Family visit

Last week we had our family here for a visit.  We were so busy sight seeing and hanging out together having fun that I had no time to blog.  The girls had such a fun time with their cousins.  To spend every day with their cousins and then to have them sleeping in their room was just pure bliss.  Bed times were blown away and the kids didn't get in bed until nine almost every night and then they would stay up talking for a while until we finally pulled the plug.  We revisited the Prague castle, Wallenstein gardens, old town square, Wenceslas Square, the Powder Tower, Mala Strana and Charles Bridge.  We also took a trip to the Torture museum which we had never been to before.  It was quite fascinating to see all the old torture instruments.  I'm happy I didn't live in a time when they were used!  I was a little concerned that the girls would be scared in the museum but they seemed equally fascinated and would just say things like, "ouch, I wouldn't want that." or, "they would be dead right mommy?" or, "of course that would hurt.". 

We did have one warm sunny day so after some sightseeing we headed back home so the kids could hit the pool.  They didn't seem to find the cold temperature and jumped right in.  After they had gotten cooled off and had come out of the pool I couldn't take it anymore and had to jump in myself.  It was refreshing after a warm day in the city.  The boys followed my lead and had some good brotherly time in the pool.  Jodi and I couldn't resist capturing it in a picture.  Such a touching brotherly moment when you realize they are really very similar!

One of the great things about having family with us was that we also got to celebrate Jodi's birthday (her 27th I think??).  I made the cake and Jason and Matt prepared orange chicken.  Orange chicken is one of our all time favorite dishes that we make and is often the request for special occassions so we offered this to Jodi for her birthday dinner.  It is time consuming but well worth it.  This time around Jason had Matt's help in the kitchen.  Another moment of brotherly bonding.

On their last day with us we took a trip out to Krivoklat Castle which is about 45 minutes outside Prague.  The kids loved seeing another castle.  We took the tour that was in Czech but they gave us reading material in English.  Keely and Sofia were the most interested in the reading material so I read a lot to them.  One room in the castle was about the lady Philipa, the merchant's daughter,  who married the Arch duke Ferdinand.  Given their differences in status they married in secret and kept their marriage a secret for 19 years while having four children.  The girls all really liked this love story and I had all their attention. 

After finishing the tour we went for a walk around the castle.  There are marked walking routes in the area of the castle so we took the one that was the shortest at about 4km.  It was a pleasant walk through the woods that brought us to a zipline and playground area near the half way point in the walk. We let the kids have fun on the zipline but then even the adults had to have a turn.















We finished their last day by walking to our local pizzeria.  The kids had a blast playing around the pond at the pizzeria and seeing the baby ducks.  We decided to take the path up to our house rather than the road since Matt, Jodi, Keely and Alaina wanted to see what it was like.  We decided to give it a try and see if it was just too overgrown to walk through.  To our surprise it was well (relatively) maintained this year.  The kids got to see a lot of slugs and a snake during the walk.  As Keely said, it was the best day of the trip!  I'm glad we ended on a high note!  They left yesterday morning and we were all sad to see them go.  It was really a lot of fun to have them here and I'm sure we will be hearing about how much fun Sofia and Ali had with their cousins for the foreseeable future!