Prague, day one

Here we are leaving a wonderful coffee shop with the nicest woman ever who adored the girls and kept bringing us treats (and no, that's not why she was the nicest woman ever. She also told me that I was pretty.) Dessi is smiling wildly because she's amped up on the black tea she was served. I had never heard of such a thing, but in fact now I realize they also serve it in her German kindergarten.

Dessi found a little ladybug -- let's just say it was resting -- on a leaf, while Adai stretched out on a bench in a pretty, smallish outdoor sculpture museum by the river.

Prague

Here we are in something-something square (Prague), waiting for the bell to ring (a little puppet-ish man comes out of the church door and hits a bell with a stick) (Seriously, I used to be such a good tourist. Now, with these two it is survival mode. If we happen to see something interesting, then great! If not, well, just keep moving and soon enough it will be time to eat again.) My grandfather is from Czech Republic. It was interesting to walk the streets and think about whether or not he had ever been on that same sidewalk.

These are some pictures of the famous (in our circle, anyway) Bubble Guy of Prague. St. Charles Bridge? Ha, no thanks. Where's that Bubble Guy?

We later bought big bubble makers of our own from amazon and celebrated Dessi's birthday (October) with ginormous bubbles in the backyard. They are not that easy, we mostly made bubble tunnels. This guy has a special gift.

Salzburg

Eric was in charge of the camera this trip, so only two pictures and none with people in them!! It was a good trip, but except for the Mozart experience it was a pretty traditional European city. (I'm so spoiled, huh?!)

Halloween, 2012

Dessi was a magic ballerina, Adai was a magic fish (her wand and crown are in her bag), and I was a cat burglar. We trick-or-treated on base, and it was a super fun time with lots of adults dressed up and lots of junk food. The girls had a few pieces that night, one piece the next day, and the rest was never asked about again. Seriously. I don't know how we got so lucky with non sugar-eaters!!

Random Tuesday morning

Our playground

A fantastic afternoon at the park with Dessi's best friend, Aidan, his little brother, Sam, and his little sister, Juniper, newly adopted from China.

Adai loves the slide! Basically she'll thrill to anything that gets the wind blowing through her hair.

Ethiopia Reads

While in Addis we spent a morning with Alemseged, the in-country director for Ethiopia Reads.

Ethiopia Reads is great. They have a roaving library of books to reach far-flung locations (I think it's a cart pulled by a donkey) and they stock the libraries of local schools throughout Ethiopia. Without Ethiopia Reads, there would be school libraries, but no books. NONE!

We contacted him through email -- which is segedmh147@gmail.com (if you want to reach him send several emails with catchy subject lines because he will have to just happen to see it while scanning his junk mailbox) and offered to buy some Amharic books for a school. He called one of the local schools and got a wishlist from them, then we all went together to buy the books and drop them off.

We bought 35 books. The ones they picked out were a little more academic than I would have chosen myself, but I was glad we were able to do at least a little something (it worked out to about $75 plus cab fare) and that the books were printed and bought locally and written in Amharic. In retrospect, all these months later, I wish we had spent / bought more, but at the time I was going through so much every day just in hotel expenses. Now, the opportunity to do more is gone, but alas, it is what it is.

Here we are at the bookstand



Dessi helped package them all up for us



With the teachers at the school library



The local printing press