Ice Skating

This afternoon Jason and I took the girls into town for ice skating. I was excited to get on skates again since I haven't skated in a while and I love it. I was also excited to introduce the girls to skating. They did really well. I was surprised that they were able to stand on the skates by themselves. They seemed to enjoy skating and learning to do it by themselves. After skating by themselves for a little bit I would take each of them around the rink at a higher speed. I would skate backwards and just hold them up so they could just let their skates sit on the ice. Since we just saw Disney Princess on ice I would also do little spins with them. It was nice to see them so happy. That ice rink is only there until Wednesday so I will have to look for another rink that I can bring them to so we can keep skating. If we do, I will have to buy some skates for all of us so that we can have skates that fit properly since that makes it easier to skate. Here are a couple videos of the girls skating.

Merry Christmas!

We have been enjoying our Christmas vacation. On Christmas Eve we went into Old Town Square to see the lights and look at the Christmas Market. We forgot that this was prague and everything closes Christmas Eve, including the Christmas Market. Czech's celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve so Old Town Square was very empty when we arrived but that was fine. It made it easier to enjoy all the lights and the beauty around us. On Christmas morning the girls woke up and we had a little breakfast and then started opening presents. Ali made me laugh because after every present she would ask if there were anymore. It was like she couldn't believe there were all these presents for her. After ripping through all the presents we had a very lazy day of playing with toys, eating and watching movies. This is the second year in a row that we have made a beef tenderloin with a blue cheese sauce for our Christmas meal and it was delicious. The day after Christmas (Boxing Day) we went to our friends house out of town. They had recently moved out of town and we hadn't seen them as much so it was great to visit them. Their new house was beautiful. We had fun hanging out and we went for a walk down to the river as well. It was very cold out so it was quite a refreshing walk. We ended up carrying Ali most of the way back but I didn't mind. I wasn't surprised she was cold since my hands and feet were frozen too. I think today we will head into town for some ice skating. I will post later about that.

The Spirit of Christmas

I love Christmas in Prague. Everything is so festive and it really feels like Christmas (although we could use snow to really make it perfect). Last year I gave a package of homemade cookies to our downstairs neighbor at Christmas since they, while they speak no English, have been so kind to us. This year, before I could get downstairs with their package of Christmas cookies, they came upstairs with a package of Czech Christmas cookies for us. It was so nice of them. I never expected them to give us cookies or to make the climb up to our apartment since they are older and it takes them a while to climb the stairs. Once again I find myself wondering how people can think the Czechs are cold people since they have been nothing but welcoming to us. This morning I took Watson out for his walk and I brought a bag of homemade cookies to our local lahudky (kind of like a delicatessen). The ladies in the lahudky have always been nice to me and I just wanted to give them a little something for Christmas. They were surprised when I came in and put the package on the counter and said "vesele vanoce" (Merry Christmas). I had to tell them that it was just American cookies. They were very happy and very thankful for my gift. I left the shop to head home and when I was partway down the road one of the ladies came running after me with two big chocolate Mikulases for me to give to the girls. Again, so nice and unexpected. The spirit of Christmas is alive and well in Prague and I'm happy to be apart of it.

Disney on Ice

This morning Jason and I took the girls to see Disney Princesses on Ice. It was a great show and the girls were mesmerized for the entire two hours. They didn't seem to care that the entire show was in Czech. They know the stories and characters so well and they are use to hearing Czech that I don't even think it occurred to them that they were listening to Czech. We of course bought the obligatory items..popcorn, rainbow ice in a princess cup, magic wand and tiara. It was all worth it to see the girls enjoy themselves so much. After we got home the girls went to there room and "skated" for quite a while. Here is the video that Jason took of the girls skating like the princesses.

Christmas Party

Last night Jason and I hosted our first party in Prague. This last week has been a mad dash to get everything ready for the party. Unfortunately the list was pretty long since we had put off a lot of things on our "to do" list. The party was a catalyst for the completion of many "to do" items. We had to buy new dishware and glassware since we had not replaced all of our broken things from when the kitchen cabinets fell off the wall last year. We had to clean the windows which we hadn't done since we moved here! We also finally hung pictures in the kitchen.

My friends were all great helps to me. One friend brought me to a wholesale dish/glassware store which was great. Since it is a wholesaler you have to have a business license to shop there which I don't possess so having a friend with one who is willing to go shopping with me was great. The prices were so much lower I saved a ton of money and now have new dishes. They were out of stock on many of the glasses I wanted but that was ok since other friends let me borrow their Makro card. Makro is a big box store similar to Costco but you have to have a business to be a member. I went to Makro and bought the rest of the glassware that I wanted as well as wine and other food/drink for the party. Again, because it is basically a wholesaler the prices are a lot cheaper so I was able to save money here as well. After acquiring all these wonderful new dishes and glasses I had to, of course, wash them all. It also required reoganizing the kitchen to have appropriate storage for everything. In the reorganizing we realized we needed another storage container so off to Ikea I went. Jason and I laughed about storage b/c whenever it seems like we can't fit more things in the apartment we somehow manage to get more organized and we can fit more things.

Anyway, I made a lot of cookies and then bagged them all and put them in gift bags with pretty ribbon to give to our guests as a little christmas present. I also made spring rolls, spinach puff pastry, BBQ pulled pork, chocolate cream pie, chocolate chip bread pudding with caramel sauce , and brownies. Store bought items filled in the rest of the food...shrimp cocktail, nuts, olives, chips, and cheese & crackers. We also served, wine, beer, soda, water but in addition we created 4 speciality drink cards with instruction on making a drink for those who wanted a christmas cocktail..holly-tini, christmas cosmopolitan, peppermint stick or for the non drinkers the Merry red dragon mocktail. There was plenty of food and drink for everyone and it was a great group of people. One of the things that is great about living here is the diverse group of people that we have in our lives. Last night we had friends from Scotland, England, Australia, Czech, Russia, Slovakia, Canada, United States, Poland and Serbia here celebrating with us. It was a great night.

I am looking forward to entertaining more often now and welcoming more of our friends into our home. I will post pics soon. I, unfortunately, didn't take many pictures last night so once my friend e-mails the pics she took I will post them.

Vienna

On Friday we collected our rental car and hit the road for Vienna. It should be about a 4 hour drive but it took us about 6 hours between the traffic leaving Prague, potty breaks and food breaks. It was a fairly easy drive though which was nice. As we left the Czech Republic you drive through a weird "in between" space between Austria and Czech where there are outlets and casinos and some sketchy looking flea markets. We had to laugh though since the outlets were called Freeport but we were definitely not in Maine! We continued our drive into Austria and made it to our hotel with little difficulty. We waited a little while in the car while Jason finished up a conference call and then headed into the hotel. The girls were excited to be staying in a hotel. Upon arrival our room was not ready but that was fine since they offered us free coffee and cakes while we waited. The girls enjoyed their hot chocolates and had fun drawing with the paper and pen the hotel staff gave them. We eventually headed up to our room and got ourselves sorted out while the girls jumped on their bed. We headed downstairs to the restaurant and ordered dinner. The girls were so tired that they didn't eat much. I finished my meal and left Jason to pay while I took the girls upstairs to get ready for bed. They were very tired but the excitement of a huge bed and sleeping in it together was a little too much for them and they didn't fall asleep right away. Such is life...I was excited about the big beds with down pillows, comforters etc that I couldn't really blame them for their excitement! Ali had a fitful night sleep which meant we all did but we got up in the morning and headed out of the hotel to do some sightseeing.

Our first order of business was to find breakfast. To our surprise there were not many places open in the morning at 8:30. We had to wait until about 9 for a few cafes to open. Needless to say we were all a bit grumpy until we had some food. After finding breakfast we headed out to St Stephens church which is a big church in the middle of the city. We looked at the church and let the girls run around in the pedestrian area and then continued on to the Christmas Market. The Vienna Christmas Market has a lot of fun things for kids. The market is essentially broken up into three parts. The middle part has all the stalls selling food, drinks, ornaments, hats, nativity scenes, etc. On the left and on the right were areas for kids. The right side had houses to go in and watch little puppet shows as well as pony rides. The kids loved the house with the hand puppets. They pressed the button to make the show start again many times. After leaving that house we moved on to the pony rides. Here is a video of the kids in the house with the hand puppets.

After all that excitement we headed back to the hotel for a nap. The girls were definitely tired. Sofia slept for 2 hours and Ali slept for 3 hours. It is unheard of for Sofia to sleep during the day so we decided to just let the girls sleep as long as they wanted. After a good nap we went to the pool. After going from hot tub to pool many times we decided it was time to head outside again and finish seeing the market. We were all excited to see all the Christmas lights as well. We walked along the inner ring until we reached the market. We started with the left side to see what else they had for kids. Unfortunately we couldn't go in any of he houses since they all closed up at 7pm but the girls did get to go on the carousel and a little train ride which they loved. It was hard to pry them away from the rides but we all needed food. We headed back into the crowded middle section and had hot drinks and sausages and then headed back to the hotel. By the time we got back and were ready for bed it was 10pm. Even with the long naps the girls were still tired. We all fell asleep very quickly. Before going to sleep however, we didn't want to wait for the cafes to open in the morning for breakfast so we splurged and ordered room service.

In the morning we woke and had a leisurely breakfast in our room and then packed and headed out to Schonbrunn Palace. We didn't have much time before we needed to be on the road back to Prague but I really wanted to see this palace. The pictures of it are so beautiful. We didn't have time to go inside but we went out back to the gardens and walked around for a little bit but it was very cold so our time was brief. We agreed though that we will need to go back to Schonbrunn in the summer so we can see all the flowers in bloom and enjoy walking around the grounds.

It was a whirlwind weekend but we did get to see a fair amount of the city and we are looking forward to going back again.

Decorating the tree

Our schedules have been so busy with Jason's work, the many school activities, and my girl's weekend away that we hadn't had any time to decorate the Christmas tree. It took a week for us to even move it off the patio and into a stand in the apartment. Last Thursday night was finally the night we had designated as the tree decorating night since we wanted to get it decorated before we went to Vienna. The girls were so excited to decorate the tree and wanted to immediately put the star on top. We had to explain that the star goes on last and that they would put it on together. After explaining that both girls were eager to get all the ornaments on the tree. Ali helped Jason put the lights on the tree and then the kids quickly whipped all the ornaments out of the box. We had to give them a little direction so that all the ornaments didn't end up in the same location but all in all they did a great job.

Nursery Nativity Play

Party & Plays

Today was a busy day. Jason and I brought the girls to school and dropped Sofia off at her class and then went to Ali's class for the nursery nativity play. Ali played an Angel in the play and had to say "Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem to look for a place to stay." I wasn't sure how she would do during the play but she did great. She loved practicing her line at home and would yell it out. Since she can be a little shy sometimes I thought maybe she would just put her head down and mumble it but she didn't. She said her line loud and clear. I guess that is all part of Ali coming out of her shell. (I'm not sure if I mentioned this before but in the last few weeks Ali has really come out of her shell. She is very talkative at school now.) After the play the nursery class joined the reception class for games in the jidelna (cafeteria).

While the kids played games in the jidelna some of the moms and I prepared the Reception classroom for the Christmas party. The parents provided everything from plates, cups, and decorations to quiches, sausage rolls, cookies, cakes, vegetables and even a chocolate fountain. The kids were all very excited when they came into the class and saw all the food and decorations.

Visit to Santa

While I was in Nuremberg with my girlfriends, Jason had the kids all to himself. He had to pick up the girls a little early on Friday since Santa came to the kids' school. The school lets the nursery and reception classes out thirty minutes early so that they can get to Santa before the rest of the school. This is great because once the rest of the school is released the line for Santa is very long. I forgot to mention to Jason that Sofia also has ballet on Friday afternoons so he arrived to pick up the girls and Sofia was in her ballet class. Luckily the ballet teacher ended class early so that the kids could go see Santa. Once the girls got to Santa, Sofia forgot what she wanted to ask for and Ali froze up. I guess that is an improvement from last year! Maybe by next year they won't be so intimidated by Santa. After seeing Santa they headed to the bake sale in the high school for a couple treats and then home.

Girls Weekend

On Friday I headed to Nuremberg, Germany with my girlfriends for the weekend. This was my first weekend away from my children since they were born so I was VERY excited. The drive to Nuremberg was easy and uneventful. We found our apartment rental easily which was nice. I forgot to call the apartment owner when we were thirty minutes outside the city so we had to wait a little bit to get into our apartment but that was no big deal. I was happy to stand there with friends and not have children whining about having to wait. When we got into the apartment it was nice. It wasn't fancy or decorated in my style but it was clean and comfortable. We dropped our stuff off and headed into town. The train station was a 2 minute walk from our rental. We figured out the ticketing system (or at least we bought a ticket) which I was surprised did not have instructions in English. You are probably wondering why I would be surprised to not see English when I'm in a German speaking country. I was surprised because first, even the Czech train system has instruction in Czech and English and second, it is Germany and I have never had a problem speaking English while in Germany. It seems most people in Germany speak English very well. In any event, we bought a ticket and rode the 4 stops into town. Nuremberg is such a cute town! I really didn't know what to expect of Nuremberg since when I hear Nuremberg I think the Nuremberg trials and Nazis. The town was so cute though and there was tons of shopping. We spent the rest of Friday shopping and eating to our hearts content.

More friends showed up on Saturday morning and we headed back into town for more shopping and to go to the Christmas Market. The Christmas Market was our main reason for going to Nuremberg since it Germany's most famous Christmas market and over 2 million people a year go to it. The market was a lot of fun and was packed with people, even in the rain. I bought Nuremberg Prune men to put in the girls' stockings for Christmas. These are, apparently, one of the things that the Nuremberg market is known for. The prune men are made out of prunes, figs, and walnuts! After checking out all the stalls at the market and hitting a few more stores we had dinner and hot chocolate then headed back to our rental and hung out and chatted. We stayed up late and slept late this morning.

After getting all of our stuff together and loading everything in the car this morning we headed into town for brunch and to pick up a few last minute items. It was a great weekend and hopefully the first of many! Also, since it was raining and my hands were loaded down with shopping bags I didn't get too many pictures of the city itself. I guess I'll just have to go back again sometime soon.

I wish we had...

Tonight at dinner Sofia turned to me and said, "Mommy, I wish we had a microwave." A microwave is just something we have never had here. It isn't that they aren't available because they are available. When we moved here we figured we didn't need one since we weren't going to be here long. By the time we realized we were going to be here longer than two years we realized that we didn't actually need a microwave. There are occasions when it would be nice to have one but those times are so few it just doesn't seem worth it. Anyway, when Sofia said she wished for a microwave I asked her why she wanted one. She told me because she wanted popcorn! Well, that was an easy fix. I excitedly told Sofia that you didn't need a microwave for popcorn and that it is fun to make on the stove. Luckily I had popcorn kernels and quickly got them out and showed the girls how to make popcorn the old fashion way. They were very excited to have popcorn and to hear it popping in the the pan. I was happy to share one of my childhood memories with them (although I don't own a big yellow pan like my mom had) and to see their joy at having popcorn at home.

Happy Anniversary

Today marks our two year anniversary of moving to Prague! Time flies when you are having fun that is for sure. I can't believe that we have been here for two years. When we moved here we had originally thought it would only be for two years and now I couldn't imagine having to leave here today. We have made great friends here and are having a blast. The kids are happy. They love their school and all their friends. They love learning to speak other languages (Sofia can count to ten in Czech, Spanish, & English). They love to travel and see different places and to try different foods. They love seeing their Daddy for two hours more a day instead of him spending that time commuting to work. We all love our family time. Jason and I love our friends who have become our family. We love our Friday night date night every week. We love the feeling of success when we can communicate to someone in Czech. We love traveling and we love seeing our children grow up with the knowledge of many cultures. Never would I have thought we would be living in the Czech Republic but it has been a HUGE blessing!

Gingerbread House

Now that Thanksgiving is over I can look ahead to Christmas. I have taken out the Christmas decorations and put them up around the apartment. I now need to go out and buy more decorations but that is what the Christmas markets are for in Prague, Nuremberg, and Vienna. Today I decided to have some Christmas fun with the girls and we made a gingerbread house. It was the first time we had done it so I started out simple. I bought the sides and roof of the house pre-made. It was a challenge enough to melt sugar and stick everything together. The girls really had fun sticking the candy all over the house. Sofia originally want to make it like the picture on the box but I convinced her that our own creativity was better. Now that it is made I'm not sure where to put it. What does one do with it? Do you leave it out all month and then throw it away? It seems like a waste of good candy.

Bake Sale

The kids school has started all the Christmas activities. This morning the girls had hot chocolate, a cookie an hung their ornaments that they made in class on the tree in the cafeteria. I wasn't there for the tree decorating but luckily the school took some nice pictures.

After school today was the Christmas bake sale. Bake sales at school are always more than just bake sales but today it was way more than a bake sale. There were tables selling christmas cards, gifts, hot chocolate, pointsettias, marshmallows, drinks, fruit and vegetables, sushi, korean sauces, tickets to see Santa, face painting and I'm sure I have missed some. It always seems like pure mayhem but the kids enjoy it.

The Reeboks are back

Tonight Jason and I went out to dinner but before heading to the restaurant we stopped at a shoe store for Jason. While we were there I was browsing the shoes as well and ended up getting a great deal on a pair of boots. The highlight of the shopping trip though was seeing the old style white reeboks on sale that we wore in elementary school! They even had them in multiple colors including fluorescent green!! Now, my question is are you seeing Reeboks making a come back in the States? How about leg warmers since I've seen those lately as well?

Nine

That is the number of different animals I saw on my run today. I have started a new running loop since I find running the same paths over and over again very boring. My goal is to not duplicate a path (or at least minimize) on any run over 8 miles. I had been running on the bike path between the zoo and the river for a while but it doesn't go far enough so I would have to run back and forth on it to get the distance I want. Instead of doing that I decided to go around the zoo. So now I get to see some fun animals. Today I saw a dog, cat, horses, sheep, goats, geese, zebra, reindeer (or some kind of elk/caribou animal) and some kind of gazelle. I never thought I would be running past zebras!

Thanksgiving Celebration

We went to our friend's house for Thanksgiving again this year. It was a LOT of fun. Phil & Shanna so graciously open their home up to all their friends for Thanksgiving. There were so many people there it felt like home. The kids even had a lot of their friends to play with as well. Our friends have really become like family to us so it was nice to celebrate with them. It is also nice to see the kids playing with other kids just like they would play with their cousins. After a nice prayer and directions on location and serving of food we all made heaping plates of food. The kids were excited to have a table all to themselves..."the girls table" as they called it. They were well behaved at a table all alone. When one of them needed me one of their friends would not hesitate to yell out my name to get my attention. It was very cute how they all helped each other and asked nicely when they needed something. After eating (or picking at) their food the kids were excused to continue their playing. Jason and I had the chance to sit and talk with friends while the kids all played together. By 8pm we started the process of leaving. It always seems to take longer to leave somewhere than you think and we didn't actually get home until 8:45pm even though we live in walking distance (although we took the bus anyway). The kids went right to sleep after having so much fun for hours.

Turkey Complete

I, of course, forgot to take a picture of the turkey when I took it out of the oven but it looked nice. After patiently waiting the 20 minutes before cutting into it I carved up the turkey. For those that know me from Thanksgiving in the States, I am very impatient. I want to swipe a piece of that crispy skin as soon as it comes out of the oven. I know it keeps the juices in etc but it is just sooo good! As an adult I don't sneak any skin off the bird until I'm given the go ahead but after 30+ years of me hovering around the turkey as soon as my dad starts carving the turkey he puts the skin aside and calls me over. Well, I'm proud to say that even though I am all alone cooking the turkey this year I held off on eating the skin until after I carved the turkey. Even more than that, I didn't eat it all and put most of it on the platter for the guests. Man, I must be getting really OLD!

The Turkey's in the Oven

Happy Thanksgiving!!!! It is a little strange to be away from The United States on Thanksgiving since it isn't celebrated here. The girls still have school and Jason still has work so I'm home alone making the turkey. It is ok though since we will be going to our friends house for her annual Thanksgiving celebration. There will be about 75 people going to the party so we pitch in and cook one of the turkeys. This year we are also making mashed potatoes. I have put the turkey in the oven to cook and I'm waiting for the yummy smell to fill the apartment. The turkey this year was slightly smaller than last year but still barely fits in my oven. It isn't that the turkey is so big, (only 16.5lbs) it is that my oven is so small. It just adds a little excitement to cooking the turkey every year...will it fit or not?

Richard..errr...I mean Jason

Since we have moved to Prague we have found that "Jason" is a difficult name. The Czech people just aren't familiar with it and to say it in Czech would sound like "Yason". Richard, Jason's middle name, is much easier to understand. Our landlords always call Jason, "Richard". They see his name on the lease documents and have changed our mailbox to say "Jason Richard" but for whatever reason they just can't seem to remember "Jason". I can understand this since I sometimes find it difficult to remember a name that I'm not familiar with. We started making dinner reservations using either "Richard" or "Maria" and it has worked fine. The issue came up again this morning when our neighbor so nicely left us a bottle of wine with a note to say Happy Thanksgiving. The note was addressed to "Richard & Mary". We had to smile and laugh...who would have ever thought "Jason" would be a name so given to mistakes?

Relaxing Sunday

We started the morning off with german oven pancakes. Since I've been more into cooking I like trying new things. I found a recipe for german oven pancakes and decided to give it a try. It bakes in the oven for twenty minutes and it is completely different than a normal pancake. It makes just one 9" pancake. It reminded me more of a giant popover. I sprinkled it with powdered sugar and the kids loved it. It is easy to make and I will definitely make it again although I am curious to see what would happen if I put it in a muffin tin rather than a 9" skillet. Anyway, after breakfast and a movie the girls and I played Uno for the first time. They caught in quickly to the rules and really enjoyed playing. By mid-morning, we bundled the kids up to go outside. It had snowed more overnight so Jason took the girls and Watson out to play in the snow while I went to the grocery store. They were back inside by the time I got home from the store and they were enjoying hot chocolate and playing Uno. We played many games of Uno yesterday. The girls enjoy the game so much I'm sure we will be playing regularly now. We had nap time, which I think Sofia was the only one to not actually sleep, and then off to church. Since my dozing off at naptime meant I hadn't prepped anything to make for dinner after church we ended up going to Guisseppe's restaurant. This restaurant is a new restaurant on our street that has good food. They had been working on the restaurant for a year and finally opened a few weeks ago. It is nice to have a cheap restaurant with decent food so close to us. It was a nice Sunday to get us ready for the busy week ahead.

First Snow of the Season

This morning we were greeted by the first snow of the season. There was just light snow falling but we were all excited. The snow stopped by mid-morning and didn't leave that much behind but there was just enough to play with. The girls and I headed out before lunch. (Jason couldn't join us since he is working today.) All the snow was melted off the sidewalks but the benches, cars and grass still had snow. We made a miniature snowman and threw snowballs to Watson. After playing outside we came back inside with rosy cheeks but thanks to snow pants everyone was nice and warm. It was a lot of fun and got us ready for the winter ahead.

Aqua Palace & Dinner with friends

Yesterday we had a really fun day. We went with friends of ours to Aqua Palace. I have blogged about Aqua palace before since this was our third time going to this water park. Our friends picked us up and we headed there. The girls enjoyed riding in cars with their friends. Sofia rode in the car with her friend Annalee. (We took 2 cars.) This is a good thing since both Annalee and Sofia talk nonstop. When they are together the adults get a break becuase then they just talk to each other. We all had a good time. We went down a lot of slides and spent some time in the Lazy River. The air temperature felt warm when we first walked in but once I was wet it felt a little chilly to me but the kids didn't seem to mind at all. We did end our time though with everyone in the hot tub to warm up. Sofia was very cute in the hot tub. She put her head back and let her legs float up and closed her eyes. She was really relaxing just like an adult. Once the hot tub got more crowded she stopped relaxing and started playing but it was very cute to see her just enjoying the comfort of the hot tub. After Aqua Palace our friends dropped us at home and we began prepping dinner. Our friends came back over at 5:30 for dinner and the fun continued. I made spring rolls for the appetizer and Jason made orange chicken. I had gone to the Japanese shop near us yesterday to pick up some supplies to make the spring rolls and some sushi rice. It was my first time to this Japanese shop and I'm glad I went. Now I know where to go when I want good rice or wrappers for spring rolls. Anyway, we had a lot of fun having dinner with our friends and the girls had a blast playing with their friends. It was a very full day and lots of fun for everyone!

Running shoes

Lately I had been noticing that my running shoes were not as comfortable. It seemed odd since I didn't have that many miles on them (about 250) so I just figured it was me but the shoes were fine. Last week after my run my foot was sore and it hurt to walk on. I decided to see if it was the distance I was running or the shoe so for my next run I used my old running shoes. While the run still wasn't pleasant with old running shoes it was a lot better and my foot didn't hurt. It was clear at this point that I needed to pay the money and get new shoes. Running is not a huge sport here like it is in the States so I wasn't sure where I was going to go to buy new shoes. In the States you can go to running shops where they will watch you run to see if you are a over/under pronate or if you are neutral and if you are a heel striker etc. to tell you what they think could be a good shoe for you. I wanted that same thing here since I am now running 8-11 miles at a time and I want a shoe that will feel good on longer runs. I didn't think it would be possible to find that here but fortunately there is one shop that does it. I was excited to find this shop online but I still didn't have high hopes....was the shop still in business?, will they speak English?, Can I convey what I want in Czech?, will they really know what they are talking about?...my internal questions went on and on. I went to the shop on Friday which is across town. The shop was great. The guy there spoke English and was very helpful. I tried on a few pairs of shoes and ended up with a new pair of Asics. It will be my first pair of Asics and I'm hoping that they will last longer than my most recent pair of Nike. Anyway, it was a surprisingly pleasant expereince at the shoe store. The guy also told me that there is a group of people that run together once a week and that I was welcome to join them. While I probably won't join them it is nice to know there is a running group here if I want to get involved.

More Birthday Parties

This weekend we headed out to more birthday parties. W had two parties this weekend but unlike last weekend these two were ont eh same day on opposite sides of town. Since we all couldn't go to both we divided up. Jason and Ali went to Owen's birthday party. Owen is Ali's age and will be in her class next year at school. This was a good opportunity for her to attend a party without her sister. Jason had fun too since the party was filled with a lot of our friends. He was nice and even brought me home a bagel from the party! I forgot to give him the camera before he left so we don't have any pictures from Owen's party this year. I was able to steal one today from Laura's (Owen's mom) blog. (Thanks Laura!)

I headed off with Sofia to her friend Anna's party (a different Anna from last weekend - There are 3 girls named Anna in her class). Our friend picked us up and we headed out of town since Anna lives just outside Prague. It was a lot of fun at the party. Her Mom and Dad, Suzanne and Christoph, did a great job with the party. They kept the kids well entertained and entertained and fed the adults as well. Sofia loved playing the games and hitting the pinata. She always loves being in peoples houses too. It is interesting to see what she comes up with for things she wants. At Anna's house Sofia decided she wanted a house with stairs so her bedroom could be upstairs and she wanted a loft bed like Anna's. Apparently Sofia was enthralled by climbing! I guess the three floors of stairs she climbs to get into our apartment aren't enough. I also enjoy seeing other people's houses so that I can see how they decorate. Their house was beautiful. Once we were there and I was talking to Suzanne and Christoph it made sense to me why Sofia always said that Anna is from "chinese". They had a lot of Asian decorations in their house which were beautiful and it turns out that the reason Anna is "from Chinese" is that for the last three years they lived in Shanghai. At least now I can explain to Sofia that Anna is from Austria but lived in China before she moved to Prague.

Girls after my own heart

As a true child of my mother I sing all the time. As a child I would just make up songs and now as an adult with kids I make up songs to sing to them. I knew this had rubbed off on Sofia since she makes up songs all the time. It wasn't until today that I realized it had rubbed off on Ali too. Last night I took a video of Ali singing a song that I thought she had learned in class. I assumed she had messed up the words since I didn't think they would talk about "monsters in your bedroom" at school. She even had a name for the song! I showed Ali's teacher today to see if I could figure out what the words are and I learned that they don't sing anything like that in class. It was then it occurred to me that Ali had completely made up the song herself. Here is my little singer for your listening pleasure....



If anyone has trouble understanding her, here are the words to her "song".

Creature In The Wood

Creature in the wood still child
Sleeping in the wood child
Sleeping in the wood baby child
Sleeping in the wood baby child
Don't you worry there is a monster in your bedroom
There is a monster in your bedroom sometimes
but bear can't live in there anytime
and come back anytime, anytime I come back.

Another reason I love it here...

As I went into the pet shop today I was once again reminded why I love it here. While Prague is a big city it often feels like a small village. I walk around our neighborhood and I say hi to random people...the security guard at the bank, the lady from the butcher, the lady from the hat store etc. Would I ever recognize someone from the supermarket in the U.S.? Probably not. Here it is different. You see these people on a regular basis and you get to know them in a way. They speak Czech with me and suffer through my responses graciously. They include me in their neighborhood by saying "Dobry Den" (Good day/Hello) when they see me on the street. It gives me the sense of being part of a community even when we are separated by language. Anyway, I stopped into the pet store today to order Watson's food. The pet store does not normally stock Watson's food but offered to always order it for us when we need it. It is nice since the pet shop is just down our road. When I stopped in today the owner asked me if I could please check our bank statement to see if the payment for the pet food we bought in August was on there since they cannot find it on there records. This would never happen in the US b/c 1. you wouldn't remember what the person looked like a month and a half later and 2. a company wouldn't ask you to go back and check your own bank statements. They would just eat the cost of the food. I think it is great that the owner of this small shop asked me to help him out. I expect to pay for the food we buy so if we didn't pay him last month I will gladly pay him and if we did may him and the bank didn't send it on to his account I want him to get the money. He is nice enough to order special food for Watson whenever I stop in and he tolerates the girls coming into his shop all the time just to look at the animals. So once again I find myself loving Prague and the people who live here.

Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding

Since I got my first time cooking with Ali's class out of the way I no longer find the task daunting. I signed up to cook with Sofia's class for yesterday. I wanted to find something that would be easy for the kids to make and that they could be involved with. I quickly thought of bread pudding. It was a great success. The kids loved ripping up the bread into chunks, mixing everything together and putting in the chocolate chips. They were very excited to make it. We made two pans of the bread pudding. Since there are 19 kids in Sofia's class I worked with them in two groups so making two dishes worked out well. It was a mad dash to get them in the oven and luckily the ovens here cook much faster so it only took 35 minutes to cook rather than 45 minutes. The kids ate up their bread pudding just before the end of the day.

I wasn't sure how much to bring for ingredients since I'm never sure how many cups of bread a loaf makes. Once I was done baking with Sofia's class I had a lot left over. Rather than bring it home and make it alone I decided to leave it in Ali's class to bake with them. Today I made the bread pudding with Ali's class and it was also a big hit. It is a lot of fun to cook with the kids. They enjoy it and the kids love having a parent in the room. "HEY, IT'S ALI'S MOMMY!!!" It is nice to be greeted with such happiness!

Birthday Parties

This last weekend was filled with parties. After having a great time trick or treating on Friday night we got up on Saturday and continued the fun. We hopped on the bus out to Hostivice, a town just outside Prague, to go to Natalie's birthday party. The girls don't get to see Natalie much anymore since they are in school full time so it was a nice opportunity for them to play. They really enjoyed the food too. You would think that we hadn't fed them a big breakfast by the way they were eating. They ate a lot of fruit and bagels as well as cake and candy. It was funny to see their progress with pinatas. They use to come away with a couple pieces of candy from a pinata but now they come away with large amounts. They have really learned how to maximize their candy take! After the party we decided to ride the train back into town. It was a very quick ride and the train station is very close to our apartment. (Usually the bus would be close as well but they are doing construction on the main road so the buses are a little further away now.) We relaxed for the rest of the day on Saturday.



On Sunday we picked back up with the partying. We headed out to another birthday party. This one was for Anna, a girl in Sofia's class. Sofia and Anna are very good friends and really enjoy playing together. The party was at a hotel in Nebusice. We could have taken a bus there but my friend Kelly offered to give us a ride which was nice. The kids had a great time. All the kids from Sofia's class were there so it was quite crazy (in a good way). Two of the older girls from school, whom Sofia's class know very well, were in charge of the games. I couldn't believe how many games they had for the kids to play. It was great since it kept the kids occupied. One of the games had the kids go barefoot. They had to put their bare feet in jello and try to pick out marbles with their feet. It was very funny to watch. Ali just couldn't bring herself to do it though. Her foot barely touched the jello and she pulled it back and refused to put her foot in. I guess she is just not a kid for messy things. After many games as well as , chips, cheese sticks, popcorn, hotdogs and cake the party came to an end and we headed home. Our friend Kelly gave us a ride home and Sofia was so tired she was almost asleep by the time we got home and it was only a 10 minute drive! She was exhausted. It was a fun filled, tiring weekend. We have two more birthday parties next weekend as well and we are looking forward to the fun. Here is a video of the girls dancing at the party.

Halloween

The kids have been talking about Halloween for the last two months so it was with great excitement that they got dressed to go trick or treating. This year the girls decided to stray from the princess costumes. Ali dressed up as the wicked witch of the west and Sofia dressed up as a pirate. When Jason had gone to the U.S. a couple weeks ago he brought back costumes for us since we were going to a costume party after trick or treating. When he got back to Prague and opened the Adult medium package it had a child's small costume inside. We were disappointed but it ended up working out well since Sofia was excited to be a pirate. She made a good pirate and walked around saying "arrrgggghhh". Jason and I tried to teach Ali to say, "I'll get you my pretty and your little dog too". We thought she had it down until we started walking to our friends house and Ali said, "I'll eat you my baby". We started off our celebrating at our friends house with pizza, cookies and candy and then we headed up to the trick or treating neighborhood. Yes, there is one neighborhood known for trick or treating here and it is often called "little America". It is a little out of town but our friends gave us a ride and it was well worth the trip. The kids had such a great time running door to door. It is quite a crazy hour as there are hundreds of kids in this small neighborhood running from door to door trying to get candy before the candy runs out. After hitting all the houses and the kids happy with their treats we headed home to put the kids to bed. Our babysitter arrived and Jason and I headed out to our costume party. Since Jason's costume from the states was obviously too small he went earlier in the day to a costume shop to rent a costume. It ended up working out really well and he made a great pirate. We had fun at our party and the kids had fun trick or treating. Another Happy Halloween!

Enjoying vacation

The girls have school vacation this week. Last week I was trying to think of things for them to do to keep them busy and entertained while they had time off from school. It is already half way through their vacation and I have realized that they don't need me to entertain them. They have both been happy to just stay home and relax. They have been staying in their pajamas a lot. On Monday I let them put their rain gear over their pajamas so we could take Watson out for a walk. They thought that was pretty funny.

We have had a few things to do this week though. We took Watson to the vet on Monday becuase he has been limping for a few weeks now. The had to give Watson medicince to make him sleep so they could take an xray of his leg. That meant we had to kill an hour of time so I walked the girls to Hornbach. Hornbach is the Home Depot of Czech Republic. It is so similar that if you were standing in a Hornback or a home depot and didn't look at the spelling of things you would not know which store you were in! I was amazed...I wonder which came first? In any event, the nursery section of Hornback also had a lot of decorations (which I know is not in Home Depot). The girls and I chose some fall decorations and then we browsed the Christmas decorations. We decided we would need to go back with Jason to pick up some new decorations for this Christmas. We headed back to the vet to find out that Watson has a chipped bone in his shoulder joint. He is on pain meds this week and we have to bring him back next week. If he is still limping then he will need to have arthroscopic surgery to remove the chip.

Yesterday was the National Holiday as I already posted and we spent time walking around and just hanging out in our apartment. Today we had friends over for a visit. The kids had a really fun time playing and just running around crazy in the apartment. I had fun talking with my friend, Wendy. Our schedules have been so busy lately that we haven't had a lot of time to talk at pickup from school so it was nice to finally have time to talk. I was happy to learn that her husband's contract has been extended so they will be here for at least another year and a half. Unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures of the girls playing.

Public Holiday

Today is The Day of Establishment of the Independent Czechoslovak Republic and is a National Holiday. Holidays are always nice since it means that Jason has the day off from work. Yesterday our street was cleared of parked cars and huge tents were set up. The huge tents have restaurants in them where you can sit and be served food. Also along our street are vendors of beer, wine, hotdogs, sausages, ham, trdlo, potato pancakes etc. There was also the roast pig which seems to be at every holiday event we have been to in Prague. The weather today is not great but we ventured out anyway. We had our fill of food and then walked to the end of the road to watch the parade. Since it was so chilly Ali and I decided to get hot chocolate. It is so nice that she is old enough to share a hot chocolate eith me. By the time we got there it was packed. I could barely see anything and we had the kids on our shoulders. It was an interesting parade and very different than parades I have seen in the States. The parade was essentially a military parade so we saw a lot of trucks, tanks and missle launchers. Ali was tired and cold so we headed home before Jason and Sofia but that was fine with me since I couldn't really see anything anyway. It is always fun to be out in the festive atmosphere and it is always nice that the festivities are right out our front door. There is a stage set up about 50 yards from our front door so I am looking forward to hearing the music later today. Until then I will relax and digest all the yummy food I ate earlier.

Out to Lunch

Today we had a lazy day after a busy week. The morning had gone by before we new it and it was time for lunch. We felt that we should get out of the house so we decided to head out for lunch. We thought about heading into town to a pizza place that has a pizza buffet and the kids eat free but by the time we were ready to go it was already after noon and we didn't want to miss Ali's nap. We decided to try out the Lebanese restaurant around the corner from our apartment. When we head out to restaurants with the kids it always strikes me how much our children are experiencing from living overseas. I don't think I knew there was Lebanese food when I was little nevermind trying it but our girls were excited to head to the Lebanese restaurant. The both really love hummus which they ate with gusto. I ordered a puff pastry filled with spinach which ended up coming loaded with onion too so I didn't eat it but it didn't go to waste since Ali loved it! I'm happy that we can expose them to all different cultures and I'm happy that we have children who love to try new foods.

Reading and Cooking

This week has been very busy. That seems to be the theme lately..busy, busy, busy. I had intentionally made this week busy becuase this was the week Jason was suppose to go to the States. Since I was planning on bringing the kids to school everyday I decided this would be a good week to sign up for reading with Sofia's class and cooking with Ali's class. Yesterday I spent some time in the morning reading with the kids in Sofia's class. I read stories to about 2 kids at a time. It was fun to read to them and interesting to see the difference in sounding out words as well as attention span. The girls were excited to read with me and the boys really just wanted to play. Sofia's teacher gave me a list of kids to read with but there were other girls who also wanted to read with me. I was happy to read to whomever wanted to listen. The boys on my list needed some coaxing to sit with me to read. It is interesting to see the difference between all the kids.

This morning I cooked with Ali's class. I thought about what I could cook that would involve 12 kids. The thought was a little daunting since it is enough work to bake with my own two kids never mind 12 kids. I decided to make cookies but I made the cookie dough in advance. This worked out perfectly. I gave each child a piece of dough to roll out with a rolling pin and then I had cookie cutters so they could choose what shape they wanted. This took just the right amount of time for the attention span of a 3 year old. It was nice to see Ali interacting with her classmates. The kids came to the table to make the cookies in groups. Since I was the mom doing the cooking, Ali's teacher let Ali go first and to pick 3 friends to start with her. It was interesting to see who Ali chose. Two of her choices were not surprising as she always talks about Clark and Nils but her third choice of Cianna was surprising as I never hear her talk about Cianna. It was nice to have a little insight into Ali's life at school.

The Pumpkin Patch

Last week, on Ali's only good day, the girls and I went on their class trip to the Pumpkin Patch. The nursery kids are required to have a parent present but the reception kids are not so I sat with Ali on the bus while Sofia sat way in the back. It was strange to be there but not to have to parent Sofia. She had a great time playing with her friends. She took her turn walking with the goat and feeding him apples. She picked out the pumpkin she wanted by herself and ate up all of her pumpkin soup. It is nice to see the change in her from last year to this year. Last year I had to constantly be with her and checking on her and this year she was just off by herself. When we arrived Ali went to go check out the rabbits. I guess she remembered them from last year. She spent most of her time with the rabbits last year but this year it was just a quick peak at the rabbits and then onto the pumpkins. She couldn't decide which pumpkin she wanted. I also enjoyed my time at the pumpkin patch and took the opportunity to stock up on squash. You can't buy squash in the store here so this is my opportunity to buy some. Last year I didn't know you could buy it until we were there and I ended up carrying a plastic bag of squash home that kept ripping. This year I came prepared with my cloth bag!

Today we finally had time to enjoy our spoils from the pumpkin patch. The girls and I carved pumpkins today. Well, the girls drew the face they wanted on the pumpkins and I cut them out. They were very excited to make jack-o-lanterns. Sofia helped scoop the seeds and goop out of the center of the pumpkin but Ali decided it was too messy and wasn't going to stick her hand in the pumpkin. After making the jack-o-lanterns, I decided to make some pumpkin soup. Sofia really enjoyed the pumpkin soup we had at the pumpkin patch and has been asking for it since. It is actually quite easy to make pumpkin soup. Next up I will be making acorn squash and butternut squash.

When it rains it pours

This is not a weather forecast but rather what happens when Jason leaves town. It seems when Jason heads out of the country the kids are sick or watson gets sick or both. This time was no different. As I have already blogged about, Ali had hives when Jason was heading out of town. We thought we were on the mend the day he flew out but no such luck and we ended up with Ali getting a cortisone shot. I thought everything was in the clear after that and I had our days planned out for the week. The girls had a class trip to the pumpkin patch (which I will post about later), we had our swim lesson and they were both in school and happy. Then things really came to a screeching halt on Wednesday afternoon. The school nurse called me and told me that Ali had woken up from her nap and was screaming and crying uncontrollably saying her leg hurt and she couldn't walk on it. Now, Ali had been complaining about her leg during her bought with hives but I just assumed it was because she had hives on the back of her knee. Apparently it wasn't the hives that was hurting her knee so I immediately brought her to the doctor. We went to one hospital and had it checked. They checked it and wrote out a slip for us to go to the children's emergency room at another hospital (Luckily the two hospitals are right next to each other). We go to the hospital and very quickly we find out that Ali is going to have to stay overnight. They originally thought it was inflammation of the knee caused by the bacteria from her ear infection. They put a needle in Ali's knee to withdraw some of the fluid. This was very painful for Ali and they weren't able to take out any fluid. They admitted her into the pediatric unit and we waited for other doctors to come. The staff was very nice and there was at least one doctor around who spoke English. The nurses were nice and since they couldn't tell me things in English they would just bring me to wherever I had to go. It was unexpected to have such help but very nice. We shared a room with another mom and daughter. The mother was very nice and also spoke English and she often translated for me with the nurses. She had been in the hospital for 7 days with her daughter. In our room there were two cribs, one bed and a chair. I slept in the chair. It was not very comfortable but I wasn't going to sleep away from Ali. Anyway, as it turns out, Ali didn't have fluid in her knee she just has swelling around her knee. They believe the swelling is caused by the allergic reaction to the augmentin. We will keep her on antihistamine and motrin for the next week. We were released from the hospital tonight which I am very grateful for. I'm happy that there is not major problem with Ali and I'm also happy that I don't have to sleep in the chair again. It was a pretty stressful time for me, especially with Jason away but we managed to get through it. I'm not sure how I would have done it with out some pretty great friends. Our friends Emily and Radek watched Sofia for me last night and took her to school this morning. They brought clothes for Ali and me as well as food and drinks and books and toiletries. Our friends Phil and Shanna are taking care of Sofia tonight (since we didn't get home until late and we weren't sure if we would even be home tonight) and they also brought us books and food and a much needed phone charger so I could stay in contact with everyone. Our babysitter picked up keys from our landlord so that she could come to our apartment and pick up Watson and take care of him. In addition to that there were so many friends who texted me to make sure I was doing ok and to see if they could help in any way. Even friends who are traveling have unknowingly helped us by letting us borrow their car while they are away. I had no idea how much mayhem would ensue with a stay in a hospital. Now I know and I'm so grateful to all of our friends who love us and take care of us. It has been a whirlwind week and I can't wait for Jason to get home.

Hives Update

Ali's hives flared up again this afternoon so I brought her to the doctor. The doctor said it was probably a reaction to the Augmentin she was on for her ear infection. They gave Ali a cortisone shot. This was the first shot Ali has had in her rear end and it was not pleasant. She screamed for the entire injection which seemed like forever to me so I can only imagine how long it seemed to take for Ali. She cried and cried which is unheard of for Ali. I do not think she has ever cried for any shot. Now, of course, her bottom is sore from the shot but her her hives seem to be getting better. I have other medicine to give her and a cream to put on her so hopefully this will fix the problem and she can get a good nights sleep tonight.

Hives

On Friday afterschool I noiced Ali had about 10 mosquito bites on her legs. I thought this was odd and couldn't figure out when she would have gotten them. I chalked up to her sitting outside during recess. Jason and I went out to dinner and when we got home Ali was making noise in her bed so I went in to check on her. I felt her belly since she said it was itchy and there were welts all over it. I got the flashlight out (her room was dark and Sofia was sleeping) to check her and sure enough she had hives. What I thought had been a few mosquito bites turned out to be hives and had drastically increased in size and number. I gave her some claratin since we didn't have any children's benadryl. This seemed to help some but was still not great. In the morning I picked up some benadryl from a friend and gave that to her. That also helped a little but not as much as I would have expected. We have kept her on the antihistamines all weekend. Last night was defintely the worst. Her belly was one giant hive. She as so itchy and the antihistamine didn't seem to be doing anything. I finally decided that I would bring her to the doctor this morning but when I got back from my run and she was awake her hives were alredy going away. We sent her to schoool and told her teacher to call if the hives flared up again. I hope that they just go away. I have no idea why she got them since she hasn't had anything different to eat and her schedule has been the same so she hasn't been exposed to new bushes/leaves. I will just hope that this was a one time event.

Harvest Assembly and Bake Sale

Friday was the kid's school harvest assembly in the morning and the bake sale in the afternoon. The harvest assembly is a great time for the kids to learn more about giving and what it takes to grow food...kind of like the U.S. thanksgiving. The school collects food donations and gives it to a local charity. The kids get to sing songs about the harvest and the older kids get to have little skits acting out the harvest. It was fun to watch the assembly. Sofia was very excited about it and kept asking me if I was going to be there. It is the first time that she has really talked up any event. In the afternoon the PTA put on a bake sale. I got there early so I could help set up for the bake sale. Of course in my rush to get out the door I forgot to bring the cookies I had made for the bake sale. Oh well, Jason is happy there are plenty of cookies here for him to eat now. The school bake sales are really more than bake sales. There are games for the kids and face painting and coloring and a little stall selling little trinkets for the kids as well as fruit stalls and card stalls etc. It is a lot of fun to attend. The kids love eating the sweets but they also love having their faces painted. Here are a pictures of the girls during the harvest assembly as well as them with their friends after face painting.

Busy, Busy

This week has been very busy. I can't believe it is already the end of the day on Thursday!

Week in Reveiw:

I brought the girls to the doctor again to have their ears checked. As I've mentioned before, when you bring a sick child into the doctor here and they prescribe medicine they want to see the child again for a "control" check so they can ensure the child is better. This is a good thing since that way I know if the ear infections are gone but it is also a pain in the rear end. The girls control appointment was on Monday morning at 8am which means leaving our apartment by 7:30am. This was a bit of a struggle but we made it and I got the girls to school by 9:30. The girls still had ear infections on Monday so we just kept them on the antibiotics. Hopefully the infections are gone by the end of the week.

Since I am class representative for both of the girls classes I have been quite busy with school things. I have had to gather data and compile spreadsheets with parent contact information as well as organize birthday presents for teachers. This week I organized a coffee morning for each class. This is a time for the parents to get together in the parent room at school and have coffee/tea cookies etc and chat and get to know each other better. Sofia's class has 7 new kids in it so it was a great opportunity to get to chat with them, although not all of them came to the coffee morning. Ali's class has some moms that already have kids at the school but there are a lot of new faces. Since some kids get picked up at noon and some at three you don't always get to see everyone nevermind have time to talk so it was great to see everyone. I am looking forward to getting to know everyone over the course of the year. Two of the other moms and I are going to run together after drop off next week. I'm excited to find other moms who can run with me. It will be nice to make new friends and it will be a new expereince for me to run with others since I always run by myself.

On Wednesday I met friends at my italian restaurant to celebrate my birthday. It was nice to have friends to celebrate my birthday with as well as have lunch at my favorite restaurant. It has made my birthday into quite a celebration this year.

This morning I was finally able to get together with a friend that I haven't seen in a while. She has been busy building a new house and I have been so busy with the girls that our schedules just haven't matched up. Well, we finally made it happen this morning. It was nice to just hangout and have tea and cake with a friend. Since everything has been so busy this week I completely forgot Sofia had Czech lessons today until I picked her up from school and she reminded me. It's a good thing she remembers her schedule otherwise we would have completely missed her lesson. We rushed home to get her Czech book and I dropped her off at her lesson. I came home and baked some chocolate chip cookies for the school bakesale tomorrow. Now I have to prep my running stuff for tomorrow so I can get up early and run before bringing the girls to school. Jason usually brings the girls to school but I am going in tomorrow as well since the girls will be singing in the Harvest Assembly. Sofia is very excited about singing and keeps checking with me to make sure I'm going to be there so I can't miss it.

A nice birthday weekend

My birthday weekend was great. Jason brought home pad thai and spring rolls for dinner on Friday as well as cake and my birthday present. I had been saying that I wanted the new iphone but assumed I would not get it. Jason surprised me though when I opened my present and found an iphone. I was very excited. I'm not generally a gadget person but the iphone was so attractive to me. I would have my phone, music and calendar all in one place. I was only listening to my ipod when I ran and just never thought of bringing it with me else where. I often forget my calendar on my desk at home so I never know if I'm available to do things while I'm out. I did always have my phone with me so if I could have everything on my phone then I would always have it with me. On top of all that I liked the odea of having my phone as part of my music so that when I am running I have a phone with me. When I was only runing 3 miles it didn't feel like I needed it but now that I am running 9.5 miles I just feel better knowing that I could call someone if something happened. It also has maps on it so if I'm running and get lost I can check the map rather than stopping a farmer from tilling his field! Anway, it was a great present. Then I opened a present from Jason's parents which was two shirts which I desperatly need. Sofia was funny though. She said, "Why does mommy only have three things on her birthday and I get a lot?" I had to laugh.

Anway, on Saturday we decided to check out a creperie that we had just heard about. I called one of my friends to see if they wanted to come over in the afternoon to hang out and let the kids play. She said yes and that they could come to the creperie with us too. It was lot of fun and the kids (and I) really enjoyed the chocolate and whip cream crepes. We came back and just hung out at our apartment and filled ourselves with junk food. . . cheese and crackers, nachos, buffalo tenders and cake. It was a fun day.

After getting lost on my run on Friday I was itching to try it again. This morning I decided I would run the route in reverse so that it would be less likely to get lost. It was a great run! I will definitely keep that route in my running schedule. It was tough since there are some steep uphills but it is worth it to run through city, woods, farm and village.

All in all, a great weekend.

Birthday

Today is my birthday! For those who have already sent me birthday wishes, Thankyou! I love when people remember my birthday. I have a had a nice day so far. Jason took the girls to school this morning and I had a lesidurely morning mapping out my run. Then I headed out for my run. Since I had nothing to do I decided to try a new route today. I planned on running 9.5 miles but sometimes the best laid plans go awry. The thing with running is that you have to look at a map before you go and then remember the route. That can sometimes be tricky. I've fairly comfident in my ability to get home though so I just go for it. My run started out fine. the second to 6.5 miles were all up hill which was a bit difficult but it was an interesting run. I then somehow missed my turn and ended up lost. I asked a couple people and they would point me in a direction and would keep running. My last stop was a farmer. There was a farmer in a HUGE tractor like this one. He was tilling the land I guess...the tractor had something attached to it that looked like a giant rake. Anyway, he was on the edge of the field and I put my pointer finger up in they "you got a minute" sign. He gave me the nod and I jumped over the ditch between the road and the farm and asked him for directions. He gave a slight chuckle and gave me directions. It got me where I needed to be so I was happy. I continued on my run and found the park I was looking for but unfortunately I took the wrong path in the park. I ended up walking/hiking down a pretty steep rocky path and at that point decided to walk the rest of the way back to the tram. The park was peaceful and beautiful. Watson loved exploring and going in the stream next to the path. It was a nice run and being lost just added to the adventure.