So, it has been a long time since I have blogged.  Ok, it has been a VERY LONG time.  Life gets busy.  I have all intentions of writing something, but it never happens.  I am a horrible blogger.  Yep, I admit it.  However, today I am going to catch everyone up on what has been going on in the Redmond house and at ESUMC Prague.  Hold your hats.... is going to be a long one....

Since my last post was in February (GASP!), there have been a lot of things that have happened.  I will give you an outline and then give you some more details about the important stuff.

March -- Not sure what happened in March.  It was too long ago.  :-)

April

• Bed Bugs - We found out we had bed bugs after John got bit at night.  The flat had to be sprayed.  In order for the bugs to die, they had to walk through the spray.  In order for the bugs to come out, we had to be the bait.  Fun times!  Oh, I couldn't clean the floor or vacuum for 27 days.  Nice clean fun! 

• Trip to the States:  We were able to take a wonderful trip to the states on April 7th.  We were there for a month and had a wonderful time with friends and family.  It was just what we needed to rejuvenate us.

May

• Visits with friends:  After coming back from the States, we were able to go to Salzburg, Austria to meet up with the wonderful Hawkins family.  We had fun touring Salzburg in the rain.  It was only one day, but we had the best time.  Also, I was able to meet up with a former student of mine in Prague.  We only met for 30 minutes or so, but it was so sweet to see Faith Cambron again.  She has grown up to be such a wonderful woman of God.  I am so grateful for the opportunities to see the people you love.

June

• Class, Conference, and Camping:  John was gone from home a lot in June.  He is currently taking online classes in Theology and has to meet with his class.  So he met with them in Germany for a week.   He also had to go to the annual conference in Slovakia.  Fortunately, after him being gone, we were able to go camping with the families from our Mom's club.  It was fun!  

• We MOVED:  In between John going to Germany and going camping, we moved to a new flat.  We are so fortunate to have more space and a balcony now!  We are so excited to be in the new flat and look forward to having groups over for bible study and fellowship.

July (CRAZY, but fun month)

• Mission Teams:  In July, we had many mission teams come to visit us.  It has been a revolving door!  One time, John brought a group back to the airport, and an hour later, he picked up another group.  Here is how July went...

1. Seth O Kegley came to help us with music.  We had fun showing him around town and getting to know him.  
2. Sam Barnett and group came for a couple of days before they went to another town for baseball camp.  We were able to show them around Prague and went to Dresden, Germany for a day.
3. Our family went to Brno for a week to help with VBS.  We had so much fun with the entire group, especially Jana, Betty, and Deban.
4. When we got back, a group of guys came for a week to help do construction on our sanctuary.  They had fun tearing down walls and getting it ready to paint.  We hope to make the sanctuary a multi purpose room for the church services, Mom's club, and community events.
5. As soon as they left, a mission group came to have VBS at our church.  The first day we had only Ada and Eli.  It was a little depressing.  However, as always, God provided.  By the end of the week, I think we had about 15 kids.  It was amazing.  We were able to become friendly with a Vietnamese family that owns a local shop near the church.  We invited them to come to VBS. Not only did their two girls come, but they also brought their cousin and a friend.  It was wonderful to see God moving that week.On Saturday, we have another mission group coming to help us at ESUMC Prague.  They will be working on the sanctuary.
6. On Saturday, we have another mission group coming to help us at ESUMC Prague.  They will be working on the sanctuary.

• The ALPS:  Just the other week, John and I were able to go to the Alps for a much needed break.  It was BEAUTIFUL!  I will have to post some pictures.  Hopefully some of you saw them on Facebook.  It was amazing to see God's gorgeous masterpiece.

• School:  Next week, I will be starting in-service at the Christian International School of Prague (CISP).  Yes, I will be teaching again!  I will be teaching 3rd grade.  Life is going to be a bit different!  We are excited about the change.  Eli will be starting 1st grade at CISP.  He is excited since he didn't really have the Kindergarten experience here.  School officially starts in 1st grade, so this will be his first year of "real" school.  Ada will continue to go to Czech kindergarten (preschool) for one more year.  

So, I think I have caught you up on the important things that have happened in our lives.  Unfortunately, I don't have all my photos uploaded on to my computer.  I hope to post pictures soon, but if you can't wait until my next post (who knows when that will be), you can see some on my Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/pettyredmond

Holidays: Part 2

I am horrible at blogging!  My mom even told me so.

I am not sure if it is because I am afraid to tell everyone how I feel or afraid that people will critique every word and sentence I write.  Either way, I have fallen short on this thing called a blog.  I hope that I will get better at writing on here.  No more excuses...

On to the holidays...

Thanksgiving:  I know... Thanksgiving comes before Christmas.  I can't believe that I forgot to include it in my other post.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year.  Although we couldn't be with family, we were definitely surrounded by lots of friends.  My friend Kenna and I cooked all day long.  I think we had enough mashed potatoes to feed an army.  We were so blessed to be able to spend Thanksgiving with some new Czech friends.  Many of my Czech friends had never experienced Thanksgiving before.  It was great when they tried the new foods and found it funny how we gorge ourselves on Thanksgiving.  Along with the new friends, we were able to spend some time with some old friends.  (Not old in age, just old in time that I have known them.)  My friend Brian Zajick and his family came to spend Thanksgiving with us.  I have known Brian since I was born.  Our families are long-time friends.  Growing up, our families would get together for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  The holidays were never the same when we moved from Richmond, VA (where we all lived) to Tennessee.  Since Brian, his wife, and 3 children live in Germany, they made the 5 hour trip to see us.  Brian and I had not seen each other in over 20 years!!!  It was fun to see them.  Plus, our kids became good friends.  Eli, Ada, and Gabe play games over the internet together.

That is Brian holding me when I was just 10 days old. 

    Thanksgiving








After a wonderful Christmas, John, Eli, and Ada and I went to Cerny Dul, CZ.  We stayed in a nice hotel in the mountains.  It was beautiful!  There was snow everywhere.  We actually had to leave the car that we rented at the base of the mountain.  The owners of the hotel had to pick us up and drive us up the mountain in a Land Rover with chains on the tires.  We were definitely in a winter wonderland.   We had planned to go to Poland to get some Polish pottery after our trip since we were near the border.  However, I got sick the last night we were there and spent the night in the bathroom.  Fun times!

On New Years, John and the kids went to see the fireworks in Prague.  I stayed home recovering from the stomach bug.  The kids loved the fireworks!  Our friend, Celieta, who took our Christmas photos, took a picture of the fireworks.  She gave us a magnet to put on the fridge so we will always remember the beauty that night.

After New Years, we got back into the swing of every day life.  I must admit, it was a little depressing.  The beautiful Christmas markets were no longer full of life in the squares around town.  The lights were taken down.  Prague in January is overcast and cloudy.  However, we pressed on and looked forward to the days ahead.

Holidays: Part 1

I realize that it has been several months since I have blogged.  Goodness!  Time just flies by.  I'll give you a quick lowdown on what has been happening here in the Czech Republic.

Holidays:  One thing that is great about living in a different country is that you get to celebrate a ton of holidays!  Since my last blog, we had Halloween (US), St. Martin's Day (CZ), Thanksgiving (US), St. Nicholas Day(CZ), Christmas Eve (US/CZ), Christmas Day (US/CZ), St Stephen's Day (CZ), New Year's Day (US/CZ), Restoration of the Czech Independence Day (CZ), and Three Kings Day (CZ).  I am sure I forgot one or two.  Some of these holidays we celebrated with friends, and some we just recognized, but didn't do anything to celebrate.

Halloween was special mainly because the kids wanted to go trick or treating.  Since they really don't celebrate it here, the kids were disappointed that they wouldn't be able to go trick or treating.  Our new friends really made trick or treating special.  The University students that live behind our building got candy and allowed us to walk through the dormitory and trick or treat.  They did it only for our two kids.  Talk about a Halloween we will never forget!

We loved going on a lantern parade with the kids from our Mom's club for St. Martin's Day.  Each child held a paper lantern and we walked through their village.  At the end, we lit the Chinese lanterns that floated up into the air.  We have really been blessed with wonderful friends through the Mom's Club.

We also got to experience eating baked goose for the first time.   It is suppose to be eaten on St. Martin's Day to get you "fattened up" for the winter months ahead.

St. Nicholas Day was a little different.  I had gotten sick so we couldn't go and spend time with our Mother's club friends and celebrate.  However, we need to do a little shopping for some necessities.  While we were out and about, we saw some young adults and teenagers dressed up as St. Nicholas, an angel, and a devil.  They usually go around Prague and hand out candy to the children.  My kids liked getting the candy.  It was interesting because we kept seeing angels that looked like they had come from Victoria Secret or something.  They left no room for imagination.  John and I kept saying that you wouldn't see something like that in America.  :-)

Christmas Eve and Christmas were bittersweet.  We definitely enjoyed spending time with friends here, but we missed our friends and family back in the states.  We did however spend Christmas Eve with some friends that killed a carp in their bathtub.  A big tradition in the Czech Republic is to have carp at Christmas time.  Many people buy carp from the guy selling it on the side of the road.  They take it home and let it swim in the bathtub for a couple of days.  Then, they kill it and eat it.  We arrived to late to see the actual killing of the carp, but we got to see the blood in the bathtub.  It definitely was interesting.  The carp tasted pretty good since it was fried and had plenty of seasoning on it!!!

 Here are the guys selling carp on the side of the street.

More holiday fun to be continued....