You know it's warm outside when....

the work briefs make their appearance!

April 25th marks the date of my first sighting of 2006. For those of you who don't know what I am referring to -- work briefs are one of the many experiences that accompany life in the midst of a construction zone. Regardless of body shape, type, age or fitness level, some construction workers feel the need to do their strenuous work in their underwear. I have yet to determine if these are indeed their underwear, or some other imposter purchased at the local "Work Briefs Shop" solely for the purpose of performing outdoor work such as shoveling gravel, tiling roofs, digging trenches and the like. Either way, it's not a pleasant sight to happen upon when one innocently returns to their home after a nice morning walk in the park. Next year I may have some explaining to do: "Mommy, why is that man outside in his panties?" or "Why can't I go outside in my panties?".... Oh boy.

Walkin' on Sunshine

Lydia and I were so lucky to have a chance to explore a park nearby called Divoka Sarka. It was a beautiful spring day and we had so much fun with our friends Ms. Emily, Eloise and Lillian! Here you see our two precious beauties holding hands on the walk. Ok, ok... I admit, they only held hands long enough for me to capture this picture, but it's a first step in these little girls' budding friendship!

Who is that Masked Man?

Faster than a speeding bullet.
More powerful than a locomotive.
Able to suck up dog doo in a single swoosh.
Look! There on the sidewalk!
It's an ATV. It's a vacuum. It's...
SUPER-POOPER SCOOPER!

(aren't you glad he's wearing a helmet???)

Spring has finally sprung!

No... this isn't a form of Czech time-out. It's what 2-year olds do to entertain themselves at the park. Not only that, they surprised their mommies by being able to climb the rope ladder (and other non-safety regulated ladders) without assistance! Guess our little girls grew up over the long winter...

Becoming Daddy's Little Girl

Lydia is recently showing an affection for Daddy. Maybe she's finally catching on that HE is the fun one. Last night after dinner Lydia brought book after book for Daddy to read. And the real surprise was when SHE initiated cuddle-time and laid her head down on his chest... a truly rare (i.e. non-existant) occurance in the life o' Lydia.

The Easter Bunny is a close relative of the Energizer Bunny... he just keeps going and going and going....

Today the friendly Ceska Posta man rang the bell holding a special box from Northwest Iowa. Aunt Robin prepared a special box for Lydia and boy was Lydia excited! Not only was there enough candy inside to last until Christmas, but also some cool ink stampers, a windup jumping Easter egg, and 2 bendy bunnies. The bendy bunnies have already hugged, kissed, danced and played ring-around-the rosie... and all of this was only during lunch time!

So you are the best, Auntie Robin (and Uncle Don too, for being willing to pay the obscene postage)!!! And we have you to thank for the sugar high that is currently preventing Lydia from taking a nap! :-)

This one takes the cake!

I stole this picture from my friend, Sunny Evan's, blog. She perfectly captured Lydia's true emotions upon seeing the special cake at the Easter Egg Hunt on Sunday. Her words went something like this: "Aaaawwwwwwww".

Easter Monday

Since the Czech Republic is not a Christian country, Easter Sunday is generally unobserved. The country observes Easter Monday instead (read more about their unique traditions below). Since Brandon had Monday off, we enjoyed a wonderful day as a family.

We headed out first thing in the morning for Coffee Heaven... one macchiato for Brandon, a decaf cappuccino for Ann-marie and lots of cappuccino foam for Lydia!



Then it was time to visit the "Easter sheep" taking up short-term residence in Old Town Square. This was clearly the highlight of the morning for Lydia. She even fed the sheep some lettuce leaves by hand (something Mommy was much too intimidated to do), and said "There you go!" with each teeny morsel of greens that the sheep very eagerly ate. And yes, sheep DO have teeth.


Next was a short walk to visit an outdoor sculpture exhibit in one of the squares downtown. I had seen pictures of this very unique exhibit and thought Lydia would be intrigued. They were sculptures by the Czech Republic's most famous living sculptor, Olbram Zoubek. Lydia was quite curious, saying "What's that" over, and over, and over.... All of the figures were tall and skinny, and let's just say we got our visual fill of sculpted genitalia.


The morning concluded with some playtime in the park then home for lunch and a nap. Our day was wrapped up with an extremely tasty dinner with our friends, the Stones. Emily made Thai chicken that was yummy, yummy, yummy! Eloise and Lydia got some bonus playtime too. It's so fun to see them start to play with each other peacefully.

Whew! What a FUN day!!!!

Meanwhile...

As we were enjoying good, clean fun as a family on Easter Monday morning... the Czech men were keeping busy whipping the women with the types of whips you see here. They are called Pomlaska. It's a tradition that no one seems to know the roots of, but I will tell you -- those roots run deep! Apparently, women willingly participate in this tradition with the hope that it will bring them "health, beauty and good luck". Um, yeah. The men head out into their villages as early as 7 am, and begin whipping the females. In exchange, the females are supposed to give them eggs, chocolate or a drink. Inevitably, the men end up quite drunk by noon and I envision that the whippings get more intense! Brandon's Czech co-worker, Petr, encouraged Brandon to participate in this tradition. Then Petr went on to inform us that his wife even went out a purchased his whip FOR him! Is that love or what?!? I made it clear that no such purchases (or subsequent activities) would take place in our civilized American household...

He is Alive!

What a beautiful Easter Sunday! We had a special Easter service with our fellowship and were blessed with several visitors, most of whom were Czech. In fact, the children's church even needed translation!

The kids participated in the service by "singing" a fun song about Easter complete with hand motions and then learned the Easter story when Jon Stone illustrated it with the aid of Resurrection Eggs. Each egg holds an object that represents part of the story. Even Lydia sat still for the entire story... Jon must be a great storyteller!!!



After the service we had a potluck lunch and loads of yummy desserts. It was such a blessing to enjoy the special day with our children and also with some new Czech friends, many of whom are yet unsaved. Please pray that as a fellowship we can continue to reach the Czech people and find new ways to build relationships with them.

The Hunt

Our church fellowship organized an Easter Egg Hunt at a play area in a mall nearby. It was Lydia's first experience with such an activity, so I wasn't sure she would "get it". It didn't take long for her to catch on! However, after finding about 5 eggs, the big red slide had much more of a lure, and Lydia quickly abandoned the hunt.


There were nearly 50 plastic candy-filled eggs hidden. And among these were 3 special eggs which entitled the finder to a special prize--a giant Easter egg with a stuffed chick inside. One of the older children in the group found all three, but she was so sweet and shared the other 2 prizes with Eloise and Lydia.


Eloise carefully keeping watch over her special Easter egg.


"Slides over eggs any ol' day!"

Christmas in April

We have visitors from the States!!! Our Small Groups pastor from Towson, Rick, and his wife, Betsy, arrived Monday for a week and a half in Prague. They're staying with us, and we are so excited to have someone occupying our guest room!

When they arrived, they may as well have been dressed as Santa and Mrs. Claus, because it was like Christmas around here. They fulfilled my "order" of Jello, instant pudding, decaf hazlenut coffee, and Swimmers diapers for Lydia. Then if that wasn't enough, they brought books for us (in ENGLISH!) and a gift of Easter chocolates from the Bell family -- the missionary family living in our house in the States. I never knew Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs could taste so yummy! Yesterday I ate THREE, and then proceeded to hide the evidence in the trash can. When my guilt got the best of me and I confessed to Brandon, he was appalled. Today I have managed to limit my intake to only one.

Rick and Betsy also delivered the new digital camera Brandon had ordered. To say he was giddy when we went sightseeing yesterday is an understatement. He was on a constant hunt for photo opps, scampering around St. Vitus Cathedral like a little church mouse in search of cheese. He says he thinks he has found his new hobby... and surprised me with the artistic shots that he captured. Who knew that an engineer even HAS a right side of the brain?!?!? I found this list of typical occupations for right side brain dominant people...

Forest ranger
Wildlife manager
Beautician
Politician
Athlete
Artist
Craftsman
Actor/Actress

...if Brandon even hints that he'd like to style my hair, we're moving away from Europe immediately! Here are some samples of his budding creativity... Go Brandon!

The Day the Circus Came to Town...

Today was an exciting, fun day for all of us! Lydia experienced her first circus... the rest of us experienced a bit of a cultural lesson! :-)

When I saw the circus was setup at a park near us, I couldn't avoid the temptation. We checked if our friends, the Stones, were interested and when they said "yes", plans were set in motion. To make the show the most interesting for our 2-year old girls, we splurged for the higher priced tickets which put us within feet of THE ring (it was a one-ring circus)... and the stampeding animals therein! Let's just say the safety standards were not the same as we have come to expect in the States. Have you ever seen the TV show "When Good Animals Go Bad"? This venue seemed a plausible place for those scenes to occur. With only a 3 foot wall as a barrier, Emily and I breathed a sigh of relief when a temporary cage was constructed before the tigers were brought out. This turned out to be a really good thing when the tigers appeared moderately trained and slightly rebellious. They reminded me of those disobedient toddlers whose parents are constantly "counting to 3".

What else was a cultural lesson? Well, we stood for what we determined was the Czech National Anthem (our first hint was when everyone stood up)... Everything was obviously spoken in Czech, which made the clowns' acts a little harder to "get"... and the Czech circus has a much more "creative" slant. I.e., Lots of girls dancing to hip-hop music, with or without the aid of enormous writhing nylon octupus-like creatures or larger than life nylon slinkys.

All in all Lydia seemed quite impressed. She stood in awe for the duration of the 2-1/2 hour show speaking up only to ask for "More clowns, more horses or more popcorn". Ahhh, fun for the whole family!


Cameras were not allowed to avoid provoking the tigers, so Brandon took this one illegally. Question is: "Is that tiger eyeing Lydia or her pop-pop???"