Swimming update

Today was the girls first time swimming as part of the school swim club. They did fantastic! I really couldn't be more proud of them. Sofia is swimming with kids who one and two years older than her and did great. Her coach had them swimming lengths of the pool for an hour. For the most part they swam the legnths holding a kickboard out in front of them or behind their heads if they were swimming on their backs. The last length though the coach sent them out without kickboards. Sofia swam half the length of the pool and then had to grab the lane line for a second. For the second half of the length she kept coming back to the lane line but it is still very impressive to me. I think I would have been grabbing the lane line after swimming as much as she did! Ali also swam the length of the pool with a kickboard but her coach had them swimming shorter distances and jumping into the pool. Ali was originally in a group with a lot of her friends but she was moved up one level and is now swimming with some kids her age and some kids who are a year older. Here are a couple videos I took today.

High Tatras Mountains

We left the hotel and drove the hour and a half to the High Tatras. We found the village where the house was and found the woman with the key as well without any problems. After settling in at the house and having lunch in a local restaurant we decided to go for a short walk down the lane and up into the fields. As we were walking up we noticed a few cows int he fields. We also noticed there was a fence keeping the cows in but that there was a section on the fence that was down and thereore the cows could get out. We didn't think much of it since they were only cows. As we kept walking and were getting near the open section of fencing we noticed that one one of the "cows" was coming towards us and as we walked the "cows" pace increase to a trot. We wuickly called Sofia back to us and realized that this "cow" was not a cow but a bull! We quickly started walking back down the path. As we were walking back and looking over our shoulders the bull stopped and bellowed at us! I couldn't believe it. I was happy that he had stopped advancing on us and we had a good laugh about it when we were no longer near him. Needless to say we didn't walk up that path again. The next morning we headed up into the mountains to Starý Smokovec, the central resort in the High Tatras. We took the funicular railway up to Hrebienok where we got off and hiked to some beautiful waterfalls. The entire hike took us about an hour. Near the end of our hike was a restaurant were we enjoyed lunch looking at the beautiful mountains peaks. After lunch we took the funicular down to the bottom of the mountain and then we drove a couple peaks over to Štrbské Pleso, a beautiful mountain lake. We rented a rowboat and went out on the lake for a little while and then we took a walk around the lake (about 2.5km). It was a full day and we were all tired. We stopped and had pizza for dinner and then headed back to the cottage. It was a wonderful time in the High Tatras mountains. I wish we had more time to explore there since it is such a beautiful place. We headed home the next day and luckily the trip was a much faster seven and a half hour drive.

Wedding in Slovakia

This past weekend we were invited to a wedding in Slovakia, We first thought we wouldn't go but after Jason spoke with his friend we decided we needed to make the trip. It wasn't that we weren't excited to go to the wedding in Slovakia. It was the 8 hour drive to get there with the kids. We asked our babysitter if she could watch them for the weekend but she unfortunately wasn't available. We decided to make the drive anyway. The eight hour drive on a holiday weekend ended up taking us 11 hours. We were all pretty tired and grumpy when we arrived. We hadn't really had dinner and had tried to pass off snacks as dinner but when we got to the hotel at 9pm and got the kids ready for bed Sofia said, "but we didn't have dinner". We convinced her that the snacks were dinner. She was tired enough that she did accept that which was good as there was no where to buy food. The next morning came and the weather was beautiful. We finally got our first look of the Slovakian countryside since the night before it was pitch black when we arrived. It was beautiful. We decided to head to a castle ruin we had seen all lit up on our drive in. The kids had fun exploring the castle and since our kids get up early we were the first ones there. After exploring the castle we headed back to the hotel for lunch and getting dressed for the wedding. The girls were very excited to put on their fancy clothes. I think we were all excited to go to the wedding since none of us knew what to expect from a Slovakian/Russian wedding.

The first bus pick up:
A bus picked up everyone staying at our hotel. We were all a little perplexed as to why the bus was picking up so early since it picked up at 1:30 and the wedding wasn't until 3pm and the church was only a 10 minute drive away. To our surprise the bus took us to Elena's (the bride) parent's home. At their home there garden was set up with tables and a buffet of breads, sausages, and pork meat as well as a bar for beer and wine. There were also four men dressed in traditional slovakian garb playing music. The setting was stunning. Everyone there was given a flower to attach to their suit/dress and Sofia and Ali were given baskets with rose petals in them.

Going to the church:
After about 45 minutes we got back on the bus and made the 3 minute drive to the church. It was interesting to see everyone who lived in the village standing at the fences and waving as we went by. It really felt like a village event. The ceremony took place at an Orthodox church. We all got out of the bus and others from their cars and we lined up to enter the church. We filed into the church and some people sat down and some people stood in the center aisle behind the bride and groom. We chose to sit. The church was very nice and occupied some our the kids time but the service was about an hour long and in Slovakian. I was happy that the kids behaved so well. Ali was exhausted and ended up falling asleep on my lap resting her head on the pew in front of us. All went well until she started snoring. Luckily it wasn't very loud and the people around us just thought it was cute. One of the interesting thing to me about the ceremony is that for most of the ceremony the people standing behind the bride/groom would hold a crown over the bride and grooms heads. I don't know what the significance of this is though since noone seemed to know other than it was tradition. At the end of the service we went and stood by the door so that as Ilya and Elena came out of the church the girls could throw the flower petals at them. Ali had just woken up and didn't want to do any throwing but Sofia really seemed to enjoy it. It was so nice of them to include the children in their wedding. Once this part was over we got back on the bus to head back to the hotel for the reception. To my surprise (again), shots of vodka were the celebration toast. I haven't had a shot of vodka since college and it was still just as painful. The girls were fascinated by this process. They asked if it tasted good to which I replied, "no!". Then they asked, "can we smell your breath?" I figured it wouldn't hurt so I let them smell and they both thought it smelled gross. Let's hope they remember that when they get to high school and college.

Arrival at hotel:
We arrived at the hotel to champagned and snacks on the terrace. I had to laugh since we hadn't even reached the reception yet and we already had a shot of vodka and a glass of champagne. Once everyone had arrived and had their champagne we went up to the reception. The amount of food was astounding. The dinner started off with an appetizer then soup then the main course and dessert. At this point I assumed the food was done. I couldn't believe it when a couple hours later another main course was brought out which was followed by dessert. Jason tells me that a couple hours later a third maincourse was served as well followed by dessert. The dancing started after the first main course was finished. The girls had a blast dancing the night away. They made friends with another little girl, Iga. The three of them had so much fun. They were dancing near the wedding cakes though which made me a little nervous and I did stand guard over the cakes for quite a while. They never did have any close calls with the cake though which made me happy. Part way into the dancing Sofia ran over to me and told me there was going to be fireworks. I was surprised but then when everyone was heading outside we followed suit. Sure enough there was fireworks. They weren't just your average backyard fireworks either. This was a full-fledged fireworks show. The kids really enjoyed it and so did we. What a nice way to celebrate a marriage! After the fireworks we went bck in for more dancing. Ali lasted until about 9pm but then needed to go to bed. I took her up stairs and then Jason brought Sofia up around 10pm. Jason went back to the party since we knew that these parties lasted a long time. There was a lot of drinking vodka and hruskovice (pear brandy) and Jason came in at 6am (he disputes this time and believes it was 4:30am - see previous coment on drinking). Jason may make an addendum to this post for the things that happened at the wedding between 9pm and 6am.

The next morning:
We got up and packed up our things and had breakfast. Elena's parents had graciuosly offered us the use of their country house in the High Tatra mountains. We originally were going to stay there for one night but Elena's mom convinced us to stay for two nights. I'm so glad we did.

Gymnastics, Swimming & Czech lessons

These are the girls after school activiites. It makes for busy weeks with something after school on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday but the kids really enjoy it. Last year Sofia and Ali were in different gymnastics classes. Sofia's class being more serious. Ali wasn't interested in the serious gymnastics and prefered to just run around randomly. This year I was going to have Ali skip gymnastics since she seemed so tired after being at school all day with no nap. However, I brought her with me to Sofia's gymnastics class (becuase I have no other option) and she wanted to give it a try again. She loved it! She is a little monkey and loves to hold herself up on the bars and I think there was only one other girl who could stay up as long as Ali. On Thursdays the girls have Czech lessons. Sofia has been taking lessons for about a year and a half so she is in the more advanced class. This means that I have some good one on one time with the girls since Ali has czech from 3:30-4:30 and Sofia from 4:30-6:00. Today is the first day of swim club. I'm hoping the girls love it. I want them to be swimming year round so that they become really strong swimmers. A lot of their friends will be swimming with them so I expect they will have a lot of fun. I will post some pictures tonight after swimming

Czech countryside

Today was a beautiful day so I headed out on my bike to explore some of the area around were we live. The Czech countryside is beautiful. I am looking forward to biking in spring when the rape flower is in bloom and in summer when the sumflowers are blooming. Now all the fields have been cut and some have already had the dirt turned over but it is still stunning. It is so hard to believe when I am biking that I am so close to the city. Here are a few pictures from my ride today.

Happy Anniversary!

Today is our 12th wedding anniversary! It is hard to believe that 12 years have past. We have moved four times, owned (and sold) two different homes, gotten a dog, had two children and moved to the Czech Republic. Through all the changes we have remembered to compromise, be understanding, forgiving and loving. I am blessed to have Jason as my husband and best friend. We went out on Friday night to celebrate and we had a wonderful dinner alone. Today we celebrated by being together as a family. We went for our first family bike ride. The kids did great riding their bikes. We capped off our bike ride with a stop at the nearby restaurant for a snack before heading back home. Once we got home we hopped in the pool. Well, all of us except Ali. We couldn't convince her that the 65 F (18C) pool water was warm enough. We did have a great day today. I'm looking forward to the next 12 years. I'm sure they will go even faster than the first twelve but no matter how fast they go we will always take the time to enjoy each other, our family and the world around us.

Running and Biking

Well, I took a full three weeks off of running and then went easy for a week with only running 2 miles and then 4 miles. Since I had no pain I increased my run to 5 miles and then 5.5 miles. I am happy to report that I still have no knee pain. I'm hoping that the knee pain is a thing of the past but I'm not planning on going on a really long run just yet. Which brings me to biking. I have really been enjoying riding my bike. I have replaced my long runs for now with long bike rides. Yesterday I decided to go for a ride, after my morning run with friends, with only a general direction in mind. I wasn't going out for exercise but rather just to be outdoors in the great fall weather. It is so enjoyable though that my ride ended up being 17 miles long and very hilly. By the time I was home I definitely felt like I had had a good workout and I got to see some places I hadn't seen before. One of the great things about my friends here is that a lot of them like to exercise and be outdoors so this morning I headed out with two of my friends for another bike ride to check out some woods nearby. I love being able to mix socializing and exercise. It makes exercise fun and really just a byproduct of having fun with friends rather than a chore. Here I am with my friends, Inge and Natalie. Fortunately we came across someone walking a dog and were able to get a picture together. I'm looking forward to riding with them every week.

Walk in the woods

This weekend we enjoyed the fall like weather. Jason and I cleaned up the yard and put all the summer stuff away. We went as a family to a garden center and picked out decorations for the fall and halloween (the kids were really excited about halloween). It was a lot of fun to be in a garden shop again after a two and a half year hiatus. Today I put all the plants in the window/fence boxes as well as the planters in front of the door. I put the small pumpkins out and the little gourds in the house. This afternoon we decided to go to a harvest festival or something to that extent. To get to the wine cellar where this festival was happening we walked through the woods on a trail that links our village with the next village. We weren't sure exactly where in Unetice it was but it is a very small village so we figured it would be easy to find. When we arrived in Unetice we saw a wine cellar but didn't see anything resembling a festival so we walked all the way through the village to the other side only to find out there was nothing there either. We headed back to the wine cellar we had seen. I'm assuming we got there late and that is why there really was no festival but I could be wrong. The aim really was just to try out the new Burčák and that we got to do. It was really fun to go to the wine cellar and get Burčák becuase we also learned that they sell all kinds of wines there right from the barrells. It was fun to see it all and the people were very friendly. After sampling a couple wines we left with only the Burčák. The kids had had enough of being in the wine cellar so we paid our 40Kc ($2USD) for our bottle of Burčák and left. We followed a different path through the woods to go back home. The kids really enjoyed this path too since it had 3 waterfalls along the trail. At the end of the trail back in our village is a small pub where we stopped for dinner. The food gave the kids the burst of energy they needed to make it the rest of the way home. Sofia biked about 6 Km ( 3.8 miles) and Ali had a combination of walking, running, piggy back rides and shoulder rides. I was very impressed with their stamina. We got home just about bedtime. It was a great way to spend the end of the day.

Cold water swimmers

When we came back from Spain the girls did not want to go in our pool. All I heard was, "It's toooooo cold mommyyyyy!" They were too spoiled from the water in Spain. Not only was the air temperature in the 80's everyday but the pool water was about 82 degrees. I thought, "have I ruined my girls for cool water swimming?".As the summer went on they finally accepted the cool water of our pool and really started to enjoy it. Our pool temperature hit a high of 71 degrees (21 celsius) but for the most part it hovered around 70. Unfortunately this summer was not that hot and our pool is in the shade from about 11-2 everyday so even with the solar cover there was really no warming to be had. One night we forgot to put the solar cover on and the temperature fell to 68 degrees but when the girls jumped in and I asked, "Is it cold?" they quickly responded with, "NO!". I was surprised but very pleased since I grew up swimming in water that was not warm and I would like my girls to enjoy the same expereince. Today I am confident I did not ruined the cold water swimming expereince for my children. On the way home from school they asked if they could go in the pool. I said yes but figured they would hop in and get out immediately. Ali in the end didn't go in b/c having her clothes off outside made her chilly but Sofia jumped right in. She did get out right away but only so she could jump back in and play around. I really was shocked since the pool was only 65 degrees (18 celsius)! She was probably only in for 5-10 minutes but I guess I can finally say bye to my girls who only swim in the warm waters of Spain.

Air in the Tires

I had another new experience in the Czech Republic today. I noticed that the air in one of my car tires was low so I decided I needed to put air in it. I thought the air pump things at the gas station would be the same as they are in the States so I pulled into the gas station to fill it up. As I stood in front of the air machine I realized it was NOT the same as in the states. This one was computerized. Since I didn't know the words on the screen I called Jason for a little google translate help. We figured out what the machine was saying and I gave it a go. It worked just fine. Other than getting my hands dirty from the tire everything went smoothly.

Back to school

Today was back to school day for the girls. Ali entered the Reception class today (preschool in the U.S) and Sofia entered Year 1 (Kindergarten in the U.S.). Both kids were excited to head back to school and see their teachers and friends. Jason and I got everything ready this morning and the kids did a great job getting dressed. We headed off to school with spare clothes, indoor shoes, lunch bags, and book bags all in their little back packs. As we dropped them both off in their classrooms they easily settled in and didn't give us a backward glance. When I picked them up at the end of the day I was greated with "I'm playing". Which meant, they didn't want to go yet and I could just move along. Fortunately it was a beautiful afternoon so I let the kids play in the school yard for a while. A succesful start to a new school year.

Karaoke

It was our friend Sarah's birthday last week. She invited us to join her for her party. We happily accepted the invite and headed out to our favorite pad thai place for dinner. The restaurant in small so our group took up most of the restaurant. After a yummy dinner we headed to BeKaraOK! for a little karaoke. This was our first karaoke expereince and I was grateful for the private room. It was a lot of fun though to sing. We had group sing a longs as well as individual. I did feel a bit old though since there were a number of songs that our friends didn't know. It's these times that I realize the mid twenties crowd really isn't my age anymore. Oh well, I'm still young at heart (which is, of course, something only old people say!) Even with the gap in age we still had a blast. Maybe there is more karaoke in my future!

My Bike

I finally bought a bike! Jason and I had thought about it for a while but it just didn't make sense to buy them while we lived in the apartment. We also put off buying them since it is hard to spend the money on something that you already have. Our problem is that our bikes are sitting in my parent's basement in the States and therefore don't do us any good. I was hoping to not spend much money on the bike though but of course that just isn't possible when you are short! I'm happy with my bike because it fits me and is a good bike but it was basically the only bike that was short enough. It seems most bikes come in a size 16 frame and maybe occasionally some will be a size 15 but I had to go with a 14.5. The only reason that even fit me was because the middle bar is slanted down! In any event, I went for my first ride this morning. I covered 13 miles in an hour and 5 minutes. I was able to check out some paths I had wondered about which was nice. There was hardly any traffic when I was on the road and the paths through the woods and farmland where bumpy but fine to ride on. I was happy to have my front shocks to absorb some of the bumps. I think if I can combine bike riding with running I think I will be quite happy (and fit).

Playing with the big kids

Today my friend Julie sent her kids over to play. This is a treat for the girls because Remi and Eden are "big kids". My girls love playing with them and Remi and Eden are so good with kids. It also means I don't have to entertain my children either since they really want nothing to do with me with the big kids are around. I got in on the playing too since Eden and I had a lot of fun playing with dive sticks in the pool. It makes me look forward to playing those games with my girls when they get a little older.