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!