A few random shots this time! Matteo having some cuddles in the sunshine, and Isabella in her 'Albanian dress'.

Isabella went with Fredi to see the olive trees on the other side of the stream.

After her 'swim' in the towel I made for her (just ever so slightly proud of it!!!).

Donning her shades!

Pretending we're at the beach!

Somebody found his toy and enjoyed a good old munch on it!

Meanwhile Isabella got to grips with the fly swat - turns out she was pretty accurate after a couple of days!

There has been quite a bit of speculation about Isabella's eye colour, in England they are grey (well blue with brown) but in the Albanian sunshine they went pretty green!!!

Matteo was propped up and loved it until he realised he couldn't reach his toys that he could see and no-one was giving them to him!!!

Isabella's first, and very much needed, 'swimming pool' whilst we were away! Much to the amusement of the neighbourhood Isabella would don her costume and splash around in the water having a great time despite fears of cold water and wind ruining her health....but let's face it, when it's about 30 degrees you don't really care much!!!!

Here is the first of many pictures from our holiday, I will put them up in batches rather than the whole lot!!!! So these are from the first couple of days, once the rain had stopped Isabella was off outside with Baba to watch the chickens which was a favoured past time, especially once she had got over her fear of them!

Then she insisted on going into the poly-tunnel to search for cucumbers and wasn't getting out easily!!

Baba attempted to take Isabella to the olive trees with hm and after she'd made him carry her the whole way she refused to let him walk past the donkey in the next field so they had to come back!!!!

So we are finally back from our month in Albania and both kids have grown like weeds in the sun and gone a couple of shades darker!! It has been a month of many firsts for all of us...earthquakes, thunder storms, lightning shows, feeding chickens, digging up potatoes to make chips, all sorts of farm animals, biscuits for breakfast, not getting sunburnt despite being 30+ degrees and refusing to go in the shade, being savaged by mosquitos (apparently they only like foreign females!!!!), having the freedom to go to the shop next door and help yourself to anything and everything, teaching the whole neighbourhood to say 'bye-bye' and so much more!!!! I am just starting to upload all the pictures off the camera and will start to sort them out to put some on here!!!

So having practiced repeating the numbers to 10 in Albanian, here she is going solo like a pro counting to 10 in Albanian and then English....she may have skipped a few numbers but it was the first time she did it on her own!!! Little genius!

A few snaps that I have taken recently and finally put up!!!

Finally managed to get a smile on camera!

And the 'take pity on me' face!!! 

Isabella found this photo from the childminder and has insisted on taking it to bed every night for a week!!!!

 Doing her 'work'...very seriously!!!

I had mentioned that Isabella's coat needed washing and so she went to get in the washing machine!!!

I think somebody at the childminder's may have been practising the sound 'p' as they write!!!!