Polish Mother’s Day and Papa and Nana Are Here!

Happy Polish Mother’s Day, I guess? I’m still trying to figure out if that’s what we were celebrating at church today and I have a feeling I’m at least close on that guess. Poland celebrates Mother’s Day not on Sunday, but on May 26th every year. We were tipped off by another missionary that our city (which is literally on the border of Poland) would be celebrating the holiday this weekend. The town square had lots of things set up and today at church there were all kinds of special things going on.

Titus and I were the only ones that went to church today because Bethany just isn’t feeling well and I didn’t want to have to try to wrangle both Titus and Avery (thus Avery stayed home too). When we got there things were already in motion and the kids were lined up in the hallway to go on stage. I didn’t know this was going on, but they tried to hand Titus some flowers and usher him on stage too but I just ended up taking him upstairs since we didn’t really know what was going on. By the time we got up there, the kids were in place on stage and music had begun so I got my camera out and started getting video (shown below). We also took the above photo to send to Papa and Nana because while we were at church they sent us a text message updating us on their trip progress. They had just landed in Amsterdam and had one more leg of their trip to Prague. You can see just how excited Titus was!

As fun as Polish Mother’s Day is, it pales in comparison to Papa and Nana coming to town! We spent the afternoon getting the house ready but the kids were asking all day, “Is it time to go get Papa and Nana!?” Their train wasn’t schedule to arrive until about 8pm tonight, and it was running just a few minutes late. But we ended up coming over to the train station and finding a spot on the platform where Bethany could sit and we could wait for them. I wasn’t positive which platform they would be coming in on, and I really wanted us all there to receive them when they got off the train. Incredibly, the spot we chose couldn’t have been more perfect. We sat and waited and just happened to be sitting right where their train door opened! Here’s a video I got of them pulling in which was really fun.

Papa and Nana had a pretty good trip from Seattle, but they did have one little hiccup in their trip when Papa fainted on the airplane. He said he felt like he needed to walk around a bit and headed towards the bathroom on the plane when he fainted and he told us when he came to “there was a Dutch doctor and a Norwegian nurse working on me.” He got a few scrapes on his face from the fall, but overall he’s doing alright. They made all their connections, all their bags arrived, and they made it on to the train towards our house all by themselves. Not bad for their first time flying to Czech! They also came bearing many gifts for us, including lots of our Christmas gifts that left in the States when we visited them this past Christmas. The kids of course were going crazy about everything and it was like Christmas in May in our living room as the suitcases were opened. There’s so much I could say her, but it’s getting late and everyone needs to get some rest. Here’s a few more photos from our time tonight and we’re excited about three weeks with Papa and Nana in town for the birth of baby #3!

We forgot to grab Avery her jacket before we left for the train station, so I gave her my sweater and she was all bundled up as we waited for Papa and Nana.

We decided to just walk home from the train station. I brought the car to bring the bags, so Bethany drove the stuff home while we all walked. It was just all part of the experience of coming to Czech. Avery held hands with Nana and just kept telling her about everything. It was a lot of fun.

Above you can see Titus and Avery opening the suitcase which held all the goodies. In the second photo Titus got to open a belated birthday gift from his uncle and aunt which Papa and Nana delivered. This was just part of the fun and there was so much excitement in this house for every little thing that we opened. It was a lot of fun and I was really happy to be reunited with some of my books that I got for Christmas as well other things that were brought over. Not bad for day one with Papa and Nana!