YAHTZEE!!!!

We played a few rounds of UNO today with the girls.  They really enjoy it and Jason and I have fun playing it with them.  After playing a few rounds we decided to introduce the kids to a different game...YAHTZEE!!  They still need a little help understanding the different combinations...full house, small straight etc. but they loved it!  It is great for practicing their math skills as well so it is fun and educational.  Sofia won our first ever family YAHTZEE game.  She ended up with two YAHTZEEs!!  Jason and I taught them the appropriate response when you get a YAHTZEE!  Here is a picture I snapped of Ali when she got her first ever YAHTZEE.  It was a lot of fun playing with the girls and we are looking forward to many more games of YAHTZEE!!!

Santa Claus!!

 Santa came to town on Friday and stopped at the kids school.  The girls were very excited to see Santa.  We, fortunately, got to Santa early enough that there was no line and the girls went straight in to see him.  Sofia decided she would see him first so she walked in and headed right to Santa but once on his lap she could not think of any toys that she wanted.  It was very cute. 

Ali was a little more timid about walking up to Santa but once she was on his lap she had no problem telling him she wanted a doll with yellow hair.  They are at such a great age since they are old enough to understand the magic of Santa but not old enough to not believe in that magic.  When they were all finished talking to Santa they were given a small present which turned out to be a yo-yo.  They have never used yo-yos but with a little practice they can now make their yo-yos work.

Not only did the girls see Santa they also received a video message from Santa.  Santa has come a long way from my childhood!  The kids are very observant though and Ali immediately noticed that the Santa from school had a much shorter beard than the Santa in the video.  I told her that Santa must have cut his beard some before he came to their school so that the kids wouldn't sit on it.

To watch Ali's message, click here: Ali's video message from Santa

To watch Sofia's message, click here: Sofia's video message from Santa

Christmas Tree Decorating

 

Every year the girls school gets a christmas tree and each class makes a different ornament and each child hangs the ornament they made on the tree.  The kids love making their ornaments and they really enjoy decorating the tree.  The parents make hot chocolate and cookies for the kids so after the kids have hung their ornaments they get to have a treat too.  This year I made chocolate chip cookies for Sofia's class.  I wasn't sure what was happening for Ali's class so I brought enough cookies in for both classes but another parent brought in the cookies for Ali's class so I just set aside my cookies.  We didn't need the kids on sugar overload from too many cookies!

Sofia's reading

Sofia's reading continues to amaze us.  She is reading chapter books.  She wanted to read a Beverly Cleary Ramona book and so we decided to let her give it a try.  She did great with it and got about half way through the book but found it a bit boring.  Since we had bought her another book already we decided to let her stop reading Ramona and try a new book.  I'm glad we did becuase the book we bought her was "Storm the Lighting Fairy" and she loved it.  It is part of a series of books called Rainbow Magic.  She is now on her third book from this series of books and is reading about one book a month.  The books are about 70-80 pages long and she reads it when she gets home from school.  She still likes to be read to though so at bed time Jason and I read other books to the girls.  I'm thrilled that Sofia really seems to enjoy reading.  She is already asking to read in bed with a bed side table to put her book on and to have a lamp.  As the girls are currently sharing a room it isn't possible but maybe when she is a little bit older we will give them each their own room so Sofia can read to herself before she goes to sleep.

Grace Grace Grace

Our friends, Karen & Matt, flew back to Prague this past weekend to attend the Broken Silence Ball on Saturday night.  It was so nice to see them.  On Sunday a bunch of our friends met up in town for lunch.  Karen and Matt were going to the lunch and they were bringing their kids Lucy and Grace with them so we weren't going to miss the chance to not only see our friends another time but also for Ali to see Grace.  Ali was so excited when I told her Grace was in town and that we were going to have lunch with her.  She immediately got busy making Grace a card to take back to England.  We all went for lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe which was great.  St. Mikulas was there so the kids were entertained by him, the angel and the devil.  They got tons of candy from him and legos which seemed to keep them all entertained before their food came and after they were finished eating.  It worked out perfectly.  Ali was fine with saying goodbye to Grace again.  I think seeing her again was a good lesson in "moving away doesn't mean gone forever". 

The Christmas Season

We kicked off our family christmas season yeseterday.  We went into town yesterday to have lunch with friends and then after lunch we walked into Old Town Square to look at the Christmas markets, the christmas tree, to pet the animals and to get one of many Trudlo that we will eat this year.  Old Town Square was beautiful as always.  The markets are not my favorite in Europe since the majority of the stalls are food but it is still nice to look at and we do enjoy Trudlo.  The girls were more excited this year about the animals than in years past so we stopped and let them pet the horse. 

Ali did not want to pet the horse but then changed her mind later so we headed back to the horse again so Ali could pet it.  We assumed she didn't want to pet the horse becuase she was afraid.  It turns out she just didn't want the horse to eat her trudlo!  After making our way around the market we headed home to buy our Christmas tree.  We went to our local garden center and chose our tree.  It was the same man as last year at the garden center and he was very friendly.  After tieing the tree on top of the car we drove home without any sudden stops or turns so we managed to keep the tree on top of the car.  We had some difficulty getting the tree into the stand so we had to get the saw out and go to work.  It didn't really seem to help much though since we just could not get the stnad to hold the tree upright.  We eventually gave up and we tied the tree up to the door handle behind the tree. The kids were very excited to decorate so we got through all the decorations very quickly.  The girls danced and sang all around the tree once it was finished. Now our tree is up and we are living in a winter wonderland of snow with snow forecasted for the next ten days.  We are definitely ready for Christmas!

Broken Silence Ball

Last night was the annual Broken Silence Ball.  The Broken Silence Foundation holds a charity ball every year to raise funds to support the National Hearing Screening project.  This is the first year Jason and I have gone to the event and it was a blast.  This years theme was fairytale in a winter wonderland so Jason and I dressed up as snowman/woman.  The other costumes worn last night were amazing.  Some people really went all out and only a very few did not dress up but chose to wear black tie.  It is quite a party and a lot of money is raised.  During the evening there is a silent auction, a live auction, a tombola as well as a three course meal, drinks and dancing.  The items up for auction were amazing such as tickets to South Africa with hotel and game rides.  They were all out of our price range but I'm happy there were people there with money to spend so that the charity can raise a lot of money.  One of the auction prizes went for 220,000CZK ($11,800USD) so I think the charity will be very happy with the funds it raised last night.  The ball was held at a nice restaurant also so the food was actually good.  It was open bar so the drinks flowed all around....from the bar or the vodka flume or the servers walking around with trays of drinks.  Also one of the men sitting at our table works for Red Bull so he had the red bull and vodka filling up everyone's glasses at our table.  Given my experience at the 80's party we went to I kept the alcohol to a minimum last night so I did not have a repeat experience.  It was much easier to get up on four hours sleep without a  lot of alcohol that is for sure!

Snow Snow Snow

It snowed again!!  The snow started in the afternoon on Wednesday and continued through Thursday morning.  It did not stop until it had left another 6-7 inches (15-18cm) !!  It is only the beginning of December and we already have a foot (30cm) of snow on the ground.  It has been enough to disrupt our schedules.  We kept the kids home on Monday because of the snow, we skipped gymnastics on Wednesday afternoon, skipped school on Thursday and no Czech lessons on Thursday.  While the kids school did not close we chose safety over school and kept the kids home anyway.  The school is horrible about clearing parking lots and pathways and I refuse to drop my children off on a main road to cross the street and walk up a side street by themselves in slippery, snowy condtions.  I wouldn't allow that in good conditions so I certaily wouldn't allow it in snowy conditions.  The kids did not mind having a snow day though.  They spent a lot of time outside and loved it.  On Monday they spent two hours out on our road with me while I shoveled and they didn't complain once.  When I was finished shoveling we came back into our yard where they played for another hour.  On Thursday Jason also stayed home and even though he was working it meant I could leave the kids in the house or in the yard while I went out to shovel our road again.  They did take some time inside but by the time I came back from shoveling they were sledding in the back yard again.  It is nice to see them thoroughly enjoying the snow.  It is also great that they have reached the age to play together and have a really good time.  While the kids enjoyed playing I did some not quite so enjoyable work and shoveled our road for three hours.  For reasons unfathomable to me the people on our road do not shovel so I do the entire thing myself.  One of the men our our road spent an hour trying to get his car up the hill through 12" (30cm) of snow!  It would have taken him less time to shovel the entire hill!!  The lady a little further down the hill was outside with a BROOM!! Who shovels that much snow with a broom???  I then went past her and shoveled out in front of her house.  I did feel like I made some progress though when I got to the bottom of the hill and the lady I saw while I was shoveling after the first storm came home and took a brand new snow shovel out of her car.  Now, I didn't see her use it but it is progress over the digging shovel she had the other day.  Maybe by the end of winter I will have a little help shoveling the road.  I will admit though that it is very gratifying to drive on our road now and know that I cleared all of it.  It definitely gives me a "job well done" feeling.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Happy Birthday to a great Dad and Grandpa!  We hope you have a wonderful day. We love you!!

Christopher Pop-In-Kins

Along with the snow last night came Christopher Pop-In-Kins.  The girls love him and were very excited last night when we told them that maybe he would come during the night.  Sure enough he made it through the snow storm and arrived at our house sometime last night.  The girls looked all around the livingroom this morning and finally found him on top of the bookcase.  As it is the first time they have seen him in almost a year we let him touch him but since we don't want to make him go back to the north pole all the time to replenish his magic they won't be allowed to touch him until Christmas Eve when they say good bye to him.

SNOW!!

 Winter had begun in Prague!  We had a small amount of snow on Friday night but last night the snow started in earnest.  We woke up this morning to find about five inches (12cm) of snow on the ground and it is still snowing.  This does cause some problems for us since we had not put our winter tires on the car yet and our summer tires are less than ideal for driving in the snow.  I went out this morning to the cash machine to get money so that I could bring the car to the tire shop but unfortunately the bank machine had no money so I turned around and headed home.  By the time I headed home the traffic was so bad heading in to town that I made the executive decision that the kids would have a minimum one hour delay.  Well, I have moved that to a two hour delay after speaking with a friend who told me the traffic is still horrible going in to town.  Once I bring the kids to school (if I bring them) I will head all the way into town to a cash machine and then head to the tire place to have new tires put on.  That is problem number one which will hopefully be solved later today.  Problem number two is waiting in the wings and that is our septic.  We were holding off to empty it until mid December so that it would be ok for most of the winter and we would not have to worry about the septic man being able to make it down our road.  Well, let's hope this doesn't become a problem and this first big drop of snow melts enough to allow access to our house so the septic can be emptied.  The third problem which isn't really a problem but more of an inconvenience is all the shoveling that is ahead of me since just like last year I will have to shovel our entire road.  Such is life, at least I get to enjoy the beauty of the snow.  The trees are all looking beautiful with the snow resting on all their branches and their is a definite peace in the air when the snow is falling and everything is pristine.

Play Date

On Friday we invited Sofia's friend, Matilda, over to play after school.  It is such a nice age for playdates since the kids just go off and play with each other and require little interference from me.  We got home and Matilda and Sofia took off their jackets and headed upstairs to play without even a second glance for me.  They played nicely together and really seemed to enjoy each other.  They eventually came downstairs as part of their imaginary game to play and to put on their mermaid bodies.  Here they are sitting in front of their mermaid rock together.

Thanksgiving leftovers

It has been great to have Thanksgiving leftovers all weekend.  I invited some girlfriends over for leftover lunch on Friday.  It was nice to sit and relax with friends.  It started to snow a bit on Friday night which made for a perfect Saturday.  The kids played in the yard a little bit and since there wasn't enough snow to make an actual snowman, Ali decided to make a snow Peep.  Peep in the Big Wide World is a PBS TV show that the kids have enjoyed for a long time and Jason and I enjoy it too.  After playing outside for a little while we called the girls in for leftover lunch.  The girls really like eating the legs and wings from the turkey so they were happy to see I had put a wing on each of their plates.  While it is definitely not polite to gnaw on a bone in public it is perfectly acceptable to do it in the privacy of ones own home and Jason and I had to laugh at the gusto to which the girls ate their chicken wings.

A letter for Sofia

As I mentioned before, Sofia's good friend Lars moved away this past summer.  I knew they were friends and, of course, were going to be married but I did not really truly understand the depth to which Sofia enjoyed Lars' company.  Since he has left she rarely talks about him but I find little things every few days that tells me she still misses him.  A letter in her bag that she wrote to him, a heart that says, "I love you Lars", a card that tells him she misses him...it really is heartbreaking to find these little glimpses of my daughters feelings.  I'm glad she has a way to express herself though and doesn't just keep it all inside.  We did send a letter to Lars along with the Flat Stanley Project that Sofia's class is working on and we will wait to get the Flat Stanley back but today a letter arrived for Sofia from Lars.  I was very excited for her when I picked up the mail and saw the letter and I couldn't wait for her to open it.  I knew she would be excited to receive the letter.  It is so nice that Lars and Sofia are both at an age where they can write letters and can maintain their friendship.  She has read the letters multiple times since she came home from school and I'm sure she will keep them in a special place.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Thanksgiving Day in Prague always feels different since to most people here it is just another day.  While we still send the kids to school Jason and I still want to celebrate and enjoy Thanksgiving.  It is not as easy to celebrate with all the fixings but with a good scavenger hunt I managed to come up with all the necessities for a good Thanksgiving meal.  To find all the things we needed for dinner I had to go to the British shop to order the turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce.  After the British shop I headed to the fruit and vegetable shop near our old apartment to find butternut squash and sweet potatoes.  I managed to get the sweet potatoes but not the squash so the search continued to the Bio shop which did not have it either.  I decided to try one other bio shop and I was in luck because they had three squashed left.  Since the squashes were enormous I only bought one and headed home. I sent Jason to a shop in town to buy pureed pumpkin and another shop to buy pecans.  At least after almost four years here I know where to go to find everything we need.

We invited two families to join us so we had six adults and eight kids and we all had a great night. Jason and I prepared the house and figured out where to seat everyone for dinner.  I made the sweet potato casserole, squash, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, chocolate cream pie and custard pie yesterday so today Jason put the turkey in the oven and we figured out the timing for all the side dishes.  It all worked out great and we served, turkey, sweet potato casserole, mashed potato, gravy, green beans, stuffing and the above mentioned pies.  I had cranberry sauce but in the rush of getting the kids food and sitting for our adult dinner I forgot to put it on the table.  We did have a brief power outage just as we were finishing up making all the sides but we figured out the problem and continued on with dinner.  We had such a great time talking that I completely forgot to take pictures so the only pictures I have are the ones I took before our guests arrived.  Such is life, I guess I was having so much fun I did not think to take pictures.

Velka Kunraticka

Today I ran the 77th annual Velka Kunraticka, which is a unique race run in a public forest in Prague.  The race is unique because it is only two miles but is on a forest trail with three stream crossings and three successively larger hills to climb up and back down: 90, 120 and 180 foot climbs.  I have wanted to run the race the past three years but the last two it just didn't work out so I really felt I needed to do it this year.  Mary and the girls came to cheer me on and we were fortunate to have an absolutely beautiful day that felt more like September than November. 

Because the race is on a narrow trail runners are started two at a time every ten seconds.  For me, number 1316, that meant I started about two hours after the first runners went.  With the nice weather it didn't really matter and before long I started the race down a completely muddy rutted trail.  After running through the first stream (that's me in the stream in the photo to the right) and gettnig up the first hill I knew I was in for something interesting.  .  My surprise came when I got to the second big hill - on the other side of a stream again - and noticed it was very steep and had a rope run up the side to help runners get up.  It was steep and slippery enough that I had to hold and pull the rope most the way up.  After another stream an even bigger hill climb and a much needed stretch of flat runing the trail went down to the finish.  I was tired, wet and muddy but thrilled I did the race.  The other victory for me was that I got to run the race at all and felt fine doing it.  Since last Saturday night I have been suffering from we assume was a bout of food poisoning.  I felt terrible most of the week and wasn't sure I'd be able to run.  My weight was even down about ten pounds after day four.  However, on Friday I felt things were largely better and yesterday my stomach was fine although I still felt a level of exhaustion.  I am very happy that I recovered in time to run.  I'd like to think my time would have been a couple minutes faster had I not been sick all week but this race wasn't about the time, just the experience of participating in a long running Czech tradition and getting the chance to run through the woods and get muddy. 

Reading

The girls are doing well with their reading.  Sofia is currently reading Rainbow Magic collection of books which she loves.  She has reading homework every night and is allowed to read the Rainbow Magic books.  When she completed a chapter the other night I couldn't believe how much faster she is reading  I thought for sure she would only get two pages read but she proved me wrong.  It is nice to see her enjoying her reading so much.  Ali has also improved in her reading and has moved up from stage 1 books to stage 4 books in just two months.  I took a video of her reading.  She has come a long way!



End of road excitement

Our road turns off the outside edge of a U shaped bend in the road.  You have to slow down a lot to make the bend.  We surprisingly had not seen any accidents here until the last couple of weeks when there have been two.  The first one we did not see but only saw the aftermath.  The car must have come down the road in the middle of the night and rather than follow the road around the U shape it shot straight off the road, jumping the ditch on the side of the road, going through some small trees, across our road and through the fence of the first cottage on our road.  I am amazed every time I drive past it since I can't imagine how fast this car was going to clear the ditch and how lucky the driver was to miss all the large trees and bricked electrical box.  I'm sure the driver isn't feeling very lucky though as he/she must have been very sore and the car must have been a complete wreck.  Last weekend a truck that had an additional back end attached to it must have come around the U bend to fast and tipped on its side.  It took about five hours to clear the road.  Jason had gone out to the store but then could not drive back to our road since it was blocked by a fire truck.  He ended up driving to the next village and across a bike path and up to our village pub where he parked and then walked home.  We all decided to see some of the excitement and headed down our road to watch them finally get the truck upright which they pulled upright and right into the ditch on the opposite since of the road.  We did not stay to watch them get the truck out of the ditch or to get the trailer upright since it was cold and drizzling outside but I'm hoping with two accidents and a road closure that people will start driving more cautiously especially with winter approaching.

Fireworks Night

Every year the kids school puts on an amazing fireworks display during the weekend closest to Guy Fawks Day.  We didn't go to the fireworks when the kids first started at school becuase they were too afraid of the loud noises made by the fireworks.  It wasn't worth it to bring them to something they would not enjoy.  The last two years we have gone to the fireworks and they absolutely love them.  Ali still covers her ears becuase it is so loud but the looks of pure amazement on their faces is worth a million dollars!  The fireworks display is amazing.  It is constant fireworks without any breaks for at least fifteen minutes.  The safety precautions that we have in the U.S. are not in place here so we aren't placed an entire football field away from the fireworks.  We stand far enough back to be safe but we are close enough that when we got home I realized all our jackets and clothing smelled like the sulphur from the fireworks smoke.  The entire area was covered in smoke so this isn't surprising but as kids we were never allowed to be close enough to any fireworks that we would be in the smoke!  While the kids do love the fireworks I think they are a bit overstimulating since Sofia was almost asleep in the car on the way home at 6:30 and they were both in bed and asleep by 7pm which is unheard of for Sofia to fall asleep in the car for a 5 minute drive.  It was a great night.

The only downside of the fireworks night has been for Jason.  This year and last year he had a hamburger which is provided by a caterer hired by the school for the night.  Both times now he has been horribly sick for days after.  I don't know if there is something bad in the burger or if they put something in that bothers his stomach but given the three days of feeling sick I'm guessing it is food poisoning.  Luckily the girls and I were spared!

The Napkin

Recently I was sitting at our kitchen table enjoying dinner with Jason and the girls when I found myself staring at my daughter in shock.  It is nothing serious or bad but it is a habit that has now crossed from Didon (Jason's father) to Jason to Sofia.  For those who knew Didon you know exactly what I'm talking about....the napkin folding!!!  It caught my eye when I noticed Sofia folding her napkin over to wipe her mouth.  She then proceeded to fold it a few more times and tuck it under the side of her plate.  Does that sound familier????  I turned to see if Jason noticed only to see his napkin folded neatly under the side of his plate!  For those who don't know how this plays out, it isn't just folding the napkin over once.  It is folding the napkin over and over into a tiny square so that the entire thing will fit under the edge of your plate.  Sofia hasn't quite mastered it well enough yet to get the entire thing under the side of her plate but I'm sure she will get there soon enough. So Grandpa Didon's fidgety-ness has passed all the way down to his grandchildren.  It's good to know he lives on in his son and grandaughter!