Lucy and Morena and the Swedes

Happy Birthday to her.
Happy Birthday to her.
Happy Birthday Dear Lucy.
Happy Birthday to her.

She's 11 now. April 4th being the first Sunday of the month, it was fast day (we don't get the Church General Conference until next Sunday) and Lucy thought the idea of a party with no food and a hunger-weakened family sounded lame. Therefore we celebrated on Friday. We had svičkova (roast beef with a creamy vegetable gravy), homemade dumplings, and a cheesecake with M&Ms and chocolate sauce. Then, she and her friend, Johanka, watched a movie and hung out until late.

Living here with Lucy has been an interesting experience for us all. She was a reluctant traveler, preferring to stay in Minnesota, but we dragged her along. It's growing on her though. She's got some friends and enjoys the food. While she knows a lot of words in Czech, the grammar makes forming complete sentences difficult. Another difficulty has been living in tight quarters. We've had our challenges trying to get through the winter in the apartment here, but I think we are all learning to get along better.

Lucy got some Hannah Montana things for her birthday and taped several pictures up on her door. Silas followed suit on his door. When Kristine found him, he had a 2" wide roll of masking tape, a scissors, and a lot of determination as he stuck tape all over the picture to attach it to the very lowest section of the door. Kristine helped him get it higher and less entombed in tape.

Lucy's door plastered with Hannah Montana and friends.	Silas' door with Hanna Tanna. From 2010-04

Two weeks ago we celebrated another annual event, the coming of spring. We joined a group of people from the Waldorf school in Ceske Budejovice to burn an effigy of the winter witch, Morena, and throw her into the river which symbolizes spring's victory over winter. With it they chant a little rhyme that goes like this...
 „V ten čas sněhů a ledu, dlouhých soumraků a nocí vládla Mořena, až bůh Slunce počal déle, vlídněji a tepleji hleděti na tvář země. I rozbíhala se vodou ledová pouta; veselili se po všech dědinách, po všem plemeni. Za zpěvu brali se k vodám, k volným téd' potokům, řekám, házeli do nich obraz zimy a smrti a radostným hlaholem vítali Vesnu, líbeznou bohyni jara.“
The Google Translate program (which does this in an instant, but would take me an hour) translates it as...
 "At that time the snow and ice, long nights and twilight reigned Morena, the sun god began to longer and warmer look more kindly on the face of the earth. Even the ambitious commitments on climate ice water bonds, making merry after all breed. Singing, he came to water, to free now streams, rivers and threw them into the image of winter and death and a joyful shout was greeted Vesna, sweet goddess of spring."

Procession to the river to burn Morena.	The crowd gathered along the river for the drowning of Morena. From 2010-03

Here's a video of the lighting...

From 2010-03

It was also our pleasure to receive a visit from our friends Kim, Peter, Felicia, and Lukas Johansson, formerly of Mankato, Minnesota, now of Mariestad, Sweden. They drove to the North Sea, took a ferry, then drove across Poland to come see us. We spent a day and a half together, talking, eating, and, what else, visiting Divci Kamen. They taught us Swedish, we taught them Czech. It was great seeing them again and we look forward to their visit to Minnesota this summer.

Lukas	Felicia
Pete	I don't have Kim, but here are the kids making Swedish chocolate balls.

Spring is here, time is short, and we're starting to get busy now. We'll try to keep the posts timely and short.

Peter