I will be taking a two week blog vacation since we are heading to Spain tomorrow! We are making our yearly trip to the beach in southern Spain. We have loved our time in Spain and we all look forward to it every year. We are also excited since my mom will be joining us for 10 days! I am looking forward to spending time with her. Hopefully by the time we come back Prague will actually feel like summer.
Today was the last day of school for the girls. We had a nice party for nursery/reception classes together. It was my last official duty as the class representative for both of their classes. It is nice to know that my class rep duties are complete. This end of year party was happy and sad. It is happy because the kids had fun and there is only one child not returning next year so the kids will get to keep all their friends for another year. It is sad because we have to say good bye to Mrs. Bulthuis, Sofia's and Ali's nursery teacher, who is moving back to Canada. We were blessed to have her teach both our girls and we will miss her. She is a kind, caring and fun. I will also miss singing with her in church as well. Good bye Leanne. We wish you all the best!! Below is a picture of the girls with the Nursery teachers, Leanne Bulthuis (left) and Julie Clarke (right).
We met with the landlords for our new house rental today and got all the instructions for the house (pool, heating etc.) and they handed over the keys. It is very exciting to finally have the key transfer complete and know that we can go to the house whenever we want. Of course, it will be even nicer when we move there on July 12th! I brought the girls to the house after school today since they had never seen the inside of the house. 
They were super excited to see the new place. I loved seeing the excitement on their faces as they checked out each room. After checking out the house we headed into the back yard. The girls loved the seat swing and the pool. I tried one of the cherries from the neighbors cherry tree. (Our landlords told us to feel free to pick any cherries from the cherry tree that overhangs our yard.) The cherry was delicious so the girls and I picked a bunch of cherries and ate them. Most of the ones on the tree aren't completely ripe yet but there was a LOT on the tree. I'm looking forward to enjoying more cherries soon.
That is the common question or some variation that you hear in Prague at this time of year. Summer is the time that everyone heads out of Prague to either their home country or other vacation spots around the globe. There are people that stay here all summer and people who leave for all of it. There are also people, like us, who take a two week holiday but otherwise are in Prague. It is always interesting to hear where others are going whether it is to America, Slovenia, Italy, Scotland or France. All sound like exciting plans and gives me more ideas for our own family holidays. This last week of school has me scrambling to see some of our non school friends before they leave for the month of July. When we come back from Spain we will be trying to see friends who leave for the month of August. I'm sure the summer will go by so fast though that all our friends will be back before we know it. I will particularly miss my running partners (and good friends), Beanie and Shanna. I have really been enjoying running with them over the last couple of months. Beanie started me on pilates too which I'm also enjoying. So, while I am looking forward to the summer and all it offers, I will miss chatting with my friends while I run and the added motivation it gives me on days I don't really feel like getting out there. Here is a picture Shanna took of the three of us at the end of our last run. We have one more run together before we part ways until August.
Today Sofia and I went to a birthday party for Sofia's friends, Bella (above) and Matilda(left). We weren't sure if the weather was going to cooperate but it ended up being a beautiful day. All the kids seem to have a lot of fun playing in the playhouse, jumping on the trampoline and swimming in the pool. After getting in the pool with her life jacket on Sofia ended up taking it off after seeing all of her friends in the pool swimming without any floaties. She still used noodles and kick boards instead of actually swimming but she is making progress in believing that she can actually swim. The party finished up with a pinata. The pinata was a lot of fun and everyone left with bags filled to the top with sweets.
Yesterday was a tough day for Ali at the pool but today Ali decided it was her day to swim. She swam by herself for the first time! Here is the video of Ali swimming.
We celebrated Ali's 4th birthday on Tuesday. It is hard to believe that she is 4 years old!! We started the day off by letting her open her birthday presents. She was very excited to have her own big girl bike and was ready to hop on and ride it around the apartment. She also loved her new ugly doll (who is actually two dolls in one. You can see the two sides of the doll in the pictures.) from Grammie and Grandpa.
Her school had a class trip on Tuesday to a playground so we actually were able to spend most of the the day together. Ali loves climbing up the fire pole and sliding down. Her arm strength is amazing because not only does she climb up the pole once, she does it over and over again. After the playground we headed back to school. We had cake in her classroom which only ended up being 2 other children since the other kids were all sleeping after the busy morning field trip! We also had cake again after dinner. We have decided to hold off on her party until we move into the new house. She is excited to be able to invite her friends over to play in our yard.
Life is moving by at hyper speed. The kids are busy with many activities like gymnastics, czech, ballet, and swimming (if the weather ever gets nice!). They also have lots going on at school. This week is water week for Sofia's class. I'm not exactly sure what that involves but she needs to have spare clothes for when she gets wet. Ali's class doesn't have water week but apparently Ali thinks they should and proceeded to throw herself into the water table in her classroom. Her teacher tried her best to reprimand her without laughing since I'm sure it was rather amusing. Next week the girls will have activity week at school which involves a lot of arts and crafts as well as a field trip to Detsky Ostrov, an island in the Vltava river that has a huge playground. We will also be celebrating Ali's 4th birthday next week. The following week has Sport's day at school and end of year parties and then we are off to Spain. I'm still running 20-25 miles a week and I started pilates. I've finally organized our movers to move us July 11th and 12th. Put all that together with the day to day of cleaning, grocery shopping, dog walking etc etc...things are very busy here.
Some signs are just too funny to pass up. I pointed this sign out for soft sided hot tubs to Jason in the mall with quite a few giggles. He just couldn't pass up a chance to take a picture since it was so funny. I know it is incredibly childish but what is life if you can't laugh and have fun.
The girls school had their annual Summer Fayre on Saturday. We were a little concerned it would rain but the rain held off until the end and we all had a great time. There are all types of things for the kids to do such as talking to firemen and checking out a fire truck, tie dying, face painting, hair salon, limbo and other games as well. There are sausages and ice cream to be eaten as well as fruits and vegetables to buy. As usual, Sofia put off eating to try different games and Ali headed off with Jason to find food. The school also brings in different vendors to sell things like books, bags, jewelry etc. 
The girls really enjoyed the day. Sofia decided to tie dye a t-shirt this year which was fun and she also tried to eat a donut hanging on a string. Both girls were very interested in the fire truck but Ali was too shy to try on the oxygen helmet. The Fireman was very friendly but he was a very large man so I wasn't surprised Ali wouldn't interact with him. I was surprised that Sofia didn't seem to have a problem though. Maybe she is growing out of that stage of her life. Both girls had their faces painted and their hair done of course. It was quite amusing to see so many little girls walking around with their hair crimped. 
Sofia was very excited for the crimping but Ali stayed with simple pig tails that were fancied up with ribbon. It was fun to see them interact with there friends as well as decide which things they wanted to do regardless of who was doing them. We all had fun and we were sad to have it end. We decided to keep the fun going though and we invited friends over for dinner. By the end of the night the kids were exhausted!
Sofia's friend, Louis, had his birthday party last weekend. Luckily we were able to go to the party since Sofia's ear infections didn't get bad until towards the end of the party. The kids all had a lot of fun running around together and jumping on the trampoline. Sofia always seems to get a seat next to the person of honor at all birthday parties. Here she with her friend Louis.
Today is Jason's birthday! He is now 36 years old. It is hard to believe or I should say it is hard for us to remember, a sure sign the years are mounting! Jason told someone the other day that he was 37 and I had to correct him. When I get my age wrong I always go a year younger and I am sadly surprised to find out I'm a year older. At least with his assumption of 37 I was able to give him the good news that he is only 36! :) Anyway, despite the cold weather and lack of yard, I made his party a summer BBQ with deviled eggs, burgers and sausages, melon, and chips. We finished off with cake and ice cream for dessert. Here is a picture of Jason blowing out his candles (or really his candle since I didn't have any birthday candles).
Posts
All Comments
