Wes and Michelle

Happy New Year!

2011-01-05T20:45:00.003-08:00

Happy New Year to our many readers.

The old year has gone and the new has come. Now if you've read our 2010 update, you will know that there have been many exciting things throughout the year, but some of the hardest things as well. So we are looking forward to the many adventures awaiting us this 2011. We are preparing to return to Czech in April. We'll be moving into a new home (hopefully a house), and some other things. Those other things you ask??

Well

we are

having

BABY!!!!!

We're very excited about this baby. Everything appears to be going well. Michelle is now 16 weeks along and is due June 21st. That means that this baby will be born in Brno, just like Sid. We praise the Lord for this baby and we are excited about Sid becoming a big brother.

Apparently we are having an alien:-)

2010 Update

2011-01-05T20:32:00.003-08:00

***Below you will find monthly updates. ***

Make sure you read the whole story. This 2010 update goes from February up to December. All of these updates are probably not posted on this page, so make sure you check out the "older posts." We hope you enjoy catching up on the time we've been "off-line".

December 2010

2011-01-05T18:34:00.006-08:00

This will be the last of back-log. From here on out, we will try to keep things up-to-date. December was a busy month. We started the month out in New York City for Michelle's Birthday. It was a great time!

Here are some pictures from our sister-in-law's baby shower. She's due in February and it was fun to be back in PA for the celebration.

Michelle's brother Matt and soon to be mommy, Lija

Four generations - Michelle's grandpa, father, brother, and of course Sid.

After returning from our trip in PA, we began preparing for Christmas. For the first time in our 7 years of marriage, we got a real Christmas tree. It was so exciting! Though all of our decorations are in Czech, we were still able to decorate our house with Christmas things. It really made our home feel more like a home. On Christmas Eve we started a new tradition. As Sid grows and as we have more children, on Christmas Eve they will get to open two presents. One will be Christmas pajamas and the second will be a game for all of us to share. Then we can play it throughout the night. This year Sid got Elefun. He loved it!!

Sid was way excited for his first Christmas Eve present

Sid catching butterflies with his new game, Elefun

On Christmas morning we first opened our presents. Then on to the bigger presents. Sid loved his Thomas the Tank Engine track set.

Wes and Sid opening presents together.

After having the family over for our traditional waffle breakfast, we went on a hike with Wes's sister Emily and fiancee Travis. The Lord gave us a beautiful day for celebrating His birth. I was praising him the entire time I was looking over the Santa Clarita Valley.

Travis and Emily

On the 27th, we made our last trip to Sea World. It was our last chance before our passes ran out. I will miss that place:-(

We tried something new this time. We took the skyride across the bag. It was so much fun! Definitely a great way to end our trip to Sea World.

November 2010

2011-01-02T16:18:00.005-08:00

In the middle of November, we took a flight back to Lancaster, PA to spend 3 weeks with Michelle's family. We spent Thanksgiving with everyone, did the whole black Friday shopping spree, a trip to the cabin, etc. We even went to NYC on Michelle's birthday to see the Radio City Music hall's Christmas Spectacular. (NYC will be in December, cause technically the trip took place the following month). So, PA . . .

Thanksgiving started out with an early morning Turkey Trot. Michelle's brother, his wife Lija, dad, and the two of us all ran a 5K on Thanksgiving morning. It was FREEZING! When we got to the race, it was sleeting/snowing. However, we were both personally successful in the race.

Michelle has been running for a few months, so she was ready for the race. She came in right behind her dad at about 25 minutes.

Wes did no training for the race and more or less got off the couch and ran. He finished at about 28 minutes. Awesome!

Thanksgiving happened to fall on my grandpa's birthday this year. Sid thought he would help him with the cake. I love these types of pictures. Oldest and youngest generations.

Wes fell asleep on the chair, so Sid thought he would mimic him. Boy do they learn young!

Some quality time in the leaves with Sid's Papa-G

We headed to my parent's cabin in Pottery County after Thanksgiving. It snowed the day we got there and stayed the entire time. It was wonderful!

Sid's new found love: his Uncle Matt

Wes and I introduced the family to Geo-Caching. There are sites that tell you where hidden boxes are that you locate through GPS coordinates. This one was incredibly hard to find because of the snow. However, the adventure was well worth the trip.

One of my favorite things about the cabin is that both deer and bear come right on to the property.

October 2010

2011-01-02T16:08:00.004-08:00

Back to Sea World in October. This time with Wes's sister Emily and Fiancée, Travis. So, just a few pictures for all you animal lovers.

Sid has never had a halloween costume before. For two reasons. 1: they don't really dress up and do the whole Halloween thing in Czech and 2: We don't put too much emphasis, if any at all, on Halloween. However, our church had a kids outreach on Halloween, so we joined in. He's the cutest Nemo I've ever seen!

September 2010

2011-01-02T15:31:00.006-08:00

Wes, Michelle's parents, and Sid waiting for the dolphin show to start

In early September, Michelle's parents flew out from PA. Though it was a short trip, we were able to fit in a trip to Sea World, San Diego. Ok, this is my new favorite place (outside of Disneyland). I, Michelle, have been to Sea World Orlando, however, I was really young. So this was like seeing sea life for the first time. Their exhibits are incredible. It was definitely a great trip going down to San Diego with the parents.

The dolphin show has the only two performing Pilate whales in the world. They truly are amazing, yet odd looking, creatures.

Sid was soooo excited to see Elmo all day. He even brought his own Elmo with him. However, when we finally made it up to get our picture with him, Sid just started screaming. He was so scared. Apparently a life-size Elmo is not as cool as a tv or stuffed animal Elmo.

The Shamu show is by far the highlight of the day. These whales truly are amazing.

Amazing!

The three of us, our Brother and Sister, and their two girls all went ice skating on Saturday afternoon. This was Sid's first time on the ice. He was so excited. I can see more of this in our future.

Sid with his cousins Kendall and Taylor before hitting the ice

Daddy's joy: teaching his first son how to skate.

After an hour of skating, Sid didn't need our help anymore. He already knows how to hit a hockey stick, so a few more lessons on the skates and we've got ourselves a future NHL player.

In the later part of September, we took a trip down to Huntington beach for a Cesar Millan (a.k.a. the Dog Whisperer) book signing. The irony is that Cesar Millan actually lives in our town, however, we've never seen him. So we decided to take the 2 hour trip down to a Barnes and Noble to hear Cesar speak and for him to sign our books. It was awesome to meet him in person. Unfortunately, they didn't allow any personal pictures with him:-(

August 2010

2011-01-02T14:40:00.008-08:00

August . . . told in pictures, more or less. In August the Robinson family went on vacation together to Lake Naciemento (about 3 hours north of where we live in CA.) It was awesome! We are such a big family (16 total), that there is always something to do and someone to do it with. We stayed in a rental house about 5 minutes from the lake.

One day Sid will hate this picture. He was playing Pretty, Pretty, Princess with his two cousins.

One day we had this entire part of the lake to ourselves.

Sid and I trying out the kayak

Sidney loves his aunties. They took him out on the raft with them a few time. He was sitting in the ice cooler:-)

We had our own dock, so this is where we "tanned".

On our last day at the lake, we rented a boat and went tubbing. Victoria and I couldn't stop laughing after our first attempt. She flew right off, followed by me.

Even Sid and Wes went out on the water.

Our family has a thing with buying each other dangerous toys for all of us to try. Wes finally got to try out his brother's stilts.

One afternoon Wes, his dad, and I took a day trip to Hearst Castle. This is a castle built in the early 1900s. The place is amazing. Look it up if you want to see more pictures and details about the only castle in CA.

This is one of the many bedrooms in the castle. It reminded us so much of European castles.

Okay, so outside of Family Vacation . . . . . . . . .

In just 3 months, Sid already improved drastically on his bike. Not to mention that he grew a few inches since his May birthday.

Last, but not least . . . We finally bought ourselves a car in August. This has been a great vehicle to have during our stay in CA. We will miss it when we leave:-(

July 2010

2011-01-01T09:16:00.007-08:00

Swimming at Grammy's house

July was a fun month. There was nice sunny weather, swimming, playing with friends, etc. Wes left for two weeks to go back to Czech. Our church in Brno was hosting their first English Camp outreach. He returned to teach, assist, and encourage the church. The camp was a huge success and to God's glory we will be able to help with the camp next August. We are currently gathering a team here in America to come and teach English for next year.

Sid with his cousin Taylor at disneyland

It was fun being at Disneyland with Wes's brother and family.

Sid and Koda getting used to their new home.

Wes teaching at English Camp

We had an kids program too for the kids to learn English.

Jana and Petr from our church learning English in the beginners class.

Jirka and Petr from our church leading the music

June 2010

2010-12-29T22:06:00.003-08:00

Jenny and I on the church camping trip.

The most memorable thing about June of this year was our "move" to California. Wes and Koda were on one flight while Sid, my best friend Jenny, and I were on another. Jenny came and spent a week with us in California. She definitely made the move a memorable one. She helped me move us into our house. She got to come with us on our church's annual camping trip. We even made it to Hollywood. Thanks Jenny for the great memories of that week. I love you!

Sid and Wes on the beach.

Ah the famous sign. Not the best picture, but at least we have proof.

We were back at our church for VBS. Wes helped with everything and Michelle was the 3rd grader's leader.

Yes, these were the kids. I somehow survived the week.

May 2010

2010-12-29T21:18:00.007-08:00

The whole Stoltzfus clan. Fun memories

Koda and Mika finally meet. Sid loves his Mik and Ko-Ko.

May was a very busy and exciting month. Wes and I graduated from college!!!!! We drove to Binghamton, New York to Davis College in order to walk at graduation. Wes's parents flew in from California and Michelle's parents drove up from PA a few days after us. The both of us completed our entire education on-line while in the Czech Republic so it was so much fun to finally meet some of our teachers and fellow classmates. At the Senior banquet, Michelle was asked to sing and on graduation day, Wes was able to speak for a few minutes. To add to the celebration, graduation day fell on Sidney's 2nd birthday. I never thought that I would finish my degree after becoming a mom. Again, it was one of those God things that I could only accomplish through His strength.

May was also an exciting month because we spent about 5 weeks in Lancaster with Michelle's family. Sidney fell so in love with his Papa-G and Gee-Gee. We saw a lot of people, met with a lot of supporters, and reconnected to American life.

Koda and I had a bit of an accident while playing. I had this nice black and blue mark just in time for graduation.

Michelle singing at graduation. (Notice the huge black and blue mark on my chin).

The BIG day. May 8th, 2010, We graduated from college. What a personal accomplishment for us both.

Sid's 2nd birthday present; a bike. We brought it with us from Czech. The bike has no peddles so that they can learn balance. You should see him fly on the thing now.

Sid so excited for his birthday presents

Our 2nd year attempt that a homemade birthday cake. I must admit, Wes was the brains behind this one. He's the true artist and I just pretend to know how to color.

Papa-G and Sid training for the next half-marathon

I couldn't help but capture these two Amish kids while waiting for a stop-light.

April 2010

2010-12-29T20:56:00.006-08:00

This is what happens when Michelle teaches Sunday-School. There is a lot of noise and a lot of bad spoken Czech. I love these kids and I miss them a lot. They were so gracious to me as I tried to teach them about the Bible in their own language.

April was such a busy month. It was packed full of going-away parties, good-byes, tears (from me, not Wes), excitement, and sadness at the same time. We left the Czech Republic on April 27th, dog and all. We completely moved out of our apartment (and home for the last 3 1/2 years). I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually miss that place sometimes.

Sidney got an early birthday present from his Babi. Brocci 1 and 2, a classic Czech fairytale about lightning bugs.

The last Ladies Club I was able to attend. I am so proud of Petra and Zuzka who have taken over the club while we are in America. They are serving the Lord and allowing many non-believing women to hear the Gospel for the first time.

With hardly anything left in our house, Sid came and cuddled with me one morning. I love those moments with my son and boy do I miss that bed. A California king is definitely in my future when we return to Czech.

Koda, Wes, and Sidney waiting in the Prague Airport

Ready or not America, here we come!

March 2010

2010-12-29T20:43:00.003-08:00

Hmm . . . well according to pictures, there is nothing really to report on for March. However, I praise the Lord for His grace and mercy towards me in my last semester of college. I was pregnant from the very beginning of the semester. Though I wasn't sick at all, I was extremely tired. That meant that when I would normally do my work during Sidney's nap, I was napping myself. Somehow in the midst of a first trimester, a miscarriage, packing up our house, etc, I managed to finish my college degree an entire month before graduation. It was through God's strength alone that I managed to do this. Though I don't have any pictures to show for this month, this praise I must proclaim. I will never forget that He did this for me in March.

February 2010

2010-12-29T20:24:00.004-08:00

February was a busy month for us. Snow and ice covered the ground as we experienced our coldest winter to date in Brno. We were mostly stuck inside because I was finishing my last semester of college. At the same time, we were vigorously packing up our apartment for the big move in April. Every extra minute was given to packing, organizing, and figuring out the future.

One of the last Sweet Fridays that met at my house. Sid and Lea enjoy watching Koda sit out in the freezing cold.

February 2010 will always be one of those "I know what I was wearing, where I was, etc" months. On Saturday, February 27th, I miscarried our 2nd child. At almost 11 weeks along, I had to spend the night in the Czech hospital because of having a D and C. We were very devastated. At the time I felt very alone, helpless, hopeless, and everything else you could possibly feel after losing a pregnancy. I am very grateful though . . . we were fortunate to have an ultrasound of the baby at just 7 weeks along. We saw it's precious heartbeat at least once. I know that that life lived inside of me and is waiting for us in heaven. How I look forward to that day when we will get to meet our baby that has gone before us.

A little ray of sunshine in the midst of our grief. We are so blessed to have Sidney in our lives.

Ok, We're Back!!!! Finally

2010-12-29T20:20:00.002-08:00

I refuse to let this blog go an entire year without being updated. So, I figured now is as good of a time as ever. Since our lives are that interesting, I will be posting highlights from the last year, starting in February. I will save as many words as I can and display the important pictures. After the updates are done, I will try very hard to keep this baby more consistent. I make no promises, but I shall try. So . . . here goes nothing. I hope you all enjoy.

Let it Snow, let it Snow, let it SNOW!

2010-01-08T23:46:00.006-08:00

When you think of the Czech Republic do you think cold and snow? I used it until we moved here. Sure it gets cold and we get snow, but I won't say that it's much different than say where I grew up in PA. CZ gets a lot of snow, but not here in the "bigger" city. However, this winter, we've been blessed. Wes and I have been talking for weeks that we just want the Lord to dump a bunch of snow on us so that we can't anywhere or do anything. Snow is great, but not when it's just a little, then it melts and gets slushy and wet constantly. Then the process starts all over. We want snow to come once and melt once.

So anyways, we were more than excited when we heard a weekend storm was coming our way. They predict that by Monday we will have nearly 2 feet of snow. Yesterday it snowed all day and it seems this morning it has stopped for now. So anyways, I'm posting some pictures from yesterday and a video from the first snow fall a few days ago.

First the video. Koda, as a working sled dog, loves the snow. So we thought we'd let him pull the sled. Everyone loves it and of course spectators are always laughing as we pass by.

Yesterday we walked with our friends Petr and Jitka who live down the hall from us. They have a baby girl and we just really enjoy their company.

Sid on his sled:-)

Koda in a world of snow

I'm not sure which is better about this picture . . . Sidney sledding or Petr's face.

Another Picture of all the kids sledding

What a foreigner does in December throughout the Czech Republic

2009-12-26T03:41:00.012-08:00

This is a December "update" with hopefully more pictures than words. It's been a busy month, but a happy month. We've come to love a lot of stuff about living in this country, living in the middle of Europe. Though Czechs don't celebrate Christmas even close to the way we celebrate in America, some of the Christmas traditions here we've come to love and look forward to.

Kid's Puppet Show
Our church hosted a Christmas children's puppy show that happens every Christmas and Easter.

Singing Christmas carols at the end of the show

The cutest boy there, and his son, I mean and his dad:-)

I made these cranberry pinwheels for the show. The recipe was a good find, and so were the fresh cranberries.

SNOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!

Unfortunately the snow we received in December melted all away just 3 days before Christmas, sniff, sniff. However, the sun is shining and there's not a cloud in sight today, an odd thing to find in December here.

The one time we decide not to take the backpack or stroller, Sidney decides not to walk. He was a bit scared of walking in the snow, so we had to carry him the whole walk. Lovely

Brno's Christmas Market
Every year at Christmas, Brno sets up a Christmas market in the center square. This year seemed more beautiful then the other years. We couldn't stay long, but we were able to at least get our favorite Christmas food, Trdelniky, which is basically dough with cinnamon on it. It doesn't sound like much, but they're AWESOME!

The impressive tree. Much better then years past.

The famous trdelnik.

"Thanks mom, that's good stuff." Yes, he actually said that.

Look, a manger seen actually exists in the country. It was completely carved from wood and absolutely beautiful.

Santa Clause doesn't come to the Czech Republic, only baby Jesus. Here was a booth where you could write and send letters to baby Jesus. Obviously Czech Christians don't tell this lie to their children.

The Polar Express Train
I love the train in one of our malls. Kids can ride it for free, all day if they want. However, you have to fight the other pushy moms to get your kid into a seat. Czechs often don't believe in formal lines, so it's a free for all. I've learned to do the same and just start pushing. It's actually a lot of fun at times. Nothing screams Christmas like crazy moms pushing other crazy moms around.

On the first ride Sid was afraid to go by himself, so I went with him. That thing is rough and it went around, and around, and around until I thought I was going to throw up. Sid loved it. After that, I got off and he kept riding it for about 10 more minutes.

"Mom, can we go do that again?"

Prague

We spent Sunday and Monday in Prague visiting our teammates and to also go visit the Christmas market in the center square, something we try to do every Christmas. Sid stayed at the Dagen's house so Wes and I headed to the center alone, and without a stroller, and without a screaming child who wants out of the stroller. It was awesome! We didn't stay long, but we at least had a look around and ate lunch at the new burger king. It just came to the CZ.

Look at us, we're tourist

Prague's pretty tree and church in the background. It's so beautiful it looks fake.

Ah, more trdelniky, however in Prague they are more expensive and half the size as in Brno.

Christmas at Home

Yesterday, of course was Christmas for us Americans living in a foreign country. However, Czechs celebrate Christmas on the 24th. So while we were at home opening presents and eating waffles for breakfast, Czechs were, well I don't know what they were doing, but they most likely were not opening presents.

Our lamo fake, small tree. If our next place is bigger (I don't know how you can get smaller), we'll get a real tree.

Sid and mom excited to open presents.

From Sid to Daddy, a remote control car. What every 31 year old man really wants for Christmas, but won't tell you.

Koda of course got a present too, and promptly tore the toy's head off.

LEGOS! Mostly for Sidney, but for mom and dad too:-)

WHY WE LOVE WINTER #6 and St. Mikulas Day

2009-12-05T13:21:00.004-08:00

WHY WE LOVE WINTER IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC #6

Usually it gets so cold in the winter that the ponds and lake freeze over and you can ice skate and play hockey on them for free . . . at your own risk of course. Every year someone gets a little too excited and tries to use the ice/slush a little too soon or too late and fall into the lake.

This is an old picture from 2007 taken on a lake in Brno that's already frozen over.

Today was a "holiday" in the Czech Republic known as St. Mikulas day. I was hoping that we would go into the center of town tonight because they always light the tall, scrawny tree, and have lots of great food and festivities on this day. However, Sid and I (Michelle) have been sick this week and the cold air does a number on our cough. Plus, we were invited to a friend's house to celebrate. We know them from Wes's hockey team and they came to our Thanksgiving outreach a few weeks ago. They have three really great children and we were happy to celebrate with them. They live in a village just outside of Brno and so St. Mikulas makes a special visit to all the little kids in the area. The tradition is that St. Mikulas comes with an angel and devils (it's more like Halloween meets Christmas) and they report on how the kids have been throughout the year.

Tonight when they came to the house they listed off each kid and said what things they are really great at and what they need to work on (like sleeping through the night or being nice to their siblings). The parents actually put their requests in ahead of time. It was a lot of fun and we were happy we got to experience this with our friends.

What does a small apartment look like with four little children and two dads?

Apparently a picture with all the kids together is a little harder than expected.

St. Mikulas and the angel arrived and were talking to all the children. The devils had to wait outside because all the children were scared to death.

Like father like son

Sidney receiving his gift from the angel.

A final picture was attempted with everyone but Sid freaked out as soon as the drunk (really I think they may have been) devils returned.

WHY WE LOVE WINTER #5

2009-11-29T04:22:00.004-08:00

WHY WE LOVE WINTER IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC #5:

The Sun doesn't heat our apartment to 90 degrees nor does it shine in our house for hours. See, in the summer, we see the sun all the time. Though we love the sun, it tends to be very HOT in an non-air conditioned apartment during the summer months. Our apartment is also situated in such a way that the sun sets across the front of the building, right into our house for hours, rising the temperature in the apartment along the way.

In the winter there is only about 4 hours of daylight, if we see the sun at all, so we don't have any problems with blinding eyes or it being too hot in our apartment. The sun is a rare thing this time of year, so we do love it in the summer, however it gets old after 8 hours of shinning into our house, with no cross breeze and place to escape.

Our beautiful sunset from our balcony.

In other news, Wes had a hockey game last night and Sid and I were able to go for the first time. I haven't been to a game in about 2 years, so it was fun to watch him play. They are an official team now and play twice a week. Unfortunately, the team decided to not "show up and play" last night. They lost 3 to 9. So maybe next time they'll win for us!

Wes is to the right of the ref with a bear on his jersey. There team is called "The Bears" and I had the privilege of designing the jersey.

Wes is the the player on the right here.

Dedicated fans!

An angry fan ready to go to bed

WHY WE LOVE WINTER #4

2009-11-26T05:46:00.003-08:00

WHY WE LOVE WINTER IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC #4:

It only seems appropriate to mention this reason today, seeing that we can't see past our parking lot. So we love winter because the fog will role in for weeks at a time, hiding the sun and everything else outside. As a result, we don't have to look at the "ugliness" and dirt in our city and around were we live. In addition, people tend to stay inside more so we don't hear their barking dogs outside the stores below our building.

(I just took this picture. It's only 3 in the afternoon.)

Happy Thanksgiving by the way! We're sad to not be spending time with our families today, but are grateful for the little man in our lives that has brought us more thankfulness than two hearts could possibly show. Since we had our Thanksgiving outreach last Friday, we decided not to go through all the trouble of cooking a big Thanksgiving meal again for two. So . . . we're going to Ikea insted (Michelle's suggestion of course). If you've never had their dinners, they're actually not all that bad. Have a blessed day!

WHY WE LOVE WINTER #3

2009-11-25T02:18:00.004-08:00

WHY WE LOVE WINTER IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC #3:

We save money on utilities in the winter because our apartment traps the heat from all the other apartments. We turn the heat on in Sidney's room at night, but other then that we haven't touch the radiators. Usually it's too warm and we end up opening a window.

Since we don't have any good pictures of our radiators and even if we did, we don't think you would care, so we've decided to post two pictures of some recent "happenings" or should we say "regular occurrences" in our house.

Sidney feeds Koda every morning. He scoops the food out, puts it in his bowl and then takes it to the balcony where Koda eats. One morning he got a little distracted and tempted Koda by putting the food right down in front of the dog. Koda didn't even touch it or try to touch it. Why? Because Koda knows Sidney is his pack leader.

Christmas present suggestion: If you have a dog or are thinking of getting a dog, buy or ask for Cesar Millan's "Cesar's Way" book. With the help of this book and watching many episodes of "The Dog Whisper" we've changed the way we see dogs . . . as dogs! We live daily as Koda's pack leaders, including Sidney. As a result, we have a very balanced dog. If you really want to make your dog happy, you'll allow him to live a balanced life, like he would if he were in a real dog pack in the wild. Go to Cesar's Way for more information. Okay that's enough on our "hobbies".

Sidney likes to begin his day with George, glow worm, and sitting on Koda.

WHY WE LOVE WINTER #2

2009-11-24T01:39:00.003-08:00

WHY WE LOVE WINTER IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC #2:

Our house becomes a natural humidifier. Since it's too cold outside we can no longer dry our cloths on the balcony (unless we wanted popsicle t-shirts). We have the great privilege of drying our cloths inside and the moisture naturally humidifies the house.

WHY WE LOVE WINTER #1

2009-11-23T09:49:00.005-08:00

The stores behind the bus consist of 4 bars. They aren't suppose to be 24 hours, but they more or less are and will serve to any aged kid. (BTW this is an old picture and we don't currently have any snow on the ground.)

Refer to yesterday's blog entree if you don't know why we're posting this weeks "WHY WE LOVE WINTER".

WHY WE LOVE WINTER IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC #1:

We sleep better at night because it's too cold to keep the windows open so we can't hear the drunken parties that occur in front of our apartment building every night and last until morning.

Speaking of sleeping . . . This picture has nothing to do with why we love winter but EVERYTHING to do with why we love our little man. He fell asleep on the couch today while drinking his milk. He's sick and has managed to now pass it onto mom.

Thanksgiving Inspiration and A Week of Reasons

2009-11-22T07:19:00.004-08:00

On Friday we had a Thanksgiving outreach at our church. There were over 50 people shoved into a room intended to fit 25. Many experienced a traditional American Thanksgiving for the first time and everyone got to hear about God. It was very successful and we made a lot of new contacts for the church. I will post more about this event later when I have better pictures to show.

In the meantime, I would like to give you all some Thanksgiving Inspiration, for anyone attending a party or hosting the family this Thursday. I made this Turkey out of vegetables and it was quite the table conversation. He's almost too cute to eat!

How to make the veggie Turkey:
1. Use a styrofoam ball as the body. Cut out a small piece of the bottom so that the ball lays flat on a surface.

2. Using toothpicks, attach various vegetables to the styrofoam ball. I used broccoli, radishes, yellow peppers, cucumbers, green and black olives, celery, and green onions for the tail feathers.

3. Attach an orange for the head, also using a bigger toothpick.

4. Attach eyes and make a hat for the head (I used a black little cup and glued a brown strip around it's center).

5. For the beak use two strips of yellow pepper

6. For the feet use carrots.

Good luck! Let me know if any of you try this. It was a lot of fun. You have to really balance your turkey though because if you do only the broccoli at first, it will topple over.

Okay, there is something else to bring to your attention . This week, starting MONDAY, we will be posting WHY WE LOVE WINTER IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC. Each day we will enter a new entry of why we love winter. The inspiration for this came from our friend Jami who lives in Siberia. It's entertaining to read her entrees of why freezing cold weather and unending snow can actually be a plus. Every winter we try to pump ourselves up for the depressing winter ahead, and we thought this might help . . . So stay tuned for our first entry tomorrow of why we love winter!

These are a few of my favorite things . . .

2009-11-10T12:51:00.004-08:00

Traditions are a wonderful thing. During Christmas time, these traditions from the past flood most of my memory. However, since moving to the Czech Republic, these traditions have mostly come to a halt for the soul reason that the people I shared these traditions with are still in America, not here.

For anyone that’s ever moved to a new country, you can relate with me in that you basically start over . . . with everything, including traditions. Thankfully, some of my new traditions are such traditions that I could have only experienced here with my Czech family.

Most of you have heard or seen pictures of our Czech family, the Bartoškovi. If you ever come to visit us in Brno, you will most likely spend a dinner with them in their house or a sunny summer afternoon in their backyard enjoying an amazing BBQ. They love meeting any of our friends and family. They have filled many voids over the last three years. They have taught us many things about the Czech culture, including language, about Christians, and what really NOT to say. They are great and certainly one of my favorite things about this Country. However, they are also responsible for introducing me to something that is also one of my favorite things, but is also now a new tradition.

This will be our 4^th Christmas in the CZ. With the exception of our first December here, I’ve helped them put together many of their Christmas cookies. Now, I know Grandmas around the world do this every Christmas, but you’ve never seen Christmas cookie making until you’ve experienced it with the Bartoškovi. They make a box of assorted cookies for everyone they know, plus have enough to last them until the next year. This has become a fun tradition for me and a priceless learning experience as well.

Anyways, Saturday was the kick off to our Christmas cookie making extravaganza. Sid and I arrived around 9:45 am and left at 4:30 pm. We made gingerbread cookies, which are by far the best gingerbread cookies in the world. No trust me, they are. You don’t know! I can’t count how many cookies we made.

Maybe this story seems a bit long, a bit random, but I tell you this because I’m thankful for the things God has given me to make life here a bit more like “home.” I will surely miss this tradition next Christmas when we’re back in America because it truly is one of my favorite things.

We do a few things of sign language with Sidney. He's showing me in this picture that he wants milk (by squeezing his hands together).

Waiting for a few available pans. (We work really fast)

A boy after his mom's own heart. Sid is dancing to Christmas music here. Who knew my son would love Christmas music and dancing, and together.

Okay, Mirka will kill me for this picture, but it makes me laugh. It has all of us in the picture, which is the most important part. Other then that, it's not my favorite picture.

Sidney is learning young this new tradition and breaking his mom's arm in the process.

Almost done. I'm organizing the finished cookies into the boxes.

White Baby Can't Dance

2009-11-07T22:40:00.002-08:00

Our Ladies Club

2009-11-05T12:11:00.004-08:00

This is most of us, minus a few that had to leave early.

I've posted before about our Ladies Club that meets once a month. Well tonight was an extra special night because Keystone Church in PA provided the craft. They sent us wooden frames to paint. In addition, we wanted to give everyone a welcome bag that would have all the information for our church with upcoming events, plus a special gift. Keystone also provided the bags, ribbon, hand lotion, etc. that we needed to give away the bags.

Everyone that came was so excited and they absolutely LOVED doing the picture frames. We had enough frames for everyone to do two, which was even more exciting for everyone. Tonight was something special, outside of the craft and welcome bags. One of the ladies from our Church, Zuzka shared about God and how you can put many pictures in the frames of people or of other things you love. She continued by saying that all of these things are great, but empty without God in your heart. It was awesome, and it's what this club is about. We want everyone that comes to know exactly what we believe and that they also need this God in their life. I was really encouraged that Zuzka did this because I didn't ask her to. She came up with the word all by herself. Praise God!

Personally I was sad that many of my close friends from my building didn't come. However, tonight I made some great connections with some of the ladies that I didn't get to talk to before. There are about 5 women that come every month without fail. Then of course there are those that come only once in a while. However, every month, these 5 women are hearing about Christ, and this is wonderful!

These are the welcome bags we made for everyone to take with them

Everyone here is choosing and picking their color for their frame

Painting our frames

Playing a game while our picture frames dried

Snow brings new things . . .

2009-11-03T11:44:00.003-08:00

Believe it or not, but this is what 6:30 am looks like at our house this time of year and was the view this morning of the first snowfall. In about a month it will still look like this until probably 8 or 9 in the morning.

The alarm went off this morning at 6:15, I (Michelle) slowly walked into the living room, with one eye open moved the curtain aside and opened the balcony door to let Koda out . . . SNOW?!!? This was not in the forcast. It was everywhere, but beautiful. I took a picture immediately because for sure I thought it would be gone by lunch time. To my surprise it stayed around all day and is still flaking here and there this evening (9 pm). We tried to take advantage of the snow this afternoon and try and get a family picture in. Well, I don't know that I would call it successful, but I think we got at least one picture that will work.

Sidney's first time walking in snow. He wasn't so sure

Wes and Koda waiting for Sid and I to get the camera ready to try and take a family picture. They were thrilled that I drug them outside.

Later this evening we then had our first gathering for an English Conversation Club. We promised ourselves that we wouldn't be like most other Americans that come here and end up teaching english. Finally after so many people asked us, we gave in and decided that it could be fun to try . . . but we weren't going to actually teach english. So the conversation club basically is what it's called . . . an outlet for people to come and talk in english about questions and topics and we correct them as they go. Because of the snow we probably had less people then we had hoped for, but it was a lot of fun. We pray that this is another outlet for our church to make connections with non-believers.

Sidney joined us this evening. I love the little face peeking over the table.

Happy Birthday Valerie!

2009-11-03T11:32:00.005-08:00

Okay so many people in our life have birthdays. However, we find it important to share this precious birthday with you. Last Monday (Oct. 26th) our closest friends daughter celebrated her first birthday. Valerie and Sidney are only six months apart. We were happy to celebrate this occasion with them.

Visiting Valerie in the hospital. Sidney was only 6 months

Wow, it's amazing what can happen in one year's time

Precious . . . a little positioning from the moms

It's fun buying presents for a little girl. Sidney was thrilled to try the gifts out himself.

Marian was suspicious that Sidney was into the jewelry and stroller. I assure you, he is 100% boy. Although he was driving the stroller around, he was making car sounds with it and running full force into the door with the stroller. All is well, he is a boy!

A Boy and His Dog

2009-10-19T13:29:00.005-07:00

There has always been this special bond between Sidney and the dog, Koda. Before Sidney was born we learned everything we could about raising a balanced dog, following the steps of the Dog Whisperer (Cesar Millan). We wanted Koda to know that we are the pack leaders, that Sidney is his boss and that Koda is and will always be at the bottom of our pack. Though there are days where we lose that calm assertive energy with Koda, we've all done well to make this dog balanced. There is no doubt in my mind that Koda sees Sidney as his pack leader. I have 100% assurance that Koda will never bite him, never touch him, or even go near him unless we say it's okay. Actually the problem now is making sure that Sidney doesn't hit Koda in the head too many times during the day.

At three weeks, Koda was figuring out who this new member of the pack was.

Sidney has always loved that dog, wondering why he couldn't be on the balcony with Koda.

And the relationship grows . . .

Umm, how did the two of you get on our bed?

This is a normal occurrence in our house

Ah, finally allowed out on the balcony with my dog. I think I'll go in his house with him.

And today there relationship grew in a way it's never been before.

Are you ready to see what it was?

Are you really ready?

Okay, it's not that exciting, but it is cute

okay

So Sidney is now using Koda as a seat, and Koda lets him.

Sidney was watching tv and thought that he could use a sit-down.

When he found out I was watching and taking pictures, well that was just too hysterical for a little boy to handle.

Where there's beads, there are women

2009-10-16T09:07:00.004-07:00

There have been some large gaps between blog updates in the past. This has bothered me and I've wanted to update past things. I guess better late then never. On my heart at the moment is our church's ladies club.

Over the summer we didn't meet, something that is quite custom during a Czech summer. Our first meeting after the break was Thursday, September 3rd. We decided to do beads again like we did last March. Apparently EVERYONE that has ever come to the Ladies Club really wanted to do the jewelry thing again. This time they all came with their babies and toddlers. Together we were only about 15 ladies + about 15 babies. Unfortunately our room we meet in is on the smaller side. Between all the moms and the babies, it was total CHAOS! No one could hear anyone speaking, babies were crying constantly. It was the opposite of relaxing. However, we made some new contacts and built upon the ones we already have.

The following month we only had about 5 ladies, which was a lot more quiet and calm. It's hard to prepare this event because there could be anywhere from 5 women to 20.

I'm really exited about the future events of this club. For one, the ladies ministry at our church in PA has partners with our club here. They've been wonderful in sending some items for the club, praying for us, and being a source of encouragement. Thank you ladies at KEYSTONE!

These next few months will be crucial for the club. We are coming back to the states in May for about 8 months. In my absence the club must continue on without me. I'm more then confident that the ladies at our church can fulfill this rule. After all, the intent of this club was to disciple the women and have them lead and start their own ministries. So for the next few months some of our ladies will be taking on all the responsibility. They will do awesome, considering they actually speak czech that makes sense:-)

The next two meetings are on Thursday, November 5th and December 3rd. At each meeting we are sharing something small from the Bible that is applicable to the craft, making sure they realize this is a Christian run club, etc. Please be praying for our club, as we grow in numbers, relationships, etc. We desire that these women here about Christ and are somehow connected personally to a believer. So here are some pictures of our group.

100th post - Winter is HERE!

2009-10-15T11:46:00.003-07:00

Sid and Michelle today preparing for the cold weather outside.

We don't blog as much as we'd like, but at last we've made it to our 100th post. To celebrate this small accomplishment in life, we thought we'd share these two very special pictures. Fall has seemed to pass us by this year and moved on directly to winter. Each week for the past 3 weeks it's gone 10 degrees colder. This week was in the low 40s. Today we actually got some wet snow. Now low 40s is nothing for a Czech winter, but it's a bit cold for October and our blood hasn't quite adjusted to the temps.

This is our precious Sidney and his friend Lea. Last Friday they were smooching while us moms were talking. Isn't love just too sweet.

3 years, already!

2009-09-11T09:24:00.002-07:00

September 11h marks a day to remember for us in many different aspects. 3 years ago September 11th only meant "911" to us, but now it means something completely different. 3 years ago today we arrived at Prague international airport where we officially began our lives in this country. 2 days later we came to Brno, moved into our apartment (the same one we are living in now) and started to learn this culture and language. We praise God for the road thus traveled. We thank Him for the endless blessings he's given us. We count ourselves honored to serve the Lord in this country, in this city, and to the people that he created and loves.

These 3 years haven't always been easy. The first 6 months were probably the worst. We had no friends, struggled in language school, and couldn't figure out the simplest things in the grocery store (like what was sugar and salt, or where the spices were, or the fact that every product was in a foreign language and was packaged completely different then we were used to). Those things seem so minor now compared to where we are in life.

In 3 years we've established fabulous relationships, we've welcomed the most precious son into our lives, we've watched our church step out of their comfort zone and minister to their own people. We've started new ministries included the Ladies and babies club, Wes is on an official hockey team with 15 guys and teaches kids baseball every week. We enjoy living here and find it fun, yet challenging with the day to day aspects of living here. Though there are many days we still can't understand the language or the culture we look forward to the next X number of years God keeps us in this country, in this city.

September 11th, 2006 - arriving in Prague airport, welcomed by the Regional and Area directors (at the time).

September sunsets from our balcony are always breathtaking.

Things always look a little different, even if you "have it" in America

November 06, Koda came home with us (8 weeks)

Less then a week after arriving in the country, we started language school

"You're the God of this city . . ." (January 07)

Our great friends Sylva and Marian (at the zoo in July 07)

Our first english camp we taught at (August 07)

Our great friend and helper, Alena (December 07)

May 2008, our Sidney is born in Brno

Sid's first Christmas (with friends Dec. 08)

First Ladies Club meeting (February 09)

Lea and Sidney, best friends (April 09)

Sidney's 1st birthday celebration (May 09)

Some family relaxation (Croatia August 09)

A great way to work!

2009-05-31T13:19:00.005-07:00

Lucie, Sid, and Lea at the African part of the zoo.

I can't think of any better way to fulfill my two job requirements than to spend an afternoon at the zoo with my son and my new friend Lucie. Lucie lives in our building and has a daughter, Lea, who is only 3 days younger than Sidney. We decided to head to the zoo on Thursday. My two jobs you ask? . . . to be the world's best mom to my son and to learn czech.

It was fun spending time with Lucie and getting to know her. Unfortunately the zoo decided to not really have any animals on display for us to see, and a nice spring day was more like a day caught between fall and winter, but overall, it was a lot of fun. By the end I was pretty exhausted from the 5 hours of czech conversation and the hike up Mt. Everest they call the Brno zoo.

Aren't they so cute!?

Sid was fearless in the petting zoo. He walked right up to them, petted them, and then laughed as though he was home with his own dog.

What's on your stroller Sid?

Look, fish that could eat you!

One of my personal favorites, the polar bears.

Ah my first time at the zoo is just TOO MUCH!

Balcony Lamps and a little bit of thanks

2009-05-21T12:39:00.003-07:00

Here I am attempting to give instructions in Czech as to how to string the beeds and put the wire on the jars.

Last Tuesday was our 4th Damsky Klub, or in your language known as the Ladies' Club. Though the club is usually the first Tuesday of the month, I had to bump it a week back due to the flu the week before. The club has had new people each month though not everyone comes each time. The plan for the club at this point is to take a 2 month summer break after our June meeting and restart the club in September. It's my desire during that break to meet with the ladies of our church to reassess the club, what we can do better, how we can invite new women, and mostly how to involve the other women at the church. Right now the club has been solely my responsibility with the exception of one family helping with the coffee and desserts and also the cleanup. The other "problem" that's come about in the club is that there are only young people coming at this time. Not that young people are the problem, but the club is for women of all ages. Unfortunately only the young people have been inviting their friends, or are the only ones that are able to get their friends to come. In our 2 month break we'll be looking at that "issue" as well.

I praise God for the new women that have stepped into our church building for the first time because of this club. How I desire for everyone in our church to be involved with this club so that we can make the greatest impact into these women's lives through deap and meaningful relationships.

The lamps just before completion

For May's meeting I purchased a few more prizes. If someone brings someone new, they get to choose a prize. This time I made sure everyone got a prize. We played a game that asked questions like "who had a bird when they were young" or "who's ever lived in another country". If the answer pertained to them, they got to choose a prize. It was a fun game for people to get free gifts but also for us to get to know each other.

One other thing I must say in this post is THANK YOU! I don't know who this thank you belongs to, but hopefully they are reading this blog. About 3 months ago I started receiving the magazine "Family Fun" in which I actually got the idea for this balcony lamp. Please let me know if this person is you. I would love to know who you are. If I never know, know that I am truly blessed by the gift and really enjoy receiving the monthly magazine.

It's My Day!

2009-05-10T13:43:00.003-07:00

It's sort of funny that there is a day set aside just for mothers. I'm now apart of this group of moms that get a day "just for them." Though I appreciate the thought of the day, I can't imagine a position in life more thrilling, wonderful, and most of all welcomed. Being a mom has been the most amazing and natural stage of my life and I'm more than blessed to be a mom to the most amazing little boy in the world (said all the mom's in the world). I love that little man that goes and goes and goes, and then sleeps . . . HARD. Anyways, thanks for the day that says "thanks" for being a mom, but really it's more than a pleasure.

Sidney got me this beautiful arrangement of flowers for Mother's Day. Thank's Sid!

Last year's Mother Day was so very special. It was the day I got to come home from the hospital with my 3 day old son. In the Czech Republic you have to stay in the hospital for a minimum of 3 days as long as there are no complications between mom and baby. So after getting NO sleep in the hospital and wearing the sticky cotton hospital gowns in 80 degree weather with no windows open, I was SO ready to come home with my little boy. It was a very special gift. This is a picture of Sidney on that first day home. It's amazing to see how they change and grow in just a year.

Sidney's First Birthday

2009-05-08T13:44:00.007-07:00

Though there has been a lack of blogging here lately, we won't take the time today to catch up on recent events because today something very special happened. Our son turned ONE today! If you can't believe if, neither can we. In non-Czech fashion we threw Sidney a traditional American first birthday. Though it wasn't filled with the typical baby eating cake episode or the helium balloons, it was still a great party.

We threw the birthday bash at our church with a barbecue, cake, and with 17 + of our friends and (Czech) family. Today is a Czech holiday so everyone had off work and could come to the Friday party. What a blessing it was to have everyone there with us. Sid was a champ and partied hard. After the 3 1/2 hour excursion, Sid slept for over 2 hours.

This has been one of the most wonderful years of our lives. Sidney has brought us more joy than we could have ever imagined. He continues to surprise us daily with his developing, humerus personality that laughs at everything, climbs and falls off of anything, stands without help but refuses to walk by himself even though he's taken MANY steps. He's the first one year old that we've met that's already been to 7 countries and will go to his 8th next Friday. He gives kisses on command, sleeps like a log, is as stubborn as his mom, refuses to sit still even for a second, loves his dog to pieces, yells out "daddy" at the sight of Wes and absolutely loves everyone he meets. He's the most wonderful gift from God and we can't wait to see what the rest of his life holds for him. We love you Sidney more than words could ever say. Happy Birthday!

Though everyone was not yet here, some were waiting for the food to be ready

Some of our birthday attendees playing with Sidney's new toys

Sidney opening Jitka's present. Who's more thrilled, Sidney or his mom?

Yummm, it's not a Tomas the Tank Engine 1st birthday without a homemade cake by mom. It was the first of hopefully many to come. It was a lot of fun to make!

Sidney's birthday present from us

The group picture of everyone that came. Unfortunately we were missing 4 people because their kids were sick.

. . . and the after party

Friday's just got a WHOLE lot sweeter

2009-03-02T05:34:00.004-08:00

Can you imagine anything sweeter than having a baby play group at your house every Friday? Well, okay I'm sure many of you see that as probably the most chaotic event ever, but it really is sweet. This past Friday was the second Sweet Friday. We had 5 babies all together ranging from 3 1/2 months to Sidney, who is almost 10 months.

The group is basically for the women in our building. On Friday there were 3 of us from our building and 2 that are friends that live in Brno. There are 2 new babies coming into the building in the next 2 months, so hopefully these women can eventually join us with their newborn babies. It's been a great way to encourage one another, talk about our struggles, things that work for us as moms, and just have fun with our kids and drink coffee. It's EXACTLY what I wanted to happen at the group and it developed on it's own.

The group meets every Friday at our house. If you think of us on Friday, pray for our "Sweet Fridays." We hope to grow in numbers as more moms in the building find out about the group. I've never looked forward to Friday's as much as I do now!

The beautiful Valerie, 4 months. She's the daughter of our friends Sylva and Marian

At our first "Sweet Fridays" we took a picture of the three babies. Sid loves the ladies

The babies love to play with Sidney's toys and Sidney loves all of their toys. We have so much fun!

Hey pretty lady, come here often? What you doin with my chew toy? Give it back!

March is IN, Snow is OUT

2009-03-02T05:16:00.003-08:00

This is the view of our apartment building at night after a day of snowing. It was beautiful!

We don't usually recognize how much snow is on the ground, or how long is stays around. This winter has seemed to just keep going and going and going. It's the first winter that we've had to juggle taking Koda out for a walk and dealing with a baby. The thing that's the worst about apartment living is that you can't just throw your dog in the backyard when you get home and you have to clean him off every time he comes back in. It got old real quick this winter. We definitely had more snow than the past years as well. When the snow was actually on the ground it was great because Koda stayed clean. Now that the snow has been melting over the past few weeks, Koda comes back so wet and so dirty.

The bright side is that we have great hopes the snow will stay away now. We can only pray this is true. There is just a little left on the ground and more and more disappears each day. When the snow was around, it was beautiful, so we thought we'd share a few of these pictures with you.

All the strollers around here come with a water protector since we all use our stroller at least once a day. So one afternoon it was really snowing and we had to take Koda out, so Sidney hung out with his water protector.

Would you really take the chance of messing with this pair?

The Results of the Ladies Club

2009-02-08T12:43:00.004-08:00

Our first meeting of the Ladies club met on Tuesday. To be honest I thought more people would be there, but it was very successful despite the numbers. Outside of the 5 women from church, we had 3 other women come that all have had babies this year. Two of them live in my building and the other is a friend of mine. These women have been invited to other events but have always rejected the invitation. This Ladies Club is showing to be a non threatening outlet to bring people into the doors of church, make relationships with Christians, and hopefully feel completely comfortable that they see “church” in a completely different way.

We had a coffee, tea, and sweets table set up. The craft for the night was a mailbox valentine made of different scrapbooking paper and also valentine cards. None of them had ever done anything like this and were excited to give it a try. The night was filled with conversation, laughter, children, fun, and some great relationship building. The best part about it is that the women at church are very excited about the club and can see this as a great ministry outreach. Our next club will be March 3^rd. We’re going to make beaded jewelry and two of the women will actually be able to teach us how to do this craft, since I haven’t a clue. I’m really excited about how God can use this club for his glory.

Some of us with all our babies

Everyone making their cards. Me doing who knows what.

"Hey, how'd you do that?"

Iva and Jana working on their cards

Hey there pretty lady. My mom didn't tell me YOU were going to be here.

Dámský Klub

2009-02-01T12:58:00.004-08:00

(Translation: Ladies Club: For the young and older who have some free time and want to have some fun.)

I've had this idea of a ladies club bouncing around in my head for some time now. After months of encouragement from my husband, I put together a proposal to give to the women at church. I wanted to know if they were interested in getting involved in this club as a means of outreach and making relationships with women in our area. The objective is to first and foremost get women through our church doors that would never come otherwise. After that, we just want to get to know them, let them know we exist and hopefully see Christ for the first time.

We meet once a month. Our club will consist of having coffee, tea, and some type of craft. Our first meeting is this Tuesday. Please pray for our meeting and for some of the women that said they would come. I'm very excited about what the club can become and what God can do through this connection. Please also pray that our church will see the purpose in this and how joyful it can be. The women are excited about the club but have never done any kind of outreach like this before, and neither have I! We would just love your prayers, especially as I try to do this in Czech.

It's a long one, but should cover the basics

2009-01-20T01:47:00.005-08:00

I don’t really know if anyone ever checks this blog. I suppose some of you do, but I have no idea how often. If you do check the blog regularly, I’m guessing you’ve been disappointed with no updates. Honestly, I don’t know when people, especially missionaries with children, have time or the energy to update there blog. It’s the last thing I want to do at the end of a long day.

It’s 8 in the morning and I’ve decided that before my day gets away from me again, I’ll sit down and attempt to update you about some of the highlights in the past few months. I have to also add, that I’m not good with words, nor do I really prefer to read a lot, so I will explain the updates with as few words as possible, and with as many pictures as possible.

DECEMBER

At the end of December we bought a replacement car, just in time for the harsh winter. After months of searching and shopping around, we found the perfect one! It was truly a blessing from God. Unfortunately, we still have to sell our other car.

On December 21^st, we celebrated Czech Christmas with our Czech family, the Bartoškovi. We ate a traditional czech Christmas meal and opened presents. It was so much fun.

Us at our Czech Christmas

Our friends made this calendar for us of all different pictures from our time in CZ. It was really cool and so thoughtful.

Sidney with his new Illustrative Bible in Czech, discussing things with Ales.

Yum, carp, the traditional Czech Christmas food. It's got these terrible bones that you have to pick out the entire time you're eating it. It's not bad, but I think I'll stick with turkey.

The following day we headed to America, which would end up being the LONGEST day of our lives. The trip was horrible, from start to finish. We didn’t get the bassinet for Sidney on the way to Philadelphia and Sidney slept a total of 45 minutes the entire day. I’m not even kidding. It was terrible. Wes was really sick on the plane, so he was nearly out of commission himself. The ride itself was one of the worse we’d ever been on, and we had never been so glad to be in Philadelphia.

We were in Pennsylvania from December 22^nd, until January 6^th. It was nice being back in America with family for the holidays. As it turned out, Sidney had an ear infection and bronchitis the whole time we were home. It wasn’t fun. Apparently he doesn’t like to sleep in foreign places, which makes it LOTS of fun for me. Luckily we found a doctor that would see Sidney without health records, and we were able to get him medicine.

Sidney on Christmas day opening Grammy and Pop-pop's presents

Me and my little man

The 26^th and 27^th started my brother’s wedding festivities. It was an absolutely beautiful wedding, with the most beautiful bride. Sidney was the ring bearer. He sat in a wagon, in his suit, while the flower girl walked him down the isle. I was never so proud to be his mom. He actually liked it, smiling the whole way day the isle. Our night was cut short because of Sidney. He was a total mess by the end. That part was quite sad because I really wanted to experience my brother’s entire wedding. But they are now married, which is the important part.

On the 30^th, we headed up to my parent’s cabin for a few days. Sidney learned to crawl while he was there. It was pretty cool. There was a ton of snow, and it was nice to just relax.

So now we are back to work, settled in, and looking at our own snow on the ground in Brno. It’s beautiful! Okay, so I wrote WAY more than I thought I would. I suppose once I get going, I can’t stop. One more thing: I can’t help but share about my little man. He is completely healthy now. Praise God! He is crawling all over the place and standing himself up all the time. He becomes more and more fun every day. I’m holding on to every moment because I know this stage could be over tomorrow. He’s a whoppin 20 pounds (9.25 kilo) and looks like a tank next to his other friends that are older than him. But he’s so stinkin cute, if I say so myself. Until next time . . . stay out of the cold!

Blessings,

Michelle for all of us.

You Can Never Have Enough Baby Dedications

2008-11-18T11:44:00.003-08:00

All the children and parents that were dedicated

Back in July Sidney was dedicated at our church in California, Bouquet Canyon Church. It was really special to do that with both of our families present and with our church there as well. Well a week ago Sidney was dedicated at our church here in Brno. Apparently they haven't had a dedication in 3 years because they didn't have enough babies. 2008 was the year for procreation though. About 7 babies were born this year, including Sidney. For some reason some people call Sid, James Bond (his middle name being James) and they all think it's hilarious. So he was introduced as "James Bond." They all laughed, including us so we didn't look stupid (any more stupid that is.) So anyways, we just wanted to share the pictures with you. It was a really special time. They gave us this wonderful Czech, Christian book and a flower. Most of the kids were girls, so Sid will have his pick of the litter.

Waiting for the night to begin.

Our friends Julie (American), her husband Marek (Czech) and their daughter Ruby. They are also missionaries in Brno.

Sid hanging out with Mirka, Jana, and Adam from church.

A New Home for Koda

2008-10-28T13:51:00.002-07:00

So Koda has a new home on the balcony. We bought Koda a traveling cage so that he has a place to protective from the weather, but also so we can travel with him on a plane at some time.

We'd been looking for this type of cage for a long time, but hesitated to buy one because they are more than twice the price that you would pay for one in America (gulp). A few weeks ago Wes and I had a free afternoon without Sidney, so we decided to go to the mall for lunch and walk around. We found ourselves in the pet store and low and behold, they had these dog cages 50% off. Wow, we were so excited because this way it made the cages reasonable. Stick with the story here . . . there is a point! They didn't have the size we needed so we asked if we could order it. The lady told us that they actually had that one in the back. She brought it out, we even bought the wheels that went with the cage. We paid for it with a credit card and thought everything was great. When I went to sign the credit card receipt I saw that she charged me full price for the cage. I explained to them that the cage was on sale and showed them the advertisement. What was there response? "Oh well this is a different cage, the clipper 7 is the one on sale and we don't have it. You have to order it." Duh, that's why we asked if we could order that one.

Normally this wouldn't be a big deal. They just needed to refund our money and order us the proper cage . . . the problem was that refunds don't really happen in this country. None of the workers had ever done a refund, so they had to go find a manager. So instead of refunding our credit card, they gave us cash, which they had to scramble for since it was a bigger purchase. Isn't that the point of credit cards so that you don't have to deal with cash? It's just another one of those cultural things that make you go . . . what?!?! That makes no sense. But anyways, Koda has his cage and fortunately likes it a lot.

Fog, showers, and a preacher

2008-10-17T12:56:00.004-07:00

The view from our balcony all day, every day for two weeks. Beautiful isn't it?!?!

I suppose it's time for an update for all our faithful readers. Our city has been quite ugly the last two weeks. We've seen only fog and clouds and today the sun made it's premier for practically the first time in October.

Our friends Marian and Sylva are due to have a baby girl in less than two weeks. One of the Sunday School classes from our church in PA put together a baby shower for them and put a personal note with each of the gifts. The shower was a complete surprise and they were completely overwhelmed by it all. In the Czech Republic, or probably anywhere else in the world for that matter, they don't do baby showers. As the night concluded and all the gifts were opened they told us they couldn't understand that type of generosity. It just doesn't exist in the country and they can't understand how people that don't even know them would do such a thing. It was a really wonderful thing and we're so grateful (as are they) for all our church did.

Sylva and Marian opening their BOXES of presents.

And finally, something I'm so proud of (as the wife) is that this past Sunday my very courageous husband preached in Czech for the first time. He did awesome and was so brave. I can't imagine doing anything like that.

So there it is, basically. Our little man is 5 months already and can scoot backwards. He gets so frustrated when he's in front of a toy and 2 minutes later he's at the other side of the room wondering how he got there. He's the greatest, happiest baby I've ever met and changes every day. Until next time we finally update . . . Michelle for us all

Such a stud preacher!

Sid and I FINALLY understanding every word of the sermon.

Only the cutest baby in the world

2 Years!

2008-09-11T12:37:00.002-07:00

Happy Anniversary to us! Today we celebrated our 2 year anniversary of being in the Czech Republic. It's so hard to believe that we've been here fore two years already. God has blessed us beyond measure with relationships, our family, home, etc. We were reminiscing tonight about all that God has done in just two years. We can only look forward to the years to come and all that God has in store for us.

September Newsletter

2008-09-05T04:51:00.003-07:00

Thanks for reading our blog. Here is our newest newsletter. Click on the images to view the full page

Back to Life

2008-09-02T08:16:00.003-07:00

Catching up with friends. We had Sylva and Marian over for dessert our first week back. Sylva is due to have a girl on October 30th.

I suppose it's been awhile since we've last written seeing that the last entry was written from California. Since that trip we've been to Pennsylvania and now have been back in good old Brno for 3 weeks. In the following blog entry you can read our newsletter to find out more about our time in America.

So now that we're back in Brno, we've readjusted to being in Europe, living without Sidney's grandparents, and walking around not understanding people. The good thing though is that Sidney is finally sleeping through the night regularly. It's the first time since he's been born (which by the way has almost been 4 months *jaw dropping*) that he's been on an actual schedule. Though we loved our time in America, it sure is nice to be back in our home where we can have some normalcy to our everyday lives.

Wes is busy getting back to his sports ministries and we're both figuring out what we'll do for language this semester. It's a little harder now that we have Sidney. The ideal situation would be to have a tutor come to our house, but unfortunately we haven't found that person yet. Other than that, life is pretty much normal.

Still too small, Sid wanted to try out his new bouncer so he knows what to look forward to.

Another one of Sid, for all you baby lovers.

Here's a few things to pray about:

We have a evangelistic retreat with our church September 12-14. We don't have anyone to watch our dog and we don't want to put him in a kennel. Please pray that we'd find someone willing to watch him for this weekend.
We really want to find the best language learning set up for us, but haven't figured out what that is yet. Pray we'll be able to make some choices this week.
Sidney is getting over a cold and isn't always a fan of eating. Pray that he'll get better quickly.
Finally: Pray for our finances. We are in faith planning to buy a car in the next few months, but need to raise $10,000 for this vehicle. Please pray that this money comes in and that the Lord would provide a cheap, newer car for us that would have everything we need (an automatic would be GREAT for Michelle).

With these prayer requests, we also want to praise the Lord that the dollar is gaining value on the Czech Crown. It's now up to 17 crowns to the dollar, which is wonderful. We are praying that it continues to gain strength.

WE'RE IN AMERICA!

2008-07-20T18:57:00.004-07:00

The Robinson Family Picture after first arriving in America. It was nice to be back!

So I guess a few things have changed since we've last written. To start, we're in AMERICA, specifically southern California. We started our trip last Tuesday by taking a train up to Prague and spending the night with some friends. Early Wed. morning we departed from Prague, had a layover in Frankfurt, and then proceeded on an 11 hour flight to LA. Our traveling was uneventful, long, but well forth it. We were greeted at the LA airport by the entire Robinson family, including Wes's Aunt and Uncle, who flew in from England the day before. Our arrival was a little overwhelming, but exciting.

My sister-in-law, Emily, Sidney, and I on the plane.

Sidney in his airplane bassinet.

We're currently staying with Wes's brother, wife, and their two girls. We've been busy catching up with friends and supporters. On Thursday my parents (Michelle's) flew in from Pennsylvania to be here for our sister's wedding and to see Sidney. Yesterday was the big event and Wes's little sister Hannah got married. Then, today at church, Sidney was dedicated during the service. Okay, that was just a quick update of our life in the last week and a half. We will update with more pictures later. We'll be in CA until August 1st, and then heading to PA for 2 1/2 weeks. If we haven't seen you, or want to see us, let us know and we'll see what we can do.

Wes with his niece Kendall & Sidney

Our family went out for breakfast last Saturday.

Sidney, hanging out by the pool in his European speedo.

My parents and us went to Ventura beach on Friday before all the wedding activities began.

It's Official . . .

2008-06-18T13:30:00.004-07:00

Sidney has now been born! Well duh, we all know he was born, but now we have documentation to prove it. It only took 4 trips to the magistrates office, two different documents translated, and a trip to the American Embassy in Prague to get Sidney's birth certificate. And it only took 4 weeks!

When I was in the hospital, a lady came by to register Sidney's birth. All we needed to do was have Wes take our marriage certificate to the magistrates office and then they could officially process his birth certificate. For some reason we didn't have our marriage certificate after having it to get my visa. So we called the Lancaster Co. courthouse and they sent us a copy. We had that document officially translated into Czech just to find out it wasn't the document they wanted. Apparently the official document saying you were married on this date isn't enough. SO we get our marriage application sent to us and then had THAT translated into Czech. We took that document in on Monday and then they said it STILL wasn't official. We had to go to the American Embassy 2 1/2 hours away to get a stamp saying this document was real. So we did that yesterday. Today we returned to the magistrates office for the 4th time and the lady tried to tell us that the marriage application document didn't say we were married. DUH! We know that! So after another 1/2 hour and her talking with another lady, she realized that the document was enough. Apparently they don't deal with foreigners often.

The problem, from what I could tell, was that American marriage licenses and Czech marriage licenses look different. They have different information on it. So why did this whole process take 4 weeks? Well the first problem was that the offices are only open on Mondays and Wednesdays. In my opinion, it's a totally stupid and a frustrating set up. It's like they thought we were trying to pull one over on them and claim we were married and really were not. Yup, that would have made a lot of sense. So anyways, we praise the Lord that we have this precious document because now we can apply for his passport. Monday we are going back to the American Embassy to get his passport. Considering we are leaving in about 3 weeks for the states, it was getting a little close on time.

This situation is very typical of the Czech Republic. Nothing is easy, even for Czech people. The system is very screwed up in many ways. Sure the American system isn't perfect, but at least we can communicate there and figure out what the problem is.

Happy Father's Day!

2008-06-15T14:14:00.003-07:00

I must say that I've never thought much about Father's Day until I was able to share it with my husband. This is his first of many Father's Days to come. As many of you have already experienced, having a child is a wonderful and precious gift. But one think I've enjoyed the most is watching my husband become a father, and a great one at that. He loves our little boy more than I could ever had imagined . I'm proud of my husband and the Father he now is. Nothing brings me more joy than watching him love and hug our son. Happy Father's Day Wes. I love you and can't wait to see your relationship with our son grow.

Here are a few pictures from the past week.

I took this one this morning. I went to take a shower and came back to find this.

Watching his favorite shows!

Our Growing Son

2008-06-01T11:25:00.005-07:00

It's been 3 weeks since we've updated on our very changing lives. Michelle's mom has been here since the arrival of Sidney and unfortunately is going home on Tuesday. She has been a great help and comfort during this transition in our life. Sidney has been growing great and continues to amaze us. We've been to the Pediatrician twice now and has gained almost 2 pounds since he was born. He is learning to lift his head, suck his fingers, and scream at the top of his lungs. Overall, he is the kindest baby we've ever seen. Of course all babies cry, but he isn't too bad.

We ask for your prayers because Sidney has become collicy in the last week or so, which has made it very difficult some nights. He also seems to struggle at night when he's been passed around during the day or was out and about with us. Please pray that his colic will be completely gone by the time we go to our mission's family conference and when we return to the states this summer. All of our summer activities begin June 30th. Here are just a few of the many pictures we've taken in the last few weeks.

Mother and son on their first hike

Stopping on our hike to all stare at Sidney

So cool

Father and son relaxing

Grandma and grandson. Sidney can't stay awake when he's with his grandma. (One guess on who she's talking to)

All of us at our friend's house. They fed us GREAT during these first few weeks.

Thanks to his great-grandmas, Sidney has the coolest crib in the world.

The Best Mother's Day Ever!

2008-05-12T08:52:00.005-07:00

Our new, growing family

Most of you have probably heard by now from one of the very proud grandparents, but we want to share with you all the joy of our new son, Sidney James Robinson. He came very quickly into the world on Thursday, May 8th, at 2:40 a.m. He was 3.25 kilo and 50 cm long. Thats about 7 pds. 1 oz, 19 inches long. And for your reading enjoyment, here is the time line of my labor and delivery. I would love to hear from you if anyone has had a similar experience. They say labor and deliveries like mine only happen in the movies. So when it happened to me, I couldn't believe it.

11:23 pm, real labor contractions begin. I start timing them and they are less than 5 minutes apart.

12:30, I take a shower and prepare some last minute stuff for the hospital.

1:30, I wake Wes up and tell him we need to get ready and go. I didn't want to get there too early, so I told him to take Koda out one last time in case he didn't make it back home for a while.
2:00, we leave for the hospital

2:20, we get to the hospital and park in an area where we had to walk to the building. I didn't realize the extent of my condition, so thought this was a good idea. Boy was I wrong!

2:25, my water breaks before even reaching the hospital entry.

2:30, we get to the right floor of the hospital and I tell the nurse that I feel like I have to push. She didn't believe me. As she was checking me, I hear her tell the nurse that she can feel the head. The next thing I know, nurses and the doctor are frantically running around, Wes is brought into the room and they're telling me to push.

2:40, Sidney is born! I never made it to the delivery room or out of my street cloths. He was born in the office of the labor and delivery wing.

I spent 3 LONG days in the hospital, which were more challenging than I had expected. No one really spoke english and it was hard to understand all the medical terms on my own. I had two roommates throughout my stay, which made it hard to sleep at night. If my baby wasn't crying, there's was. Fortunately, Sidney is sooooo good and only cries when he is hungry. I couldn't praise the Lord more for this amazing miracle. Sunday, Mother's Day, we were released from the hospital and we are all doing well. Thanks everyone for your prayers, cards, gifts, and messages. Having a baby in a foreign country has been difficult, but exciting at the same time.

He's amazing!

Wes at home with his son

Sports, Sports, and More Sports!

2008-05-05T06:16:00.003-07:00

Wes has been quite busy lately playing sports around Brno. Last year he helped with a baseball program and it just started back up again for this season. Another American guy, Justin, and him have baseball practice every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. Kids from around the neighborhood come and play. There can be anywhere from 6 to 15 kids that come each time. It's kind of funny to watch these little kids try and play American baseball. Some have never help a bat or put on a glove before. Growing up in America, you just assume all boys know how to play baseball.

Wes helping out at baseball when the kids practice catching ground balls.

Recently Wes started playing basketball on Monday nights with a guy from church. There are about 10 guys that show up every week. Wes's friend Marian has also been playing for a few weeks now.

Then, on Thursday nights Wes plays ice hockey. When I say night, I mean they don't start playing until 10:15 pm at the earliest. Usually he doesn't get home and to bed until after 12:30 in the morning. Our hopes when we moved here were to one day start some kind of hockey ministry, or sports ministry. He is making many connections in the community and seems to acquire endless opportunities for playing sports. Hopefully after our little guy comes into the world and gets his first set of skates, we can start or get involved in some kind of ice hockey ministry. Side not: Wayne Gretzky started playing ice hockey at just 3 years old!

Wes playing hockey one night. He has the white leggings on in front of the goal.

Another picture of the guys playing hockey. Notice the time on the clock. 11:12 p.m.

Preparing For Jr.

2008-04-20T11:50:00.003-07:00

The last few weekends have been packed full of trying to get ready for the little guy. Because we decided not to move, we are now making this place a little more homey and adding some furniture to help with the new arrival and all that it comes with. A few weeks ago Wes painted the living room and the office/baby's room. Our friends Aleš, Mirka, and Alena, came to help paint and clean the house a bit. They are such great friends and are so thankful for them. We'll post more pictures later when everything is complete and ready. Thanks to everyone that has sent some sort of package our way. WE LOVE PACKAGES!!! and they have been a great help in our preparation for the baby. I'm now 37 weeks, we've picked the hospital we're going to have the baby at, so now we just need a baby. We'll keep you updated, or not. Our track record isn't exactly the best in keeping this thing updated, but we'll try our best.

Wes painting in the baby's room. It's a greenish color.

Alena and Mirka cleaning up after painting the living room. The living room is a sand color.

Week 36. Excuse the fact that I look like I haven't slept in weeks.

April Fools

2008-04-01T10:14:00.004-07:00

I had my Czech conversation class today and it sparked an idea. Every week one student comes up with a question that the rest of the students have to answer. Todays question came from a Russian girl who wanted to know what April fools jokes people have done. There were many good ideas coming from the other students, but I couldn't resist faking an early birth. Michelle is still pregnant, doing fine and still has 6 weeks left. If anything it got people who we haven't talked with for a while to give us a call.

2008-04-01T06:31:00.002-07:00

What a suprise that was

2008-04-01T04:24:00.002-07:00

So there I was sleeping away and something hit me in the middle of the night, I first thought that it was Koda jumping on me to go to the bathroom. Oh was I wrong. It was Michelle. We had been at our normal doctor’s appointment earlier in the day and she said everything was fine. At 3:23 in the morning there we were off to the hospital. The drive to the hospital is a lot further when someone is yelling at you the whole way. As the anticipation grows from reading this, yes the baby came. At 6:54 Michelle gave birth to our baby boy, yes a few weeks early but he is healthy and that’s all that matters. He is just under 3 kilos, and I would tell you how many cm, but that won’t mean much to you so I won’t. I just got home from the hospital, its been a long night, so I am off to get a few hours of sleep before I need to go back and check on Michelle and (we don’t have a name yet because he came to early). Give us a call if you’d like to know more, if I don’t pick up its cuz I am sleeping or not here.

Our Easter

2008-03-28T14:20:00.003-07:00

We hope everyone had a great Easter. Ours was definitely not a traditional American Easter, but it was definitely fun. We had church on Sunday morning, followed by lunch at the mall's food court with our teammates. Nothing says Easter like some Mexican and KFC. Actually, it was great in all seriousness. Then later that afternoon we had an evangelistic children's outreach at the church. They had a puppet show and food and drink after. It was exciting because we had some strangers from the community come, which hasn't happened before.

The children's Outreach at church.

In the Czech Republic, Easter is celebrated on Monday. They have a number of traditions that happen on Monday, none in which we do or will mention. So Monday we went on a hike with our friends. Unfortunately I (Michelle) am a party pooper and can't walk much more than an hour. Well I guess I could, but then I'd be done for the rest of the day. On our walk, Koda thought it would be a good idea to practice his swimming techniques. It was freezing on Monday, so it wasn't exactly the best time for him to take a dip. But overall, we had a wonderful Easter and it was very relaxing.

All of us on the hike. Wes and I have matching jackets because the jackets go together and I (Michelle) don't have any jackets that fit me anymore. So we have to look a little dorky for now.

Koda taking a dip. He was carrying my apple in his backpack, but obviously I didn't eat it after his swim.

Just me (can you guess who updates the blog?)

It Can't Possibly Be the Week of Easter

2008-03-18T12:49:00.006-07:00

We had snow today. Yes thats right. It was terrible and hopefully it will all be gone by morning. But wanted to share this short clip with you so that you too can experience the shock of the sudden change in weather.

What Exactly to Do in Poland?

2008-03-18T12:27:00.005-07:00

Wes working in the attic with some of the team from Germany

This past weekend we were in Wroclaw, Poland to help some SEND missionaries with a team that was coming in from a boarding school in Germany. In Wroclaw there is a church plant that purchased a 4 story building and is slowly working on the renovations. Wes was asked to be the foreman for the building job in the attic. I went along to do what I could in the kitchen and helping with whatever small things needed done. Unfortunately that help didn't go very far considering by the time I walked up the 4 flights of steps I could hardly breath. But we had a wonderful time in Poland and I was able to lead worship on Sunday morning. Two of the girls did the Polish part and the rest sang the English part. It was a lot of fun.

Wes saying who knows what and giving very specific instructions to a group of high school boys (Emily, I wore this just for you)

Michelle leading worship with some of the teens

It's a bit hard to play the guitar these days with my giant stomach, so it sits on my side:-)

Koda spent the weekend with a family from church. He had so much fun and definitely got more exercise than if we had him with us. The family was such a blessing because Koda would have been very hard to have with us in Poland.

Dan and Koda fighting

Koda with their daughter, Verunka in the car. Too funny!

Getting ready for a Saturday hike. (Left: Jitka with her dog Gill, Alena, Verunka, Zuzka, and of course Koda)

Our March Newsletter

2008-03-13T06:57:00.003-07:00

I figured it's about time we give an update. Click on the pictures to see the newsletter bigger. Hope you enjoy!

We'll be in Poland this weekend, for anyone that cares. Wes is helping a working team lay a floor in a church attic. It should be a lot of fun! Have a good weekend.

An Update and PRAYER REQUEST!

2008-02-27T08:51:00.006-08:00

To everyone that actually reads and checks our blog, thanks. At the same time, sorry we haven’t updated in such a long time. We’ll try and fill you in on some of the highlights of the last few weeks.

Wes’s mom Margaret and sister Victoria came to visit us in January. They were so much fun to have here and Margaret really helped us do some shopping around for what we needed for the baby. They were even able to come with us to our 3-D ultrasound, which was very cool. You forget how much you miss people until you are around them and love their company.

Wes, him mom, and sister in Brno (It was an ugly day and we didn't take many pictures, so sorry mom and Victoria if you hate the picture:-)

Last week we started language school up again. Wes is in the intermediate class and goes three times a week and I’m taking a private course this semester with my teacher from last year. I go twice a week, two hours each session. My course will only go until the middle of April, because the baby is coming in May. The university has been more than helpful in helping me study czech while I’m pregnant.

Speaking of the baby, I am 29 weeks now and visibly growing each week. Everything is going great and my only complaint is I get quite tired mid-day and have sore hips by morning. Oh and I guess I could complain, but not really, that he has found my ribs this past week and likes to kick them whenever he gets a chance. Only 11 weeks to go (I hope not more!)

Baby Robinson at 29 weeks. Only 11 to go!

Lastly, we’d really appreciate your prayers this week. We are looking to move to a bigger place, but want to stay in this area. Unfortunately the only option for us in this area is a town home they built about 1 ½ years ago. There is yet to be someone to move into the house, so we decided to write the owner and ask if we could rent it for two years. The house is so much bigger than what we have now and even has a fenced in backyard for Koda. About 3 or 4 weeks ago the man called us to come and look at the house. We never expected him to call us in a million years, even though we’d been praying about that house every day even before we wrote him (oh thee of little faith). To make a long story short, we are unable to offer the man very much money for rent due to the declining dollar. We’ve made him an offer and he will let us know by Friday whether it’s a go or not. Please pray for us that the man would be willing to let us rent the house for less than he probably wanted. The house is more than we need for our new arrival coming, and opens up many more doors for ministry. All of our contacts and relationships are in this area and we don’t want to leave and start over in a new area. Currently our apartment is adequate for the two of us, but will be a very big challenge with a new baby plus our dog. Thanks in advance for your prayers and we’ll let you know what happens.

Koda has found a new home on the balcony, inside this cage. For some reason he likes it more without a comfortable blanket inside.

A Sneek Peek at Baby Robinson

2008-01-31T12:19:00.000-08:00

An early glimpse of our son. So far he has Wes's chin and nose.

On Tuesday we had a 3-D Ultrasound in which we got to see what's going on with our little boy. The doctor said he is above average in size and moved my due date up 1 week. If that's true, then it's time to celebrate. But we are still planning for the original May 13th due date. Our little guy is kicking and moving around constantly and appears to enjoy sucking his thumb already. Next month we will probably take some tours of hospitals so we can decide where to deliver the baby.

Little Wes sucking his thumb

Also, I know quite a few have asked about sending us gifts, etc. I have registered at Target.com and toysrus.com (babiesrus). Nothing has really been selected yet, so check the websites in about a week to see what we have registered for. If you want to purchase something for us, it should be shipped here to our address in Brno.

We praise God for a healthy and easy pregnancy and pray for the remaining 3 1/2 months that remain. Hope you enjoy the pictures of our new son and my growing belly.

24 weeks pregnant

The Mother Church

2008-01-27T06:05:00.000-08:00

This is the church that we go to for the last Sunday of most months. The church that we attend in Lišen is a branch off from the main Plymouth Brethren Church in Brno. Our church is what you might call a church plant from this one. In any case I thought that since I showed you what our church looked like last week, I would show the mother church this week. It is a lot more formal than our church. The church starts at 9:30 til its over. Generally there are two to three sermons given, but there is a free lunch afterwards. This is a great time to connect with people, use the language and really understand how "church" works in the Czech Republic, or at least in Brno.

A typical church

2008-01-20T04:15:00.000-08:00

We received a Flip video for Christmas and decided that its about time we posted a video from it. The video is from our Czech church, unfortunately there were 3 families missing. Jan and Iva are on vacation celebrating their wedding anniversary, Petr and Jana were at home with 2 sick children and although Jirka was there his wife and two children were not. Normally there are 5 Czech couples and 2 American. This, we hope will give you a small insight to our church here in the Czech Republic.

I recorded this to show our worship team. We currently have 2 guitars and a keyboard. The sound quality is not the best but, again it gives a little more of an insight to our church service. Dan is on the keyboard, Jirka is on the guitar on the left and Honzy is on the right. Most of the time we can sing along, but there are times when we don't have a clue.

Je to Kluk!

2007-12-30T07:33:00.001-08:00

For all that have been waiting, we finally have an ultrasound picture of our child at 20 weeks. If you want to know the sex, go find a Czech-English dictionary on-line and look up the words in the title. The baby is very healthy and there appears to be no problems. Praise God!

Christmas Day

2007-12-28T12:10:00.000-08:00

You have to be creative when you spend Christmas day just the two of you. We had Marian and Sylva up for waffles on Christmas morning, opened our presents in the afternoon, and ate our Christmas dinner in the early evening. It was a nice, quiet day. We didn't have snow fall on Christmas, but at least the ground was kind of white. Thanks to everyone that sent us Christmas cards and special packages. You have no idea how much it meant to us. It didn't feel like Christmas away from home this year. Thanks everyone!

Our first Christmas tree with the presents from our family.

My first attempt at a Christmas dinner, turkey and all.

Koda with his Christmas stocking.

Koda with his hamburger bone. Bad idea for the carpet

The Eve Before Christmas . . .

2007-12-28T11:57:00.001-08:00

. . . is the day Czechs celebrate their Christmas. Our friends invited us to their house to celebrate their Christmas with them. What an honor. We had their traditional carp and potato salad dinner. After dinner we opened presents and watched a special Shrek Christmas program. Wish we could have understood it completely! It was a great time to spend with our friends and experience a real Czech Christmas.

Marian with his shirt we bought him.

Wes being way too excited about his new hockey pajamas

The baby's first gift!

Jimmy admiring his new 2008 calendar

Christmas Time!

2007-12-27T11:52:00.000-08:00

Christmas time has kept us busy up until the rest of this week. We recently finished up our semester of on-line courses and czech classes at the university. We're enjoying a week of holiday rest, while catching up on some things that couldn't get done during our semester of school.

This past Sunday we officially started off the holiday season with going to church, and then enjoying some time with our church family, drinking tea and coffee, and eating everyone's homemade cookies. Let me tell you, us Americans have a lot to learn in the baking department when it comes to cookies. Somewhere Czechs learned to make the best pastries in the world. We also joined in on the Christmas cookies, by making up some cute baskets of homemade American style Christmas cookies and gave one to every family in the church. The kids got candy canes, which you can't find here. It was a wonderful day. Then later that evening, I (Michelle) led the Christmas carols at our international church. It was definitely feeling a bit more like Christmas around here.

Some of our church members sitting around after church

Adam from church enjoying his American candy cane

Our friend Alena and Michelle

Our December Newsletter

2007-12-03T10:04:00.000-08:00

If you don't receive our newsletter, you can view it here. Hope you like it. Plus, if you haven't heard our news yet, you'll want to definitely read this one!

(Click images to make bigger)

Snow or English Camp?

2007-11-15T14:15:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we helped teach at an English camp that was put on by the same church that we helped this past summer. Friday night we arrived, Koda and all, and just had a relaxing night. Saturday and Sunday morning we taught the advanced group and just had a lot of fun with them. Koda was a huge hit, although at first some were a bit nervous by how big he was. Sunday we decided to teach on the subject of holidays and Christmas specifically. It was very appropriate because just as we started teaching Sunday morning, the snow started falling. And it fell and fell for at least 6 hours after that. Within those few short hours, we received more than 6 inches of snow. It was absolutely beautiful! The only problem, or problems, were that we hadn't put our winter tires on our car yet and the camp was at the very bottom of a valley. The hill to the main road was very high and there was no way we were getting up it.

Some of the students sitting around for the evening program to begin.

Michelle teaching (or trying to teach) the advanced group. Hope they learned something!

Eventually a tractor came to plow the road and then eventually towed us up the road. The problem was that he only towed us to the top of the first hill. There were still two hills to go. Well we tried to make it up, but there was just too much snow to go anywhere. To make a long, long story shorter, our battery in the car died, so we had to get jumped, and then about 8 guys from the village helped push our car up the rest of the hills. Oh my it was terrible. A hour long trip home took us about 3 1/2 hours. But today we got those much needed winter tires put on the car, and just in time: It started snowing again tonight, and I don't think it's going to stop anytime soon.

Koda with our teammate's daughter Jessie. I love this picture!
Wes attempting to prepare the car to go up the hill. You can see the crazy amount of snow.

Fall to Winter

2007-11-06T09:25:00.000-08:00

Saturday we spent the morning tracking through the beautiful woods, filled with falling and changing leaves. We went with friends from church and had a wonderful time. . .

Aleš with Koda, Michelle in the red, Wes in the black and Alena

. . . and today we had a few hours of beautiful snow fall, covering the ground and trees. Unfortunately it warmed up a bit and it melted (as usual) and it's just ugly now.

Koda loving his freedom to run in the snow

It's Fall Right?

2007-10-20T11:40:00.000-07:00

People are asking us if it's cold here. Well this morning we took these pictures and they should answer your question. Last year our first snow was the first week in November. So it's come a bit early this year. Though the snow wasn't much and it didn't last long, it definitely is cold here.

Koda will be the last person to complain about the change in temperature. He is in heaven now.

5 Year Visa!

2007-10-19T11:39:00.000-07:00

Today was very exciting. After almost 5 months of waiting and application problems, I finally received my visa today. Normally Americans only get a 1 year visa. But I'm very lucky because I'm married to a E.U. (European Union) citizen, so I automatically get a 5 year visa. We started the process back in late May and found out we needed a certain paper. We had the original paper, but they wanted a new date on it (stupid I know). But little did we know that that paper was going to be the most impossible paper to get a hold of. Our landlord had to contact the city hall to make a new paper, but the city hall only meets once a month, if that. To make a really long, agonizing story short, we received the document in the mail yesterday. Today we headed to the Foreign Police just to give them our last paper and they made the visa right there and then. It was such an answer to prayer, because I wasn't suppose to leave the country until I received the visa. I actually was illegal in the country for a month (don't tell anyone) because my tourist visa ran out and I wasn't suppose to leave the country. Aw, but praise God, I don't have to go back to that scary Foreign Police for at least 5 years. (Can you believe that no one in the Foreign Police speaks English?)

Normal, Everyday Life

2007-10-17T12:17:00.000-07:00

Well, what can we possibly update you on? We are quite aware that it has been almost a month since our last post, but unfortunately not much has taken place in our life. We've been in language school now for a month and we continue to work hard on our college studies. Other than that, there hasn't been a lot of post worthy activity. So we thought we would just give you a few pictures, just to keep you interested.

We celebrated Sylva's Birthday on October 8th at a restaurant in Brno

Koda had a much needed grooming by a professional. She is a friend of a friend and didn't have a big enough bath at her shop, so she came to us. It took all three of us to work on him.
He smelled and looked great for a week, but he is definitely back to being smelly Koda. By the way, Koda turned 1 September 28th. Czechs often celebrate their dog's birthday, but sorry we're not Czech.

And last but not least, we continue to enjoy our view. One morning we could see a fire in the city. The next day we saw the crispy building on our tram ride to school. There wasn't much left.

Back to School!

2007-09-18T12:25:00.000-07:00

It feels a bit like High School tonight. We are going back to language school! Tomorrow we have our first classes. This language semester we will still take classes at the University like we did last year, but this time we are only taking half the amount of classes. Each class will have about 10-15 students from all over the world and will last until December 14th. So I guess I can't write long because it is a school night:-)

1 YEAR ALREADY!!!

2007-09-11T13:27:00.000-07:00

9-1106: Arriving in the Prague Airport. We are greeted by our SEND Family, the Harders and Stevensons. What an overwhelming day of emotions.

Today's date we remember not just because of the tragedy of the World Trade Center 6 years ago, but also because it marks the date of us first arriving in the Czech Republic. We have survived, or better yet learned to make this place a home in our first year. How amazing it is to see the relationships, life changes, and new cultural adaptations God has brought into our lives in just one year. Tonight we went and celebrated with our closest friends Marian and Sylvia. God has given them to us as a gift and we are truly thankful for their indescribable friendship. Heres to another year in the Czech Republic! May God bless all that he has planned for us in the years down the road. And, as always, we thank all of you that support us and pray for us to be here. God answers prayers and will continue to answer all that you've asked of Him.

Our Short, but Wonderful Vacation

2007-09-03T05:10:00.001-07:00

The whole family on vacation (even Koda came)

For the past 10 days Michelle's parents have been here with us. Shortly after they arrived, we headed to Croatia for a few days in the sun. It was beautiful. There is no other way to describe it other than it was absolutely beautiful. We swam in the Adriatic Sea for 4 days, and got burnt more and more. Croatia doesn't really have beaches, just sidewalks and piers. Surrounding the piers are piles of rocks that you can dive into the water from. The water was so clear you could see to the bottom, even 20 - 30 feet deep. What was even better (and we didn't figure it out until the second day) was that you can actually float on top of the water. The salt content is so high that you basically sit on top of the water. One day Wes, my dad, and I spent about 2 hours at one time in the water, and we weren't even tired.

Wes and I taking our own picture

Our view from our room

Anyways, the vacation was short, but so wonderful. We had safe travels and now we are back in freezing cold Czech Republic. It was like summer left completely while we were in Croatia. Also, my parents went home today :-( so if you see them make sure to ask to see all their pictures.

Wes and my dad floating in the water

Beautiful sunset from the town we stayed in

One area where we had dinner one night

Congratulations Joseph and Andrea

2007-08-19T04:46:00.001-07:00

Click on the picture to make it bigger.

Back from English Camp

2007-08-19T03:53:00.000-07:00

Here we all our. Our class!

(From top left and around: Wes, Vojta, Lydie 1, Lydie 2, Libor, Tomaš, Michelle, Daniel)

No we haven’t fallen off a cliff, or been deported. We still exist, but barely. We’ve been non-stop for quite a few weeks now and haven’t had a chance to breathe and catch everyone up. We’ve been having a great, but busy summer. August 4-11^th, we helped teach English at our annual English camp. This was the first time working with this particular Czech church, who coordinated everything. We stayed at a pension about 2 hours north of Brno, and there were about 50 of us total. Sunday through Friday Wes and I taught the advanced speakers from 9 am to 1. It was amazing how fast the morning filled up with our made-up games and activities. During our class we would have a reading and comprehension section. During this time students would read from the New Testament Bibles we gave them. Then we would ask questions, and discuss it. We had some really wonderful conversations with our students.

Wes giving instructions for one of our games we taught during class.

Michelle with Vojta and Libor, our students. Boy I look short next to these guys!

Then in the afternoon, we played sports or other activities until dinner. Every evening there was a different activity. One night there was a Christian rock band that played for us. Another night our American team from CA that came to help did a presentation. On Wednesday night a pastor from a near by village shared about forgiveness and how you could have Christ in your life. How exciting it was to see the young and old ask questions about whom God was and why did they need him?

Who talked me into playing this game? Can someone say leg cramp?

We continue to pray for the students in our class. We will be able to stay in contact with quite a few of them, because they will be moving to Brno this September to attend college. We were also really lucky to have Wes’s brother, Daniel, with us for the camp. He got to teach the upper intermediate class. Needless to say, all the girls were asking about him:-)

Our brother Daniel with Libor

Michelle with Toby, the son of one of the ladies at the camp.

They definitely are brothers. Sorry Wes and Joseph, Daniel is now taller than all of you:-)

On the last night of camp every class performed a skit. Ours required little English, but a lot of acting. Wes in this picture is coming into a doctors office sneezing. Every patient that comes in gives their sickness to Libor (left)
Michelle was nauseas. Gross!
Tomaš was last of us all. He came in as a pregnant women.