July 30, 2025
Ollie was up at 4am to join us in bed. Thankfully we coaxed him to fall back asleep as he at first seemed ready to start the day. We were a bit worried about the boys sleeping up in the loft and having to climb up and down a slippery ladder, but so far so good. Kyle was the first one up for real and started the day on the balcony in the sun overlooking downtown.
We all walked down the steps together toward a highly reviewed bakery, Kruščić. Kyle chose the Pinca bread, a round yeasted bread with citrus and big sugar granules on top. The boys chose cinnamon rolls but Len ended up trading with Kyle since the sugar on the Pinca was irresistible to him. We then grabbed coffees and strolled along the waterfront for a bit before grabbing a few groceries and heading back to the apartment for homeschool.
Its been nearly two weeks since we had a proper homeschool session but we fell back into the routine easily. Ollie wrote a letter to his friend Dean, lamenting his upcoming move to Massachusetts, and Len picked back up where he left off reading books with Kyle. They were both happy to get back into their iPad learning curriculum too.
After lunch, we ventured back down the steps and into town to the local Football club’s shop in search of tickets for the match tomorrow. We learned the Hadjuk Split football club is playing a team from Ajerbaijan in town but buying tickets online requires a membership and all tickets appear sold out. Our host suggested we try the shop in hopes they release more tickets. The shop informed us that more tickets might be released tonight at midnight and no membership would be required to purchase. Kyle has plans to stay up late tonight to try and snag tickets!
We then walked along the waterfront marveling at the yachts and semi-submarine before arriving at a playground for the kids. This playscape wouldn’t hold a candle to the one at the top of Fløyen mountain in Bergen but the boys were still happy to be there. We kept on walking along the waterfront in search of a beach so we could take a swim. The kids kept asking if they could go in the water at various times during the walk as we saw people lounging on rocks and jumping into the open ocean below. Their confidence is apparently at an all time high after jumping off the boat in Norway a few times last week. Len even taunted the ocean at one point, “You can’t get meeeee!”
We finally reached pebble beach which was unlike any beach I’ve been to. There was no sand to be found so Len’s new sand toys were largely ignored save for the shovel which the boys used to build a “rock pit”. After a quick swim, Ollie was sitting with me on a towel and began to sift through the pebbles and found some seaglass. Excited, he kept sifting and found glass in varying states along the seaglass spectrum with some pieces fresh off a broken beer bottle. He collected all the glass he could find and begged that we keep it so I sneakily threw out the fresh glass pieces before we walked home. Kyle and Lenny, the biggest haters of sandy feet in our family, were happy to simply shake the small pebbles off their feet and slip into their sandals. A beach day typically leads to Len (and to some extent Kyle too) whining about sandy feet for an hour or more after leaving.
The route back to our apartment from pebble beach took us away from the water and up a huge flight of stairs. We saw more than a dozen stray cats on the way and the cicada buzzing continued to get louder as we approached our Airbnb.
For dinner, we walked down the steps by our apartment to Cicibela Wine and Food Bar. The kids were excited about the consistent return of Uno at meal time and Kyle and I were excited that they ate most of their meal; a prosciutto and truffle pasta. We all had a chuckle when we saw the ice cream scoop sized butter balls that came with our side of bread. After we finished, Kyle took a struggling Lenny outside and Ollie had a thrill when I asked him to go to the counter to pay our bill with my credit card. The staff had a chuckle that he was acting like a “big man” and gave him a few pats on the back. He was elated.
For dessert, we had a blindfolded ice cream taste test back at the apartment. The competition was largely a flop because the cheap convenience store ice cream flavors all kind of tasted the same, but it was still fun.
It was my turn to put the kids to bed tonight. We watched a few “pottery boy” videos on instagram and then played a few songs with a ton of commentary from an energized Ollie throughout:
Lenny: From Now On, The Greatest Showman
Ollie said this song reminds him of Hoboken, I think because of the chorus, “And we will come back home, we will come back hooooome, home again”
Ollie: The Election of 1800, Hamilton
Ollie still calls it the Selection of 1800 and even though we haven’t listened to it in a while, he sang along to every word
Me: The Other Side of Paradise, the Revivalists
Ollie interjected to ask what paradise was and to tell me of his future career plans to “buy a money factory and give the money to people who don’t have any”
