Tag: food

Father’s Day in Prague

Happy Father’s Day!

In another incredible adventure we have made our way today back to Prague. I never thought we would end up here as much as we have, especially in the past few weeks, but it’s been really fun and crazy all at the same time. Just like we did a few weeks ago, we made our here today via the train station right by our house. We walked there this morning, caught an 8am train and got into Prague about 20 minutes after noon. Below are a few photos from the train ride, including the one above. In the photos below we walked to the “kids car” and played for a bit. These aren’t are actual seats (those were in a different car), but the kids made a little friend while we were in the there.

When we got in to Prague we made our way down to the Metro (subway) and accidentally got on the wrong side of the tracks, took the elevator back up and over, and finally got to where we needed to be. We packed really light this trip since we’ll only be here one night so it wasn’t too bad getting around with all five of us. The Metro took us to a transfer station where we caught another Metro headed towards a lunch place that we made reservations at. There is a burger joint in Prague that supposedly has the one of the top five burgers in Europe and a friend had recommended it. Since burgers are my favorite thing on the planet and they are not super common here, we had to go for it. I’m STOKED we did because it was amazing and my Father’s Day belly left full and happy! Here’s a photos of the kids and Bethany as we walked.

What I never understood as just a tourist, but now understand so much better, is if you’re going to stay in big European cities…rent an apartment. Tonight we are staying in a literal castle view apartment that is about a stones throw from the U.S. Embassy (which is why we’re here this weekend) and it’s costing us less than you’re cheap Motel 6 in the States. Not only that, but this is a large 2 bedroom apartment with a full kitchen! Check out this view from one of our windows.

Here’s a few more shots from around the building.

Here’s a view of the American flag that we can see flying above the embassy from the other side of our apartment (small flag in the upper left).

Tonight we (unbelievably) had dinner on a boat on the river, in Prague, with a view of the Charles Bridge and the castle. I’m not kidding you. I never in my life thought I would ever get to say or write that, but it’s another recommended, affordable restaurant that was walking distance from our apartment. The only issue we had was that the kids kept asking why the boat wasn’t moving! Here’s a few photos from the place and then a shot of it from the bridge.

The restaurant is in the middle boat (dead center) next to the wall (in the photo below)

Our appointment for Karis’ U.S. citizenship, passport, and social security card is tomorrow at 9:00am so we’ll be up early to get packed up and make sure we get to our appointment early. I’ve tried to check and re-check every document that is required and we’re really hoping the process will go smoothly. I no reason to doubt that it will, but I’m always weary of government things like this, even ones that only involve the U.S.! Pray for us as we go tomorrow that things would be in order and go smoothly so we can get Karis’ documents and then take the next step towards getting her a visa.

Well, that’s not a bad way to spend a Father’s Day and not a bad way to end this post. Good night!

Tags city, family, Father's Day, food, fun, Prague, travel

365 Czech Republic

Another Wild Day in Czech (In Photos)

Post author By Shay
Post date June 19, 2015
1 Comment on Another Wild Day in Czech (In Photos)

Somehow I ended up with a ton of photos from today so I thought I’d just tell today’s story in photos (with captions beneath each). Let’s do this!

It was raining and cooler this morning so Titus and I donned rain jackets and umbrellas while walking him to school today. I probably should have sent him to school with rain boots, but I was worried we would be late for some event they were going to be leaving for. But I found out when they got there that it had been cancelled due to rain. Go figure.

The word “easy” in the photo above is a little misleading. From Titus’ school I walked over to this cosmetic drug store thing (so hard to explain what it is) that apparently has the only instant photo machine in our town. It was 8:15am and they had just opened. There I was in my black rain coat, looking really shady walking around the store looking for something I couldn’t find which was the machine you see above. I eventually left without saying anything and I’m pretty sure I saw the lady checking my hands as I grabbed my umbrella and walked out the door. Thanks to Rachael and Martina who I texted about this, I went back to the store about and hour later and was able to find the tiny machine.

I had to get prints made for Karis’ passport photos and this was my best option. I finally figured out the machine while the lady tried to explain things to me in Czech. I did finally leave with 6 prints, all of which cost me about $1.25! I was stoked and left a happy man.

Here’s some of her mug shots, I mean, her passport photos.

Karis had a doctor’s appointment today so Bethany gave her a bath just before lunch. I ended up taking Karis in her towel and placing her in front our little heater because she was a little cold and crying. She calmed right down.

Bethany, Karis, and our friend Martina drove to the next town over to the hospital where they had referred Karis. They actually did an ultrasound on her hips/legs. They’ve done that in the States, but it’s just an internal check to make sure there’s no issues with her internally. I believe in the States they just do a physical check with the doctor’s hands, but here’s just a little different. While the girls went to the appointment, Titus and I walked over to the haircut place and I got a trim (no photos of that, sorry!). I did get to show some photos of the baby to my hairdresser lady so that was fun.

When Titus and I walked to get a haircut we saw they they had set up a huge carnival deal in the town square. I believe it’s a big celebration for both our town and the sister city in Poland. I believe they are celebrating the founding of the city or something like that, but whatever it is, it’s important. They went big for this one with rides and tons of shops and food. Below are a ton of photos of what we saw.

I love that the ride above has an image from Toy Story which is actually a sad part of the movie.

Sweet tooth, anyone?

The grills were looking good! I may be wrong but I think something on there might be pork knee (a Czech favorite from what I can tell).

The huge stage already had local dance crew performances going on.

This “bowl” was probably 4 feet across. Sausage and potatoes…yummy.

We ended up going back to the town square as a family this evening so the kids could play and we could get dessert as a family. It was a much different experience from when Titus and I were there a few hours earlier because the place was jumping with people and live music. We ended up getting some traditional Trdelník with cinnamon (it’s so yummy!) and then bough tickets for the big bounce house slide thing.

This is Titus and me waiting for his turn to go up the big slide. I had bought a ticket for Avery to go up to, but she wasn’t “up” for it…get it, “up” for it… because it’s really tall. Yes, tall… like me as I stick out like 8 feet above everyone else in this photo.

Here’s a 30 second video I got of Titus enjoying the slide.

Lastly, here’s Karis as she rode around in the stroller tonight. She was awake most of the time and did great. We had to bundle here up pretty good because it was like 55 degrees out (dead serious).

There you have it–another day in the life of our little family. In the words of Porky the Pig, “That’s all folks!”

Tags carnival, Cesky Tesin, festival, food, kids, photos, rain, town

365 Czech Republic

Rainy Day in May

If this was California you would think it was winter. It was about 50 degrees today and rainy, a far cry from the 70+ degree weather we’ve been enjoying lately. Honestly, it doesn’t bother because I think the colder air and rain keep the bugs under control, especially those pesky mosquitos. For the kids, however, it’s a bit of a bummer because that means they don’t get much outside time which they have been loving so much. Even now at almost 9:00pm the rain continues to come, but I know warmer days are sure to come.

Now I want to talk about dogs. I mentioned a few days ago about a little black dog that has been coming around the JV office and after Bethany read that particular post she said it sounded like I don’t like dogs. I just want to set the record straight and be clear that I actually do like dogs. I grew up around dogs and enjoyed many great ones, but maybe they set the bar too high for me because I rarely find a dog anymore that I like as much as the ones I grew up. This may be true for a lot of people who had childhood animals, but I like to think that ours were just a cut above. Numerous times my Dalmatian, Sparky, saved me from imminent danger and was kind of like my best boyhood pal. When a dog like Sparky shows up then I might care more, but until then I think that little black dog at the office is just a little nuisance.

This evening our friends from Poland stopped by with lots of goodies because they know how sick we’ve been. I was especially excited to look in to the bag and find some of this Polish fruit juice that we love so much. It was so kind of them and we’re excited to try some of the new foods they brought us that we’ve never had before. Bethany actually made potato soup tonight which really felt right with all the rain today. Warm soup on a cool day just makes sense. Unfortunately for me I wasn’t able to completely enjoy it because I still can’t taste anything. One week running with no sense of taste is just, well, bland.

Tags dogs, food, May, rain, taste, weather

365 Czech Republic

On Trying New Things

We had our weekly language lesson this morning with Tamara and it was a very helpful one. Above you can see a photo of us trying to categorize certain words based on masculine, feminine, and neuter and then we had to add an adjective in front of it. In English this really isn’t too hard grammatically, but in Czech there are a lot of things that change based on the gender. The simple act of drilling these things is always so helpful to get it to really stick.

This afternoon we were driving up to our house after picking up Titus from school and we saw the postal service lady on her bike delivering our mail. As we got closer we saw her launch a package over our fence on to the wet brick. When I say “launch,” I mean it. That bad boy flew! After parking the car in the garage Titus ran and got the package off the ground and I heard him say, “Hey!!!” as he realize who’s name was on there. He saw “Titus Thomason” written on the front and it was a package from Nana and Papa for his birthday. He was so excited (as you can see in the photo above) and I quickly grabbed my camera to try and capture his emotions. We haven’t let him open it just yet, but he’s getting excited about turing five next week!

Earlier this week I was driving in to the office and I was thinking about how much harder it is to try new things. As we’ve been here almost 10 months we’ve basically settled in to a routine and haven’t really branched out as much lately as we did in the beginning. This goes for everything from food we buy at the store, trying new coffee houses or restaurants, and even just exploring the town. Now, it has been pretty cold until recently so walking the town hasn’t been high on the priority list, but I still think we were a lot more open to getting out there and seeing things in the early days of arriving here.

With that in mind, today at our lessons we were talking to Tamara about our town and things and she mentioned that the Polish side of the town we live in has really good, inexpensive restaraunts. She even pulled out her computer and showed them to us on a map. We wrote some notes and I even put some info in to my phone so that we might explore that later. But this afternoon Bethany said, “Do you want to go try one of those new places Tamara told us about?” I said, “Sure, let’s do it.” Her next questions was, “Are you sure you’re up for that?” What she’s trying to ask is, “Are you ready for the language barrier and the hassle of getting out trying something new.” Because Bethany knows that it’s not easy, just the same way I do. I think that’s part of the reason we haven’t explored more in the recent months. It’s not easy to get out there and test the waters, be vulnerable, make mistakes, waste time, be confused, etc. But we decided to venture out and I’m glad we did!

The restaurant we went to is only a few minutes from us by car, just inside the border of Poland. It’s in the town square and we’ve been there before, and the kids love chasing the birds around. The place we ate was inexpensive and the waiter spoke English which made the experience for us much nicer. The hardest time we had was trying to figure out how to pay for our parking because I didn’t have any Polish coins! I ended up using an ATM to get wash, walking into a Kabob shop and buying a coke just to get change (again, inconvenience often keeps us from trying new things). But we had a sweet time with the kids and we even went ahead and tried their vanilla ice cream with hot raspberry sauce dessert…mmm….it was good. We all loved our food and I’m just really glad we tried something different today. I’m constantly amazed at how hard it actually is to get yourself to do something you know will be annoying, hard, and difficult, even when it’s just going to a new place to eat! That’s all part of the transition, I guess?

Tags dessert, food, kids, language, mail, new things

365 Czech Republic

Culinary Arts and Warm Days

Post author By Shay
Post date April 16, 2015
No Comments on Culinary Arts and Warm Days

“Do you want to see something amazing?” That’s what the text read on my phone that I got from Bethany this morning. “Yes,” I typed quickly back. I had never really gotten a text like that from Bethany so I was very excited about what was to to follow. “Avery made this all by herself,” Bethany wrote, followed by this photo:

When I got home I showed Avery that photo on my phone and asked her what it was and she said “a flower!” Not bad for a three year old. Maybe she has a future in the culinary arts?

Titus got in on the fun as well.

As the days continue to warm up, Bethany has been taking the kids outside for lunch on the grass and play time. Today the kids were exploring in our landlord’s garden (which we also have access too) and picking little flowers. Bethany made a little daisy chain bracelet for Avery which she was really excited about it. I know I’ve already written this, but Avery continues to make us laugh as she grows in her speaking and personality. She’s about as girly as ever and I think it’s great.

Along with warmer days, we have longer days which allow us to play outside when I get home. The last few days I’ve been going out in the yard with the kids and playing basketball, soccer, and even tossing the Frisbee around. Titus has been getting pretty good at it so I took a short video of him throwing today (below). He also does a great job of catching the ones I toss back. I love it!

Frisbee Titus from Shay on Vimeo.

That’s all for today!

Tags art, food, frisbee, fruit, warm, weather

365 Czech Republic

Three Crockpots, Twister, and a Gospel Devotional

Post author By Shay
Post date January 7, 2015
No Comments on Three Crockpots, Twister, and a Gospel Devotional

I joked with the family that it felt a little like Thanksgiving today. No, we didn’t eat turkey and to my knowledge there wasn’t a football game on, but there were three crockpots full to the brim with stew. Somewhere along the line, we (the collective family) decided to have a big meal for dinner. When the decision was made, the kitchen went into overtime peeling carrots and cutting potatoes. Someone had to run to another house to pick up extra crockpots and eventually everything was slow cooking throughout the afternoon.

While the crockpots worked over time, the kids found the game Twister and we did our best to have a family game. I joined a game already in progress and when I asked Titus if I could play he said, “Dad….it’s a kids game!” and abruptly me showed me the box cover adding, “See, it’s for kids!” (the cover had a picture of kids playing the game). I convinced them it would be awesome if I joined in and they obliged. The game lasted about 90 more seconds before Avery couldn’t reach across the board and Titus couldn’t figure which was left or right. Needless to say, I won!

Things are starting to heat up with the wedding approaching this Saturday. We picked up dry cleaning today and are working on getting Titus’ clothes hemmed to size. For Bethany’s family this will be wedding three of three and will marry off the last sibling, Bethany’s brother. The kids and I have been practicing our dance moves in the living room which mostly consists of flailing our arms and jumping up and down. By Saturday we’ll be ready to own that dance floor.

On a lot more serious note, we’ve been reading out loud from the book New Morning Mercies by Paul Tripp. The book is a daily devotional and it may be the best one I’ve ever read. I realize that throughout history there have been many such books, but I think Paul Tripp has a way of applying the gospel to all of life that is unlike any author I’ve read. We’re only a week in, but I have been blessed and challenged by the devotions and I can’t help but recommend the book to everyone. And as a bonus, the title of the book has caused me to have the hymn “Great is Thy Faithfulness” stuck in my head all day. I have been walking around singing “…morning by morning, new mercies I see!” and been contemplating that truth. Praise the Lord that His mercies are new every single day!

Such a helpful tool for preaching the gospel to yourself every day. Thank you, @pauldavidtripp, for this book

A photo posted by Shay Thomason (@shaycam) on Jan 1, 2015 at 10:01am PST

Tags book, devotions, family, food, game, Paul Tripp

365 Czech Republic

Christmas in Yakima

Today we celebrated Christmas in Yakima with Bethany’s side of the family.

I’ve been writing for the past few days that there’s been a bit of a delay with Christmas as we’ve been waiting to get the entire family together. Everyone was here this morning bright and early, and we enjoyed breakfast and cinnamon rolls on the floor by the tree. Bethany’s dad read Luke 2 and we enjoyed opening presents and giving gifts to each other. We had a great time together and we were blessed to receive lots of new books, clothes, and toys as a family.

We alway start the present opening time with stockings and work from youngest to oldest. The process takes a few hours, but it goes quickly and is great to watch all the responses. Everyone in the family keeps a wish list active that the rest of the family can pull ideas from, so it’s always fun to open presents and things that you may have added to your list a while back. I’m especially excited about the new books that I got this year. Everything from new Bible commentaries to business books to poetry, all of these will keep me busy for years to come. The kids were also blessed with books, along with a Buzz Lightyear costume for Titus, and a Jessie (from Toy Story) hat for Avery.

After presents we took a break (and naps!) and rested in the afternoon. Besides some snacking, we skipped lunch and planned for a big meal out together at a local restaurant in the late afternoon early evening. We reconvened about 3:30pm to take a family photo together. For all I know, it’ll be a few years before we get to do another photo like this again.

Dinner tonight was incredible. We haven’t had a big, American style dinner out in six months. I was so excited to eat a cheeseburger with real American cheese! We had fun being loud and enjoying the family time out. The restaurant is a new place that’s only been open for a few weeks here in Yakima (shown below). The food was delicious and I ate way too much. On the bright side, I shouldn’t need to eat for a couple of days!

Our time here has been sweet, restful, and fun. For me, I think this has been a recharge and a God-ordained trip to just think and rest. Czech is not the easiest place, but I’m so thankful for what God is doing in that part of the world and how he continues to stretch and grow us in order to use there. Tonight as we were driving home from dinner I actually missed Czech. It’s our new home and even though we have had a lot of fun here, I look forward to being back there and continuing to pursue all God has for us, good or bad.

Tags Christmas, dinner, food, fun, laughter, presents

365 Czech Republic

Winter Wheels and Good Meals

Post author By Shay
Post date October 28, 2014
No Comments on Winter Wheels and Good Meals

Today was Czech Independence Day from when they became Czechoslovakia back in 1918. Like many American holidays, in observance of the holiday many stores and shops were closed. Our team in Czech follows the Czech calendar so our office here was closed as well. With the extra day I had hoped we would be able to get our new winter tires on the car before this Saturday because November 1 is the date you’re supposed to have winter weather tires. We bought them a few weeks ago, but I’ve had them sitting in the garage for a moment when I can go get them switched. Thankfully, I can see the tire place from our house and it’s a 30 second walk to get there. While looking out the window today to see if they were open I saw their gate was unlocked and cars were driving in. Score! Titus and I packed up the car and coasted down our street to get them changed.

Titus thought it was great fun. For him, changing tires is just like the movie Cars and a pit stop with Lightning McQueen and honestly the guys today were about as fast as little Guido is in Cars. In about 8 minutes they had our car in and out with the tires on and ready to go. The guys at the shop are really nice and the main guy spoke really good English which was so nice. I don’t expect it and when it happens it’s an extra blessing, especially with the technical stuff like tires and auto repairs. They told me we probably need a few new tires for spring time, but we’ll get those fixed at a later date. And in the end the total charge was like $11 for the work. All in all it was a great little errand and I’m thankful to have those guys so close and be so helpful.

For lunch we decided to do a little picnic outside on the grass. The weather was cooler for sure, but the sun was shining and it was actually very nice outside. We basically did leftovers from last night’s chicken and drop biscuits. Bethany brought a little blanket out and all four of us enjoyed lunch together. It was nice just to relax a bit and be still.

While we were eating lunch Avery started to collect these leaves with long stems and turned them into a bouquet of dead leaves. She was really proud of it.

Tonight we had dinner with our friends, the Stephens. They invited us out since it was a holiday and we were excited to join them for a big family meal. The food was incredible and we enjoyed these fully loaded, barbecue grilled quesadillas! When we walked into the door Brian was still prepping them on the counter to get them ready for the grill and I snapped a quick photo. Mmmmmmmm.

The Stephens have a daughter, twin boys, and another boy on the way in November. Our kids had a lot of fun just playing with their kids and later in the evening they enjoyed playing the Wii in the living room. Brian and Aliesha are a blessing to chat with and wealth of knowledge on helping us continue to maneuver the Czech culture and transition here. As well, they were our regular support and Skype friends for the past few years before we came over here and I don’t know what we would’ve done without their help. Thank you, Stephens family, for having us over again and for the wonderful evening and great food!

Tags food, friends, meal, tires, wheels, winter

365 Czech Republic

Hanging With the Millers In Poland

Post author By Shay
Post date October 10, 2014
3 Comments on Hanging With the Millers In Poland

The Miller family is a blast. Bethany and I first met Korban and Tanya at Josiah Venture orientation in October 2012 where we spent a week together in Wheaton, IL. There’s a fun connection with them because their senior pastor in Indiana was roommates in college with Scott Ardavanis, our pastor at PBC for many years. They asked if we could drive out to Poland and take some family photos and we were excited about the opportunity. We saw them briefly back on the fourth of July but today we got to spend the afternoon and dinner together which was just a great time to catch up.

Our afternoon started with the photos in the downtown area of where they live. There were some fun brick buildings and the weather was great so we snapped a few shots. The photo above is them walking right through this very long street where many people are walking and trains and busses travel through. You would never see anything really like it in the States, but we made use of it for a nice walking photo. When we finished there the kids all got suckers for doing such a good job. Here’s a little shot of all them.

After the downtown area we headed over to a park just a few blocks away. I don’t know why I didn’t get a picture of the giant tower in the middle. Not joking, I think it was like a 10 story sun dial. The play area had like a twenty foot climbing net that would never be legal in the States. Our kids loved it! But the sunlight was great at that time of day so I grabbed the Millers for a few more shots. Here’s one I really liked.

Behind them is an old fire station and really nice cafe/restaurant area. Bethany walked over there with Avery to use the restroom and she said it really felt like she in Europe and said it was very nice. I’m bummed I didn’t go check it out. We let the kids play a little longer and packed up the vans and headed for the Millers house.

We had a wonderful, American style dinner! Cheeseburgers, homemade mac-n-cheese, and veggies were all part of the spread. It was delicious and I’m not gonna lie, I had two burgers. It was fun to hear from their daughters about their school experience as they have all only been in Poland for about ten months. Language is obviously still hard but their girls are getting along pretty well in school. It’s encouraging to see another family walking through the same kinds of things that we will be experiencing very soon. After dinner we enjoyed some fun desserts: rice crispy treats and frozen bananas with chocolate and nuts! Mmmmm…

Before we left we had a short time of prayer for each of our families which was a blessing. As we were walking out the door, Titus kept saying, “Goodbye! Thanks for everything!” which we had never really heard him say before. It was hilarious and cute. He’s right though. Thanks, Millers, for a great day together and for having us over for dinner. Let’s do it again sometime!

Tags food, friends, fun, photos, Poland

365 Czech Republic

Swords, Salsa, and Something Special

Post author By Shay
Post date August 17, 2014
2 Comments on Swords, Salsa, and Something Special

The photo below is of Avery running towards the doors of our church. We were about four minutes late this morning so you don’t see anyone standing around outside, but often there are many people fellowshipping and talking on and around those steps. Right when we walked through those doors one of the pastors saw us and greeted us by saying “Dobré ráno” (“Good morning”) and immediately pointed to his ears. He was motioning to remind us to grab our English translations headsets. Every week someone will translate via a little microphone to our headsets so we really don’t have any issues understanding the flow of the service and the sermon. It’s a huge blessing and I’m thankful for the different people who serve us this way. Even though we’re trying to learn Czech, it’s really nice to be able to come to church and understand most of what’s happening.

Today’s sermon was on putting on the full of armor of God from Ephesians 6. That was actually the first passage of scripture I ever memorized. I still remember it to this day and I even remember reciting it in front of my 6th grade class. At one point during the sermon our pastor put up a photo of a Roman soldier and just started to describe the spiritual armor that correlated with the photo. It was a good visual reminder to me and I think very helpful to the body. He even discussed that the “sword of the Spirit” (the Bible) is one of the only things listed in the passage that is offensive in nature and the other pieces of spiritual armor are defensive. His point was that even though a sword is an offensive weapon, he believes that in the context of the passage it’s defensive. Super interesting thought and something I’m still thinking through this evening. It’s a joy to watch these Czech pastors work through the text, try to understand the original intent, and preach it to us. To be honest, it wasn’t what I had expected we would find when we moved here and from what I’ve heard it’s not the norm throughout the entire country. For all I know at this point our church may just be the exception.

The photos above are Avery and Bethany going in and out of the grocery story this afternoon after church. I had taken the first photo just because I thought they were cute, but then watching Avery cary a few bags of groceries on her way out with Bethany was the cherry on top. Bethany even said that the Czechs were stopping and looking at her and admiring Avery as she was leaving the store because she even had the bags around her shoulders at one point like a purse. Cute kid.

Tonight we had some friends over for dinner and enjoyed a little “American comfort food.” Those are the best words I can use to describe any kind of Mexican food that Bethany makes. In fact, we finished off our only container of Pace picante sauce…let’s just pause and take a moment of silence…it was good run for our salsa, but as my mom always says, “All good things must come to an end.” Some sacrifices in missions are hard…even salsa.

We ended up video chatting with Bethany’s parents late tonight and it was extra special. They kids got to stay up late and say hi but we talked for a while longer after the kids went to bed. For all of the junk that technology produces, one of the incredible blessings is to be able to video chat with family who are over 6,000 miles away. Towards the end of our conversation Bethany’s dad asked what things they could be praying for and he wrote them down and prayed with us. That was special. I guess it was just really practical. He prayed for the things we mentioned and as I listened and agreed I was blessed. God is so good to give us family who care for us and even when life is a little disjointed for us we know that we have family and many others praying for us. And even though miles separate us and time zones separate us, we are united in Christ. Now that’s special.

Tags church, food, prayer, salsa