The cottages were walking distance from the main pier, playground, cafes, and restaurants, convenient to take the kids out to play, to go for gelato (mandarin gelato for Nikolas!), to see the performers at the pier in the evening--they weren't too much into a guy dressed as a pirate but they had fun at the playground nearby. Speaking of pirates, there was a pirate boat that shot cannonballs just off of our beach every afternoon. The first time it happened, Nikolas was terrified. He ran to me and baka screaming and asking to be picked up, but the same day he kept talking about it ('Je li se sjecas onog piratskog broda sto je pucao topovske kugle? ('Do you remember the pirate ship that shot cannonballs?)) Whenever something impresses him and sticks in his memory, that's the standard question that he'll keep asking for days, weeks, months... ('Do you remember....?)
Finally when Mia showed up, she and Nikolas became best friends--they played together in the sand, built sand castles, ran in the shallow ocean, even took a nap together once, and actually slept (passed exhausting themselves on the beach in the morning). Every morning Nikolas woke up around 6:30am, noticed sunlight through the shades and whispered to me: 'Mama, napolju je dan, mogu li da izadjem u dnevni boravak?' (Mom, it's day outside, can I go out into the living room?). He whispered as if he didn't want to wake me up but, of course, wouldn't stop repeating himself until I opened my eyes and told him that he could go out.
Mikica is coming out of his shell, turning from a quiet little boy into a babbling and involved kid. He repeats our words like a parrot now, with the cutest accent that sound like baby Italian, accenting the first syllable a little stronger than the rest: ba-ka, sa-ca (grandma, Sanja-nickname, de-ka....). At the beach, he happily played with sand toys, imitated Nikolas and Mia, even, like those two, went up to his waist into the water and then ran back in front of a wave, while Sonja spent a good chunk of the time screaming for attention and asking to be held.Consequently, baka and I spent the corresponding portion of our beach time holding her, standing in the shallow water since she didn't want to be near the waves. I had a surprise in the ocean: while I swam I noticed people on the beach gathering close to the water and looking in my direction. I swam as fast as I could to the beach and asked if they saw a shark or what, and it turned out it was a couple of manatees they were looking at, and just then they happened to be right next to me--I would have swam over them without even noticing them!Mikica and deko:
Sonja with her happy hat on:
And another happy hat (ok, I think it was deko who made her happy this time):
Mikica and Sonja managed to lock themselves in the room. After talking to Mikica for a couple of minutes to get him to turn the lock, he did it. Then it happened again the next day, and again the kids unlocked themselves.Deko, with all great-grandchildren:
On our last night we had a nice dinner to celebrate this year's big birthdays, deko's 90th and baka's 60th. After dinner the kids went dancing to the live music--Mia and Sonja were dancing away on the floor and Michael wanted me to hold him and dance with him. I watched Sonja in amazement the whole time, not believing this was her! She was spinning, jumping, waving her arms and her head, going crazy on the dance floor as I never quite saw her at home! Wow!Nikolas, after a fancy dinner, wanted to be taken to the gelato place to have his mandarin gelato once again before we left for home the next day.
Sonja, Mikica, Nikolas, Andrei and Mia, all together:
Daddy with the twins:
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