Syvertsen Thanksgiving

We were all very thankful that Chris, Laura, Owen and Elliot were feeling better on Saturday. Laura had planned to have a smaller version of a Thanksgiving dinner Saturday evening, and it was questionable whether or not she would be feeling well enough to cook.

She was, so off we went to enjoy more turkey! We were joined by the Davis family and our friend Talitha for this celebration.

The table is ready....


Pastor Phil, Chris and Talitha enjoying pre-dinner conversation..

Does this look familiar?

Our hosts... (Elliot was sleeping)

And the most important part - the cutting of the pies! We also had home-made ice cream (vanilla and cinnamon). Who needs Maggie Moos?

All fed - tryptophan kicking in - video time!!!!

Over the river and thru the woods (sort of)

Going to Thanksgiving Dinner is a bit different here. Get out your map and start walking. You need to watch out for the men putting up Christmas decorations all over the city!

Be careful going past Darth Vader, you might disturb him!

Always take a short cut, If you can find it.

We are almost there...

It was worth it! Good friends and wine and food. Thank you Phil and Shanna, for putting on a grand feast. I need a nap (guess who).

A couple of friends enjoying desert.

We miss all of our family back in the "States" and wish you health and happy holidays.

Old town at night

Approaching Old Town Square at night. This is one of our favorite views in Prague.

Grandpa's Helper

Tom claimed he did the laundry the other day, but it looks like he had some help putting the clothes on the drying rack!!

Susan, This is for you!

I took this in the main library of Prague.

Backyard Fireworks

Riverside School has an annual tradition of Fireworks Night. All families are invited to come and share some hot chocolate, hamburgers and hot dogs, and watch some fireworks.

Since it now gets dark so early here, this year's festivities started at 5 PM and the fireworks show was at 6PM.

It was really awesome because the spectators were allowed to stand really close to the launch site, and the company that was hired to do the show was able to send most of the rockets right over everyone's head!

Enjoy!!

E-mail mysteries

As some of you may know, my Hotmail account (cyndysy@hotmail.com) does not receive any messages from anyone who is using a Roadrunner account. (rr.com).

The mystery is that Tom has a Hotmail account and receives all messages just fine. We thought it might be my computer, but if that is the case, then why aren't the messages available if I access my Hotmail account from a different computer? (They aren't) I have checked all my security settings, physically added rr.com as a safe site, added all my contacts with rr.com addresses as "safe" contacts, to no avail.

So, I have established a new e-mail address Cyndysy@gmail.com. We'll see if that makes a difference. You can now try to reach me at either address.

Halloween

Last week was our mid-term break at school. We had an entire week off, BUT..... both Tom and I ended up working much of the week because the two youngest Riverside School age groups moved into a newly renovated building over the break. (Pictures to come.)

So by Saturday we were ready for some entertainment. Our friend Connie celebrated a birthday on Saturday, so we went to the restaurant Ambiente for a great steak dinner.

We had heard that there was a happenin' Halloween party at one of our favorite places in town (the Czech Inn) and so we just had to check it out. :-)

The party was in the basement, which made a great venue for the event. There was a live band (Reggae/Ska music) who were great! We had been wanting to hear this band because we know the guy in the right back corner with the joker's hat.



Many folks were in costume...

and some were not.

Tom wore his Easy Rider shirt and his pony tail cap, but since we had been out to dinner beforehand I didn't have a costume. I just told everyone that I was dressed as their worst party nightmare - their mother! That explanation caused me to be much in demand for photo ops with some of the partiers.


Accommodating staff at the bar.....

The event also included a silent auction to benefit a local charity. Although I bid on just about everything available to help nudge the prices up, I ended up having the winning bid on two items. One is a ticket to Prague's Pub Crawl (don't ask, I though it was a good idea at the time) and the other is a piece of original art that I thought was an 8x10 size (that's what was on display) but apparently the actual piece is quite a bit larger! Good thing we still have lots of blank walls.

We had a great time, and felt quite worldly for having partied past midnight!