Happy Birthday Jason!!

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).

More ear infections

Poor Sofia has another ear infection. Two ear infections to be precise, one in each ear. Yesterday we went to the hospital and we were told to wait and see how it was on Monday. Today her ears were hurting her more so I brought her back to the hospital, although a different hospital than yesterday. We came home with antibiotics, ear drops and nose drops and an appointment to come back on Tuesday. That is more like it. I'm hoping that Sofia will be feeling much better by tomorrow.

We like to Move it Move it!!

Now I'm not talking about moving house because we all know the process of moving is not fun. What i'm talking about is the girls love of the song Move It Move It from the movie Madagaskar. In our house we LOVE to move it move it. Here is a video of the girls showing how much they love this song.

Swim lessons

Our friend Shanna has started teaching swim lessons again this year. She runs the lessons for 9 days so that the kids are in the water everyday and they can really make great improvements wih swimming. The girls took lessons with her last year and really did great. Sofia started swimming on her own by July last year. We have had two days of swim lessons so far this year and they are both doing great. We had been swimming at my friend Kerry's pool last week and Sofia wouldn't get in without a floatie and then even with the floatie she started to panic. Well, Shanna already has Sofia in the pool with no floaties swimming across the pool by herself. Ali is making strides as well but still not swimming by herself. I'm hoping that by the end of this summer Ali will have figured it all out. Here is a video of Sofia swimming.

Playground

Yesterday we went to a playground that we hadn't been to in a while. It is a nice playground with a lot of challenging equipment that the girls couldn't really use much of the last time we went. This time was different. They have definitely grown and could use everything at the playground...the zip line, the climbing structure, the fire poles etc. Ali was really enjoying a spinning toy so much that she didn't feel well. Even a few minutes after stopping she still couldn't walk straight. She said her stomach didn't feel good either. We feared she would throw up but instead she fell asleep on my lap for 45 minutes. Our friends joined us at the playground as well which the girls were very excited about. After playing on the playground together and after Ali woke up and got a little more playing in we headed out to Statenice. We showed our friends where our new house is and then we headed to the restaurant at Statenicky Mlyn (a new development in Statenice). They have outdoor seating which was perfect since the weather was beautiful. There is a pond next to the patio and since some of the girls other friends were eating at the restaurant too, the kids all had fun running around the pond. I can foresee a lot of dinners at this restaurant since the food was good and the kids can play and it is within walking distance of where we will be living.

The Jungle Book

On Friday night the kids school put on a performance of The Jungle Book. Every year the school puts on a performance and all children in the primary school except for nursery are in the show. We didn't attend the show last year since our kids were too young and were too tired on a Friday night to go out. This year Sofia was in the show so we went but left Ali at home with the babysitter. I wasn't sure how this would go but Ali was fine to stay home. She even said she didn't want to go because she was too tired. All the kids in the show did a great job. Each class was a different animal...monkeys, elephants, vultures etc. Sofia's class was a snake. It was interesting to see the difference in performance skill between each year. Here is the video of Sofia's class being the snake.

Exercise

I have recently started running with some friends. Which is another added benefit of the car since now I can drive out of town to a friends house and run with her from there. Anyway, there are sometimes two of us and sometimes 4 and it has really been a lot of fun for me. As a solitary runner for my life as a runner, except for a random run here or there, it is enjoyable to know I will have someone to run with two days a week. In addition to running I think I am going to take up pilates or at least give it a try. After a very hectic work schedule Jason is getting back to the gym as well as playing squash. All this exercise is good for our health, it allows us more time to be with our friends, and it shows our children a lifestyle that will keep them healthy for the rest of their lives. I'm grateful that our move to Prague opened up a more healthy lifestyle for us.

The girls are continuing with all their activities as well. We will be adding swim lessons to our schedule starting on Monday. They will have 2 weeks of swim lessons and then after that I will need to find someone to teach them once a week. Sofia is looking forward to another after school activity. She really has boundless energy! Mondays she has gymnastics, Tuesdays she has club at school, and Thursday she has Czech lessons. She really wants me to find swim lessons for Wednesday. She is amazing. Ali does get tired and so she currently only has gymnastics on Thursdays but she is really looking forward to swimming lessons. Hopefully I can find someone soon who can come out to our new place and teach them in our pool!

Cesky Krumlov

This past weekend I headed to Cesky Krumlov for a women's retreat with our church. For all our friends and family, again, don't worry. I understand your concern...when I hear church retreat it still feels a little strange to me but in fact it was a lot of fun. Cesky Krumlov is a beautiful village a couple hours south of Prague. We stayed in a hotel right on the river with a beautiful view of the castle. There were 37 women (I think it was that many) and we all had a great time together. There was time for prayer and thoughtfulness and time for chatting and having fun. On Saturday a bunch of us went rafting on the river. It was a little dreary at first but the rain stopped and the sun came out and we had a great time heading down river. Our boat did get stuck on a rock at one point and required some "in river" time to get the boat off the rock but it just made it that much more fun. It seemed the weekend was over before we knew it and it was time to head back to Prague. It was such a cute town that we will have to head back as a family soon so that Jason and the girls can see it.

Suburbia, here we come!

We have lived in Prague in an apartment for the last 2 1/2 years. It has been wonderful being in our apartment but times change and kids grow and need space. After buying the car our options for places to live grew. The thought of moving hung out there for a while and then we finally made the decision to move. With the nice weather the kids wanted to play outside, we wanted to BBQ, and we all want to invite friends over. We decided if we wanted to do all those things we needed a yard. We started the search by figuring out what towns would work for us since Jason will still need to get to/from work by public transportation. After narrowing the towns by public transit, we narrowed it down by length of travel time for Jason to get to work and the amount of noise we could handle from planes flying overhead. We ended up with a happy medium...not too close to the airport and not too far from town. It will be a 15 - 20 minute bus ride into town or 10-15 minutes by car and the drive to the girls school will take about the same as it does now. We will be living in the same village as a number of our friends which will be great for us as well as for the girls.

In any event, we have signed the reservation form and paid our deposit. We will sign the lease on Tuesday. The house is very cute. It is small but bigger than we have now. We will have three bedrooms instead of two as well as two bathrooms! Two and a half years of only one toilet is coming to an end! YAY!! When guests come to visit they will no longer have to sleep in the livingroom (hint hint guests...come visit us!!). We won't be living in a world of white walls as the house has other colors inside like yellows and reds and the girls room is already painted pink and green. The yard is nice and it has a small pool which will make for a very fun summer. Here are a few pictures I took with my iphone (so they won't be perfect). We can't wait to move in July!!

Car

So since we have bought the car we have had a crack in the windshield, one headlight go out and one brake light go out. While in the U.S. I wouldn't think much about it, here it requires more thought. I am proud to say that I have managed to tackle it all. On the second try I bought the right bulbs and replaced both the brake light and headlight myself. I brought the car in today to get the windshield fixed. The insurance lady (where we bought the car) helped me schedule the appointment and put it through with the insurance so I didn't have to do much but it was still nice to drop it off and pick it up today. I also bought our highway sticker today. (You need to buy a highway sticker in order to drive on the highways here otherwise you can get fined.) Now I just have to finally get our new plates and summer tires and we should be all set.

Little Racers

I had no idea we had two little speedy runners in our family. Today is the Prague International Marathon (PIM). We didn't run the full marathon but PIM also holds a 4.2K family mini marathon. We decided to run it with the girls so they could get a taste of running since they always see Jason and I going out for runs. They were very excited to run the race. We had to keep explaining to them about how to run a race and to not just go all out in the beginning. We explained what the start would be like and how there would be a lot of people. Well, this morning was race day and we headed off to the start. We met up with some friends and lined up to run the race. The girls didn't seem to be bothered by the number of people around them. We told them they could walk when they got tired but they did surprisingly little walking. Ali held a nice pace throughout the race where as Sofia was more into the bursts of speed. Jason ended up running mostly with Sofia and I ended up running mostly with Ali but at the end we were running together. The girls were so excited to finish and get their medals. They finished the race in 33 minutes, 42 seconds...that is a 12 minute, 54 second per mile pace! I can't believe how well they did. I'm very proud of them. They still have energy which is also amazing!

Gymnastics

Today I brought Sofia to her first gymnastics lesson. She is going to a different location for gymnastics than Ali. Since Sofia can't do the class on Thursday with Ali because she has Czech lessons she will go on Mondays. Petra, Watson's babysitter, also teaches gymnastics and has offered to take Sofia with her on Mondays when she goes. Today was the first time that Sofia went so I went with her much to Sofia's dismay. I had to explain to Sofia that I needed to see where she would be taking gymnastics and what it would be like. I have agreed to let her just go with Petra next week....my baby is growing up. Sofia had a great time doing gymnastics. Ali tried this class for a little bit but decided it was a little too hard for her. I agreed with her since this class is much more hard core than Ali's class on Thursday. Sofia settled right into the class and didn't seemed phased by all the czech spoken around her. The other little girls were very interested in Sofia and that she spoke English. It made me laugh when they all crowded around her and said "how are you" in Englsih over and over again. They all spoke to her in Czech and while she didn't really do any talking she did smile and laugh a lot. She did mention that it hurt a little bit to do the gymnastics but I assured her once her stomach muscles got use to being used and her legs became more flexible with stretching that it wouldn't hurt anymore. I also told her she didn't have to do a full split the first day of gymnastics. She is very competitive though and she just keeps trying until she gets things done. I think this class will be good for Sofia athletically but I think it will also be good for her Czech as well.

Witches Night

Thursday night was Witches Night in the Czech Republic. It is believed to date back to the iron age and it signals the end of winter. We went to Roztoky (a village just outside Prague) again this year for the celebration. The girls dressed up like witches and joined their friend, Kiera, running around and playing. They were both a little hesitant at first but then seem to settle in and have fun. There was a wooden house that was on fire (pretend) and the firemen would spray there hoses on the house knocking over the flames. The girls really liked exploring that. Kiera sang a song as did a bunch of other kids but Ali and Sofia were too shy to get on the stage. Ali decided at the last minute that she wanted to sing but by then the singing was already finished. The highlight of the night is the burning of the witch. This is a picture of the witch before she was set on fire. The kids loved watching her burn. It was exciting waiting for her to fall over! After the witch was burned the girls roasted sausages over the fire with our friend Radek (Kiera's dad). Sofia loved roasting the sausages but the fire was to hot for Ali so we had to stand a little bit back from the flames. After having some sausage there was a witches parade. All the little kids who wore witches costumes went up on stage to show their costumes and were given a chocolate bar and a small flashlight. Sofia was very shy and didn't want to go up but she decided at the last minute to go up with Kiera and Ali. I thought she was going to cry onstage but she held it together and was so excited to have her very own flashlight. Just after the kids came off the stage it started to pour so we all ran to our cars and headed home. It was another great witches night.

Jason goes to the U.S.

Jason went to the U.S. on Monday so this week has been just the girls, Watson and me. We managed pretty well this time. With the kids getting older it is easier to handle everything alone when Jason is away. Having the car was also helpful too. The girls were really good about getting ready in the morning so that we could take Watson out before we left for school. They were also ok with taking Watson out right before bedtime as well. They did end up going to bed a little bit late every night since I tried to take Watson out as late as possible since he would have to wait until 8am the next day to go out again. Luckily we have a dog who can hold it for a long time! We went to my friend Natalie's house after school on Tuesday for a playdate. Natalie's daughter, Ellie, is in Ali's class. She has a son as well who is older than Sofia but Sofia loves playing with him and he is really nice to her. We had a lot of fun. On Wednesday we had an impromptu playdate at my friend Shanna's house. The kids were excited to play especially since they thought we were going straight home from school. On Thursday I brought Sofia to Czech lesson and then headed off to bring Ali to her frist gymnastics lesson. My friend had told me about this gymnastics class so I decided to let Ali give it a try. The class is taught completely in Czech but Ali doesn't seem to mind. She even told me that she was speaking Czech to the kids in the class. The teachers are really good with all the kids and Ali did great. I'm happy that she will have this activity to do while Sofia is taking Czech lessons.

Beautiful Weekend

Saturday, Jason and I took the girls to the park since it was so beautiful. We made a day of it and brought a picnic blanket, snacks, lunch and smoothies to drink. The fresh air always seems to make the girls ravenous so we wanted to make sure we had enough for them to eat. We took Sofia's training wheels of her bike for the first time. She was a little hesitant to try riding her bike without them but she did a good job. She didn't spend to much time on her bike though since she was having a lot of fun kicking the soccer ball around and trying to play baseball with Jason.

On Sunday we went to a birthday party for Sofia's friend, Jose Miguel. The party was in a hotel in Nebusice which is now easy to get to since we have a car. Sofia got right into the party when the clown arrived. Ali, on the other hand, separated from the party when the clown arrived. Ali has seen clowns before and actually had even seen one of these clowns in particular but for some reason she was very scared by them. She wouldn't leave my side unless it was to be at Jason's side. After a while, Jason got her warmed up and she joined in on the fun with the clowns. I enjoyed talking with the other mom's there while Jason minded our girls and spoke with the other dads there. The party was fun and the kids were very sad to leave. We decided to continue the fun at home with a game of chutes and ladders.

Back on Schedule

Monday was back to school for the kids after a two week vacation. They were excited to head back and see their friends. I wasn't sure if the morning routine would be difficult after vacation but the girls fell right back into it. There were no problems getting ready which I think can be partly credited to having to wear uniforms. The girls are still loving the car and how easy it is to get to school now. The weather has remained beautiful too so after school we have played on the new school football pitch (soccer field) or played by the river. This is were I feel the enjoyment of the car because I can let the girls play until exhaustion without worrying about getting them to walk home.

Spring has sprung

Over the last two weeks of school vacation we have really enjoyed the warm spring weather. It was beautiful everyday until Friday when it turned a little colder and rainy. The girls and I enjoyed seeing all the forsythia and tulips in bloom.

Fried Computers

So last week our computer stopped working. I had been hoping that it was something to do with the CD drive since when you put a CD in the computer it didn't do anything. I was wrong. Today I picked up our computer from the store and found out that our hard drive had fried. The guy didn't really speak English but said, "hard drive....kaput". This is a very sad thing as it means I have lost all our pictures from March as well as a lot of videos of the kids. Luckily I had just burned CDs of all the photos for the previous 6 months. I will be burning CDs more regularly now as well as DVDs of the videos!

Vacation Week 2

This second week of school vacation has flown by. The weather has continued to be just beautiful . . . blue skies, sun shining, perfect temperature. Monday was a holiday here so Jason had the day off. We spent the day just hanging out as a family and then we went to our friends house for dinner. The girls had so much fun playing with their friends, Vivi and Michelle they didn't want to leave when it was time to go. We had to draw the line at some point so we headed home around 8:30pm and put the kids to bed. It was our first time to our friend's, Kelly & Michal's apartment. While we could get there by tram it just never seemed to work out. With the car it was so easy. I am looking forward to more dinners together with them. Tuesday was a pretty low key day. The girls had there yearly check ups at the doctor. It was there first yearly check up since being in the Czech Republic. I did slack a little bit on the yearly check-ups but don't worry they did see the doctor often enough with ear infections, knee pain etc. They did great on their check ups and are in perfect health. In the afternoon, the girls and I had lunch in a square near our apartment before bringing Sofia to Czech lesson. Wednesday was big day for us since we went to the Zoo with their friends Vivi and Michelle. Vivi and Michelle's grandmother joined us for the trip to the zoo too since she is in town visiting. It was such a easy pleasant day at the zoo. The weather was perfect. The kids were all behaving and I had good company to talk to while the kids enjoyed the animals.



Thursday we went out to my friend Emily's again. The kids had fun playing in the yard and in the house. My friend Shanna was also there with her three children so the kids had a lot of fun running around together. All of these things we have been able to do during this school vacation have been great and made so much easier and more enjoyable because we have the car.




On Friday we decided to head to the IMAX theater with my Laura and her son, Owen, to see the Dolphins and Whales movie in 3D. The movie wasn't as action packed as I had expected but the kids still had fun watching the movie. It was so funny to watch then as they kept reaching out to touch the dolphins and whales. I have to admit I reached out a couple times too since it really did seem like they were swimming right over us. After watching the movie we headed out into the mall and gave the kids McDonald's for dinner and then let them play in the McDonald's play area. They had a blast and were all hot and sweaty by the time we headed home. Yesterday we went to see my friend Joanna and her family in the afternoon. We hadn't seen them in quite a while since their trip to the united States started just when we got back from the United States. It was nice to see them and catch up on the last couple months. Today we will relax and prepare for the return to school tomorrow. It has been a fun and busy two week vacation.

Karlstejn Castle

Karlstejn Castle has been on our list of "to do" since we moved here. There is a train to get to Karlstejn but it always seemed like such a trek that we just hadn't made it there. With the ease of our car though we finally made the trip (45 minutes) to Karlstejn. Saturday was another beautiful sunny day and perfect to be outside. We arrived at Karlstejn at lunch time so we parked the car and went to the closest restaurant with outdoor seating. They had a little playground so the kids played while we waited for our food. After filling up we decided to head to the castle. It is about a 1.5 kilometer walk up hill to get to the castle so we decided to take the horse and carriage ride to the top. I'm so glad we did b/c the hill was pretty steep in places and the girls would have been exhausted by the time we reached the castle. Orignally Jason and I planned to just walk around the outside of the castle but the girls begged to go inside and take the tour. Since they really wanted to do it we figured we would give it a try and hope they lasted the full hour. Sofia did great. She asked some good questions and was really very interested. Ali did well in the beginning but then her tiredness got the better of her and she fell asleep in my arms. At least my arms got a good workout! After finishing the tour we headed back down the hill into the town. Ali woke up and walked down the hill and we found some ice cream which we all enjoyed. It was a gorgeous day, perfect for walking outside. I'll post some pics once we get our other computer back.