As I sit here and type I have movers buzzing all around me with the sounds of wrapping and taping!
It's nice not to have to do all that packing by myself!!  Whew!


We just got word this morning, right before the movers came, that Jerry's Spanish visa is approved!!  We are ecstatic!!  Mine and the kids should follow soon.  It seems to be custom for the husbands to come first and the wife & kid's visas to come about a month later.
So, we will board a plane on Monday and then have to mail Jerry's passport back to Prague soon thereafter for our helper to go get his visa.


Even though we have been anticipating this move for over a year it is also bittersweet to have to leave so many good friends and team mates.  So much has happened to us here.

At the same time we look forward to this next phase in our family's life and what the Lord has in store for us.

Once we get settled I hope to be back to blogging more frequently.  Until then....

Adios!!

I came across this on a HP friend's blog I frequent and had to share!  Nothing like making minivan driving look cool!!  Ha!  Love it!!



I'm a newbie when it comes to putting videos on blogger. I selected the smallest window and it's cutting it off on my blog, sorry about that. Have no idea how to fix it.

So you've probably heard me talk about us getting our Czech driver's license to make it easier to get our Spanish driver's license and be able to drive upon our arrival in Spain.
The first step towards getting a driver's license is to get a check up to show you're healthy.  Off we went on Friday to have our exam.
Mind you, I am not a fan of Czech poliklinikas (clinics).  They smell funny, look dirty and often times have paint peeling from the ceiling.  This particular one did not, but I've seen others that did.  Not to mention that this particular poliklinika looked like it had church pews from the 1950s gracing the hallways!  Ha!






And I didn't have a chance to take a picture of the hole in the floor under one of the "pews" where our translator was sitting or one of the broken benches.  
I didn't think it appropriate to take pictures during our "physical."  I will say that the inside of their exam room/office was much nicer looking, as was the lobby.  I just couldn't get past the smell though.  You know that hospital smell in America?  It's worse than that!!!
The exam took all of 30 seconds for each of us (me and Jerry) and I couldn't believe that was it!  They didn't even check our eye sight.  Only asked if we wore glasses.  The sestra (nurse) checked our breathing with a stethoscope and then took our blood pressure.  That was it!  I guess that makes us fit to drive!
After our exam, since we had our babysitter keeping the kids, we headed to our favorite coffee shop, Gloria Jeans.  Then we headed to lunch with our colleague, Megan to one of our favorite restuarants, Maly Buddha, for some crab springrolls & prawns.
We were close to where Angela & I had taken the kids through the orchard, so I thought I'd show them the route we took.  We had to go "off path" a little bit.

After our retreat was over, one or our team families stayed a few extra days.  The first day me and the kids tagged along with them to Prague's tv tower, otherwise known as the Baby Tower.
A Czech artist by the name of David Černý put babies on the tower (not sure how that came about).  The locals liked it and the babies became a permanent fixture.  The tower has one of the best views in Prague.


 I didn't bring a camera and he did a great job of capturing my kiddos (while Angela stood behind and held the kids on the ledge.  Ha!)!





The next day, Michael was one sick guy.  I hated for their last day to be spent inside and we didn't NEED our 6 kids to be cooped up, even if Michael couldn't go.  So, us 2 mamas got brave and went out on the town.  And did you hear me say "SIX KIDS!!!"  I don't go very far with my 3 alone, so the fact that I was suggesting this was a major step forward for me!  Ha!  And I later realized that because of my confidence, it made Angela confident to do it!  Ha!  I suggested to Angela that we take the funicular up to the top of Petřín Hill.
 There is a beautiful walk over to the castle with beautiful views.
When we got to the funicular there was a huge tour group, so we decided to wait.  I knew there was a little play area right around the corner.

 We let the kids play and then decided to go check out the line.  We had to wait a short time and soon found ourselves loading up on the funicular to the top.

 There are some beautiful gardens at the top and with the trees and flowers budding it is a great time to take a stroll......or run in the case of our kiddos!  Ha!



 We found another little play area and made another stop.
Here we are in front of the Observation Tower on Petřín Hill, a mini replica of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
 I decided we could walk down the hill.....me forgetting how steep it was, but the kids did well and we shot through an orchard to get to "Mickey Ds" a little quicker.  It was a gorgeous walk down.
I should have known that the McDonald's by the Charles Bridge would be a mad house with little to no seating.  There is a small courtyard behind the McDonald's and we headed back there with the kids.  It was disgusting back there!!  There had to be layers of dirt and food with probably the occasional homeless finding it as a refuge in the cold (although we didn't see any).  While I went to order, taking Angela's 7 year old to help me, Angela found some paper to put down for the kids to sit on.  It was not ideal but in this area of town there was really no where else to take them.  But, we made the most of it and some Italian students fell in love with Angela's littlest even stopping to take pictures with him.  It was kind of humorous!

 We were so proud of ourselves for making it through, even though I had a peak of frustration with our McDonald's situation (mostly mad at myself for thinking this particular McDonald's would be doable.  Oh and maybe that 2 of our kids dropped their burgers on those nasty steps.  Ha!).
We caught a tram and made our way back home to give our kids some rest.
We had a great time with our house guests even though they left a little of their sickness behind.  Ha!

It has been non-stop, one thing after another around here the past few weeks.  With Jerry's trip to London, then his delayed return, Karis' birthday, then a trip to the emergency room for a team member's child, a death of someone close on our team, then preparing for a team retreat, participating in the retreat, housing 2 families (back to back, not at the same time!) during and after the retreat, going on the town with one of the families and now I have a sick child.  It has been one crazy ride this month.  I'd say that things are slowing down, but we are in the midst of renewing our Czech visas (since it has to be current to get our Spanish visas), getting a Czech license (to be able to easily get a Spanish license), sell and get rid of lots of stuff.  Oh, and throw a birthday party for some twinks (a sweet little nickname given to our twins by some friends).  I think Jerry is beginning to wonder if we'll be able to get it all done by June 8.  We'll see!
Back to our retreat!!  Some of our team members had never met in person (although had met through weekly video conferencing).  We started off Friday afternoon with everyone coming into town.  We got the men settled with the kiddos at our office space (the media team's old office space, some others of our colleagues use it now, long story) and the gals went out on the town!!  I tried to take a pic with my not so fancy camera, but I couldn't get it to turn out.  I took the ladies to a local tea room where we could choose from ham & cheese or vegetarian sandwiches, various teas and dessert.  One of the ladies does not live close to a Starbucks, so we took our little party to the Starbucks down the street to then enjoy coffee!  Can you say caffeine overload?!  Ha!  We had such a great time and finished up the evening with a walk over the Charles Bridge.
 Saturday morning the guys, plus our one journey girl, had some training time while the moms and kids had a slow morning with some of us hanging out at our house.  When the guys plus Megan, were done we headed to the zoo for lunch and to see some animals while some others toured Prague.  We have tons of zoo pics so we decided to fore go the camera.  Plus, as always, we were having such a good time that the camera was forgotten at times.
We finished up the day with a light dinner at the office and headed home to get the kids a bath.
Here is Jacob & Brennan (they are 5 months apart) on Sunday morning.
Jacob is one of our team member's kids and our first house guests this past weekend.  These two were the early birds and I spent about 45 minutes with just the 2 of them watching Spiderman and drinking our morning milk, mine being of the coffee version.  These 2 or so cute and became buds over the weekend!  I sure wish we lived closer!
After we all got ready we headed back to the office to have a time of worship, ate a quick bite to eat and headed the park to play and enjoy some last minutes together.