Yep, that is a knife, what else can I say about this photo?
Happy Birthday my precious knife yielding little one! 3 is going to be a great year for you! Thanks for keeping us on our toes and laughing all along the way! You light our world with your sprightly fortitude and your endless joy and love and enthusiasm!
Happy Birthday my cheeky monkey!
What a year this has been for you! You have now been an English lad more than half of your sweet little life. You sound as if you belong right here and I love listening to you say he-yah and they-yah. I want to always remember the way you wake up each and every morning saying the exact same thing, Mommy, what hab dinner? This means what are you serving for breakfast and I am ready for it right now. I want to always remember the passion and spirit that you possess for everything that you do, even though it has caused every single hair on my head to turn white! I want to remember the way you like to tidy up and put things in the exact same place where you found them, not sure where this OCD behaviour comes from! I want to remember the way you look up to G and emulate all that he does. As of late, it has been repeating skills from baseball season including batting techniques, you know to bend your knees, find your power line, and you know to look to Denny Doyle for pointers. You are learning to hold your own with B as he has grown and gets in the mix with you and G. You have the right idea wearing the helmet as in this photo to keep B from pulling out your every last hair. You two are quite a pair! You invariably have a twinkle in your eye, sometimes mischievous, always lovable! You are a bright and shining light in our lives and you truly keep us laughing from sun up to sun down, each and every day. You bring so much liveliness and happiness and wonder and joy to our family! Happy 3rd birthday precious one! 
During the Middle Ages, dishonest traders were suspended from this bridge in baskets. In the 1600s, those that fought against the Habsburgs (the royal family) were beheaded and put on display at the end of this bridge on the tower. It was also on this bridge that the treaty was signed to end the Thirty Years War. The history surrounding this bridge is compelling!
Beautiful Baroque sculptures line the bridge on either side, some quite moving.
After crossing the bridge, we came upon a charming little park which allowed the children to stretch their legs and run off a bit of energy:
After strolling along the river, we decided it was time to see the city by boat, and what a treat it was! A beautiful day, amazing views, paddling along the river, truly a wonderful memory! 
Following another perfect day in this, in my humble opinion, perfect city, we enjoyed a lovely dinner at a French restaurant called Celeste. It was just on the bank of the river overlooking the castle, to say the views were spectacular does not even come close! 
We spent the day at Prague Castle, the largest castle in the world. It was built around 880 and is listed in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage register. Besides being the seat of the head of state, it is also an important cultural and historical monument. In Prague Castle are kept the crown jewels, the remains of Czech kings, precious Christian relics, many beautiful works of art and important historical documents.
We were lucky enough to arrive at precisely the same time as what we assumed to be an official state visit, complete with the ceremonial pomp and circumstance:
This is St Vitus Cathedral, historically the religious center of the Czech state:
One thing that struck me about this cathedral, especially after going through our photos, was the striking contrast between the ornate Gothic detail of the exterior and the calm simplicity of the interior:
Enjoying the sunshine and ice cream:
Amazing views of the city from the palace walls: 
Can I just tell you how much I love this town? 
Making our way once again through the Powder Tower:
Little G and I climbed to the top where we saw this:
Love these photos, snapped as we meandered through the streets:
We made our way to the Old Town Square where we enjoyed a lovely picnic lunch, at least until I surprised the little ones with assumingly innocent lollipops. That is a story to remember, but not one to forever record in black and white!
This is where our guided tour begins, Church of Our Lady Before Tyn:
We made our way next to Josefov, the Jewish Quarter, an area of town dating back to the 13th century. This is the Spanish Synagogue, built in 1868 on the site of the oldest Prague Jewish house of prayer, the Old Shul:
And here is the Old New Synagogue, Europe's oldest active synagogue and one of the earliest Gothic buildings. Franz Kafka attended this synagogue when he lived in Prague and his bar mitzvah was held here:
According to another Prague legend, in the 16th century, an old Jewish man named Rabbi Loew lived in this area. During that time, the Jewish people of Prague were being attacked and lived their lives in fear. Rabbi Loew decided to protect the Jews against pogroms by creating the Golem, a giant who was made of clay from the banks of the Vltava. The Rabbi built the Golem and made him come to life by reciting a special incantation in Hebrew. The word emet, meaning truth, was placed on the Golem's forehead.
This is the Old Town Hall which was built in 1586 but remodeled with a pink Baroque facade in the 18th century. This photo shows the famous Hebrew Clock whose numbers are in Hebrew and run backwards:
One of the most interesting sights from our tour was the Old Jewish cemetery. This cemetery was used from 1439 to 1787 and is the oldest existing Jewish cemetery in Europe. The Nazis made it a policy to destroy Jewish cemeteries, sometimes using the tombstones for target practice, but Hitler ordered that this cemetery be left intact, since he was planning to build a Jewish museum in Prague after all the Jews in Europe had been exterminated.
This is where our tour ended and here we are trying to make a gracious departure from our guide who had much, much more to share:
We followed our city tour with a fabulous dinner at La Bodeguita del Medio:
I began this blog in 2008 as we picked up and moved our family from Dallas, Texas to London, England as a result of a fabulous job opportunity for my husband. My primary goal was to stay in touch with family and friends as well as begin an online family photo album to preserve our precious memories. With 3 young boys at home and life moving at a breakneck speed, I found that by taking even a few moments to capture a thought or a photo or a memory from our day provided a much needed outlet and a place to be a bit more intentional and present. Our family enjoyed every single moment of our two years in London before a new role was offered to my husband which also required a relocation, this time to Boston, Massachusetts. We settled in Wellesley in September of 2009 and loved life in our teeny-tiny Norman Rockwell New England town. After 4 fabulous years in Boston, our family relocated yet again, this time back to Dallas. We feel so fortunate to have been given these amazing opportunities to live and visit and experience life in different places and we certainly look forward to many more adventures!
