Life as We Know It: Up, Up and Away part one {Prague}

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Up, Up and Away part one {Prague}

In the midst of a busy time of year, we had the opportunity to take a family vacation. We are so glad we could get away for a couple weeks. It was nice to get away from the stress of living where we live and just enjoy family time, while being in some pretty fascinating places.

This spring brought some unexpected heaviness on my heart. I felt like I was in a good place in this grief journey until we got closer to Seth's first birthday. So even though our vacation was timed during a BUSY time of year (i.e. prepping to go to the states for 6 month and moving) it was such a gift to have some time to step back, reflect, grieve and spend some extra time with the Lord.

Marvin was already traveling through the capital and had been gone for a week prior to the trip, so the boys and I hopped on a plane and met him at the airport up north for our connecting flight. It was the smoothest flying experience ever. Thanks to be to a gracious God and whoever invented the kindle fire. New shows always lead to quiet kiddos, that and snacks I never buy for the boys which make their day.

We met up at the airport a little earlier than planned, I abandoned the plan to let the boys play for a while in the airport playroom due to some tired grumpy kids and we surprised Marvin a couple hours earlier than planned (because I was done with the single parenting, tired and figured it was best not to subject other little kids to Micah's possessive toy hoarding when he's exhausted). It was good to be together again.

We went a couple days early so we could check out the major sites, although not inside most places. (We decided museums are much better explored with older children who know a little more about history and with longer attention spans. After seeing that bribing Calvin with ice cream was not going to work during our first museum it became apparent our family was not ready for museums.) So we just enjoyed the beauty of Prague and had fun while we were at it.

Calvin did learn a bit of history while we were there. The one museum we went into was in the Jewish Quarter and I explained a little bit about WWII and a little bit about Hitler, i.e. a very bad guy who didn't have Jesus in his heart and wanted to hurt people he didn't light. We saw a star and several pictures of Jews who had to wear them. He remembered that quite well especially as we made our way to our second city asked more questions about why he would hate people like he did and why he was so mean to them. I'm sure with his incredible memory he'll remember that little piece of history. What a gift to be able to step food in such historical places of the world.