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Week 9 & 10 of 2024 (In Review)
Spring is in the air! Buds are noticeable, the first blooms are out, plant growth on the forest floor has begun, nests are furiously being built in trees all around us (peep the one above). But it’s been a beautiful past two weeks of crisp, sunny days were wonderful for being just normal winter weeks of the year. Fully embracing my maternity leave days this year (balanced with a wee bit of teaching) has been going so well and although we’ve weathered through colds cycling through everyone in the house and some health challenges here and there, they have been beautiful. Last week was particularly, accidentally magical. Baby play dates…
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Week 7 & 8 of 2024 (In Review)
Even writing week in review posts is proving to be challenging but it’s a special exercise this year only so I hope you are enjoying them so far! The past two weeks brought us Valentine’s Day, which is always a fun week to observe. It was a little bit cold and windy but I had a little coffee date with my Little Man in the monastery courtyard. It was fun watching him wander around. He’s in that phase right now where he’s discovering walking around outside and every single thing is new and exciting. The other day we all went on a family walk to a playground — the first…
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Week 3 & 4 of 2024 (In Review)
Last week was a light and abundant week of loads of baby activities. We visited two different baby cafes and the time outside the house (when we finally manage it!) always feels good for both of us, I think. If you’re not sure what I mean by “baby cafes”, these are entire cafe spaces completely dedicated to babies and toddlers. There is usually play equipment, things to climb on and loads of toys strewn about while also having tables and chairs for mamas to have a coffee and chat. There is a cover charge per child over one year old (usually). We are so lucky to have three or four…
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Week 1 & 2 of 2024 (In Review)
I’m trying something new this year. Every week (or two) I’m writing in just to document the usual daily life stuff that went on this year, my last year on maternity leave. This might just be mostly text, not a lot of photos, but the point is just to document the little things in an effort to blog more. Let’s see how it goes. It was another quiet New Year’s Eve night for us new parents, eating nachos and watching The Big Fat Quiz of the Year while baby slumbered, and I’d been anxious (for months!) about him waking thanks to the war-zone-like New Years’ fireworks around the city center.…
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A Year of Life & Travels: 2023
Here we are at the beginning of another bright new year! These yearly recap posts are my absolute favorites to read (on other blogs) so I hope you will enjoy catching up with my year and seeing little Mouse grow before your eyes! It was a big year for our little family and we are so lucky to have had the travel opportunities we did! If you’re on the fence, I cannot recommend traveling with a baby this age enough, truly. New Year’s Day, January 1st, 2023 was unbelievably warm – we’re talking 18°C (64°F)! We took a long walk with friends & no coats with our six month old…
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Can Český Krumlov Survive the Pandemic?
Not sure if I was just in a Really Good Mood or if the pandemic is (kinda, sorta, maybe) winding down enough to actually ponder these thoughts, but two years out, I was just thinking about those early days of the pandemic and, dare I say it, even feeling a little nostalgic? I know it’s kind of terrible and it all happened because of a contagious virus, but there are some things about that spring 2020 that for some reason, I look fondly upon. The initial figuring out how you’re still going to do your job remotely thing and that, like, four days of not working I had. The eerie…
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Cozy Christmas in the Cotswolds
I really did think I’d get to writing about our trip a little sooner than this, but there has been lots going on, which I hope to fill you in on soon! For now, as a fitting adieu to the winter season, we pick off where we left off, shortly before Christmas, picking up our rental car at Paddington Station and setting off westwards towards the Cotswolds – a beautiful natural area west of Oxford where you can find a network of picturesque villages and all the beautiful countryside you might imagine. When you leave London and head northwest, there are a number of nice places of touristic value that…
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The Holiday Season in London (Pandemic Edition)
Like I’m sure many travelers before me, the idea to spend Christmas in England came to me years ago upon a re-watch of The Holiday. How perfect could it be to spend the holidays in a cottage somewhere in the foggy countryside? I shared this vision with my family and in summer 2019, my mother announced that we were doing it! We were going to spend Christmas 2020 in England! Of course that wasn’t exactly good timing, but having already booked a cottage in the Cotswolds (an “area of outstanding natural beauty” just northwest of Oxford full of picturesque villages to explore) in early 2020 before the pandemic and unable…
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When You Miss the Country Right Outside Your Window (+ Holiday Plans)
Hello friends, hope you’ve been well. It’s another strange holiday season, thankfully a bit less strange than last year. They thought they could cancel all Christmas markets in the Czech Republic: the ordinance came out on Thanksgiving Day and we all scrambled to enjoy it properly one last time even though I forgot to even look at the stalls or buy anything! However, what ended up happening at least in Budejovice is that everything else remained open: the skating rink, the rides (yes, we have rides!) and even some beverage stands! It’s the Christmas market minus the market part, which is still being heartily enjoyed by everyone here in South…
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Living Through the Pandemic, One Year Out
It was nearly a year ago that the very first Coronavirus case showed up here in the Czech Republic. About ten days later, our lives would suddenly be disrupted when it was announced, after an emergency Tuesday morning parliamentary session that schools would close, effective the next day. Those early times — from the end of winter last year through the spring, all of our lives changed. Everyone was scared and uncertain, and despite what we would consider now to be very low case levels, I did not meet with another soul for almost two months. Absolutely nothing in-person took place. As spring gave way to summer, we saw cases…
