Wild World of Sports!

Yeah, I'm not really sure what that title means. In fact, I've never been very good at titles. Ever. You can ask all of my old English teachers. My titles either a.) have nothing to do with the subject about which I am writing, or b.) are ridiculously simple (i.e. The Life of Benjamin Franklin), or c.) are totally lame (i.e. this post). Anyway, enough about me. This weekend we spend a lot of time watching sports (hence the lame title). Friday night, we went to an (American) football game against the two *professional* teams of Prague. While entertaining, it was no Aggie football. I would say the level of play was pretty close to a high school football game (as in Kingwood playing The Woodlands). It was a fun experience, though. Saturday, we spent the majority of the day at the final few games of the Prague Baseball Week tournament. Actually, it was baseball and softball. One of the four Czech teams beat out France to win the baseball tournament (the two American teams placed 7th and 8th). The two womens' American softball teams place 1st and 2nd, though (go girls!). I didn't stay to finish the last baseball game, but the guys did and our boss saw them on Czech TV last night! How cool! Also on Czech TV last night was the Euro Cup, which we watched at our friends', Darrell and Vicki. So it was a weekend full of sports. Here are our pics from the weekend. Sadly, I don't have any of the baseball game.



Lining up for the play. Notice the stands are empty. We didn't even fill up one side of the stadium.



The Halftime entertainment. Yes, they are wearing Karate outfits. No, I have no idea why...



Awww, ain't we cute?



They even gave us these horn/noisemakers. Fun!



We even got on the jumbo-tron! Okay, it was more like a quite large-o-tron. But still, that's twice in one weekend!



They even had mascots. The Panthers...



And the Tigers...



And don't forget the cheerleaders!

Look what we found!!!

Just look at it there, standing proud and tall. The symbol of my Texas heritage. Or something like that. We found it at a small potraviny (neighborhood market) by the Czech Baptist church. Surprisingly, it's not ridiculously expensive, about the same cost as CocaCola, but so much more heavenly. And, it's the original recipe, you know, with real sugar instead corn syrup. It's like they brought it straight from Dublin, Tx just for me. (I'm ignoring the fact that it was actually bottled here in Prague.) If only I had some Pappasitos to go along with it...

New Haircut

Yep, that's it. That is all this post is about. Me. And my new haircut. Enjoy!



Look Mama, I'm wearing the shirt you bought me!



Okay, I just couldn't resist showing you this precious face. Caleb at 6 weeks.

AGM 2008

AGM stands for Annual General Meetings, a time when the folks from the surrounding countries get together to talk, train, and relax. We stayed about an hour and a half outside of Budapest, Hungary, really in the country. All in all, it was pretty relaxing. Between meetings, we talked with new friends, played cards, and I even got in a couple of jogs (between rain storms) down the country roads. Talk about a view!



We had a great volunteer team from the states come in to serve us. I got to talk to an American doctor who has checked out my Czech doctor and the hospital about my knee and I even got a hair cut (finally!)! We also got to experience our first Lottie Moon auction. Different items are brought from surrounding countries and the US and we bid on them, much more than we would consider paying for them normally. For instance, Matt and two guys on our team "won" a 12 pack of A&W Rootbeer for exactly $450. Yep, you heard me, $450. I'm pretty sure that's, like, 200 times what it would cost at Walmart. It's okay, though, cause it's a fun way to give your offering to Lottie Moon.



The happy boy...

I also had a fierce bidding war in the silent auction for a baking basket, complete with chocolate chips, chopped pecans, and muffin mix. I lost in the end, but the gracious winner gave me the basket anyway. How sweet!





The of opening the "Mystery Box". It went for $3000 (an entire team pitched in) and was filled with a ridiculous amount of sweets and snacks from the US.

I also attended a fun cake decorating class and Matt received the fruit of my creative labor (not before I ate my fair share of icing, though.)





We didn't get a chance to see much of Budapest, as we were only in the city for a couple of hours before our train left, but we plan to return equipped our camera and a sight seeing plan. The trip was a day-long event. The ride there (to Hungary) was pretty good. The ride home (to Prague) was not so great. We woke up yesterday morning to find there was absolutely no water coming from the pipes. It turns out a pipe had burst in the small town where our water supply came from. No water = no shower. I decided I couldn't just do nothing so I put on my bathing suit and jumped in the *freezing* pool. (The temperature had only risen above 70 a couple of times last week and it had rained the night before.) It helped, but after seven hours on a train with no A/C, Matt and I were in desperate need of a shower when we arrived home late last night. In fact, I took a long shower last night and another one this morning for good measure. A picture will be coming soon of my new haircut, but only after I decide to put on some makeup... More to come!

The Week of the Bus Wreck

Well, this week has been busy to say the least. We had a team come from Florida and, for the first time, Matt and I were solely in charge of the group for the whole week. I'm pretty sure they will never come back, we walked them so much. We mainly used the group to research areas where students might hang out. The group also did some singing out at some of the areas where schools are (they're a singing group). All in all, it was a great week and we got to spend a lot of time with the students. We also got in our first wreck this week. A car ran an intersection and collided with the bus we were on (we just happened to be with the whole volunteer team). Luckily, the bus driver wasn't going very fast so the wreck was not so bad for us. It was definitely scary, though. Matt and I saw it happening, but couldn't do anything but hold on. The girl driving was okay but her car was not. We have still been in touch with our Czech friend, Zdenek, but we haven't been able to get together again. He has been busy with exams. Feel lucky if you went to college in America. The end of term exams last for a month here! Crazy! We will leave this Friday and be gone for about a week for our Annual General Meeting in Budapest, Hungary. Maybe I'll finally get to see where Matt spent his summer back in college. Hopefully, we'll be able to relax some. It'll be at a resort on a lake outside of Budapest. Not too shabby. Here's some photos from our week:



Examining our maps for the areas we were about to walk.



Riding the funicular down Petrin Hill. We walked all the way up!
From left to right: Darrell, Matt, and Aaron (one of our summer interns).



The tired tour guides..



The biggest picnic table. Ever. Maybe they had Paul Bunyan back in the day, too.



The bus after the accident.



And what's left of the car after the accident.



My attempt at photography again. Prague Castle by night from the banks of the Vltava river.

Meniscus and Ostrich

So I started having some knee trouble about a month ago. Not really sure what exactly I did to it but I went in and found out I have a torn meniscus. That's the boring part. The cool part is, I have the pictures from the MRI.



I call this one the ostrich...That's right, the inside of my knee looks like an ostrich!


And there it is folks. That little white blob is a tear in the medial meniscus of my right knee. Cool, huh?

In other news, we met a Czech student! We had coffee with a real live Czech student and not only does he want to have coffee again (or "do something active," he said), but he also wants us to meet his girlfriend! We're really excited about our new friend. Also, we're really excited that our baby nephew, Caleb is doing better. He had a rough go of things, to say the least. For the full story from his mom, click here. She hasn't updated since last week but they are home now and Caleb is doing fine. Whew! Saturday, we said goodbye to a student team from Georgia who had been here working with us for two weeks. The did leave behind two summer interns as a present, though. We have another team coming in Wednesday, so between all that and Dr. visits, I'll try to get some more pictures up eventually. You know, ones with faces of actual people instead of ostriches...