Green machine

Our friend who works at Riverside as the school media/tech guy took this picture of Clark yesterday... it's amazing he comes home clean.

Berlin, day 4 - a.k.a. Stuff Yourselves Silly

We hadn't even planned on staying another day, but we ended up extending our time in Berlin, so the last day looked like this: walk, shop, eat, repeat.  We hit the Pizza Hut and Dunkin' Donuts one more time (and stocked up on yummy food to take home), and shopped a little bit more before we hit the road and made the 4-hour trip back to Prague.  We really had a great time together, and even though our plans changed several times during the week, everyone rolled with it and stayed flexible.  We enjoyed Berlin a lot, and with all the snow it felt like a New York City winter adventure!

Berlin, day 3

By now we were in a groove... wake up, eat a big breakfast (especially the heart-shaped waffles), make our way into town, and find something fun to do.  On Day 3 we went to Sea Life, a big aquarium in the center of town.  It was another big hit with the kids.

At the end there's this huge tank with an elevator that runs in the middle of it.  Very cool.

Afterwards it was time to treat ourselves to more treats so we went to a cute little cupcake cafe appropriately called "Cupcake." Yum.

More driving, more walking, and we ended up back at the hotel and finished off the evening with a big snowball fight in the parking lot.

Could it be?

We didn't have the guts to ring the bell...

Berlin, day 2 (part 2)

After LegoLand it was a short walk past the Holocaust Memorial (where Shanna gave an excellent summary of the Holocaust, Hitler, and the Jews on a 6-year-old level - try that for fun!) to the Berlin Wall and the Brandenburg Gate.  I've always wanted to see the remnants of the Wall since 1989 - a German foreign exchange student friend gave me a piece of the wall in 1990, one of my favorite gifts ever.

The Gate was also cool to see, although Piper pretty much hit the wall (proverbial, not Berlin) at this point...

We capped the day off with some awesome Mexican food from a place recommended to us by our Prague friend Carrie, who had studied in Berlin for some time.  It was so good we went back the next day for lunch!

Berlin, day 2 (part 1)

One of our "free" activities was going to LegoLand Museum. This was a great place for the kids to run around and explore, and it was right in the center of the city. They showed us how they make legos (most of which are made here in the Czech Republic!), we got to watch a 4-D movie (where they blow air and spray water on you while you watch the 3-D movie), and they had a little train ride to find the Lego dragon.

The Lego sculptures were pretty impressive. Piper's favorite was this little Anime-looking girl... she kept staring at it and giggling...

Phil bonded with Indy...

We all liked the big giraffe outside...

And there was a huge room with Berlin's famous sculptures all made from legos...

Berlin, day 1

We had a nice family holiday in Berlin last week for 4 days, since the kids were on half-term break. We found a great-looking hotel online with a family room, pool, free breakfast buffet, and more. After a loooooong car ride with several "family discussions" about behavior, we arrived at the hotel to find that the pool was being serviced and would be unavailable all week. That was a bummer, but the hotel went out of their way to make amends - we got a nice discount and some free passes to various kids' activities.

After recovering from the ride we headed into the center for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. We enjoyed introducing Piper to nachos, and Lucy watched her first Shakira music video. (Maybe that's why she's been shaking her hips so much?)

We went back to the hotel and crashed, to get ready for day 2!

swimming

We spent the morning swimming at a local indoor pool. It was nice to be warm without a ton of layers on. All of our kids love the water especially this little one... this was during her lunch break.

Valentine's Day

We had a little family celebration with a few cards and small presents. Lots of hugs and kisses which quickly turned to dancing excitement because the Falk's were coming for a Valentines cookie baking day. We love the Falk's, they are an amazing family whom we've come to love like family. Connie, Sarah and Mark came for baking, decorating and lots of artistic expression. Each of these cookies were little works of art. Especially the stackable ones! It was such a fun and relaxed time that we are already talking about when it can happen again. Our friend (and Clark's teacher) Leanne offered to babysit since her husband was out of town and we took her up on it. We went to dinner and a movie which we thoroughly enjoyed. (Thanks Leanne!)

sleepover club

We spontaneously had Vivi and Michelle stay the night after Piper's party, they borrowed pj's and used their finger as a toothbrush (which all the kids thought was so great). Lots of squeels and excitement and lots of chatter before bed (mostly by Clark). They were all passed out by 9:45. The next morning was Valentines day and we started it right with heart shaped pumpkin muffins for breakfast and a few Valentine craft projects. It was a lot of fun and a bit of foreshadowing into our future.

Piper's Party (take 2)

Since we were all (4 out of 5) sick on Piper's actual birthday we decided to reschedule her party. We celebrated her in style this weekend. We had a few friends come over for cake and homemade ice cream. It was wonderful! Here she is in her new birthday dress that Miss Lucie our friend gave her. This is before the party fun....

Balloons she LOVES them. All day everytime we walked into the kitchen she would shriek with excitment...She stuck her little fingers into the cake but she was very lady like while she tasted just a bit of it...

Clark and Lucy taught her well... she loves presents or shall I say the tissue paper...

We had a great time... we are so blessed to have such sweet friends come and celebrate Miss Sweet P. Cake and Ice cream turned into a pizza dinner that then ended in a sleep over for Lucy and Clark with Vivi and Michelle. We couldn't have asked for a better way to kick off a holiday week.

He works with 6-year-olds

Here's Lucy's teacher on International Day.  He's Scottish.  We think he's awesome.

international day

Every year the school holds an international day. Each upper school class picks a country and then represents it through food, clothing and specialty items. There is also a fair where they set up booths and decorate them so that each class can come for a visit. Lucy and Clark's classes are considered early years, so they got to go to all of the booths to participate and they also got to dress up wearing either something from there home country or colors of their flag. As you can tell Lucy is wearing red, white and blue like the American flag. Whereas Clark has decided he is from Africa and wanted to be an elephant, so he did. I am not joking this is what he wore to school today!

my favorite toy

This is Pipers favorite toy, a little bird house that she got from Papa and Yaya at Christmas. This is the one and only thing that she will sit in the living room by herself and play with. She takes all of the birds out and then puts them all back in. She has even started to add a few other choice items to the collection of things she stuffs into it. If she is not playing with this then she is crawling at the speed of light to all the no-touch items that she can. So as you can tell this is mommy's favorite toy too....

walk along the river

Clark's class had a field trip, a walk along the river to look for patterns and shapes. He was very excited especially since it was snowing... we had a great time until he realized we were heading back to school... he did not want his field trip to end. And then he was even more sad when he realized I wasn't staying the rest of the day. After some tears and Mrs. Clarke pulling him off of me, me saying I love you and I'd be back later as I left, I got a text message saying he was fine and enjoying his snack.

sweet thing

Ready?

Church at a train station

Sunday was our first service at our new building - a real live, working train station! This place is great - we had already hosted an event here a few weeks ago, but this was our first Sunday. The feedback was very positive, and there weren't any major glitches. (thanks to Zach for most of these pictures I'm "borrowing")

One of the best parts is that it's a 10-minute walk from our house, and for some people at church, it's literally 2 minutes away. I loved walking there on Sunday, and it's exciting to think about us having a permanent office there now as well - we can really be a neighborhood community!

Foggy hike

While Shanna was at the baby shower for Laura, my goal was to get out of the house with Piper and Clark. We went to the big park nearby for a (very short) hike and then ended up at McDonald's for a long lunch.