fill in the blank

M's off school for the week, which would be great, except that the kids are all sick. So we're staying inside and eating chicken soup, and the kids are getting bored. I made up a fill-in-the-blanks story for M and I thought his choices for adjectives were funny: Tasmanian girl, alien cheese, toothpick cheese, and "with a sword" prince. I think the Tasmanian thing must have come from the International Fair at M's school last week. Apparently it was quite an event. The kids were invited to wear national costume (their own or anyone's), and each classroom prepared things from a particular country. Then the kids got to visit some of the other classes. M dressed as a cowboy and learned about Ukraine and Canada. We got a play-by-play of the real hockey player (female, I might add) who visited the Canada room and also all about the Ukrainian alphabet. It's really a lovely school -- and they've got their positions listed for next year, if anyone's interested: www.riversideschool.cz I would totally look into it if I didn't have little ones. There are more expats here than you would think -- I can list 6 English-language schools off the top of my head, and then there's the French school, Japanese school, German school ...

In other news, we had our big district conference meeting at church last Sunday, and as usual my little choir sang. It literally swells to more than double the size it usually is when we sing at a big event like this. It's very fun to have the bigger choir, but somewhat disappointing when it shrinks down to normal size again. The choir members really outdid themselves this time, as did our accompanist. We sang "Where Can I Turn for Peace?" and "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" -- 2 powerful hymns, both with gorgeous new Czech translations. The leader who was visiting based a lot of his remarks on the hymns from the meeting, so that was nice. In fact, I got so much positive response this time it felt a bit like the end of something. Change is in the air, but I will be very sad someday when I hand the choir over to another director. Sometimes other assignments at church do feel like duties, but for me the choir never does. It's a pleasure, and I'm so thankful for a supportive husband who runs after my cranky, wanting-their-naps kids during choir practice.