Martina & Libor drove us to the airport. Our flight was about 45 minutes delayed, but we still made our connecting flight in London without any problem.
Karolina packed breakfast for everyone and labeled them along with a little picture. Sebi wants to put his in his "memory" box.
On the way to the airport
Saying goodbye to Martina and Libor. Lots of tears were shed. I'm crying right now as I'm typing this, remembering our ABSOLUTELY AMAZING, WONDERFUL hosts!
I had no idea there were wind-farms in the ocean!
Blue painters tape is a great way to keep the kids occupied on the plane. Gabriella made this one. Can you tell it's a horse?
Sebi made this one.
Our bus from the airplane to the terminal was packed. Tobi & Sebi were so proud that they were able to sit "alone".
Katja waiting for us at O'Hare International.
We were jam packed driving from Chicago back home.
Thanks be to God for an incredible experience and for keeping everyone safe during our travels. How blessed we are!
We spent pretty much all day Sunday packing. We went to church of course and said goodbye to the priest and to several of the nice ladies who always stop and try to talk with me after Mass.
I tried to get a video of Sebastian taking up the gifts with the other children, but he got sad because there wasn't anything left for him to carry so he snuck back to our pew and found him behind me after I took this video. Anyhow, it shows you some of what a typical Czech Mass is like in Zamberk.
This is just some audio of the pretty music they played at Mass today.
I'd like to find out who composed it, so if anyone recognizes it, please let me know.
Saturday morning we had another wonderful opportunity to experience some beautiful Czech horses. We went to the farm of a friend of Libor's. We got to ride in a wagon pulled by two horses while some of the kids took turns riding a third horse.
The girl was so nice, she ran alongside the horse while Annika &
Gabriella were riding so they could experience a trot
(or a canter - I can't tell the difference!)
She sure got her workout today!
Tobiah thought it was so funny that his helmet kept falling over his
eyes that he started doing it on purpose
They were butchering a pig that day on the farm, so I took some pictures for Petr since that is one of his favorite childhood memories.
Fresh Jaternice (pork liver sausage)
Afterwards the father of the household insisted that we share a shot with him.
It actually tasted REALLY good. I think it was a cherry liquor of some sort.
Later in the day Mirka, Milan, Milan, Jr., & Marketa stopped by to say goodbye. Mirka was so kind to give Gabriella & Annika some cute Czech haircuts before the big Corale party tonight.
This evening we went to the Corale party. Karolina tried to translate it for us and she said it translates to "A Happy Party". It was wonderful. So much fun, great entertainment and I got to talk to so many member of Corale, many of whom stayed at our home in 2006. We left around 11:30 and I didn't want to go. I could have stayed another 4 hours - which is probably how long the party lasted!
Czech out the decorations
Cute little chlebíček which translates to "little bread".
I love these!
Our ticket...Did they know 7 is my favorite number?
Great Entertainment at the Party!
Again, sorry for the bad audio quality of these videos.
The music was so loud my phone just couldn't handle it.
Tobiah wanted to help make breakfast - Czech Cream of Wheat
After breakfast I went to the doctor's to have my foot xrayed. When we found out how inexpensive it was for Gabriella's xrays we thought we may as well get the xrays done just to make sure I didn't have a stress fractures, and I don't. Yay! However, they said I have a lot of wear & tear between the bones, so that could be causing the pain. If it doesn't get better on it's own, I'll probably have to see a doctor in the states after the New Year.
In the afternoon we went for a walk with Andrea & Robin. We stopped at a few parks along the way for the kids to play.
Andrea & Robin
We found another zipline...Tobiah loves it!
Robin taking his first zipline ride with his big cousin, Luke.
Queen of the Tree Trunk
Sebastian just loves playing with Robin
ALL SOUL'S DAY
After dinner we walked to the cemetery for Dušičky (All Soul's Day) to place some wreaths and candles on the graves...a tradition that almost every Czech person does on this day.
The cemeteries are absolutely glowing on this night.
Mass at the cemetery chapel
The cemeteries are soooo beautiful all lit up on Dušičky!!!!
Sebastian placing a wreath on Libor's mother's grave.
We were joking earlier in the day because of my foot and Gabriella's arm that Annika was next to get an injury and sure enough this afternoon she was running around outside with Zak and she slipped and wrenched her knee, so she's taking it easy this afternoon.
After dinner Pavel arrived just as the kids and I were headed out the door to go to Mass.
Today went to the rectory and raked leaves again. They gave us a bushel of apples as a thank you. We had a hard time carrying it home especially since we had to stop at the grocery store on the way home. We also stopped at the Kral's to pick up the picture he had done of the kids.
Here's the final product. Hopefully you can recognize everyone!
And here's the artist, Slavik Kral, with his work. If anyone thinks you would like to have him do a picture for you,
please let us know and we will put you in contact with him. He is a wonderful man and I know his family
could definitely use a little extra money!
Here's a practice version that he did. Sebastian looked too old though,
so he re-did it trying to make him look more his age.
In addition to making the decorations, Karolina asked if we could make some cheesecakes to sell at the Corale party on Saturday night, so I practiced making them this afternoon. They finally sell Philadelphia cream cheese in the Czech Republic, but it is VERY expensive and it is more of the spreadable cream cheese rather than the more firm cream cheese that comes in the boxes.
Andrea & Robin came to visit today....not sure when Pavel will be here yet.
Again...we didn't do too much today...just school, decorations & catching up on a few days of blogging. It was snowing again tonight, so we took a nice walk through the town (even though my foot was really hurting me).
On Monday we just relaxed after the long day in Prague. My foot was really hurting me from walking all day. We did a little bit of school, but not much. In the afternoon I took Gabriella to the doctor to see if she needed a new cast. I had a bit of a problem talking with the receptionist, so I called Libor to have him translate some information for her. They spoke for a minute or so then hung up the phone. I was then talking with her for another minute or two and then we were turning around to sit down in the waiting room and who do I turn around and bump into...Libor. He said, "I just wanted to run over here to make sure everything went smoothly for you." Then he sat with the kids in the waiting room while Gabriella and I were in with the doctor. What an amazing guy! It turned out that they didn't think we needed to take any new x-rays and they thought the cast she had on could stay until we got back home and had our own doctor take a look at it.
Later on we worked on the decorations some more.
Here's how they look so far.
Annika recording Sebastian being goofy!
When we were getting ready for bed I was sitting on the bed and a pillow was covering up my leg. Annika jumped on the bed not knowing my leg was there and ouch...the pain was so bad I thought I was going to pass out.
Sunday morning Gabriella, Nate and I (and Libor) woke up very early...4:45...to drive 30 mintues (on snowy roads - with me driving I might add) to Usti in order to catch the 6:18 train to Prague. Libor wasn't going with us to Prague, he just woke up to warm up the car for us, scrape the ice of the windows and refill the windshield wiper fluid (bless his soul!)
We made it on time to our train and arrived in Prague a little after 8 am.
Nate in front of the St. Wenseslaus statue
From Wenseslaus Square we walked to Prague Castle intending to go to 9:30 Mass at the Cathedral, but when we arrived at the castle there was some sort of military event going on. The gates into the castle were blocked off and the street was lined with barricades and many people waiting and watching. I tried to find out if there was an alternate route to get to the Cathedral but the only people that I could get to talk to me kept telling me that everything is closed because the president is there and this military event is going on. We decided to go with Plan B which was to go to the nearby Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary which was recommended by Fr. Kudera the night before and see if they had a 10:00 Mass there. They did. It was a beautiful Mass, but it was very cold in the church. After Mass we stopped off at a coffee shop to warm up. We made our way back over to the Cathedral so Nate could at least see it even if we wouldn't be able to attend Mass there. Well........... Mass was over at the Cathedral, but it opened to the public at noon, so there was a huge line of tourists already there waiting to go in. We made our way to the back of the line which wrapped all the way around and almost to the very back of the Cathedral. We decided to wait in line for a little bit just to see how fast the line was moving. As we are waiting we notice a man standing next to a door into the Cathedral. A few of the servers came out the door and went next door which is probably where their vesting room is. So we thought that man was standing there guarding the door; however, a few minutes later a woman walked over to him and they left together. We knew there was no entrance charge for people who were legitimately there to pray and we were, so Nate decided to check it out. He disappeared through the door and a few moments later he peeked out and waved us in. We found ourselves in a side chapel where another man was praying. We knelt down and started praying as well. Not long after that a stream of about 50 people stormed the door and the security guard went nuts. He started screaming (in Czech) Help, help, no you mustn't, help me get them out of here! Some other guards came rushing over and helped him usher everyone outside, but he never bothered us. Nate finished praying his Divine Office and then we were able to walk around the rest of the Cathedral.
After that we started making our way back to the train station where Nate would catch his bus to the airport. We stopped off for lunch in a small pub. Gabriella had svickova again, her 3rd day in a row. While we were eating another tourist stopped in. We got to talking and it turns out she lives in Vail, Colorado and is a nurse at the hospital there. What a small world! After lunch we stopped by the church of the Infant of Prague. Nate met a monk who was working there who had spent a lot of time at Holy Hill in Wisconsin...again, small world!
We made it back to the train station just in time for Nate to catch his bus. We said a quick goodbye and he was off. A little while later my phone rang and it was Nate. Libor had borrowed Nate his jacket for the day since it was so cold and we had forgotten to get it back from him before he took off for the airport. Gabriella and I caught the next bus to the airport where Nate was waiting for us with the jacket and then we hopped right on the next bus back to the train station.
Gabriella and I ate dinner, did a little shopping and then took a train back to Usti, drove back to Zamberk. We got home around 10:30 that night. I was so ready to hit the hay, but it was only 3:30 in the afternoon in America and Petr needed some help with real estate stuff, so I stayed up for about another hour helping him with that.
First thing in the morning we tried to find out where Nate's Great Grandma was from in the Czech Republic. We think we found the correct name of the town; however, there are two towns in the Czech Republic with that same name, one near Český Krumlov which is over 4 hours away and one near Pardubice which is only about an hour and a half away. Karolina tried to look up some genealogy websites to try and see if we could figure out which one she was from. If she was from the closer one, we were going to plan our day for that direction. Unfortunately, we weren't able to find any substantial information, so we gave up on the idea of going to that town. Plan B was to walk around Žamberk then go to the nearby Craft Museum. The museum includes more than 50 comprehensive expositions of crafts and trades from the period 1840 - 1930.
The boys look at some of the exhibits
The book binder's section included a catalogue turned to
the page displaying the chalices they had for sale at that time
In the embroidery section we saw beautiful embroidered vestments
In the baker's section they displayed the forms used to make hosts.
Seb & Tobi in the ropemaker's section.
They have ropemaking in their history. The house that Petr grew up in was a ropemaker's house. I think it was his great-grandfather who was a rope maker. We don't know how far back the trade went in Petr's family,
WEATHER REPORT BY ANNI...
Today it snowed! We couldn't believe it. Everyone was very excited.
Especially me!
Here is the backyard as it began to snow.
This is the roof of their house as seen from the window
where we usually look out of
This is the balcony
Another view from the balcony
This is the hill we play on but its full of snow so we don't
play on it any more or we will slip and fall
This is Zach having a lot and lot of fun
Here is a picture of Zach chasing snow
And now back to you, Mom...
In the afternoon we were going to drive to Klášter Králíky, a cloister on top of a big hill with views, a nice stations of the cross path, lots of beautiful artwork, but it was just too snowy. I was worried about the drive, so we didn't go. Here are some pictures for you Nate, since we didn't make it there...http://kraliky-klaster.cz/kkcz/102/exterier-arealu. We were also going to try and make it to Neratov (http://www.neratov.cz/fotogalerie2/kostel-nanebevzeti-panny-marie/soucasny-stav/), but we decided to just stay home and visit and help Karolina make the decorations for the party on Saturday night.
Libor watching the action
That evening the parish priest came over for dinner with 2 "scouts". We had our favorite for dinner. Do you know it's name by now?
We found out a few interesting facts from the priest that evening. He is only 1/3 of the way done with the restoration work on the interior of the church. There are about 10-20 active parish families. The Czech Republic is divided into 8 diocese with 15 seminarians from this diocese and overall about 50-60 seminarians for the whole country.
