Today we had a birthday party for Michael and Sofia since their birthdays are only two weeks apart. The kids had a great time. They helped decorate the house with streamers and balloons and did a nice job. The party gave the cousins more time to play together and I even managed to make dog and sword balloons for their enjoyment. It was also nice for me to see my aunts and uncles and cousins as well. At the end I even managed to get a family photo!
One of the nice things about visiting it that the girls get to spend time with their cousins. It is fun to watch them play together since they have such different interests. Michael likes trucks...fire, police, garbage, recycling etc and any kind 
of building items...drills, saws etc and my girls like dolls and pretending to be mermaids and princesses. They combined things nicely though. They have spent some time with their cousin Nathan as well. Nathan is younger (two) so can't quite keep the same speed as the "older" kids but he held his own quite well. They all seemed to like running around the house together which surprisingly only led to a few bumped heads. Overall there has been a lot of running and laughter.
Since we can't spend the holidays together now my parents hold Thanksgiving and Christmas until we visit. As I mentioned before my mom made a big turkey dinner for us but my parents also held all the christmas presents as well. The girls had a lot of fun tearing open all the packages to see what my parents and Santa had given them. As the girls kept opening presents my mom kept assuring me it was a lot of packaging and that they should all break down small to fit in the luggage. I had to question her sense of "small" when Ali opened a doll in a hard plastic baby carrier! Luckily we have a lot of duffle bags. :)
On Wednesday we decided to visit with my Aunt Carlene. I have such wonderful childhood memories of spending time with her. She always made it fun for us when we visited with her and we ALWAYS had fun when we were allowed to sleepover at her house. She has always been into crafts and has made us things my whole life from Christmas ornaments to clothing. She has never missed a birthday and a card arrives no matter where I am living. She is always there for us and it thrills me to see her with my children and my 
nephews because I know that my childhood memories were accurate. She is just as warm and loving with them as she was with us. She never misses my girls birthdays and makes them things from hand. Bringing the girls to her house on Wednesday just reminded me of all the joy I felt with her as a child. We arrived to a happy and excited welcome. We went down to the basement (finished) where it was of course a child's dream. There was a large train set up as well as an easel with paints and markers. The girls had so much fun playing there and had the added bonus of playing with their cousin Michael who spends every Wednesday with Carlene.
After a long but pretty uneventful flight we made it to the States. The girls have been having fun playing with Grandma and Grandpa as well as their cousins. Jason and I have done a bit of shopping already. We went to Walmart and Stop & Shop
and the selection is amazing. I forgot how many options there were in the stores. It also surprises me every time someone in a shop says something to me in English. It has been fun shopping though! We just bought Ali her booster seat since she is finally big enough to move into it. Her timing was good though since it is much cheaper to buy a booster seat here than it is in Prague. On Sunday my brothers came to visit with their families and my mom made a big turkey dinner. It was fun to have Thanksgiving in February. Yesterday Jason and I took the girls up to NH to visit with our friends. It is just over 2 hours to drive to our friend's house but well worth the trip. The girls had fun playing with Reagan and Gracie and Jason and I had a great time with our friends, Melissa & Mike. We got home late and the kids went right to bed and actually slept until 6am rather than the 4am they have been sleeping to since we arrived.
I have spent the day packing...running clothes, skiing clothes, regular clothes, appropriate footwear etc. I have also added a few empty duffles to ensure we can fit everything we buy to bring back with us. The upside is that if we forget something we can always buy it! No worries about finding a particular product in the States. I am excited to head home and see everyone. I'm also excited about simple items like bakery pizza and dunkin donuts. It will be a long day tomorrow but it will all be worth once we get to Boston. I will try to blog during our time in the States but I make no gaurentees. I plan on being busy visiting, shopping, skiing and eating!
I'm happy to report Ali is fine and is only vitamin deficient. She is deficient in Vitamin A & D which is apparently very common here in the Czech Republic. Being from the U.S. we don't think much about those vitamins since there is plenty of sunshine and everything is fortified...bread, milk, cereal, flour etc etc. Here we have seen the sun maybe 5 times since fall came around and nothing is fortified. Another aspect of living in a different country that we are now able to deal with. We now have vitamins to give Ali twice a week. I wasn't sure if she would be able to take them since they are gelcaps but she took the first one just fine. When we arrive in the US we will make sure she has all the fortified products we can get...milk, juice etc and we will also stock up on childrens vitamins. We will also make sure the Sofia starts taking vitamins every day so that we don't face the same problem with her.
On Friday night Jason and I went to an engagement party for our friends Ondra and Lauren. It is fun to see people just starting their lives together. I had to laugh at myself when I thought, "aren't they a little young to get married?" since Jason and I were the same age when we got married. We are very happy for them and they are both so kind we wish them the best.
On Saturday morning, I headed out to a baby shower. Our friends, Chris and Laura, are expecting their second baby boy. We are so excited for them and can't wait to meet the new addition to their family. The shower was a great morning with friends. All the gifts were so cute. (Not cute enough for me to have another though!) I bought the baby swim trunks and swim diapers. I figured he needs to be ready to join our pool crew this summer!
Today we are off to visit some friends who live just out of town. Their place is easy to get to though since the train goes right to their village. Our life has been so hectic that we haven't seen each other in a little while so it will be nice to visit. It will probably be our last chance to see each other until April since when we come back to Prague from the States our friends will be going to the States for a month. After our visit there we will head back for Church. Our Church is moving to a new space this week. The space is bigger and nicer as well as being right around the corner from our apartment which is great! No more schlepping across town on Sunday evenings. We can have the kids home after church in minutes.
This year has seen us visiting a lot of doctors. The trend is continuing. As I mentioned before we have been bringing Sofia to an ENT for her ears. We had the blood and allergy tests completed and I spoke with the immunologist today to get the results. All of Sofia's test came back fine so I will be scheduling another appointment with the ENT after we get back from our trip to the States. Ali has complained on and off again about her knee pain which we first really noticed at the time she had the allergic reaction to Augmentin. We wrote the pain off as part of the allergic reaction but lately the pain has really started to bother Ali. I brought her in to the doctor last week to have it checked. The doctor looked at her knee, took xrays and blood. We went back yesterday for the results. The blood tests all came back fine but the xray showed something on the bone. The doctor said it is not cancer but it needs to be checked b/c apparently where it is is also where her bone is growing. It is a little worrisome but I'm trying not to stress over it. We are going to see an orthopedist on Tuesday so hopefully he will shed more light on the problem.
January 26th was Chinese New Year. This is not an event we have celebrated or have particularly thought about in the past but this year Sofia had a chance to learn more about it. It is another benefit of having the girls in an international school. They get to learn about traditions from all over the world. Her friend James is British/Korean and his mom brought a little of her culture into the class room. She brought some of the traditional Korean clothes that children wear in Korea for the New Year celebrations as well as typical Korean food. The clothes are so fun and colorful and the kids really enjoying trying them on.
Before Christmas I had asked our landlords if their "guy" could come over and install a curtain rod in the kitchen so that I could hang curtains for the patios doors. Marie, our landlord, came over to show me that we already have a curtain rod in place. I told her I was aware of the curtain rod but the curtains that I bought don't work with that style curtain holder. She told me that I could just sew on something or other and I looked at her blankly and asked where I could have that done. She told me we could do it together! I was surprised and grateful for her help. We finally were able to get together this week when she came by with the furnace guy. She told me she would just take the curtain and do it for me. She had the curtain ready and ironed the next day! She came over with a ladder and Jason hung the curtains. I'm very happy with how the curtains look but I'm doubly happy and grateful that we have such nice landlords.
Jason took an unexpected day off on Friday. He has been so busy with work and this month has seen a lot of illness in our house that we haven't had a lot of time to just relax together so he decided to take a much needed day off. We brought the kids to school and then headed into town. We relaxed for a little bit at Starbucks, did a bit of shopping, had lunch, and then decided to go to a movie. We went and saw Yes Man. It was a very funny movie. The movie ended at the perfect time and we headed off to get the kids from school. They were surprised to see both of us at pick up time. We played charades on the way home which the kids love since I introduced it to them a couple weeks ago. WE played with the kids for a little bit until Iva arrived and then we headed out for dinner. We finally remembered to make reservations at Cafe de Paris which our friends Kurt and Sara told us about before they left Prague (thanks guys!). The restaurant is very small and the food was delicious. The steak was cooked perfectly and the desert was incredible. I love creme brulee but most places serve it cold and I really like it warm. I was thrilled when I took my first bite and it was warm. Next time we go I'm ordering the larger portion of creme brulee!
I have been struggling with my running lately. My feet have been hurting a lot and I couldn't figure out what was going on. I realized that it was my new sneakers. They must be too narrow for me and are cramping my entire foot which leads me to compensate throwing off my stride and making my thighs really sore. Over the weekend I decided to throw in the towel with my new running shoes (I had been fighting it since they weren't cheap). On Saturday I did a short 5 mile run with my old nikes and it felt so much better. I realized then that the asics (my new shoes) aren't wide enough to let my fore foot and toes really flatten/stretch out. Today was my real test though since I ran 11 miles with my old nikes. My pace was faster, my thighs didn't burn/hurt and the pain in my feet is a lot better. I had no idea a running shoe could make soooo much difference. I will definitely be visiting Marathon Sports when we go back to the States in a couple of weeks to buy a couple pairs of running shoes that fit my feet properly!
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