"We're leaving on a jet plane...."

Today is the big day. Our first trip back to the States. We leave in about one hour for the annual family trek to "the lake" in Northern Minnesota. We'll be flying from Prague to Amsterdam and then directly to Minneapolis. The entire trip will take us about 12 hours. So please pray for us and especially for Lydia... her mommy is very nervous about the flight, particularly the daunting task of entertaining a very active 17 month old little girl in a confined space!!

We asked for a "child fence" on the side of our terrace since it's a pretty big step and we could just imagine Lydia's face having a close encounter with the sidewalk below. This is what we got! I was quite impressed! Do you think the landlord is feeling guilty about the drawn out terrace reconstruction?!?!

In the park today with our church group, Lydia encountered a man on stilts. She had a lot to say about this in "Lydieish" (that's Lydia-English).

This, my friends, is what a VeggieTales Sing-along can do to two toddlers. Have you ever seen Lydia stand in one place for so long?!?

To Lydia, a whole apple tastes SO much better than slices. Enough for her to sit back, relax, cross her feet and enjoy the car ride (a true rarity for Miss Lydia!)

I can't believe my eyes!

Well, it appears as if the terrace may finally be complete! I was beginning to think this day may never come. And to think that when we were given the original "schedule", the expected completion date was June 6th. Back in May, I thought that sounded like a long time. A whole month to relay tile? Well... nearly 3 months later, I have a new perspective on Czech schedules and work days. Who knew that 2 hours of work was enough for 1 day? The workers came every day this week and I told Brandon, "It's amazing what one can accomplish if he actually works every day!" We have already had dinner on the terrace a couple of times and will really put it to the test on Wednesday when we are hosting a baptism ceremony in our pool!

This is what happens when you leave your computer sitting in your daughter's car seat. Last night, during the Tuesday evening church meeting, someone broke into Brandon's car and stole his computer. So... Brandon had the privilege of his 3rd police station visit. Unfortunately, yesterday was also the day our mail had arrived from the States and it was in his computer bag. I had the pleasure of informing 2 of my clients in the States that their payment checks had been stolen. Nice.

Weekend in the mountains

We had such a nice weekend. One of the engineers on Brandon's team had a cookout at his house on Saturday. We decided that I would pick Brandon up from work Friday night and we would spend the weekend at a little town on the Czech-Germany border. There is a river, mountains, bike-riding trails and a natural bridge formed in the rock. We headed out Saturday morning determined to see the natural bridge even though it was a 5+ km hike (one way). Little did we know what we were signing up for! We were even nieve enough to think we could take Lydia on the hike with her stoller. Hah! As we came to the beginning of the trail we quickly realized we would need to abandon the stroller in the trees and pick it up on our way back out. This meant that Brandon needed to carry Lydia all the way up (and back down) the mountain.

The hiking trail was strewn with rocks and uphill the entire way. I have no idea how high it was, but it was literally the top of the mountain. It took us about 45 minutes at a pretty steady pace. Once we got to the top, the view was breathtaking. Or maybe it was just the hike that was taking our breath?

Another highlight of the trip was the long-awaited return to the Walmart in Dresden. (Remember Easter weekend when Walmart was closed???). We finally made it and I have to say it wasn't American Walmart. Close, but not the same. The prices were definately cheaper than what we could get in the Czech Republic, but we realized that there really wasn't too much that we couldn't get here in Prague. (Other than Pampers Active-fit with elastic tabs... we purchased 2 value-sized boxes... and bleach).

We came home with our tummies filled with more than our share of coffee and fried foods (did I mention it was the German border?!?). Brandon possibly has pinkeye and Lydia has a whopper of a cold, but we still had a wonderful time.

The little town of Hrensko from the German side of the river.

Finally! A smile from Lydia at the culmination of our hike. But only when mommy sings "Itsy Bitsy Spider" while simulatneously snapping the picture.

God's creation is amazing

The biggest sandstone bridge in Europe, and the goal of our hike. Brandon and I were quite impressed. Lydia? Not so much.

Since it's nearly impossible to get 2 toddlers to pose for the camera in the same 2 feet of space, I've opted for individual shots. Here is Lydia's friend Eloise. Quite a model pose she has, huh?

I learned about a public swimming pool from Cathy (remember PTA?) and thought it would be fun to take a dip with Emily and Eloise. We headed out this morning and were quite impressed! It had a very nice lap pool, a large water slide and a wading pool that was perfect for our 2 toddlers. We quickly noticed that Lydia and Eloise were some of the only little tykes with bathing suits on... 95% of the kids had NO suit on. Made me think about what else we might be swimming in???

Lydia has realized she has hair and it's quite fun to run her broccoli covered hands through it: au naturale hair gel!

When the babysitter called in sick today, we went to Plan B: Mall excursion with our friends Emily and Eloise. Lydia and Eloise are going to be GREAT friends! They just don't know it yet.

St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna.

When Miss Lydia melted, Uncle Jeff came to the rescue with a pink balloon poodle. She loved it, until she bit it.

As you can see, the Mozart concert was a stunning, sit on the edge of your seat kind of concert.

Isn't she a stunning opera singer?

To Vienna and Back

In the past few days, we've driven to Vienna with Jeff & Andrea where we stayed 2 nights and viewed yet another cathedral, climbed 343 stairs in the cathedral tower, attended a touristy Mozert orchestra concert with the musicians wearing powdered wigs, had Starbucks coffee, toured the Vienna opera house and returned home. The highlight for Lydia was the tower climb. Guess she takes after her Daddy. But then again, she was carried all the way up and back down. Think I would've been making happy, bouncing sounds with every step too instead of huffing and puffing like I was!

We parted ways with Jeff & Andrea in Vienna. They continued on a train to Budapest, Hungary. We really had a great time with them, but Lydia was completely exhausted by the end of it all. I'm thinking of it as a dry run for our trip to Minnesota in 2 weeks.... multiplied by 3.

Our 5-month reunion with Towsonites, Jeff & Andrea, in Prague. Fun times!

Is this an artistic shot of the skulls at the Bone Church, or what? Courtesy of Jeff. (Guess you can tell he's the professional photographer in the group, huh?)

St. Barbora's Cathedral in Kutna Hora... Nice, but read on... the best was yet to come!

And their jaws fell open... literally!!!

We decided to venture out of Prague today with Jeff and Andrea. There is a town an hour or so away called Kutna Hora. There are the traditional cathedrals, churches, fountains, museums, etc. etc. But then, there is the most unusual site I have ever come across. The town has a small chapel on the grounds of a cemetary. Not so unusual until you consider the decoration of choice: human bones! The chandeliers are made solely from skulls, pelvic bones, spines, femurs, tebulas, you get the point. The arches in the ceiling and candelabras??? Bones. In the late 1800s the cemetary was overflowing and then the plague hit. What to do with all the excess bones? Decorate the chapel! What an excellent use of resources! The eery thing to think about was that all of these skulls used to be living, walking, breathing humans; someone's father or mother. Now they are a part of a candlestick and we're taking pictures of them. What can we say? We're tourists, and we like it!

The chandelier of bones. I'm thinking it would look GREAT in our living room!

Candle holders...

Need I say more?

Lydia with her two favorite buddies... Andrea and Nellie. Just like old times.

Lydia's new favorite game... wearing mommy's shoes.

Oh, happy day!

We have house guests! Jeff and Andrea (our WONDERFUL neighbors from the States) arrived in Prague yesterday. I picked them up from the airport at 10:30 a.m. and we picked up right where we left off in January. It's so nice to see them again and have a little dose of familiarity in a foreign land. They weren't able to sleep at all on the plane, but we put on our tourist hats anyway and headed downtown. Although the forecast was pretty dismal (80% chance of rain) we managed to dodge the precip until we were ready to head home. We visited the Old Square, Wencesles Square, Charles Bridge and a little market. (For those of you who are curious as to what these things are... you'll have to come and visit sometime and I'll show you too!!!). We wrapped up the day by grilling on our "almost finished terrace" and even managed to find some veggie hot dogs in Prague for our vegetarian guests. You'll see in the pics that Lydia made Andrea very proud by gobbling up TWO veggie dogs of her own!

Today (Friday) is very much rainy. Lydia and I are staying home and out of the rain, but Jeff and Andrea headed out to see Prague Castle, rain gear in hand.

The view of Prague is impressive, even for a local like me! :-)

Lydia makes Andrea so proud by demonstrating her appreciation of simulated meat products, i.e. veggie dogs / tofu pups. Mommy and Daddy still choose to stear clear of the fraudulant doggies.

Rain, rain go away!

So, what do you do on a rainy holiday??? July 5th and 6th are holidays here. Tuesday it started raining sometime in the night and rained all day long without stopping until 8:00 pm. We had a bit of cabin fever and braved the wet weather to visit the National Museum in Prague. We really didn't know what was at the museum, but had heard the building is beautiful inside. We were quite happy to discover the entire museum is dedicated to earth sciences. They have an absolutely amazing animal exhibit with every type of mammal, reptile, bird, insect, fish imaginable. Lydia was in awe, pointing and oohing and aahing everywhere she went. It was even better than the zoo because the animals don't move, it's not hot or stinky and everything is in glass displays so she could get up close and personal. Of course, everything was in Czech so we didn't exactly know what all of the animals were but I'm pretty sure Lydia didn't care anyway...

I think I'm such a big girl!

Inside the museum

"Ooooohhhhh"

Brave Foreigner

I did it! I feel like the bravest foreigner in all of Czech Republic. I was desperate for a haircut, so I ventured out this afternoon with my haircut photograph in hand and put my head in the hands of a non-English speaking Czech beautician. I randomly chose a hair salon when the one recommended by my babysitter didn't have any openings. I have to say it went quite smoothly and I even like the haircut better than the one two months ago by the beautician that "specializes" in foreigners! And at a cost of 350 crowns ($14) vs. 800 crowns ($33), I feel quite proud of summoning the courage to leap out of my box!

Lydia doesn't understand why she can't escape her car seat by getting her arms out of the straps and then sticking them back through. (Jeff & Andrea, here's a little preview of your trip to Vienna next week in the back seat with Lydia! Looks fun, huh?)

Enjoying my Czech birthday banana split.

The town of Cesky Krumlov as seen from the castle.

A small part of Cesky Krumlov castle... OF COURSE we climbed the tower! Do you expect anything different?

A night away.

We did it! For my birthday, we went away overnight... WITHOUT Lydia! I was a bit nervous about it, but she was still in one piece when we got home and it was so nice to go away and not have to be back in the hotel for naptime and bedtime at 8:00. I even think Lydia was upset that I was home (I'm pretty sure the babysitter WASN'T upset!). Lydia woke up crying from her nap and when I walked in her room and said "Look! It's Mommy!!!" she flopped down in her bed and cried even harder. Talk about warming my heart...

So we went to a town in southern Czech Republic called Cesky Krumlov. It's a medieval town with a pretty substantial castle. It also had an amazing theatre from the 1700s that has been 85% restored with original equipment. The scenery changes were all done with large painted panels that came in from the sides using an axle and ropes underneath the stage. It's one of only 2 theatres of its kind in the world because other theatres were mainly destoyed by fire because the techinique of the time for simulating lightning by using fireworks. Not a good idea.

After we got home, we wrapped up the birthday celebration downtown with a trip to Fridays where I had a big ol' American burger and fries. Couldn't ask for much more!