Czech, please!: July 2014

I was back in Poland for a few days and couldn't resist taking pictures of a few things.

This is a MANUAL gate. Yup, the person gets up and leverages
the cement block to open the gate every time someone needs to enter.

Anytime there is a catered lunch, it's these little open faced
sandwiches. Meats, fish, cheeses, etc. LOVE them.

This makes perfect sense... tell people
it's a no smoking room by putting an ash
tray in it. Right.

The soccer season ended with a parents vs. kids day and it was more fun than expected! We put on our trainers (aka: sneakers) and showed our skills (or lack there of). Thankfully we were playing against 3 - 9 year olds, otherwise it would have been pretty ugly. Actually, it was a little ugly anyway. Someone may, or may not have taken out a small child. I'm pretty sure it was legal, but, you can be the judge...

Holden accepting his medal

Burke getting hers

Team photo

A few weeks ago while standing at the bus we noticed a poster for Billy Idol. Surely Billy Idol could not be touring still, right? WRONG! Admittedly, I wasn't the biggest Billy Idol fan growing up, but I sure am now. We started out with a sushi dinner at Kobe (http://www.koberestaurant.cz/en/).

There's no way we can eat all that sushi...

Apparently where there's a will, there's a way!

This is what gin, tonic and a lime looks
like in CZ... shot of gin, glass of tonic
and a lime.

Had to get a picture of this lady in the background... love her outfit.

For our first official concert in Prague, I would say it was a major success. The concert was at Palác Lucerna Velký Sál (http://www.lucpra.com/), which is a small-ish concert hall in the Wensaslas Square area. For about 15 minutes before the concert, Don kept asking us if we remembered how Billy Idol used to wear 1 glove. Mostly we just ignored him, but at one point I told him that I was pretty sure he was confusing Billy Idol with Michael Jackson. Fast forward to the concert and Don whips out his hiking glove. Sorry for ruining your big moment Don Cooley. I'm sure you were right... Billy Idol probably did wear 1 glove.

"Greetings from the German Idol Fans on Tour.
Welcome Back to Europe Bill Idol, The Band and Crew"
They were hardcore. Hardcore.

New Idol gear!

As the school year wraps up, the kids had the chance to participate in Sports Day: a half day event of physical challenges. Don & I had the chance to go watch and even compete a little.

To celebrate the end of the school year we decided to take a weekend trip to Budapest. We thought it was going to be about 4.5 hours - it ended up being close to 6, but was still worth it. The city was beautiful and rich with history. We were a little crunched for time, so we decided to take the very touristy route and buy a ticket on the hop on/ hop off bus, which also included a hop on/ hop off ferry ride. It was a great way to see the city quickly and it was nice that we didn't have to do too much walking with the kids. We stayed at Aqua World (http://www.aqua-world.hu/en), which was a nice little waterpark that the kids LOVED.

Clapping for Burke

Speedos, speedos and more speedos

Show me your muscles!

Hanging out in the lobby before dinner

Live music at dinner

A little Peppa Pig before bed

Breakfast buffet

Holden dipping sausages into yogurt...

Riding the bus to City Centre

Waiving from the top of the hop on / hop off bus

Boarding the ferry

Riding on the ferry

Not impressed with the ferry

Parliament

Random sun bathers all over the rocks

Been a while since we've seen a phone booth...

St. Mathias Church

Worn out!

Hungarian sponge cake!

Hero's Square

The toilets at this restaurant were down stairs in a cave

On the way to / from Budapest we had to cross from CZ, to Slovakia to Hungary. At each border there were really old border control stations that were no longer functioning, but appeared to be from the communist era.

On Sunday after getting back from Budapest we had to make a stop at a work function, where the kids were able to play some games and get their faces painted. Also, there was quasi-famous Czech kids band playing known as Kašpárek v rohlíku. We got some different stories about what the band is all about, but as far as we can tell, the Joker guy had a TV show and is pretty famous around CZ, now he has travels around and has something like 200 members in this band - he just calls up a few of them for wherever he is booked and they come out. All the songs were American songs sang in Czech. And, don't ask me about the hats. I have no idea... but, the video is totally worth a watch :)

Beautiful face painting

A ninja... again...

This past weekend our friends had an event to attend and we wanted a night out, so we arranged a babysitting swap - we had the 4 kids on Friday and they had them on Saturday. The kids were thrilled to be spending an entire weekend together. For our night, we held Coolympics - 12 physical, mental and artistic challenges designed to test their kills, but ultimately tested our patience. Oye. It was exhausting. Here are some highlights from Coolympics 2014.

Hula hooping contest

Too cute - I wish I knew what Lexi was saying here...

For our night out, we celebrated our 5 year anniversary by taking in a Concert Series at St. George's Basilica at the Prague Castle. It's the oldest church in the Castle area, built in 920. We listened to a beautiful 1 hour classical concert featuring a really talented violinist who did several solos. After that, walked the grounds a bit, crossed the Charles Bridge and took in sunset in Old Town before enjoying our fancy anniversary dinner of nachos and Fish n Chips.