Williams Overseas: Spring Break Week

Last week was Spring Break for public schools in Romania, but since we just spent a week in Turkey, then also a weekend in the mountains, we decided to stay in Bucharest and "lay low" this week. Then again, we would all go stir crazy staying home, so we tried to plan at least one "activity" each day. (Keep in mind that for us, a seemingly small outing can be a major event for the day!) So, for better or worse, here is a summary of our week...

Monday
Target Activity: Trip to IKEA play area, Hot dogs & ice cream for lunch

There were a few things we've been wanting to check on at IKEA and since Kamryn is now potty-trained, we were excited to try leaving her in the big play area with Carter. This seemingly simple outing, however, went disastrously wrong, from start to finish! :) On the way inside, Kamryn tripped in the parking lot and hit her forehead on the cement, poor baby! We finally got her settled down, only to find out that she was one centimeter too short to go in the play area. She was devastated! So again, we tried to settle her down while everyone stared at us.... We finished our shopping, picked Carter up and headed to the checkout. At that point, Alexa spilled her sippy cup of water all over herself and was soaking wet. This was the point that Ryan & I looked at each other and just wanted to go home. However, neither of us wanted to go home deal with the lunch mess, so we took our injured toddler and soaking wet baby over for some hot dogs and ice cream. Then we went home. Day 1 outing...failure. :)

It actually didn't look as bad as I expected
after witnessing the fall. (and the tears)

Tuesday
Target Activity: Make homemade play dough; Attend monthly team meeting

Tuesday went much better! While Alexa took her morning nap, I helped Carter & Kamryn make play dough. They really enjoyed it and there were no major catastrophes - yay!

Little Mixers

This day was also the scheduled monthly meeting for our team. Ryan went by himself for the actual meeting, then the kids and I joined them for lunch afterwards. It's always nice to hang out with everyone!

Wednesday
Target Activity: Take the kids to a movie

Our first plan for this day was to go to the circus. Apparently we are not meant to see this particular circus because this was our 3rd attempt and we were foiled yet again. Normally, they have a showing at 10am on weekdays, but for Spring Break week, they weren't doing the weekday shows...makes sense, right?

So, plan B was going to a movie at the theater (on Wednesdays we get 2 for 1 tickets!). We saw The Croods...Carter & Kamryn loved it...Alexa loved climbing the stairs...everyone wins! :)

Thursday
Target Activity: Make homemade donuts for breakfast; Go to the park in the afternoon

Over the past few weeks it has come up several times how much we miss the fluffy, glazed donuts from our local donut shop. So I thought it would be fun to try to make some ourselves! I found a few recipes online and picked one that seemed yummy but not too difficult. (By the way, when I Googled "homemade donut recipes", many of the links started with "Get a can of refrigerated biscuits..." That's NOT homemade, people! :) ) The night before, we made the batter, let it rise, rolled it out and cut out the donuts, then let it rise again. In the morning we were ready to fry our donuts. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures, it was bit crazy with all my kitchen helpers! They actually turned out pretty good... Not quite as yummy as the donut shop, but definitely a good alternative!

That afternoon, we finally had some sunshine and slightly warmer temps, so we walked to Herastrau Park to let the kids run out some energy.

Alexa was so proud of herself for getting up here!

Carter on the monkey bars!

Kamryn's favorite activity!

Friday
Target Activity: Visit to the zoo with friends

The day started out a little cool in the morning, but it turned into a beautiful day, perfect for the zoo! We enjoyed spending the day with our friends, the Moisin family. Their oldest boy, Marco, speaks English well, so it was fun to listed to the boys speaking a mixture of Romanian and English. And Hannah (4 years old) was very helpful in correcting my Romanian! :)