Been busy

Dear friends and family:
We've not forgotten you! We have been busy recently doing lots of fun activities - going to the park, discovering new playgrounds with a cafe for parents to enjoy treats, making new friends, finding a home church, and having visitors over! We have been especially happy that Sunny has been with us the past couple of weeks between her other adventures in Poland, Slovakia, and around Prague. Posts with pictures will follow soon.

New places, new faces

We met some new friends in the park just up the street from us. They showed us how to get to the playground and Magdalena and Emma became instant friends. This is a picture of Magda on her favorite toy at the playground.
Magda on our way home from the park "taking a break" as she says frequently while we're walking anywhere these days.
We had our new park friends, Mommy Sandra and little Emma (just 2 months younger than Magdalena), over to dinner last Wednesday. Since Petr has been out of town all week long and only home on the weekend for the past 2 weeks, Magda and I have been staying busy with friends to keep our minds off of missing Daddy Petr. We really enjoyed our time with these gals and are planning to get together often - Sandra and I foresee great potential for a best friendship for our daughters.

Muj Petr Veliky (My Peter the Great)

My book collection is quite extensive - what kind of English degree holder would I be if it weren't? But, it led to a problem in our apartment. I didn't have enough shelving! So, Petr took apart the crate which protected my hope chest across the ocean and...
sawed the planks into smaller pieces to fit...
an empty shelf frame we had in a closet...
and, ta-da!, a bookcase was born!
I am very impressed with his ingenuity and so grateful for his hard work to make me happy. :-) I have such a wonderful man!

Magda in our flat

Magdalena chose her own bedding and rug for her bedroom. The colors and flowers on her rug were all that she talked about for 2 days between the time we spotted it in Kika (similar to Ikea) and the day we actually bought it! As for the blanket, well, I encouraged something along the same line as her rug - purple flowers. She liked it, but when she saw the pink fairy princesses on this cover, she would have nothing to do with any other blanket. Even though I was internally groaning over the PINK, I didn't stifle her freedom of choice or pleasure from the color pink. If I am going to not discourage her like of snakes and bugs, I must also allow for her like of "girly" things as well.
Magda in the kitchen today painting. We visited the doctor on Thursday because she's coughing - again! And the doc gave Magdalena a picture of a hippo to color. This morning she told me that she wanted to paint it for me. So sweet!
Dipping her paintbrush into the water. She took very seriously to the business of watercolors!

Settling in our "flat"

Even though it took a deal of patience while we waited, God blessed us with a wonderfully located apartment that is more spacious than we'd hoped for! We moved in on 1 July and got our internet hooked up yesterday. Magdalena's room is all arranged and furnished (except for her bed-frame which we'll get from her cousin soon). Our room is lacking a bed, but our dear friends the Augustines have given us one of theirs so we just have to pick it up (we do have a futon in the meantime so we're not on the floor!). And another friend, Matous, helped Petr get a table with chairs and wardrobe from the seller's house to our place. God truly is blessing us.

And on top of all of this, we have delightful neighbors. They are an international couple - he is Indonesian and she is Czech. They have 2 daughters close to mine and Petr's age and have been very kindly towards us. The day we met, they gave us 3 trash cans, 2 shelves, heaps of fresh red currants, and some toys and chocolate for Magdalena! Mrs. Petrakova told me that anytime I need anything to knock or ring at their door - especially while Petr is away for his job training all week long in another town.

Today, I had to knock on the door for some electrical help. We had quite a storm this morning with lightening and thunder, so when the power went out while I was cooking lunch I assumed that was the reason. But, a few hours later when we were still without power and I heard the elevator running, I figured the fuse was blown. So, Magdalena and I donned our "papucky" (house shoes) and went to the neighbors' door to inquire if they had electricity. They did! The moment I said we didn't, the dear Indonesian man (who speaks fluent Czech) put on his shoes, grabbed a screwdriver and opened the HUGE fuse box in the hall. He flipped the switches for me and ta-da we had power! Now Sunny doesn't have to worry about spoiled milk since she arrives in the morning. ;-) That was a lil joke for those who know my friend Sunny and her fear of milk being left out too long...