Liberec, Czech Republic

This is an old church in the hills above Liberec in a community called Jested. I met the sweetest old man at the top of the tram line who told me in his broken English about the history of Liberec.




I wandered around the church and dicovered this beautiful leaded glass window. It's hard to see but if you enlarge the photo you can see it. This church was surrounded by apple trees and hanging laundry.






And lastly, the main town square had this McDonalds in a beautiful old building. None of the McDonalds employees spoke English so I just pointed at the pictures and smiled.

Off the balcony off our hotel room and this was THE nicest Best Western we have ever seen!



This is St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague. The sun was at a perfect angle. Isn't this stunning? It was late afternoon, on a perfect day. I just wandered around with my mouth gaping.


St Vitus Cathedral






From our hotel room window, this is the art museum in the background. I love the red tile roofs.



St. Vitus Cathedral from the outside.

<

7 Habits of Happy Kids

This is what I've been working on for the past year. Check it out and go buy the book--you can get it on Amazon.com. Also, go check out www.seancovey.com and see the other cool stuff we're doing. There's a short video clip of the author promoting the book. I set this event up and Metta was there to help me. I was in NYC last week for the launch of this book and it was great fun!

I would love your feedback--good and bad--and any new story ideas.

My son-in-law's Medical Mission to Nicaragua

My son-in-law's Medical Mission to Nicaragua

On one of the days in Nicaragua we visited the landfill... the dump. People live there. It was disgusting really; the smell was nauseating, the flies were suffocating, and the vultures were circling. Driving in, we were all unprepared for what we saw. Cattle were grazing in the heaps of garbage and people were following to pick up anything of value.

We began handing out packets of food that we assembled. Rice and beans and other essentials. We then handed out plates of food. It was amazing to see how grateful these people were for a single plate of food. It was also terrible to see how desperate they became when the food began to run out. We had to place a number of big guys at the front of the line to prevent people from storming the tables of food. The hardest thing was telling the kids that they couldn't have more food because we wouldn't have enough for everyone.

Right now my life is wonderful, but if there comes a day when I'm feeling down or feel like my life is pretty tough, I'll think back to this experience. I could be living in a landfill eating garbage everyday - I am so lucky and totally take my perfect life for granted.

My First 5K!

Lehi Roundup 5K Run/Walk.

June 28, 2008.

TEAM OSWALD

(Back row: me, Metta, Debbie. Front row: Taylor, Laney, Leisy, Kent

Watch for this one!

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Futuristic mortal combat reality show based on 24 teens chosen via lottery to represent their districts.

I loved it and Daysa loved it. This is one of those books that I read and I said "OK, this will be big." Both Daysa and I are upset that we have to wait years now for the second one. This is a Young Adult book --watch for it to be released October 2008.

Henry Philip Hawes

Laney and Taylor had little Henry on Friday the 6th. Here's the story from Laney:

He came a little earlier than I had hoped, I missed two weddings this weekend (sorry Whitney and Bethany!) but I imagine it was all worth it. I woke up friday morning and headed off to the gym for kickboxing, i felt wonderful and class was going just fine until about six fifteen when I round house kicked to the left, and as I came down, I felt a warm wet sensation in my shorts. My first thought was, "o my goodness, I just peed my pants." I then realized that the liquid kept coming, so I tore off to the bathroom (all along the way, the water just kept coming) and realized I was soaking wet. Once in the bathroom, I concluded that I had probably not in fact peed my pants, but my water had broken, seeing as how it wasn't yellow and it just kept coming and coming!

I waited a bit and headed back to class to get my keys, jacket, and waterbottle where it was obvious to all (by my soaking wet shorts, and the puddle I had made) that I wasn't going to be finishing class. My teacher got excited and the class all cheered me off as a friend of mine (liliana, who is also nine months pregnant) walked me to the parking lot and wished me luck. It was all kind of exciting and scary- mostly because I realized I was going to have a baby and there was nothing I could do about it.

I put my sweathshirt on the car seat so I wouldn't leak too much in the car and I called Leisy to ask her what to do- she just laughed and said, I guess you should go to the hospital. I drove home and woke Taylor up and we showered, Taylor did our dishes from the night before and packed a hospital bag (of course we hadn't packed one yet) while I got ready to go (I figured since I wasn't having any contractions or anything, I might as well take the time to do my make-up and hair for the day). We then went to breakfast, ran a few errands, and set off for the hospital.

When we arrived at the hospital, I don't think they believed that I was ready to have a baby, but they did the tests and realized I was in fact ready to have a baby. They started pitocin a few hours later and voila, by six thirty pm, we had a baby boy. All I have to say about the whole labor and contraction thing is, thank heavens for the epidural! I thought maybe I could do it without (and I am sure I could have) but after feeling those contractions and all that pain, I don't know why I would ever want to! Everything was so much easier and better with the epidural. Unfortunately, the epidural didn't quite take as well as it should have, and a few times I thought I was going to die (really, I couldn't believe how badly it hurt), but the Anesthesiologist was always nearby, and he was kind enough to return and give me more medicine. Thank heaven for pain killers! Labor is so much better when you can't feel anything, and you can just chat with the doctor and nurses between pushes.

Anyway, here is our little bugaboo, he doesn't really fit in his car seat, and he is still a little squishy, but we quite like him and we have decided to keep him. We will post more pictures of the little guy soon. Thanks for all your well wishes!