Romania

We have some photos from our winter break trip to Romania.

This was our second major attempt at raveling with an infant. While our experience was a bit limited, we managed to get out a few times a day to do some exploring.

As usual, exploring mainly consisted of eating. Romania had some great holiday markets featuring lots of smoked meat and fish.

Cata loved this Christmas elf

She was not a fan of Santa

 Sarmale or Cabbage leaves stuffed with minced meat was another popular dish that we enjoyed repeatedly. 

Cata enjoys her sink bath in Bucharest

Cata made a friend on Christmas day. Sophia did not speak English, but her mom informed us that Sophia had decide Cata was the "cutest baby in the universe."

We enjoyed the old neighborhoods in each city we visited. In many areas, each old building, in varying states of restoration, were built directly on to the one adjacent, creating massive city blocks.

 We especially enjoyed staying in this 17th century building in Sibiu. It also had a sufficient number of pillows to build a good baby nest.

 Another fun architectural phenomenon we noticed throughout Romanian was these strange eye shaped windows emerging from many building roofs. 

Looking down at old Sibiu from the city clock tower

Peles Castle outside the town of Sinaia.  It was home to Romania's very brief monarchy.

Spending the winter holidays in Romania marked the first time either of us had been somewhere truly cold in a very long time. In fact, our previous 7 Christmases have all taken place in the tropics. We very much enjoyed bundling 6 month old Cata up in her bear suit to go out and about. Stay tuned for our upcoming trip with 9 month old Cata to Beiruit.

Getting Caught Up

 It has been almost a year since our previous travel blog post. We are not sure what the future of the "Matt and Kristi in Paraguay" page is, but we are excited to reconnect with some words and the ability to share our 
experience with friends and family. 

Arcata now loves food, baths, sitting up and our Persian cat (Gus). Recently, we have been approaching what some would consider to be a normal amount of sleep, so perhaps we can now stay caught up with some simple blogging tasks. 
We have done some traveling, however our experience is now completely defined by watching this lady change on what seems to be a daily basis, so it may be that future blog posts primarily feature Cata.

 The last time we checked in, Kristi was 5 months pregnant in Sri Lanka. Subsequently, we took a fantastic trip to Southern Oman, where Kristi was now at 7 months.We did a fair amount of relaxing and my parents joined us in exploring some beautiful out of the way beaches. 

Dad even joined me in a bit of salt water fly fishing for some croaker and pompano.

 Our summer travel season was a bit abbreviated. Matt taught summer school, while we waited for Cata's birth certificate to come through. The rest of our break was occupied by introducing our daughter to her new friends and family in Washington and Oregon.

We attempted some camping, and it seemed to go okay, although a man a Leach Lake told Matt that camping with a 5 week old was against regulation. 

 Matt got some time on the water. Left: Ben scoops up a Rogue River cutthroat. Right: East Lake Kokanee that became our dinner.

Seven month-old Cata takes advantage of some cool winter weather for her first desert picnic in Kuwait

We have pictures from a recent trip to Romania and plans to visit Beirut, Madrid, and Mauritius. Perhaps more adventures with "Cata in Paraguay" are on the way.