SUMAVA GREATNESS

Life is beauty full. My goal this year it to do more things I won't forget. I want to find beauty and greatness everywhere I go and not complain so much. I have found that beautiful thoughts make beautiful people. I am lucky to be where I am and who I am. No more complaining. (I might have to be reminded of this a few times...)

I used to complain about going to the forest house in Borova Lada with my Czech family (I even called it Boring Lada), but now I just look harder for the beauty and fun opportunities I have in the trips. Here is what I have come up with so far:

Every day is a start of something beautiful. Enjoy the heck out of it.

ONE LAST WEEKEND

The rain couldn't stop us from having one last weekend in the Czech forest this summer.

We rode scooters

 roasted a pig

 (*WARNING - standing next to roasting pigs may make your hips look 3x bigger than they really are)

 went bowling

 and rode some electric motorcycles

 The sign said it was only for kids ages 3-15...

 William was good to go...

 ...and I lied about my age

Good times in the Šumava.

FOREST POND

William and I have a favorite place we like to ride to when staying in the forest to give the Czech grannies a break. First, we stop for ice cream and Powerade. Ahem. Then we ride our bikes to this spot.

Park our bikes

Enjoy the playground a little bit

Then we walk on the path

 where we spot tiny lizards along the way

and flowers

Finally, we reach this spot:

 where we watch the ducks

It makes me laugh every time when they stick their head in the water and butt in the air

EVERY TIME. Crazy ducks.

BIKERS

Since we were in the heart of the Šumava forest for the weekend, we decided to be sporty and go for a bike ride.

Thanks to Ivanka, we were outfitted to look like professionals.

There are families who think 18 km is hard and have to walk their bikes up the hills, but not ours...

Ahem.

 Some people in our group couldn't wait for the chance to park at little pitstops along the trail...

Some had to be bribed to continue the journey with sweet dumplings...

others with ice cream...

and some were more into riding ahead of the group to snap photos...

But all of us enjoyed the ride down back to our village.

FOREST CAMPING

We went to the forest house in Borová Lada for the weekend.

 William has never experienced a real "camping trip" before...

So we roasted sausages

and put up a tent.

 It totally looks like we're in the middle of the Czech forest camping...

But we're actually still close enough to the house for mommy to come give him a goodnight kiss and for his iPad to get wifi connection.

Add some sleeping bags, scary story time, and flashlights and you've got some very happy (first timer) campers.