baking – Shay Thomason

One of the greatest blessings of moving overseas has been the opportunity to learn new things. I honestly don’t know if we would’ve had the motivation to learn certain things had it not been for us moving to Czech Republic. For example, Bethany now makes all of our pancakes from scratch. This week she even tried a different recipe because she felt like if she was making them from scratch they should taste a certain way. I have little doubt that had we stayed in the States we probably never would’ve tried to make our own pancakes. It’s just so easy to buy the big bag of pancake mix at Costco!

Today was another day of experimenting and trying new things. Since I was awake at 4am with the kids (p.s. they were up at 11pm…that’s right, they didn’t even make it until the next day), I decided to start pursuing something I have been thinking about learning: drawing. Because of the work I do, there’s often times that I need to sketch out an idea on paper before we design it on screen. I always feel like I’m behind in my understanding of drawing, so I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to learn. This morning I started an online class on the “Foundations of Drawing” which has been helpful and challenging. One of the tasks was to copy something in sections with the thing you’re copying facing upside down. The point is to train your brain to not think about what the picture is, but just look at the lines (you have to retrain your brain to see lines and not try to constantly figure out what the picture is). Here’s what I ended up with (mine is on the right). Mine isn’t perfect, but go easy on me…I’m a first timer.

Bethany was also learning something new today. She made English muffins! A friend of ours sent us a recipe on Facebook, so Bethany tried it out for the first time today. They tasted awesome and it was her first crack at it. Baking in general I feel like is pretty tough, so I’m super impressed. Again, I really don’t think we would’ve tried making those had it not been for the simple fact that we can’t just go pick them up in the store here. Tomorrow we’re going to make breakfast sandwiches with them and I can’t wait! Here’s some photos from the process (and here’s the link to the recipe!):

Jet lag has continued to be rough, but we’re doing our best. Avery just went to bed and it’s only 5:40pm as I write this. Titus is hanging in there and I’m hoping he’ll stay up at least until 6:30 tonight. We actually went over to our friend’s house, the Yormans, to have play time and chat just so we could stay awake. They were completely understanding because they just got back from California a week ago and are a few days ahead of us in the world of jet lag.

I’ve had some relief from my toothache today and it’s been feeling pretty good. I can’t eat an apple yet, but I’ve been doing my own pain tests and so far, so good. It’s been a slow process, but I am really I got that thing fixed before we left the States. Trying to explain all of that in another language would’ve been tough!

Well, it’s time for bed. Bethany is taking the first shift tonight (e.g. she goes to bed first and gets up when the first kid does due to jet lag) and I’ll be putting Titus to sleep later when he gets tired. We’re hoping to make it to church tomorrow, but we’ll just have to wait and see how we all feel. Thank you for continuing to pray for us!

It’s about 3:30pm as I write this on a cloudy and rainy day in Cesky Tesin and the sky is already getting dark. According to Google, the sun is setting at 4:12pm here right now. I remember getting off work around 4:30pm in California and the sun being close to setting, but I don’t remember it being quite as dark as it is here. The whole family is back in the bedrooms taking afternoon naps, but I’m a little concerned they’ll just end up sleeping through the night with how dark it is outside.

With all the rain, we’ve been playing inside today. Titus made the word “Zoo” on his own and knew what the word was all on his own. This was a first and we were proud (photo below).

Like most Saturdays, we’ve spent the day cleaning up the house. I feel like we’re always playing catch up right now as we adjust to new schedules and our new life over here. You would think after four or so months here we would have a good routine, but I would say we’re still figuring some of that out. I think that will even have to adjust again this next week because we’re starting (Lord willing!) language lessons again with a new Czech teacher here.

Tonight we had fun making more cookies from the leftover dough we made the other day. On a whim I bought the kids these little hats and aprons for $2 at the store the other day. They were wearing them tonight and they’re starting to look like little Czech bakers. Here’s some photos of the them having fun.

Lastly, I shared last night about being part of EXIT Tour here in Czech and Kevin Dickson, the EXIT Tour director here, wrote a comment saying, “48 Bibles were given out last night with over 40 people saying that they want to know more about Jesus.” Those are incredible numbers and we praise the Lord for his work in the lives of young people over here!