NEW YEARS TOOTH!

Hey Guys, another huge milestone and yesterday was the 31st December. Max officially has got his first tooth, what a way to end the year! Over the past few weeks Max has had disrupted sleep to say the least and we were constantly blaming it on teething. He had disrupted sleep patterns, red cheeks and goes through around three dribble clothes a day so after say a couple of weeks, you tend to doubt yourself and begin to think it could be something else. That's when we noticed his first tooth and knew all of the hard work Max has done has paid off.

How amazing is it that it's popped right out on New Year's Eve.....I think he just times these things too perfectly. We took Max to have his six month check-up and he seems to be doing very well and is healthy. The baby doctor (she was actually a fully grown woman not a baby) also said that he is developing at a very fast pace, he is coming up to seven months and can already sit, crawl and roll over so I'm kind of expecting him to ask me what he wants for breakfast tomorrow. So as you can guess we are extremely proud of him.

What should we do to celebrate this massive milestone? Well it's New Year's Eve......so me and Jitka had a couple of hours off while our grandparents looked after Max. I know he is developing at a fast pace but I'm pretty sure he is still too young for a glass of bubbly (hehe).

Yesterday we went to the local Fireman's Depot and had a gathering with close friends for a couple of beverages and nibbles. And we had an amazing time! It wasn't like our usual get together from England, with golden coated smoked salmon and spending it with our two best friends, it was more of a karaoke situation and drinking games and we had a great time.

So I hope you guys enjoyed your night, whatever it was you did, and I will give a blog update over the next couple of days and who knows, maybe Max will be walking and talking...... 

Bye Guys

TWO CHRISTMAS'S!

Hey Guys, I hope you had a great Christmas and that you have plenty planned for the New Year. We had a great time and have spent the last week or so celebrating (hence why I have not been blogging). This year was slightly different to most as I am spending this year in Czech and we get to celebrate twice as a family for the first time. As you can imagine we were pretty excited.

First Christmas Day

Here we are on the 24th December and it's Christmas day! Well if you are from the Czech Republic or Slovakia it is (I'm sure there are other countries as well but I'm not sure). So we were woken up nice an early by our little snapper and had our hopes high for a snowy Christmas. As I put the kettle on I looked outside only to see darkness....of course it's 5 am! But as the daylight began to appear, so did the sun which obviously meant no snow.

As the morning progressed all three of us went downstairs to spend the day with my family in-law, and first on the menu was "Vanocka". It is a sweet bread and I can only compare it to a hot cross bun.....very delicious. And as we sat there eating our breakfast with a coffee we watched a Czech adaptation of Cinderella. I couldn't understand a word but wanted to stay within the Czech tradition.

So around mid-afternoon we then moved on to our second meal of the day which was "Kuba". This dish is basically rice with forest mushrooms, simple but tasty and tasted even better with a beer next me. After our lunch we then went on our way to visit Jitka's Grandmother and family. 

This then leads us to the amazing dinner we had as a lot of you know is "Kapr a bramborovy salat" which translates to Carp with Potato Salad. This was accompanied with a glass of wine and money under the plate. Yes I said money under the plate! It is meant to bring you luck in the future with finances, and as I am unemployed I need all the luck I can get, so I had extra (hehe).

Now for the best bit...the presents. After the meal at around 6 - 7 pm we exchanged gifts and I couldn't have been happier. Max got spoiled, like most kids on their first Christmas, and wouldn't let go of his new caterpillar toy. Again he didn't really know what was going on but he behaved extremely well and seemed really happy.

After present opening and a few drinks I decided I had to go to bed as the next day was going to be a long day. So Jitka and her family sat up and watched another movie called Pelisky while I was fast asleep with Max.

Second Christmas Day

It's 5 am again and it's Christmas! Well as I am native English, today was my Christmas.... And how about kicking the day off with pre-heating the oven.....yes you heard me, I was about to cook my first Christmas Dinner ever! Over the last twenty six years the only contribution I have made was eating it. 

So I roped Jitka into helping as two heads is better than one! And I can now sympathize with every single one of you who cooks this meal....it really is stressful but rewarding. Well as the Turkey was cooking on a slow heat I thought that it's definitely time for a bit of Buble (Michael Buble) while eating some mince pies (which I will try and burn off during the new year).

Dancing away while opening my first lager, I was in the greatest mood of all year. Max was playing with his new toys while Jitka's other family members visited us as a surprise. It was nice because it felt like I was at home, even though I was missing my family. As we were cooking the meal, we then found out we were catering for two extra persons, no worries.....I started feeling more relaxed as time went on (mainly because of the alcohol) and it was then when I then realized that no body has eaten this meal before, so there fore have nothing to compare it to. All the nerves had then disappeared.

So around three o'clock it was all prepared and served and I have to say that it was the definitely the best Christmas dinner I have cooked! I know it was the first but we have to keep the standard now as everyone is coming back for more next year. We couldn't have been happier.

After dinner things started to get a little wild as we started to play frustration ( the board game) and after a few more drinks, me and Jitka's brother carried on the festivities watching music on YouTube until late in the night (my parents would have been proud). It really was an awesome couple of days.

Wow that was a big blog! My head is frazzled. We had an amazing week or so and as now New Years Eve is approaching, I have decided to tone it down for a few days. I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas and will have an amazing new year. Thank you for taking the time to read and the blogging will be back to it's usual timely fashion and enjoy the photos.

Bye Guys!

CRAWLING FOR THE FIRST TIME!

Hey Guys, and welcome to my update. It's going to be just a short one but it's an important blog to record. Here we are again with the second big milestone of Max's life. I blogged a couple of weeks ago when he started to sit unaided but now he's crawling! I must admit, he's not crawling with ease but he is definitely moving forward. It's funny I say forward because over the past few days he has only managed to push himself backwards.

Someone once said to me that if you experience a few rough days with him crying etc, it means that he is ready to unleash a huge milestone in his life. To be honest I think it makes sense as we have always been relating it to teething, but as there is still no teeth, he has learnt a lot.

He is so close to saying his first words as well....he says "hello, dadda and mama" but I'm sure he doesn't understand what he is actually saying, but he definitely has these words down to a tee.

Anyway, we are off to Prague again today and I will update my blog with today's events. We are shopping for Max.....so excited!

I hope you enjoy the video.

Bye Guys

WINTER GRILL!

Hey Guys, and again welcome to my blog update. So here we are again on another Sunday and it just seems that time is flying by extremely quickly. Max is almost seven months and I have been living in Czech now for almost five months! It has been a hectic five months but I wouldn't change it for anything. It really does feel like "years" since I attempted putting up IKEA furniture on our first month here.

Well, we are now finally starting to settle properly and I'm starting to experience living the Czech way, which leads us to today's blog update. 

Today we started the same as usual with Max waking up 6 am and he now does this "cute thing" where he screams his head off until you pick him up from his cot....very cute indeed (you definitely do not get any lye ins with this little munchkin). So, at 8 am I made my way to play 5 a-side football as per usual, which we won 8-5 (*cough* *cough*) and after we went on our way.

After twenty minutes of walking we made it to our destination....if it weren't for Mia the dog, we would have made it in fifteen....she really has to sniff EVERYTHING! Normally we would have walked to the forest but we had a slight scare of rain and decided to set up camp a little closer. To be honest I wasn't bothered, as long as I had my sausage I was happy....haha.

We (Jitka's dad) lit the fire, drank some beer and rum with tea and all gathered round the fire to enjoy our feast. It is a tradition that a lot Czech villagers do and I really do enjoy everything about it. I mean what's not to like? Sitting round a fire, eating meat and drinking beer with no noise or persons in sight...it's pretty amazing.

This time Max was finally awake for an outing and seemed to enjoy what he could understand. The only problem with him being awake was that he kept knocking his hat over his eyes and tended to screech a little. But apart from that he was as good as gold.

After around one hour we made our way home and here I am now, blogging about our day with you all. I hope you guys enjoyed reading this and enjoy the photos. See you next time.

Bye guys.

PRAGUE VISIT!

Hey Guys, and welcome to my blog update. Over the past couple of weeks I have been saying that I will blog about visiting Prague and the Old Town Square and finally, here it is. 

I knew it was going to be a long day but the first planned event of the day was a friendly game of Football with friends and family (we play every Sunday morning). And unfortunately, whilst warming up, I thought I may have broken my thumb! It was then I thought, great, I've ruined another family outing by spending all day in hospital. But the great news is that it started to feel better and maybe I was being a little over dramatic. So I got home and we went on our merry way.

When we arrived we found a parking space right in the center of Prague pretty sharpish and best of all, it was a free space, so we knew we were in for a good day. After five minutes of walking we arrived in the center of the Old Town Square. My first reaction was, wow there is a lot of people! But what was I expecting? It's known to be one of the greatest Christmas Markets in Europe. It was very impressive!

They had a stage for music, which was purposely set for Carol Singers (they sang in English which made it a little easier for me to understand), lots of traditional Czech grub such as Trdelnik, which is similar to a doughnut, Klobasa sausage and lots of meat style skewers etc. They had buskers, tour guides and lots of entertainers. The best bit was the hot mulled wine and warm mead. It couldn't have felt more like Christmas, standing there with a glass of mulled wine, listening to Carol singers under a gigantic Christmas Tree. 

As we made our way to the shopping center we stumbled across all sorts of entertainment. There was a lady blowing huge soap bubbles which caught the eye of children as they tried to burst them as quick as possible. I think she was getting pretty annoyed because they were popping them before she had even finished. And a little further down the road we saw this peculiar act where a man was levitating above another man, it had me thinking for a long time until I decided that they are actually floating. Jitka then burst my little bubble by telling me how it's done.

We then made it to the shopping center where it has six floors and over two hundred stores. It was heaven for Jitka but I knew it was going to be a late afternoon, and what was meant to be shopping for family presents, quickly turned into cloth shopping for Jitka. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty immature and starting moaning like a child (but it worked).

Finally after walking around all of the shops, we made our way back to the Square to see how it looked with all the lights. And it was, as they would say in Czech, Krasny (Beautiful). Again the only down side was the amount of people, you literally couldn't move, but it was Sunday and we didn't expect anything else. It was a shame that Max couldn't understand what was going on but next year I'm sure he will be more aware, and probably sleep less (hehe).

So there you have it! I finally got off my lazy bum to do some Christmas shopping, and its only the 8th December. I usually do my shopping on the 24th (*cough* *cough*). So feeling a little more organized now I'm a family man. Next week we will go food and drink shopping, the best bit!

Thank you for reading and I will update my blog in three days time. And sorry for the bad quality photos as we had to use my phone.....

Bye Guys.

THEY FOUND HIM!

Hey Guys, and welcome to my blog update. Again just a short one but felt I needed to record this. Around three months ago, a cat had kittens in our garden. Little did we know that one would be left behind. Jitka's brother was doing his home duty of feeding the chickens and it was then when he stumbled across this neglected kitten crawling around the pen. It was from there on in that Jitka and her brother took care of this little smasher.

They both decided to keep the kitten but only if the mother didn't come back for him and that he was purely an outdoor cat. So as the weeks went on, the mother never came back and we knew that he was our pet.

Unfortunately around two weeks ago he decided to go his own way and leave his little home. But Jitka couldn't help worry about his safety, so she tried asking all of the neighbor's if they had seen him, posted a comment on the village page through Facebook, asked the local Zoo if they had any kittens handed in and finally asked the pet detective if they had any news. It's fair to say that we just wanted to make sure he was safe.

This morning we received a phone call from the Zoo, a kitten had been spotted which matched the description and was captured for safety. Five minutes later he was returned to us. It was then that the lovely lady told us that he didn't go his own way but was stolen along with many other kittens. The person who stole him is known for his animal cruelty and it literally was a case of them taking the kitten away from him. So we took him to the vet and were assured that he is OK.

We were extremely lucky to be re-united with him and he just needs a little bit of looking after as he was clearly traumatized from where he came from. And from now on in, he will be accompanying Jack as another indoor cat.

Jitka has yet to come up with a name, so he is called Mr X at the moment. This now calculates to six pets which does not include the other collection my parents in law have. We definitely have our hands full! 

Oh and the two parrots downstairs are sitting on two eggs.......

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope to see you again. It's a sad story but with a good ending and it has been a good day.

There will be a Prague update on Monday as we are going on Sunday.

Bye for now.

Mr X playing with Mia

IT'S SNOWING!

Hey Guys, unfortunately we didn't make it to Prague on Sunday because, well, we were basically too lazy to go! So we are going this week sometime instead as we need to get all of our pressies and want to see the Old Town Square. But today it's snowing!! It's not a Blizzard (well in England people may call it a "Blizzard") but I'm sure it will pick up very soon.

Max must be in a very good mood today as he allowed me to stay in bed until 8am, which means he slept for almost eleven hours. It's like he knew something magical was happening outside. As I dragged myself out of bed we immediately noticed the weather had changed for the better.

Before we moved to Czech I was really looking forward to the winter, solely because of the amount of snow they receive. I definitely prefer the cold and icy weather compared to the hot and sticky. With Mia, this is only the second time she has experienced this type of weather and I remember that she absolutely loved it! She was jumping around head first and kept herself busy chasing her own tail. It's a shame she doesn't understand what yellow snow is (hehe).

I think Max is probably too young to appreciate it at the moment, but I seriously can't wait until he is old enough so we can build a snowman together and, of course, have snowball fights. Jitka is also very excited as this means the mountains will be perfect for snowboarding. I for sure will not be going as I do not want a repeat of what happened last time.

For those of you that know me have probably heard this story a thousand times, so I will tell it one last time. I decided to go skiing with Jitka's side of the family, it took us two hours to get there and to be honest I was absolutely terrified. I kept saying to myself, if all these people can do it, so can I.

So after another hour of getting equipped we started to make our way to the top of the mountain, and when we got there, I decided that I needed a drink to calm the nerves. I remember looking down the mountain and saying to Jitka "I'd rather break a limb than ski down there!" Well I wasn't disappointed.

After Jitka connected my ski's her snowboard decided to grow legs and run down the mountain, which then led to Jitka chasing after her snowboard. As I was sitting there I decided it would be a cool and great idea to ski past her while waving. After around two seconds I realized that I have never been skiing and how the hell do I stop!?!? I self-consciously thought of roller blades and tried to break using my heel, which then led to me flying up in the air with my back landing on my wrist. 

And yes, you guessed it I broke my wrist in two places after just eight seconds of skiing. And just to top it off, nobody from Jitka's family had the chance to snowboard or ski because I had to go to hospital. Bearing in mind that myself and Jitka were only dating for under a year and I was just trying to impress her and make a good impression on the family. That literally fell flat on its face. Since then I have never dared to ski again.

I will just stick to sledging down the front door porch.

Can we dare to dream of a white Christmas this year? I hope so as this would be a first for me. Thank you for reading and we are now all going to enjoy the weather and watch a movie. Next time I will be updating about Christmas shopping in Prague, and our visit to the Old Town Square. Don't forget to follow and share with friends.

I hope you enjoy the photos.

Bye for now.

The view of the garden from our window this morning

Moments after leaving the onsite hospital from breaking my wrist

On the way up to the top of the mountain

Mia enjoying her breakfast this morning

The view from our living room window

                                         

A little clip of the garden