Halloween

Halloween is not traditionally celebrated in the Czech Republic but it seems every year more amd more Czechs are enjoying the fun of Halloween. Finding halloween decorations is getting easier every year and the options for trick or treating are growing. This year our halloween was full. Our first stop was a birthday party for my friends daughter. While it was a birthday party it was still halloween themed and the kids were excited to eat candy corn and play with their friends. We had to leave that party to go to a halloween party at our friends Emily & Radek's house. The girls were excited to go to a halloween party and see there friend Annalee. There was a lot of people at the party and Emily had organized games for the kids to play. After game playing we headed outside for trick or treating. Every child was given a latern to carry along the road. I was a little worried about the laterns since they were paper laterns with real candles inside but the kids seemed to manage them well (only one or two laterns went up in flames!) It was interesting to see this years trick or treating since the group we were with were mainly Czech or of a Czech mix (Czech/American, Czech/Australian etc) family and all the houses we went to were Czech. Unlike in the States, here, the kids had to work for there treats. At every house they had to sing a song. I was happy that our girls actually knew some of the songs and could sing along or as Ali put it, "Skakal Pes, that's too easy!". After trick or treating we headed back to our friends house for more food and fun. The kids all lined up to hit a pinata. The girls were right in there filling up their bags with candy from the pinata. After all the candy had been grabbed the kids played with the confetti that had been inside the pinata. Sofia was the one exception. She was much more interested in her candy. She found a place to sit and just started downing the candy. By the time we noticed she had already had six pieces of candy! Oh well, what is halloween for if not for gorging on candy?? We packed the kids up and headed home without complaint. I think they were just too tired to even complain. We got them ready for bed and all set with the babysitter and then headed out to another party. Jason and I had fun dressed up as a Spanish Lady and Zoro. We had a fun night. I think next year we will not attempt to attend 3 parties in one day though. We are both exhausted today. The kids were tired as well but since they kept getting influxes of sugar they kept going until an early bedtime.

Week with Grammie and Grandpa

This past week has gone by very fast. The girls had a great time with Grammie and Grandpa. It was nice to see them be so comfortable with their grandparents. Since we don't get to see Dan and Diane that often we try to talk about them a lot and remind the girls of things we did with them when we were in America so they won't forget. They didn't seem to forget. They were thrilled with Grammie and Grandpa arrived and had no shyness at all. They enjoyed playing board games, soccer, and dress up with them as well as just chatting away. A lot more fun then playing with plain old mommy and daddy! Since Dan had never been to Prague we took an afternoon and went up to the Prague Castle. We hadn't been there in a while and the kids love to go to the castle. They were slightly dissapointed though that the main floor of Ladislav hall is now blocked off after they did the restoration. On all previous trips to the castle the girls have danced all across the hall. We made due with dancing down the aisle that was roped off for visitors. That was the only site seeing we did on this trip though. Dan and Diane took a day and went into town by themselves to see all the obligatory sites and the girls and I took that day to run all our errands. The only other place we took Jason's parents was our favorite Italian restaurant. It was nice to share it with them and now they will have a visual of where we are on many Friday nights. Other than that this week consisted of staying at home and playing in the yard, walking in the woods, pumpkin carving and eating.

Jason's Parents arrived

After many delays out of the Rome airport, Jason's parents arrived on Friday night. We kept checking the arrival stastus online and since they had been delayed we decided to have dinner before they arrived. Once we sat down at dinner and our appetizer arrived I checked the Prague ariport website for an updated arrival time. To our surprise it said that they would be arriving in fifteen minutes! We quickly asked the server to pack up our dinner to take away and headed to the airport. When we arrived at the airport we checked the arrivals board only to find out that their flight wasn't arriving for another hour and a half! Such is the life of air travel I guess. We got our take away food out of the car and sat at McDonald's to enjoy our dinner. We took it easy yesterday and went for a walk in the woods. It is nice to just enjoy some relaxed time together and the girls have loved having grammie and grampa here. Today we are heading off to Prague Castle and church. It should be a fun filled week ahead!

Bye Sung Soon!

Our friends, Sung Soon, Stuart, Daniel, James, & Matthew are moving to Munich. We are sad to see them go. They are one of our friends that we thought we would be with for the long term here in Prague but Stuart's job has brought them to Munich. James has been in Sofia's class since she started at Riverside. He has taught her about Ben 10 and Star Wars. She comes home from school asking to play star wars and I'm not exactly sure what she expects me to do. I come out with qoutes from Star Wars and she thinks I'm crazy. Sofia will miss James. Sung Soon has been a great friend to me as well. I have had a lot of fun talking with her. She has taught me more about korean culture than I ever thought I would know, including how to make Sushi (really kim bap). She has watched my children while I've gone to the doctor which is so important when you don't have family around. We will miss spending the afternoons in the playground with them in the summer and hanging out in the school playground after drop off and at pick up. Last week we had an all girls night out with Sung Soon. It was a fun night of laughter. Sung Soon chose a korean restaurant which was, of course, fantastic. She ordered all of our food for us and it was amazing. Here is a picture (thanks Shanna!) of all of us from the dinner. I hope that we will stay in touch. After all, Munich isn't that far away!

Harvest Celebration - Round 1

Every year the girls have a harvest festival at school. The school actually holds three harvest celebrations - one in early years, one in lower school, and one in upper school. Last year I only had to attend one harvest celebration since both kids were in early years. This year I should get to attend two celebrations but today I recieved an "F" in parenting and completely forgot to attend Ali's celebration. Luckily Jason was able to stay and watch her and our friend, Charro, took some video of her. Ali seemed happy that Jason was there and she had even asked him if he could come in to school in the morning. She doesn't usually ask for him to come into school but we just assumed she wanted a little more time with him. Apparently she really wanted him to see the performance. Here is one of the videos that Charro took for us. There are two others on youtube if you want to see them.