(WHEW!!!)
Breathe a big sigh of relief with me will ya! We made it to Romania in tact!!!! It feels so good to be here, under one roof as a family and unpacked after traveling for the last 1 1/2 weeks!! For those of you we didn't get a chance to say "hello" or "goodbye" to, we apologize. The last few weeks feels like a whirlwind of teas and pots all circling our heads.....but we still love you! For those who don't remember, we are here for the summer months with Bryan while he builds a Dome for a large cement company. We are living in a beautiful suburb of Constanta, Romania (pronounced ConstanZa). Constanta is the oldest living city in Romania, built in 600 BC!!! so we're looking forward to exploring more. South of us (maybe an hour) is Bulgaria, North of us about an hour is both Moldova and Ukraine. Just so you get an idea, here's a map link:

We are in a very gated community, maybe a mile away from the Black Sea. We never see our neighbors because of all the gates and high walls surrounding each home, like a compound.....I guess ours is the Butikofer compound....where half of the kids sleep until noon, then the next batch goes to bed. We've all got the wierdest sleeping schedules ever. Will we ever adjust? Poor Bryan is back at work, so he's adjusting by default I guess. He missed everything from dusk to dawn yesterday. Now we know what a walking zombie looks like....not pretty!

We took a little walk yesterday to check out our surroundings, it's a beautiful area, lots of scrub and grass around us to the water's edge. I'd be surprised if there is any kind of zoning here. It looks like people build where and how they choose. Construction is very similar to Russia, it's difficult to tell if the building is being torn down or newly built. I know that sounds bad, but they build huge high rises with only concrete slabs and a thin amount of mortar, no structual steel, rebar etc. Let's hope a earthquake never hits this region! One thing we are noticing is all the wild dogs...they rule the world here, so we didn't make it far on our walk. Send us good tips on dogs if you have them...we'd like to venture out more without getting yipped and nipped at. The funny thing about these wild dog packs is that they only cross the roads at crosswalks!!! How crazy is that!??

As for our flight, it all went pretty smooth. A couple of highlights were:
1) power outage at the airport so we weren't charged for our overweight baggage (yeah!)
2) had to fly the LONG way around Denver to avoid 2 twisters in the area.
3) British Airways Rocks--they had a pullout baby bunk for Statton, so he slept comfortably most of the flight (so did I) kids loved all the accents
4) We learned how to upgrade to 1st class while in flight(for free)......just pass out on your neighbor a few times while standing in the aisle and act like you can't remember who you are (like our neighbor did to Bryan..he was a 78 yr old man)
5) Didn't get to explore London on our layover, it was "Bank Holiday" or "Memorial Day" and everything was closed, hopefully we'll catch it on the way back. We had a long 6 hour layover in London, with no where to lay our weary heads, so Bryan and the kids all curled up like puppies on the floor for several hours. I didn't have a camera or I'd have taken a picture like the other 10,000 people walking by did. It was quite a sight!
6) Lost only one of our 16 pieces of luggage! and.... Almost got duped by a local cab driver who started hauling a few of our carts of luggage away....we had to stop him and grab it back.
7) Got to see some gypsies in their wagons...hilarious, horse-drawn wooden wagon with modern rubber tires and upholstered car seats for the driver and passenger...totally laden with garbage, kids ride on top!(Hey, where are the regulation car seats for them...I wanna know!)
8) Found our new home to be really large, clean and quite modern. That is to say we have a washer the size of a small tv, but glad not to have to do them by hand....looks like we're back to crunchy line-dried socks though! :) The kids are once again are excited about the 10 fingered dishwasher, Four bedrooms, 2 baths and incredible gardens full of snails and fruit trees, oh and "Harry Potter" Hedges
9)Explored the beach, nice fine white sands, lots of fancy resorts line the water so we can cash in on their umbrelled-chairs and yummy restaurants, it's still a little cold though for diving into the water just yet
10)Today is Ulyssa's 3rd birthday..she's out with her Daddy buying a "swimmie pool"...it's going to be a BAsh! Everyone is adjusting to being in a new country, away from family, friends and school....a few tears, but for the most part everyone is happy and healthy. We're hoping to explore some ruins tomorrow and get out a little more this week now that we have access to a car.