Halloween

Halloween is not traditionally celebrated in the Czech Republic but it seems every year more amd more Czechs are enjoying the fun of Halloween. Finding halloween decorations is getting easier every year and the options for trick or treating are growing. This year our halloween was full. Our first stop was a birthday party for my friends daughter. While it was a birthday party it was still halloween themed and the kids were excited to eat candy corn and play with their friends. We had to leave that party to go to a halloween party at our friends Emily & Radek's house. The girls were excited to go to a halloween party and see there friend Annalee. There was a lot of people at the party and Emily had organized games for the kids to play. After game playing we headed outside for trick or treating. Every child was given a latern to carry along the road. I was a little worried about the laterns since they were paper laterns with real candles inside but the kids seemed to manage them well (only one or two laterns went up in flames!) It was interesting to see this years trick or treating since the group we were with were mainly Czech or of a Czech mix (Czech/American, Czech/Australian etc) family and all the houses we went to were Czech. Unlike in the States, here, the kids had to work for there treats. At every house they had to sing a song. I was happy that our girls actually knew some of the songs and could sing along or as Ali put it, "Skakal Pes, that's too easy!". After trick or treating we headed back to our friends house for more food and fun. The kids all lined up to hit a pinata. The girls were right in there filling up their bags with candy from the pinata. After all the candy had been grabbed the kids played with the confetti that had been inside the pinata. Sofia was the one exception. She was much more interested in her candy. She found a place to sit and just started downing the candy. By the time we noticed she had already had six pieces of candy! Oh well, what is halloween for if not for gorging on candy?? We packed the kids up and headed home without complaint. I think they were just too tired to even complain. We got them ready for bed and all set with the babysitter and then headed out to another party. Jason and I had fun dressed up as a Spanish Lady and Zoro. We had a fun night. I think next year we will not attempt to attend 3 parties in one day though. We are both exhausted today. The kids were tired as well but since they kept getting influxes of sugar they kept going until an early bedtime.

Week with Grammie and Grandpa

This past week has gone by very fast. The girls had a great time with Grammie and Grandpa. It was nice to see them be so comfortable with their grandparents. Since we don't get to see Dan and Diane that often we try to talk about them a lot and remind the girls of things we did with them when we were in America so they won't forget. They didn't seem to forget. They were thrilled with Grammie and Grandpa arrived and had no shyness at all. They enjoyed playing board games, soccer, and dress up with them as well as just chatting away. A lot more fun then playing with plain old mommy and daddy! Since Dan had never been to Prague we took an afternoon and went up to the Prague Castle. We hadn't been there in a while and the kids love to go to the castle. They were slightly dissapointed though that the main floor of Ladislav hall is now blocked off after they did the restoration. On all previous trips to the castle the girls have danced all across the hall. We made due with dancing down the aisle that was roped off for visitors. That was the only site seeing we did on this trip though. Dan and Diane took a day and went into town by themselves to see all the obligatory sites and the girls and I took that day to run all our errands. The only other place we took Jason's parents was our favorite Italian restaurant. It was nice to share it with them and now they will have a visual of where we are on many Friday nights. Other than that this week consisted of staying at home and playing in the yard, walking in the woods, pumpkin carving and eating.

Jason's Parents arrived

After many delays out of the Rome airport, Jason's parents arrived on Friday night. We kept checking the arrival stastus online and since they had been delayed we decided to have dinner before they arrived. Once we sat down at dinner and our appetizer arrived I checked the Prague ariport website for an updated arrival time. To our surprise it said that they would be arriving in fifteen minutes! We quickly asked the server to pack up our dinner to take away and headed to the airport. When we arrived at the airport we checked the arrivals board only to find out that their flight wasn't arriving for another hour and a half! Such is the life of air travel I guess. We got our take away food out of the car and sat at McDonald's to enjoy our dinner. We took it easy yesterday and went for a walk in the woods. It is nice to just enjoy some relaxed time together and the girls have loved having grammie and grampa here. Today we are heading off to Prague Castle and church. It should be a fun filled week ahead!

Bye Sung Soon!

Our friends, Sung Soon, Stuart, Daniel, James, & Matthew are moving to Munich. We are sad to see them go. They are one of our friends that we thought we would be with for the long term here in Prague but Stuart's job has brought them to Munich. James has been in Sofia's class since she started at Riverside. He has taught her about Ben 10 and Star Wars. She comes home from school asking to play star wars and I'm not exactly sure what she expects me to do. I come out with qoutes from Star Wars and she thinks I'm crazy. Sofia will miss James. Sung Soon has been a great friend to me as well. I have had a lot of fun talking with her. She has taught me more about korean culture than I ever thought I would know, including how to make Sushi (really kim bap). She has watched my children while I've gone to the doctor which is so important when you don't have family around. We will miss spending the afternoons in the playground with them in the summer and hanging out in the school playground after drop off and at pick up. Last week we had an all girls night out with Sung Soon. It was a fun night of laughter. Sung Soon chose a korean restaurant which was, of course, fantastic. She ordered all of our food for us and it was amazing. Here is a picture (thanks Shanna!) of all of us from the dinner. I hope that we will stay in touch. After all, Munich isn't that far away!

Harvest Celebration - Round 1

Every year the girls have a harvest festival at school. The school actually holds three harvest celebrations - one in early years, one in lower school, and one in upper school. Last year I only had to attend one harvest celebration since both kids were in early years. This year I should get to attend two celebrations but today I recieved an "F" in parenting and completely forgot to attend Ali's celebration. Luckily Jason was able to stay and watch her and our friend, Charro, took some video of her. Ali seemed happy that Jason was there and she had even asked him if he could come in to school in the morning. She doesn't usually ask for him to come into school but we just assumed she wanted a little more time with him. Apparently she really wanted him to see the performance. Here is one of the videos that Charro took for us. There are two others on youtube if you want to see them.

First fire of the season

We had our first fire of the season in our fireplace today. It may seem a strange thing to be excited about but we had a fireplace for six years before moving to Prague. Both of our parents have fireplaces as well so we are used to having a cozy fire going on a chilly night. When we moved to our apartment in Prague we did not have a fireplace and I cannot say that I missed it. Since I never saw a fireplace I didn't really think of it but now that we have one again we have all been anxiuosly awaiting a cold day to fire it up. The kids are fascinated by the fire. We heard the following once the fire was going. "How did you make it? Did you use a lot of matches? It is so big! It's cold, let's sit in front of it. It's too hot in here. I'm roasting!" We are looking forward to having many fires this year.

Snowflake girl

It is nice to see the kids using their imaginations. Yesterday Sofia came up with a character called Snowflake Girl. She proceeded to make snowflake shoes, necklace and wings so she could fly. It was amazing to watch her figure out how to make it all work the way she wanted. Here is a picture of "Snowflake Girl".

Family Day

With our lives so busy we decided to take a day out and have a family day. We spent the day at home yesterday and cooked together. Jason's mom sent me a children's cookbook for my birthday which we decided to use. The girls picked out the dessert, strawberry shortbread cookies, and Jason and I chose the dinner, chicken with tzatziki and naan bread. The girls really did a great job listening and helping to make the food. After we enjoyed our dinner and dessert we all sat on the couch and watched Monsters vs Aliens while eating popcorn. It was a fun day/night.

Tubes...grommets

Our lives have been so busy lately and time has flown by. This past week has been filled with school activities, after school activities and doctor appointments. I had to bring Sofia back into her ear doctor for the control visit for her most recent ear infection. Her ear is no longer infected. We have decided, however, to move ahead with having the tubes (or grommets as they are called in Europe) put in her ears. Seven ear infections on the last year is just too many. Unfortunately they don't do that surgery at the hospital where we currently go. Sofia's doctor wrote the referral to the neighboring hospital and told me to take it there and make the appointment for the surgery. Unfortunately, it isn't that easy. I took the piece of paper to the other hospital and checked in and then went up to the ENT (or ORL as it is called here) department where I had to check in again and wait. I waited for quite a while with Sofia but eventually the doctor took us in and asked me a lot of questions and then checked Sofia's ears. We then went to a different room where she tested how well Sofia's ear drums were working. The answer, "not well". I can't say I was shocked. Anyway, this new doctor doesn't know Sofia at all and isn't going to just operate on her so we have to start the process again. The upside is I think this new doctor will be very thorough the downside is Sofia will probably have another ear infection before we can get the tubes done. We go in to the hospital again in a couple weeks so Sofia can go to audiology and have a proper hearing test done. It's unclear but I think after that we might schedule the surgery but this is Czech and I never really know how things will unfold. I will keep you posted.

Happy Birthday to me!

Today is my birthday. This one snuck up on me which is a sure sign that I'm old. As the old people say though, I'm young at heart!! Last night we went to a party at my friends house and since we were there after midnight and it officually became my birthday my friends sang me three rounds of "Happy Birthday". It was a lot of fun and unexpected. This morning I got to sleep in and to my surprise I slept until 10:30!! Jason made me eggs and home fries for breakfast and then we headed to the pumpkin farm. The girls and I have been every year but Jason had never been so I thought it would be fun to go as a family. The girls were a bit confused as to why we were going to teh pumpkin farm and not going to school since in their minds the two are linked. After choosing our pumpkins along with some gourds and a lot of squashs for making soup, muffins etc. we headed back home. Jason made me a cake that we had after the girls early dinner and now he is making me Orange chicken which is one of my favorite dishes that he makes. It is labor intensive with a lot of dishes but he is making it for me anyway and doing the dishes! It has been a nice relaxing day. I'm blessed to be able to celebrate my birthday with my friends and family.

*on a separate note I added posts below on our Slovakia trip. They are below the swimming post.

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.

Dinner with friends

Last night we had friends over for dinner. It is so nice to be able to entertain friends in our new house and to have the space to have more than one set of friends over at a time . We have so much more space and the way the kitchen is set up to face the dining area and the way it looks out to the patio makes me not feel rushed to finish so I can join our guests. I can be part of the fun while I'm getting everything ready. I'm still on my asian kick so I made sushi as well as a salad with an asian dressing, a ginger garlic hummus, and asian grilled salmon. It all came out really good (if I do say so myself). Since I don't know any asian desserts, I kept the asian theme until dessert. For dessert we finished up with Pavlova and brownies. The brownies were an afterthought since I realized we may need more dessert for the kids but the pavlova is my new favorite dessert. My australian friend, Kirsty, taught me how to make pavlova as it is an australian dessert. It is delicious! It is essentially a meringue topped with whipped cream, banana and berries. I wasn't sure if I would make it for dinner since I wasn't sure if I could make it as good as Kirsty but since it is my favorite now I decided to give it a try. Luckily it came out good and Kiera (Kirsty's daughter) gave me her approval. In addition to all the yummy food our friends, Radek and Emily, brought us two bottles of burčak. It is the first time Jason and I have had burčak although we have heard about it before. It was quite good and very sweet and doesn't taste a lot like alcohol. While I was finishing up a few things for dinner the girls were playing with their friends, (Kiera, Annalee, and Oliver) our neighbor sent her granddaughter over to play as well. This struck me as funny and odd since we did not think this neighbor particularly liked us. Who knows, maybe we are winning her over. Her grandaughter seemed to have fun playing here and we fed her along with our children. Here is a picture of the kids with their friends and the neighbors granddaughter whose name I still don't know.

Mommy Day Off

It doesn't happen often but when a mommy day off happens it is a splendid thing. On Saturday my friend Laura (a fellow mommy) and I took the day off from being mommies and headed to Dresden for the day. We laughed at the beginning of our adventure that we hadn't come laden with bags filled with drinks and snacks. It was so nice to just walk out the door and not worry about forgetting anything. I had read about this milk shop. It is in the guiness book of world records as the most beautiful milk shop in the world. Now, I don't know how many milk shops are up for that award but I was curious so we went to check it out. The ground floor where the cheese shop is is really stunning. It is floor to ceiling villeroy & Boch tiles. It is actually a bit overwhleming. The upstairs is a restaurant which we decided to try for lunch. We each got a cheese plate that had cheeses from around the world which were delicious. We also both had a vanilla milk shake which was to die for! It was really all I could do not to just drink it down in one gulp. After a great lunch which was leisurely without worrying about getting the check before the kids melt down, we headed into town. We took a peek at the old town and then hit the shops. To browse, I mean really browse, was great. I did find a few nice things but the enjoyment wasn't in the buying it was really in the leisurely looking. We decided to have dinner before heading home since we wanted to make the most of our day off. We ended up at a pizza place that was basically a pizza hut knock off. When I first walked in it had that pizza hut smell but I just figured it is a pizza place but when our pan pizzas came they tasted just like pizza hut! It was a great day off and I am looking forward to doing it again!

Going to the Zoo

We hadn't been to the zoo in quite a while so when my friend Elizabeth suggested it we deicded it was time to see the animals. I was actually interested to go since the zoo had recently opened a new sea lion exhibit. The kids had fun running from animal to animal together. It ended up being quite hot that day too so the kids had a good time playing in the little water fountain area. Ali did slip twice so I had to dry her dress in the sun and then once she was done swap her semi dry dress for her wet underwear but she didn't care. We spent some time in the petting zoo which the girls loved. I wasn't sure if the girls would like it since goats can be a little forceful but after some inital uneasiness they settled right in and let the goats eat out of their hands. (Don't worry, I properly sanitized their hands once they were finished in the petting zoo.) After the petting zoo we waiting in line for the pony rides. I was surprised that Sofia wanted to ride the pony since just last week she announced that pony rides were boring but she had a good time. I guess when you are five, things can seem boring one day and exciting the next! After seeing some animals, having ice cream, riding a pony, and feeding the goats we decided it was time to head home. I think the kids could have kept going but the adults were tired!

My own sushi!

I have made sushi all by myself now! My first attempt was good although the rice was a little drier than it should have been. My second attempt was very good with the appropriately sticky rice. I am really enjoying making sushi. I also like the heath benefits of seaweed. I bought cookies at the Japanese shop the other day that were wrapped in seaweed. That was stretching it a bit for me. I like seaweed but I have decided I need to drawer the line with my desserts! Here is a picture of my sushi...not perfect but not bad for a beginner!

Quick swim with daddy

The girls have really been enjoying the pool. We swim almost every day now that the weather has been nice. Yesterday the girls and I played a lot in the pool after dinner since it was still so warm out. By seven o'clock I had gotten out of the pool though since I was chilled from being in so long with the kids. It was also time to start wrapping up play time so the kids could go to bed. Luckily for Sofia, Jason came home just as we had gotten out of the pool. After commuting home in the heat Jason was definitely ready to go in the pool. Sofia had a little extended pool time with Jason. It was nice to see them having so much fun in the pool together.

Dresden

We headed to Dresden today. I love that the car offers us the freedom to just up and go to Germany for the day. Anyway, Jason had never been to Dresden and the girls and I had gone once but only to the children's museum so we wanted to really see the city. We decided to go this weekend since it is the Dresden City Festival. We were able to walk around the old town of Dresden while seeing the festival at the same time. I'm curious to go back and explore the old town a little more when there aren't quite so many people so that I can get a better look at the amazing buildings. It was fun to see all the huts selling things for the festival. It was mostly food but they also had quite a bit for kids. Ali rode a pony. Sofia loved watching people go into the dive tank. They both had their face painted and of course they both enjoyed yummy treats like donuts and ice cream. A festival isn't a festival without junk food! After a fun day of walking around the city festival we headed home for a swim in the pool. It was very hot in Dresden today so we were all longing to cool off. I love coming home to our new house but especially today when I knew I could not only come home to the house I love but I could also jump in the pool.

Knee Update

So I went to the orthopedist on Wednesday. Of course by Wednesday my knee was no longer hurting. I was tempted to go for a run to make it bad again so the doctor would see it but since my appointment was across town at 8:40am I didn't really have time. Anyway, he moved my knee all around and pressed on it and took an xray but couldn't find anything. I could have told him that! Even when my knee is so painful it hurts to walk I can still press on it and not find one spot that hurts. I figured it wasn't a bone problem so there was really no need for an xray but I went through the process anyway. In the end he told me he didn't see anything but gave me some pills to take for 2 months and told me no running for 2 months. I can bike and swim. Since our pool is so small that trying to swim for exercise is out of the question my other option is bike. I do not have a bike. Well, actually I should say, I don't have a bike here since my bike is back in the States. Jason and I have talked about getting bikes for a while so this might be the reason to finally get around to it. At any rate, I will take a little bit of time off from running but hopefully not 2 months. I am hoping i will back to running after a month.

Painful knee, Sushi making and Dinner with friends

Today the girls and I headed to my friend Sung Soon's house. We had planned to go there for 2:30 but unfortunately I had some pretty bad knee pain from the run this morning and ended up making an appointment to see the doctor. Fortunately for me I have good friends who can take care of my children at a moments notice. I dropped the girls off with Sung Soon and headed to the doctor. The doctor talked to me for a couple minutes and gave me a referral to an orthopedist that I will see on Wednesday. (I will keep you posted.) It was a quick doctor visit and I headed back to Sung Soon's to make sushi.

I had never liked sushi until I had Sung Soon's sushi. Her sushi is excellent! One day I was craving her sushi so much that I bought sushi from the grocery store. This was a bad decision and left me sick all night. I vowed never to have store bought sushi again. I asked Sung Soon if she would teach me how to make sushi so that I could have it whenever I craved it. Today she taught me. She also lent me one of her rice cookers and gave me some of the ingredients so that I could get started by myself at home. It will be interesting to see how well I paid attention to how she cooked some of the ingredients. I hope I can make it as good as Sung Soon or at least good enough to fill my cravings. Anyway, Jason got out of work early and came over and enjoyed the sushi as well. After gorging ourselves on sushi, Sung Soon also made us dinner. She made typical korean food for us that was very good. The meal included things like sesame leaves from Korea that I have never had before. They were quite tastey with the beef she made. We also had seaweed which is different than the seaweed you use for sushi. I had no idea there were different kinds of seaweed. The one we had for dinner was a salted seaweed that we placed rice in and ate. Jason enjoyed the soup but I decided to skip the soup since I couldnt' possibly fit anything else in my stomach! We had a great time and I feel like I learned a lot about Korean cooking and the girls practiced using chop sticks. Her is a picture of Sung Soon teaching Sofia how to hold chopsticks. Ali had beginner chopsticks and was doing great with them. I think I needed the beginner chopsticks as well!

Okoř

We had another beautiful day here today. Jason, unfortunately, had to work today but the girls and I took advantage of the day and headed to Okoř. Okoř is an old castle or really it is a castle ruin. The girls and I started out with lunch and then we walked through a field and took some pictures. That was the most I could get before the girls were off to the bouncy castle that was set up on the path up to the real castle. Oh well, I let them take their three minutes in the bouncy castle and then they were ready to explore the ruins. We had to wait a few minutes for the tour to begin which I wasn't thrilled about since I knew the tour was in Czech so it wasn't really going to help me. To my surprise I did understand some of what the tour guide said and was able to explain what some things were to the girls. We had fun walking around the castle and the girls seemed to enjoy it. They thought the old castle toilet was disgusting since it was just a hole in the seat that opened up to the ground far below. I can't say I blame them. I'm just happy we don't live in the time when that was the way of making toilets. After walking around and exploring the different areas of the castle we headed out of the castle and I got the girls some ice cream.

Fun in the pool

Today was such a beautiful day. The sun was shining all day!! We had friends over for most of the afternoon and the kids all played so well together. There was plenty of time spent in the pool and plenty of time for dress up in the playroom. Ali is really doing an excellent job with her swimming. She really has no fears about jumping in the pool and swimming around. Today she even swam the length of the pool twice. Granted, our pool isn't that big but it is still a huge success for Ali who wasn't even able to swim at the beginning of June. Sofia is still a little scared of our pool and thinks it is too cold so she mostly goes in with her noodle although she did swim a tiny bit today on her own. We all had time to really relax and play today. In between swimming and dress up we enjoyed watermelon and popsicles. All in all a fun filled beautiful sunny summer day!

Bike Ride

This morning we went for a bike ride with friends. Well, actually the kids rode their bikes and the adults walked. We went on the bike path along the Vltava River. This is a path on the opposite side of the river from where I had been running from our apartment. It is also further outside the city from the path I used to run. Anyway, after a complete meltdown by Sofia this morning, because she wanted her training wheels back on, we headed off to meet our friends. Sofia did calm down after she realized she could just push herself along without pedaling. Shortly after she started though she started to actually pedal. She is getting it little by little and soon I'm sure she will be comfortable riding without training wheels. It was a beautiful day for a walk along the river and the kids all had fun riding their bikes together. I may have to start running on this path as well since it is so peaceful and I do love running along the river. Here is a picture of the kids on their bikes. (I was a bad parent and forgot to bring helmets! Oh well, next time.)

Playground fun

We have found a playground in the town next to us that is about a 3 minute drive away thanks to my friend Inge. This playground is definitely the girls favorite. We can easily spend 3 - 4 hurs there without a single whine. I'm not sure what makes it such a great playground. It could be the spinning thing or the climbing structure with buckets and pulleys to play with sand but the girls have a blast. We have been meeting other friends there as well so the girls get to spend a lot of time with friends while playing in a place they love.

Bye-Bye Apartment

Today we said bye to our apartment. We handed over the keys, had the final reading of gas and electricity and gave hugs to our landlords. We really had a fabulous two and a half years in that apartment (not including cabinets falling off the wall). Our landlords have been very kind to us. They invited us into their home for Christmas the first year we arrived and made us feel welcome. They have had us over for tea and given the girls gifts. They have made christmas cookies for us and other baked goods throughout the year. They have helped us when we needed them and we will miss them. The girls seem to be fine with leaving the apartment which is good. I wasn't sure how it would be since it is really the only home Ali has ever known. Luckily we have such a nice house now with a yard (or garden as the girls have learned to call it) that the girls seem to have adjusted to the change easily.

Grills & Parties

Today we decided we had finally settled in enough and were ready to buy a grill. We were told the cheapest place to go to buy a grill (without leaving the country) and we headed there this morning. When I say the cheapest place i do not, by any sense of the imagination, mean cheap. If it isn't a necessity here you can be sure it is expensive. So imagine the price of a grill in the States and double it! After getting over sticker shock and accepting that we live in a different country and can't pay U.S. prices we bought the grill. We had enough time to bring it home and unload it from the car before heading to our friends house for a birthday party. We had a really fun afternoon hanging with our friends and the kids had a blast with their friends and swimming in the pool. We have officially said bye to floaties (except kickboards and noodles to play with) as both girls were swimming like fish today without any floaties needed. Ali was going down the slide into the pool and then swimming all the way to the other end of the pool by herself! After a fun afternoon we headed home. Jason and I took the opportunity to hop in our pool and cool off. The water in our pool is much colder (at about 70 degrees) than the pool the kids were swimming in today but Ali decided she wanted to swim a little more anyway and jumped in too. After a full day the kids are in bed and now Jason is putting together our new grill. I'm looking forward to many nights of BBQ ahead.

Having Fun

This last week has been a lot of fun. We have really started to enjoy our new house. We have been in the pool even though the tenmperatures have not been that high and we have had friends over to play and swim. We have been to friends houses to play as well as meeting friends at playgrounds. While I took Ali to have her ears checked Sofia got to go with her friends to a fire station. She said she had a lot of fun and got to spray the fire hose. I wish I could have seen that! This past Saturday was loaded with fun since we finally had Ali's birthday party. We decided to have a joint birthday party with the girls friend, Michelle. Since we were doing it together and Michelle had her heart set upon Beckiland (an indoor play place) that is where we had the party. I'm so glad we had the party there. It was the easiest party ever. We had 15 kids to watch and 4 adults to watch them. We each took a zone and made sure everything went smoothly. There was no fighting, crying or injury. Everyone had a ton of fun. After the party we went home for a little rest and then headed over to a friends house for dinner. We had a great dinner and the kids played well all night. We were even treated to a nice fireworks display from the next village. After watching the fireworks our friend broke out some sparklers. Ali was a little too scared to hold one but Sofia really had fun holding hers and making lines and circles with it. This week has us full of friends as well so I'm looking forward to another fun week. Supposedly the internet guy is coming to the house tomorrow so keep your fingers crossed and maybe I will have internet at home again!!!

First week

So we have lived at our new house for a week now. We are completely unpacked and can really start to enjoy ourselves. The girls have been playing in the yard and in their playroom by themselves for the last week while Jason worked and I diligently unpacked everything. Sofia made me feel good about all the work I have been doing when we had the following conversation:

Sofia: "Mommy you do a LOT of work and daddy doesn't."
Me: "Daddy works sweetie. He is at the office right now."
Sofia: "Yeah but daddy just sits at a computer all day making money but you do a LOT of work that takes a lot of muscle. It is hard work."
Me: "Well...."

It just made me laugh and Jason got a laugh out of it too when he got home. Anyway, the girls have had a lot of fun playing in the yard. They play in their sandbox and under the trees, in the flower bed...basically everywhere. Their imaginations are amazing. My friend, Joanna, came over on Friday with her daughter. The kids had fun playing and I it was nice to catch up with Joanna since we hadn't seen each other in a while. My friend, Julie, and her girls also came over Friday afternoon. Sofia and Ali were excited to have them over since Julie was the nursery teacher for both and her daughters are "big kids" which my children love. We broke out the sprinkler and the girls had fun playing with Julie's daughters since it was warm and we hadn't quite sorted out the pool at that point. I loved it too since Remy and Eden are old enough to watch my girls and keep them entertained. It made it easy for me to sit back and relax. I think we have figured out the pool now but we still need to do a lot of vacuuming since there is a lot of sand at the bottom of the pool. I'm hoping to have that done today and tomorrow. We also had friends over for dinner on Sunday night. Entertaining after a move always makes me feel like we have finally made the house a home. I finished the last few boxes of unpacking yesterday and it felt good. Since I finished the unpacking yesterday and the kids, while having done great entertaining themselves, were a bit stir crazy we decided to meet some friends at a nearby playground. There is a new playground a couple minutes drive from us so we went there and ended up spending over three hours playing. It was good for the girls to play with friends and have my attention as well.

The kids are at czech lessons this morning and I have finished mopping all the floors in our old apartment. Next Czech lesson will be the final cleaning on this apartment. The nice thing about coming back to our apartment is I can get online! We still do not have internet in the new house. As a matter of fact, we don't even have a computer since we had to bring our computer in for service becuase it isn't working AGAIN! I'm hoping by the time we get our computer back (within a week they tell us) we will also have internet. We shall see.

Moving

My blogging will be limited for a little while since we moved to our new house over the weekend. We still have our apartment until August 15th so I'm sitting in an empty apartment with our laptop now while the girls are around the corner at Czech lessons. I'm not sure how long it will take us to get internet set up at the new house but since this is Czech, I won't be holding my breath. Anyway, The move went great. The movers came and packed up our entire apartment Saturday in four hours! They came back on Sunday and started loading the truck. The men were amazing. They would carry 6 boxes at a time down from the third floor strapped to their backs. I was shocked when I saw one man carrying our big livingroom chair by himself and another man carrying Sofia's bureau by himself. They had our apartment empty in three hours! They took a lunch break and then showed up at the new house. The unloading was a little trickier since they had to figure out how to get our furniture in the house. They ended up having to bring our beds and bureaus over the balcony since the stairs were too narrow. As I watched one man holding the balcony by one hand and pulling the mattress up with the other I couldn't help but think, "no OSHA regulations here!". They had everything moved into the house in 2 1/2 hours. We have started the tedious task of unpacking but it is a slow process. Luckily we have a covered patio to put all the empty boxes, paper and bubble wrap to get them out of the way. There is just something gratifying about moving empty boxes out of the house. Once we have internet at the house I will post pictures.

Wonderful Spain

We had a wonderful time in Spain with beautiful sunny skies every day. This was our third summer going to Spain and every year we have stayed a little longer. This time we spent 2 full weeks and my mom joined us for the first ten days. I loved having my mom there and the girls loved having Grandma with us. Grandma rubbed Ali's legs and scratched Sofia's back. (She massaged my back too!) She gave them baths and read them stories and sang them songs. Ali had a fun partner to walk with too since Ali and my mom love flowers equally so they enjoyed walking together and stopping every foot to smell a flower.
Our trip started out a little shaky though when, as we waited to board our flight, Sofia said the dreaded words, "my ear hurts". She got visibly worse as we waited to board the plane. Luckily I had my handy medicine pack in my carry-on and gave her some motrin. This seemed to do the trick and she was fine but I still worried. By Saturday we couldn't deny it anymore, she had an ear infection. I'm glad that Jason and I are now pretty comfortable finding healthcare in foreign countries. After finding a doctor and recalling my Spanish classes so I could speak broken Spanish we left with a prescription. Being a saturday and also during siesta time we headed to the nearest town, San Pedro Alcantara, with a 24 hour pharmacy. While I was there getting Sofia's antibiotics and ear drops I also picked up some decongestant/expectorant for Ali since she started in with a horrible cough the previous night. With our medicine cabinet stocked up we stopped for lunch at a little place on the main pedestrian road in San Pedro. Jason and I decided to order the fried seafood plate for two since we had read that it is a common local dish. The plate came with fried calamari, baby squids, anchovies and a couple other things. We ordered the girls pasta but they continue to amaze us with their willingness to try new foods. Once they saw our plate of food they started to ask for some. We gave them one piece each since we weren't sure if they would like it but they both loved it. Ali really liked the baby squids and Sofia loved the anchovies. It was a lot of fun to watch them. Sofia continued to ask for the "little fish" throughout the trip.

The first week we spent at a resort just outside of Estepona. This is further west than we have stayed the last 2 years. While we still had fun, the beaches in that area are not as nice as our favorite beach, Cabopino. (I do admit though that it is really just nit picking because we have been so spoiled with Cabopino.) We could walk to the beach from our hotel but we only did that one day since the beach was very rocky. After the first day we decided to check out different beaches in the area.

We went into the town of Estepona to the main beach (Rada Beach) there for the day and had fun. The water dropped off a little steeply for the girls so they didn't do a lot of splashing in the water but spent a lot of time playing in the sand. We enjoyed lunch at one of the restaurants on the beach and completely skipped the pasta for the kids and ordered half orders of fried sole, anchovies and calamari. After filling up on seafood Jason and the girls headed to the playground on the boardwalk and my mom and I decided to see if there were any shops around. After two beaches that were ok but not great we decided to head back towards Marbella for the beach. We weren't sure exactly where the beach was and the coastal highway exits are not very well signed we did the best we could and ended up at a nice beach. It wasn't the beach we intended but it was quiet and not rocky. Next beach stop was in Puerto Banus. This town is where the rich go when they are on the coast. The marina had 100ft yachts which were beautiful. There were so many big boats that even the 36ft boats looked small. My mom and I walked along the Marina and window shopped as well. We weren't actually going to buy anything from the shops since the shops included stores such as Dolce & Gabanna, Dior, Cartier etc. The kids had a lot of fun at this beach since there were no rocks. They spent some time in the water an building sand castles. Our final beach destination, and where we went for the remainder of our beach days was Cabopino Beach. This is by far still our favorite beach. It is also the kids favorite. the slope into the water is gentle and they can walk out quite far. The sand is perfect powder sand and it isn't busy in the morning so it is easy to get a spot just out of reach of the water. We built many sande castles and collected shells. The kids had fun collecting muscle shells after we explored a rock covered in live muscles.

After the first 10 days in Estepona, we moved location to Calahonda (the town we have stayed in the last two years). This year we didn't stay at the same resort but rented a condo for the week just up the hill. The condo unit was nice and comfortable. The balcony was amazing and had views of Gibraltar and Morocco. We used the pool some at this condo but being so close to Cabopino beach meant we spent most of our days at the beach. It was nice to come back into the town we know so well. We ended up eating out more here since we knew exactly which restaurants we wanted to go to. We also spent one afternoon/evening with friends who own a condo in Spain. We got together with them last year as well. It is fun to hang out with friends on vacation. We got to see their new condo which they bought over the winter. The condo is beautiful with stunning views. It also has great pool and a tennis court. We swam, played tennis (which I haven't played in ages) and enjoyed a gret meal with friends. We are sad though becuase they will only be in Prague for another 3 weeks and then they move back to England.

It was a fun filled 14 days in Spain and we are already looking forward to next year. I will post some pictures soon.