to see it and were told we just needed to be quiet to not scare him.
Mihai led the way as the family only spoke Romanian but were very kind to all the kids, offering them two different kinds of cookies. The bull was in his pen when we got there but happy to see people visiting and walked over wagging his tail, happy to be scratched. Further back in the barn we discovered a big stinky pig and were told to be sure to keep fingers away from his mouth. As we were leaving, the family gave Mihai a large pot full of freshly baked doughnuts to take home, probably 25 of them! Mihai also conveyed to us that the bull would be sold in the fall to another farm or slaughterhouse, a reminder that animals are assets, not pets, in most places. I doubt the pigs fate looked much brighter!
We headed to the pool at our hotel after that to cool off with the kids going between the pool and ping pong table. Lenny kept begging to go in the indoor pool but I kept stalling and saying no, hoping he would let it go. Eventually we decided to have dinner at the hotel which ended the begging.
After dinner we went back to Mihai’s house to play and potentially set up the boys to stay overnight there with Hope. The World Cup Soccer game I played with the kids last night was a big hit with all of them, much to everyone’s surprise. Ollie even asked me to play it first thing when we arrived in the morning. The game was played where each kid had a ball and there was a small tent with the door unzipped that acted as the goal. One person played goalie as all the other people tried to score their ball. The person that scored became the goalie.
All the adults got involved tonight at different points of the game after seeing how much fun the kids were having, and how little they were fighting! Gabby added a soundtrack of original jock jams music and the kids demanded that we also announce their moves in a play-by-play fashion. After almost two hours of playing we convinced them it was time to eat if they were hungry before bed. Lenny jumped at the chance to take down a plate of spaghetti from Bună.
We gave them a quick shower at the house, brushed their teeth, and put them in PJs. They were all ready for their first sleepover at a friend’s house. Lenny was a little nervous but happy to have Ollie there in the bed with him. As we were leaving, he told Kayleen, “I’ll miss you mama…” They went to bed and we got no calls to come retrieve them in the middle of the night.
