Full- circle

We have come full circle! Our first home was a one bedroom-one bath apartment on 9th East, but that is where the similarity ends....... This is our elegant old apartment building on Varsavska

We are on the first floor and although you can't see her very well we are watched over by a beautiful lady in a cabbbage head!
(Upper left corner)


Living-dining room as you can see is set for dinner. There is room for four more at the table.


Kitchen with room for one at a time. I do the cooking and Elder Robbins does the clean-up. Pretty good deal!


The BLUE bath


Small but, very comfortable bedroom.


This week someone else decided to take up residence with us. Unfortuately he wouldn't pay the rent and tried to eat us out of house and home. Thursday night we were saying prayers and I heard something rustling in the kitchen, thinking I had left the window open in the front room I went to check it. As I passed by the kitchen even with my myopic eyesight I saw a TAIL coming out of the garbage can!!! "Mike, there's a mouse!!!" I'm scrambling to find my glasses and Mike scrambles to check him out. Unfortunately our scrambling alerts him to our presence and he flees. We survey the kitchen and find he has eaten a pear and taken some chocolates!! We put all the food away, close the door to the kitchen and try to go to bed. Mike was awake much of the night and gets a good look at the new tenant, a 6 inch Norway rat. Yes we did some fast internet check on rats. (How could something that shares my heritage be so gross!?!)
Next morning we begin a search for a rat trap. which is fine if you know how to say rat trap in Czech. So armed with our Czech dictionary we start.. first the grocery store, no, then the drugstore, no, then another drugstore that only had a mousetrap way too small for our tenant. then a houseware store. I don't know what he thought I asked for but he showed us a small luggage carrier. Perhaps he thought the rat had alot of baggage? We called the company that manages the building and our landlords in England. The managers said they would get back to us. After three phone calls to remind them we hadn't heard from them, they call us at 5:30 and tell us they are not responsible for the inside of the apartments and gave us the name of an exterminator. (Would have been nice to know that earlier in the day when we could have called them.) Anyway at 7:00 they call us back to tell us an exterminator will be there at 8:00pm. Our landlord in England convinced someone they needed to help us!!! Thank you, thank you! The exterminator brings a trap and three thick slabs of mostly fat bacon. Sets the trap and instructs us with very little English and us very little Czech to call him when the rat is in the trap. About an hour later Mike and I hear a snap and are sure he has been caught. I call the exterminator and report, "Meat is gone, rat is gone!" His response, "Is big problem." YOU'RE telling ME?!? He then said he will bring out another smaller trap on Monday at 8:00 am. Are you kidding me, this is Friday night we have to put up with him for three more days! (Unfortunately I can't say any of that in Czech.) We know the RAT likes chocolate so before we go to bed we put the last piece of chocolate in the trap hoping that he has gained weight eating all that bacon. Saturday Mike wakes me up at 5:30 with a high five........chocolate was his downfall!!!!



We had to wash everything in the drawers and under the sink; we found his droppings all over. We also found his stash: three pieces of bacon and SEVEN pieces of chocolate in various stages of consumption..... not only a rat but a greedy rat!

On to something more pleasant. The Czech Republic is in splendid bloom. Last week they broke a 228 year old record for the warmest temperature on April 11th and the warmer temps have brought out the blossoms. Tulip tree on Petrin Hill.

We had a picnic in the park for Family Home Evening and then played fotbal. (soccer)

Elder Chernov, Elder Robbins and one of our favorites, Kacie and that is Joe Norris peaking up behind them. (He tells us he is Chuck Norris' nephew!)