Prague Blog

One of the highlights of our Summer was going to Prague two weekends ago to visit our dear ole pals the Hunts. As you recall our friends moved to Prague five or six months ago to be missionaries with World Harvest. We have missed them greatly and it was such a blessing to be able to share a weekend with them and see there new European lives. And to say that Maggie was excited to reunite with her pal Sam may be the biggest understatement I can muster. But, the rest of our excitement levels were right there too.
Our weekend trip started with a Friday train ride. It was a beautiful trip filled with amazing country side views, lakes, rivers, castles, fields, old villages and just cool European type things that I'm not used to (including a 70ish yr. old man gardening in his briefs). I could/should dedicate a post just to the trip because it was just so fun.
This is one of a few castles we saw while on the train. Upper right hand corner on the hill.
Family shot of us in our seats right before we got to our final destination.

Reunited and it feels so good...Jake met us at the station and then drove us back to there place. Immediately the kids started playing dress up, Maggie looked desperately for the Princess outfit but came up empty handed. She was content with this dragon suit and Sam in his high-water elephant garb. In this pic it looks like Sam is trying to peer pressure Henry into dressing up too, "come on Henry all the cool kids are doing it."
We had lots of reunion type stuff to take care of off the bat. Maggie insisted on holding Foard as soon as he woke up from his nap, and of course anything big sister does Henry wants to do too. So here is a picture I like to call "little guy holds little guy."
Maggie and Sam were pretty darn cute and aside from a couple of age appropriate injury related incidents they were very excited to be together again.
When we weren't out sightseeing pretend was the name of the game. They played "puppet show," cars, built pillow forts and here they are pretending to take a bath (note the hair washing).
We spent most of Saturday checking out the sights. Before we went to Prague everyone gave me the same response when I told them I was going there for the weekend. They'd say "oh Prague is beautiful." I really thought they just couldn't think of a better description, but it's true the place is beautiful.
We went to old towne square first and ran into these guys. And I think Sam's response was most fitting he said "look those guys are pretending to be animals."
Here's a panoramic of the square with a cute little Sam to the right.
And, here we are on the Charles bridge getting our picture taken by a complete stranger who clearly had issues with babies/toddlers because Foard barely made it in and Henry got cut out altogether. Geesh...he did however capture our amazing hosts and so we'll keep it. (P.S. Melissa didn't get the memo that we would all be wearing "Euro Gray.")
After we had done quite a bit of walking around we thought a nice boat ride through the city would be fun. So, we bought our tickets from some guy dressed like a sailor (who clearly knew the waters) and followed him down a dark ally to (thankfully) this cute little place, complete with live accordion music, ice cream and beer for the whole family.
Henry had just woken up from a stroller nap, I think this picture shows just how confused he may have been feeling.
Enjoying the boat ride.This is Sunday morning tea and movie time. The kids watched Pinocchio for the first time and the two big kids were quite enthralled with it, I think we lost Henry after Jimney Crickets "When you wish upon a star."
Sadly the weekend came to a close and we had to leave. We had such a great time and even though the Hunts now only speak fluent Czech we felt like it went well. The good news is that they are coming to Berlin next weekend to visit us Berliners. So, the fun isn't over and perhaps that's why it wasn't nearly as hard to say good-bye this time. Stay tuned...