Running

I haven't posted about running in a while so I thought I would give an update. I'm still running 3 to 4 times a week. It is still a great release for me to be out by myself. Well, I still usually have Watson but since he can't talk to me it is like being by myself. I've begun to increase my mileage again to see if I have it in me to run the prague half marathon. I ran 7 miles today and while I was tired it still felt good so I will run this distance for a little while before I move up to 8 miles. Luckily I have plenty of time to increase my distance since the half marathon isn't until March. In the mean time, Jason and I have signed up for the night run in Prague on September 13th. I will run the women's 5K and Jason will run the men's 10K. Apparently women can sign up for the men's race but men are not allowed to run the women's race. I'm happy to run the women's race though and have no desire to run the men's race. In addition to being longer the men's race doesn't start until 9:30 at night. That is just way too late for me. The women's race is at 7:30pm which is late enought for me. I'm hoping to beat my time from last year but not sure if that will happen. I will post our results after the run.

Slugs

I know I have posted about the slugs and snails on the way to Sofia's school but I felt the slugs at the pool needed mentioning. There are slugs at the pool and they are enormous slugs. Sometimes they are on the edge of the pool or in the pool first thing in the morning. If I see them I just clean them out and throw them in the bushes. Today the slugs were especially friendly. The kids had pizza for lunch and left their crust on the plate. The plates were sitting on our blanket. I hadn't picked up the plates since I thought the kids might come back and eat the rest of the crust. To my surprise not only are the slugs at the pool big they are also very fast movers. I couldn't believe my eyes when I looked down at the plate to see a slug on the crust! I had no idea slugs like pizza too. (This one was the shorter slugs of the pool variety but still fat. It must be all the pizza he eats.)

The Pool The Pool!!!!!

Our exciting news today is that the sun came out of hiding and it was warm! I was so excited that it was a pool day. I received a text message from my friend to see if we were going to the pool and I gave a happy YES!. She was a little concerned that it wasn't going to be warm enough but I wasn't about to be picky about my pool days when we have had so few. I was determined to go to the pool. I'm so glad we did becuase it was a perfect pool day. The sun was shining, the kids were playing nicely and the moms were able to chat in the sun. It was so nice. I'm hoping for another pool day tomorrow. Tomorrow will be our last chance for the pool during the week since the kids have orientation on Friday and then school starts on Monday for Sofia and Tuesday for Ali. It is hard to believe that summer is coming to an end.

The playground

Yesterday was a day for playgrounds. It was cloudy and cool so not a pool day. The girls and I went to the playground at Puskinovo in the morning. The girls love playing on the playground and in the sand. Since the area is small I can also tie Watson to the outside of the fence and he is still close enough to me that he doesn't whine and bark. So the upside for Watson is he gets to sit outside for quite a while. After playing in Puskinovo we headed home for lunch and nap. After nap I decided to bring the girls back outside. We went to the playground at Kafkova. This playground is becoming more fun for the girls since there are pull up bars and balance beams that they can really play with now. Ali is such a little monkey that she spent almost the entire time we were there climbing up the bars. I couldn't believe how long she was climbing for.

Hair Cut

Sofia has been asking me for a while if she could get her hair cut short. First it was like Anna's, then Elisabetta's, then Lucy's. I kept telling her no b/c her hair was very nice long. I was also afraid that if she cut it she wouldn't like it but then there would be nothing I could do about it. I finally decided that her hair is hers and it isn't something I want to dictate to her. With a little subtle hinting ..."No, I don't think it would look very nice if you cut it above your ears."... I brought Sofia to the salon today and let her get her hair cut. I asked her to show me how short she wanted it and I told the stylist. This is a picture of her new haircut.

Time with Friends

Prague has apparently decided to skip summer. I was hoping for some nice weather upon our return from Scotland but, alas, still no summer. The cool weather has given us the opportunity to spend some time with friends. On Saturday I went out for brunch with friends to celebrate my friend Laura's birthday. We went to a restaurant that I hadn't been to before which was nice and the food was good. After brunch a few us decided to hit a coupe of the shops in town. I lucked out and finally found a fall/spring coat. I have been looking for one for a while but I have a very hard time finding any that fit so I jumped at the chance to buy one when I actually fit me well. After shopping we headed home. I didn't want to end the fun there though so we invited our friends Phil & Shanna along with their children to come over for dinner. It is the first time we have ever had anyone over for dinner except family. We have always been hesitant to have people over since our apartment is so small but I'm glad we did it. We had space for everyone to eat and everyone had a good time. It was nice to sit and talk with Phil and Shanna since they have been away all summer. Sunday was a day of relaxing which was nice. Today Jason went back to work and the girls and I headed over to Shanna's house. Shanna had sent Clark on a play date with Owen so it was just a girls day. Two of Sofia's friends from school were also there so the girls had a great time playing with all their friends and I had a great time talking with Shanna.

Scotland Photos

To accompany Mary's great post about our Scotland trip I have uploaded our Scotland photos to our SmugMug site.

Since I was way behind I have also caught up by adding pictures from our July vacation in Spain as well as our day to day photos from this summer.

Scotland

I know some of you were wondering why I hadn't posted in a while and it was because we have been in Scotland. We had a great time in Scotland. This was our family get together vacation and Jason's family flew over from the States and we all met in Scotland.

The House: We rented a large house so that we could all stay together. I couldn't get a picture to capture the size of the house but here it is from the front. The house was perfect since it had two living rooms (one for the kids and one for adults), 7 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, a large dining room and a large kitchen. We had plenty of space to spread out and with 6 kids running around plus a baby we made use of all the space. The yard was nice too. There was area for the kids to play and jump on the trampoline as well as woods to walk through and lochs to look at (We could have fished but the weather wasn't great and I really had no interest) . The kids enjoyed looking for little lizards and frogs. The house was really a terrific gathering place. The house caretaker is also a trained chef and cooked for us on some nights and on other nights someone would cook dinner for the family. The kids got to eat at the kids table in the kitchen. I remember being relegated to the kids table when I was little and it was so much fun and it didn't seem like things have changed since the kids seemed to have a blast having dinner. We fed the kids around 6pm so that by 8pm we were ready for our adult meal. It was great fun to gather around the dining room table. We don't get to be together as one group very often so when we do everyone has fun laughing, joking and telling stories. It was also nice to know on the nights we had Simon (the caretaker/chef) to make dinner we didn't have to do any dishes after the meal.

Hikes: There are plenty of hills to hike around in Scotland and they are all full of magnificent beauty as well as a LOT of sheep. I have never seen so many sheep in my life. Jason and I took turns hiking with Sofia since we didn't feel Ali was quite up to climbing up the big hills. The first hill we climbed was quite high and with all the heather it was not easy. Add in some steepness and poop avoidance it was a tiring walk. Sofia did amazing. She would have made it all the way to the top but since we were slower than everyone else they were coming back down again before we got to the top. Sofia asked to continue to the top but since everyone said it was very windy up top and I didn't want to press my luck I decided it would be better for us to head back down. Sofia was happy though to just be with her cousins so we started back down. It made me laugh at different times when Sofia would stop and say, "Isn't it beautiful mommy?". It was so precious and I am thrilled that she can see the beauty around her. Of course, she also noticed all the sheep poop around (since the sheep just roam the hills) and proceeded to take a picture of it. It was quite amusing. Jason took Sofia on her second hike. She again did a great job. She had fun watching her cousins run after the sheep on the mountain while they hiked.

Out and About: Our first day was spent at the house and grocery shopping. At the cheese shop the owner told us about a fish festival being held in Arbroath over the weekend. There was apparently a famous fish called the Arbroath Smokie which is a smoked haddock. It sounded interesting so we decided to head there the next day. The festival wasn't quite what I would think of as a fish festival but the Arbroath Smokie was very good. The kids loved playing in the grass and dancing around with their cousins. It was also just nice to be on the water. That thick salty air is just so nice and yes I am serious. It was interesting to watch the water over the time we were there b/c the sea was definitely picking up and by the time we left there was water splashing over the break wall. It would be interesting to see the water during a real storm. After leaving the festival we decided to go to Glamis Castle. It was an interesting castle and is the first place that we have gone to where the tour guide has told us the ghost stories and legends about the castle. It is fun to think about secret rooms and ghosts. There is an extra window on the outside of the castle that can't be accounted for on the inside and there is a legend that goes along with it about there being a secret room behind the wall. I couldn't help but think, if I were the owner of the castle the first thing I would do would be to drill a hole in the wall to see what is there. In any event it was a fun tour. We had great plans to go to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling and Inverness. The only one we made was Inverness. I really wanted to see the Highlands of Scotland so on the day we were going to go to Stirling we decided to skip that castle and head to the highlands. We had lunch in Inverness but decided we wanted to take the scenic route back through the mountains. It was a beautiful ride but 5 hours in the car for one day made us cancel plans to drive the 2 hours to Glasgow or the 2 hours to Edinburgh or the 2 hours to Stirling so the rest of the time we either spent at the house doing hikes and playing in the woods or exploring smaller towns close to our house. The ride up to Inverness was nice but we took the major highway (a two lane road) and so it wasn't as scenic or pleasant since we were driving at highway speed. Don't get me wrong we still ooowwwwed and ahhhhhed all the way up the highway. After having lunch in Inverness we decided to head for a castle. On the way to the castle we got side-tracked by a sign for Fort George. Jason was interested in it and it was going to be on the water so we headed that way. When we arrived we realized they wanted $26 per person to enter and it just wasn't worth that to us so we decided to continue home. Having navigated to Fort George though the TOMTOM gave us a new route to get home which sent us via Nairn. Nairn is right on the coast. When I am near an ocean I just need to touch it so when we saw the sign for the harbour we followed it and found a beach. Sofia and I rolled up our pants and took off our socks and shoes and went into the Moray Firth. It was a little chilly since the water temp is somewhere around 15 degrees (59 F) and it was windy and rainy when we went in but it was still fun. After that we headed home through the mountains which were absolutely stunning. We also went to Blair Castle. the girls enjoyed this castle and pretended it was theirs. This was the only castle we have been to that we weren't required to be on a tour. This is ideal for us with kids b/c we just want to walk through and the kids don't want to hear some long winded explanation. They had a lot of fun telling us that this was their bed and this is where they have tea with their friends and that this bed was their prince's bed etc etc. It was very cute. This is a picture of the girls standing in "their garden" at Blair Castle.

The Animals: I couldn't leave this post without adding some of the pictures of the animals we saw this past week. The sheep were so cute but I think my favorite is the Highland Cow.




The Car: This was the first time that Jason and I have ever driven on the "other" side if the road. It was very different but once you get use to it then it is fine. The only unnerving thing is that the roads are so narrow. Many roads are single track, windy, hilly roads and people drive fast or at least it seems fast when there is barely enough space to pass even when it is a two lane road. The nice thing is that there are spaces to pull over periodically so we utilized those spaces to stop to take pictures of sheeps, highland cows, and the beautiful countryside.

Now we are back in Prague and hoping that we will have some nice weather to finish out the summer. We will have the pictures from Scotland posted soon.

Control, Control, Control...

Control....that is what I had to keep telling myself when I walked into the shop at Red, Hot & Blues. It was all I could do to not spend a fortune. Red, Hot & Blues is a restaurant in town that also has a little store connected to it. The little store sells American products like, Kraft Mac & Cheese, Betty Crocker cake mix, frosting, Jiff, Crisco, Pam, Toll House chocolate chips, pop tarts....basically all things that are bad for you but taste ohhhhh sooooo goood! My big excitement though was diet rootbeer. I know, it doesn't sounds like much but you can't get rootbeer here. Most Czech's have probably never even heard of rootbeer so to be able to get DIET rootbeer is amazing. The only two sodas that I drink are diet Sprite and diet rootbeer and since you can't get either one here I was very excited by my find. My second excitement was marshmallows. Again, I know it doens't sound exciting but the other day I wanted to make rice krispie treats but my hopes were dashed when I realized I would never find marshmallows here You can imagine my excitement when I saw the object of my desire. The man at the counter laughed at my gasp upon seeing the marshmallows. I finally gained control over my desires and made it out of the shop with my diet rootbeer, marshmallows and triscuits at the exorbitant cost of $56USD. As I sit here and drink my diet rootbeer it is well worth the cost to splurge every now and then.

Czech School

This week the girls are going to Czech school (Czech language school). I'm excited for them to learn more Czech. It is not necessarily that I think they need to learn Czech since they will probably never use it when we leave the Czech Republic but learning a language at this age will, I hope, make it easier for them to learn languages in the future. Our babysitter's daughter runs a language school that teaches Czech, English, and German so the girls already know one of their teachers which makes it easier for them. They are excited to go to Czech school every day. I'm hoping that they can keep attending Czech lessons after school when school starts in the fall. This week also gives me a taste of what life will be like in the fall when both kids are in school. It is amazing how much more I can get done and how much less stressful it is to do things without dragging the kids along with me. Today I went and had my haircut and my eyebrows done and it was so nice to not have to worry about picking the kids up from Jason who needs to get to work. I have time to take Watson out for his mid-day walk without the kids complaining every step of the way. It was nice.

House of Friends

We have had a pretty slow week this week given Sofia's ear infections. We hit a couple playgrounds during the week which was nice. Sofia's ears are much better since we started the medicine so on Friday we had a house full of friends. My friend Laura and her son Owen came over to play as well as Sofia's friends Vivianna and Michelle from school. I realized during this playdate that Sofia and Ali are much louder than Vivianna and Michelle (they are sisters as well). The kids had a lot of fun playing together..drawing, dress up, stuffed animals and movies. A good time had by all.

Ear Infections...

Sofia has been complaining for the last couple days about her ears. At first I thought she had an ear infection but then it only seemed she complained about them when she was in trouble so I thought maybe she was not telling the truth. She kept throwing me curve balls though since on Monday she took a nap for one hour and forty-five minutes which is unheard of for Sofia. Last night she had a major meltdown and I asked her if she wanted to skip dinner and go to bed since she seemed tired and to my surprise she said yes. She was asleep by 6:15 and slept until this morning. She told me she felt fine this morning but I could tell she wasn't since she would have a crying fit over the smallest things. I decided that she must be telling the truth about her ears and I called our doctor but she couldn't see Sofia until tomorrow so this afternoon I decided to take Sofia to a different doctor. So, even with the removal of her adenoids, Sofia is still susceptible to ear infections. She has infections in both ears. She will take an antibiotic, ear drops, nose drops, plus her allergy medicine. I hope this is an isolated ear infection and doesn't mean she will have a lot this winter.

Back to the playgrounds

When we first moved here the girls and I spent a lot of time at the many playgrounds around our apartment. Since the summer heat is not in Prague this summer we haven't been to the pool a lot. I have been fighting the lack of summer and have been in denial. I have finally accepted that this summer is going to be more fall-like than summer-like and the last couple of days the girls and I have returned to the playgrounds. During the school year the girls would just play on the school playground after pickup so there wasn't a need to go to the local playgrounds. It is nice to go back to the playgrounds now. The weather is perfect for sitting at the playground and the girls are old enough now that I can read my book. After the playground this morning we had lunch at the baguette shop at the end of our street and enjoyed sitting outside with our lunch. I'm not minding the weather this week also since Sofia is sick and we can't go to the pool anyway.

Liberec

On Sunday we decided to drive to Liberec. We thought it would be a nice way to combine sight seeing with fun for the girls since there is an Aquapark in Liberec. The townhall is a stunning building but most of the town was not that exciting. The girls seemed tired so after walking over to the castle (which was not impressive) we decided to get in the car and drive over to the botanical garden rather than walk. The botanical garden was fun. The girls love seeing all the flowers and plants. We paid for an hour of parking since we thought that would be enough time to see everything. We did leave at the end of the hour but we definitely could have spent more time in the gardens. After that we headed to the Aquapark. The Aquapark was ok but I think we have been ruined for other parks becuase of Aqua Palace. Babylon Aquapark was much more compact and it was very crowded when we arrived. They do have these cool caves that you can swim into though and those weren't as crowded so we stayed in there for quite awhile and let the girls swim around. At some spots in the caves there were fake stalactites. Ali did not like them and kept saying they were scary monsters so we had to make sure we were in a part of the caves that did not have any stalactites overhead. After a while we decided to check out the slides. The kids (and Jason and I) loved the slides. The kids had to go down the slides on our laps but they didn't mind. Sofia would go down the slides with Jason and Ali would go with me. Sofia gets a little more nervous and likes to have both of Jason's arms wrapped around her and if she has that then she has a lot of fun and doesn't find it too scary. Since I like to have a hand free to stabalize us if I need to Sofia prefers to be with Jason. Jason checked out a couple of other slides that he deemed not good for kids so we just kept going down the big yellow slide. By 6pm we decided it was time to go since it was about an hour and a half drive to get home. All in all a good day.

BBQ

On Saturday one of the people that works with Jason had a BBQ. The weather was a little questionable but the BBQ wasn't canceled and Sofia was very excited to meet Daddy's friends from work so off we went. The house was just outside Prague and we could have taken public transportation but it would have taken quite a while so it was nice to just hop in the car and go. The area the house was in was very cute. One of the things I love about going just outside of Prague is that the houses will all be clustered together and around them will be giant fields. It just seems so peaceful to me. Anyway, it started to rain just after we got there so everything was moved inside but twenty minutes later the rain stopped and the sun was shining so we moved everything back outside. The food was very tasty. I never realized how much I love BBQ food. A hotdog just tastes so much better on the BBQ. The girls had fun playing in the yard and playing with "daddy's friends". We had fun eating and talking with friends. It was a very nice BBQ.

Pool!!

YAY!!! Today was finally nice and we went to the pool. This summer has had a limited number of pool days so I was very excited this morning when it was sunny out and we had no other plans for the day. We got to the pool at 9:30am and enjoyed out time at the kiddie pool before it got crowded. We spent the last half hour at the pool in the big pool. The kids love the big pool now so we spend more time there than we used to. I was happy to be in the big pool today as well since it is really hot here.