Gracie!!!

Clark's best school friend is Grace. They have been together since nursery and have a great affinity towards each other. They have always loved being with each other, they play hard, fight well, watch each others' backs, are generous and mostly kind to each other, they also have always had a friendship that is quite uncommon at this age. It is like they met and have always loved one another. Sadly Grace and her family are moving back to England this summer. We had a final Clark and Grace play date. No siblings, no other friends, just them. They had gotten each other a few gifts that they exchanged. They just had two hours of pure bliss. It was wonderful. I know this will not be goodbye to Grace or the rest of the Simister family as we are going to go and visit them, but we will definitely miss having them in the day to day.

Field Trips

Lots of field trips for the last two weeks of school... Lucy went to the Imax theater to learn about how those massive movies are shown and then they got to watch one. They both had a boat trip, followed by park and picnic day. Then Lucy went to the Slavia stadium to learn about structures and buildings. So it has been a fun change of the day to day for them but a lot. They still have about one more week left and then it will be summer vacation!!! Here are some photos from our boat/park and picnic day.

we had one hot day....

it has been cold and yucky here but we did have one really hot and humid day and this is what the pool looked like.....

Goodbye Miss Teske

We have had to say a lot of goodbye this years. The first one was Miss Teske. She has been an assistant in Clark's class. He had a special friendship with her and will miss her dearly. She is very talented (she wrote a book), makes jewelry and always had great stories for the kids. The reception class has never used so much glitter and probably never will again. She has been a sweet friend to all of us.

Piano

Lucy and Clark have been taking piano lessons this year. They have loved having Miss Debby come and teach them each week. They are both doing well, still in the very beginner stage of piano playing. The school has a concert each year for any children taking private lessons to give them a chance to perform. Lucy opted not to perform, but Clark was really excited about it. He was the youngest performer and Mr. Haig said they usually do not let reception children perform but that they would make an exception this year. He played one song called Up and Down and it lasted about 10 seconds but he was really proud of himself and we were so proud of him. I can't wait to see how much he learns this year.

Community Group

We have had a great time this year with our Community Group. We get together each week for bible study, prayer and accountability. It has been a fun group and we are sad that several of them are moving away this year. This is our last week together - we had a fun cookout and prayer time.

skirts

Piper got a new skirt from Yaya and Papa and she wore it to church. She is really into her skirts right now she has this one that she refers to as "rainbow", a gold one that is called "yellow", and a thin pink one that is just "pink". It is fun to watch her personality come out - she not only loves skirts, but sunglasses and shoes. These pink flip flops are her favorites right now. She truly is a fashionista!

Beach Day!

In between our two weeks in Greece we had a much-needed free day - our brains needed a break! So we rented a car with the great Passerelli family in London and headed to the other side of the island we were on, ending up at this beautiful little cove. Our kids loved hanging out with each other over the two weeks, and we really enjoyed getting to spend good time with Dan and Somer. It was a beautiful day!

Greece - Mission Wide Conference

Our mission agency, World Harvest Mission, has a worldwide conference every 3 or 4 years, which is a special time for us to re-connect with and meet new colleagues doing cool stuff all over the world. We convened in Greece, outside Athens, for the last two weeks. We had a keynote speaker, various meetings, along with sun, great food, and free ice cream. London, Kenya, Chile, Ireland, Spain, and Uganda are just a sampling of those represented - and even though everyone is doing fairly different kinds of things, we all enjoyed each other so much and had a great time fellowshipping, praying, and playing together!

Our hotel was very nice and comfortable, complete with a fantastic pool where we spent almost all our free time.

Our Prague team put together an entertaining skit for skit night - the Spiritual Armor of God Fashion Show (also celebrating the 70s and 80s)...

We had lots of fun and came back to Prague with some renewed passion for what we do. We're honored to be in a great mission agency like WHM and be connected with so many great people.

summer garden

Our garden has done well this year, probably because of all of the rain and cold weather. We have tomatoes, lettuce, rosemary, and bell peppers that look FABULOUS! We are still waiting for broccoli and sadly our basil died. It has been fun tending to it and we look forward to eating it.

park fun

We spent a fun afternoon at the park with lots of friends. Jump rope was involved as well as lots of attempts at double dutch, snacks, climbing, and a budding romance.

quiet time

Phil's mom sent these amazing books that fold out and become a stage to play with. Lucy's was a mermaid under-sea world and Clark's was a castle. They put both books together and played with them ... for a very long time. It was really fun to listen to them making up stories and the dialogue they used was so funny. Clark had different voices for different characters. And really it was a great way for them to spend the afternoon.

Horse Farm Field Trip

A couple of weeks ago Piper's class had a field trip to a horse farm. Lucy and Clark remembered it from when Clark went with his class. They were especially excited to see Miss Petra's horse Pupek (bellybutton). The day started with a beautiful drive to the farm, snack time, horse rides, a walk in the countryside and then lunch. It was a fun day. But notice that we are still bundled up... the prague sun had still not made its way out.