It's official

I've been 26 for more than 24 hours. wahoo!

I've got to prep to teach Irish Ceili dancing tonight. double wahoo!

Daily Puppy fix

Look at today's Daily Puppy, Dory. How cute!

It's getting hot in here . . .

Today I had the pleasure of chauffeuring my little sister around to various internship interviews in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area. We took my 89 Volvo, "Vi," who is a great little car but lacking in the airconditioning department. Plus, she almost overheated and I had to turn on the heat to cool the engine--I don't think she's used to driving so much in one day!

I returned home this evening drenched in sweat with a raging headache. Dinner followed by a short walk with the dogs went a long way to helping take care of that. A Blue Moon Honey Moon Summer Ale (it's no Pilsner Urquell but it will do), some dark chocolate m&ms, and a shower finished it off.

Tomorrow I am lucky enough to be able to do it all again for her--she owes me!

Prayer Request

UPDATE:
I received an email from Zach, and he's fine. Thanks for the thoughts and prayers!



Monday morning in Kashiwazaki, Japan an earthquake hit. This city is about 180 miles from the city (Akita) where my little brother is studying abroad. We're pretty sure that he is fine, but we haven't heard anything from him, and my family is a little nervous. Prayer warriors, can you keep him in your prayers?

Riverwalk

Last night after my dad got home from work, we decided to take a walk down by the Stillwater River behind our house. Well, he decided that he wanted to fish for a little while, and I walked the dog. It was such a nice evening yesterday, that we couldn't resist. I happened to bring my camera with me, and caught a few shots of Andy walking around, and then him actually in the river with my dad. This is huge, because he hates to get wet, and usually stays out of the water. He was so cute in the river!

I managed to capture a video of them walking back to the bank when we were leaving. Evidently as they got closer to the bank, they disturbed some crawdads/crayfish/crawfish (think mini-Zoidberg).

Reunions

This past week has been a time of reunions. I've seen most of my family, my friends who live here in Dayton, but the reunion I really anticipated was seeing my best friend Amber.


We've known each other since we were 7 years old, and have been best friends for quite some time. She lives in Minnesota now with her husband, so our opportunities to see each other when I'm stateside are limited. Last week, she came into town with her husband Adam for her birthday on Friday. We spent most of the weekend together renewing our friendship and hanging out, shopping in various stores and spending good time together.

Here are Amber and Adam at my house this weekend playing on my brother's Wii. Well, Adam is playing Wii tennis & Amber is doing a Sudoku puzzle.

More links

I have added a link on the sidebar entitled: Zach's Japan Photos. This is my little brother's web photo album of his time spent studying abroad in Japan this summer. Check it out if you get a chance, it's really cool!

sounds of summer

It is so nice to be back home. I had forgotten what it sounds like here at my parents' house in the summer. At night, I fall asleep to the sounds of crickets and the wind blowing through the trees, and in the mornings I hear the birds outside. (Ok, and also the dogs barking--between my house and our neighbors to either side, we have 8 dogs total. It's a little ridiculous.)

Today, there is a Salsa Festival (not really sure, but it is the style of music I'm hearing) at the Garden Center behind our house. I had forgotten that you can hear everything that happens down there from inside the house, even! When I was younger, the local playhouse would have outdoor performances in the summertime, and you could hear them as well. This is definitely a change from what I would be hearing in Prague. Evidently the weather is cool there as well--not so in Dayton. Today I spent some time with my friends Marie and Kat at a friend's house with a pool in the back. It was so relaxing and refreshing to spend time with my girls and to get some sun as well. I'm a little pink, but my 50 SPF sunscreen purchase from the Lekarna in Smichov was much appreciated today!

I'm having problems hooking into the wireless network at my house--I hope to have that fixed soon, and I will be able to post with pictures again. Happy July!

Home Again Home Again

Well, after much frantic packing on Friday (why do I always wait until the last minute?), the realization that I had more stuff than luggage to put it in, and a very nice evening with friends I ended my first sojourn in Prague. Saturday morning bright and early, I got into a taxi that took me to the airport. The interesting thing to note about this is that a film crew and an extraneousness tram were also on my street, waiting with the taxi. I actually think they may have been waiting for the taxi to get out of their shot, but what do I know?

I got to the airport, waited and waited some more, until my flight left for Poland. The airport in Warsaw is a little bit scary, I must say. It made me think of what a communist era airport may have looked like (minus the shops). The inflight movie was "Wild Hogs," but I wasn't up for watching it. I think the only John Travolta movie I'll watch this summer will be Hairspray, and he won't even look like himself in that one.

Getting to New York's JFK was uneventful. Getting out of New York was a little bit of a hassle. JFK is so big, that I got a little lost trying to find the ticketing counter for my next flight, after leaving customs without problems. I finally found the United ticketing counter, only to be told that my flight to Dulles had been delayed, and that I wouldn't make my connecting flight to Dayton. I had no intentions of spending the night in NYC or in Washington DC, so the manager was helpful enough to get me on a direct flight from New York to Cincinnati. This flight would land me into Ohio 2 hours earlier than scheduled, which was great. Except that it was departing from the Laguardia airport, not JFK. I ended up taking a cab to Laguardia (on United's dime, no less!) in Saturday late afternoon rush hour traffic. I thought that drivers in Prague were crazy, but they're nothing compared to drivers in NYC.

I got to Laguardia around 6:20ish, and my flight left at 7:15. I spent most of my time in line at the ticketing counter, trying to get my boarding pass. Apparently, New York had been experiencing massive thunderstorms that had necessitated the cancellation of a lot of flights since Thursday last week. People were trying to get out of NYC all over the place. Some nice ladies and a gentleman who were flying to Atlanta after a missions trip to the Ukraine kindly lent me their cellphones to call my mom, so that I could let her know about the change in my flight plans. Finally, I boarded my plane and flew to Cincinnati. I got my luggage, met my mom, and we picked up my sister from her apartment at the University of Cincinnati on our way home.

Nothing much happened yesterday--our city's fireworks were last night, which I attended with my mom and my cousin. Unfortunately for me, I fell asleep on our blanket halfway through, and missed the grand finale! Today I'm off to visit my kids and former co-workers at the pre-school I worked, then to the dentist, then to dance class to get ready for the Celtic Festival at the end of the month. I miss all of my Prague friends, but it is so good to be home!