Chilling in Sliema

In the fall, Pete's counterpart at the International School of Malta came to ISA with his coworkers to observe. Since this trip was already booked as of last August (taking advantage of 450 euro airfare for the whole family, obviously), Pete chatted him up about Malta. They made plans to meet up when we visited and Pete met him Monday night at a local bar. I was looking forward to the quiet evening to blog and watch one of the hundreds of bootleg DVDs at our AirBnB. Around 9:30pm, Jude woke up and was clear he had gotten very sick. I was dealing with the clean up when Maeve woke up crying. Pete didn't have any cell service so it was a miracle when he just happened to arrive home 10 minutes later. My hero!

Needless to say, our rebooked Comino boat tour was again cancelled and we opted for a day exploring the local parks and waterfront in Sliema instead. Jude was good all day, not sick again and his usual self so we thought we dodged a bullet (not to be so... more on that later). But in the meantime, we had a fun day in the sunshine and naps for both kiddos at home at the same time while Pete and I had a glass of wine and read on the balcony. Something to be said for taking it easy!

Selecting the perfect rocks for throwing

Making me nervous dangling his legs off the pier

At the far end of the Sliema promenade, we found another great playground with some water features. 

Maeve's excitement over the fountains reminded me of my niece at the same age in Miami (pic below). 

Peyton and I, 2015

We made our way down to the rocky waterfront where Jude found lots of tidal pools to play in and some little girls to play with.

the man

graffiti artists at work

There were a number of appealing water front eateries so we decided to stick to that end of town for an EARLY dinner. We killed a little time with an ice cream, but sat down to eat at 4:30pm, much to Pete's dismay. It had us out of there by 5:30 and happily at home doing bath time by 6pm. That is a great thing about Malta, restaurants are open all day and are busy all day so you don't feel like total losers for eating dinner at 4:30. Pete told me that other people were probably having late lunches at that time, which cracked me up and depressed me at the same time. Another great thing here is the love people have for babies. Maeve is getting a lot of attention and servers genuinely seem pleased to have babies at restaurants.

nap time

Another benefit to 4:30pm dinner. Happy hour. There was a slight misunderstanding and I promise I didn't mean to order two Strawberry margaritas at the same time! I can't wait until I can actually happy hour with this girl (how many more years?!).