Inviting the Abbotts and Prague

Hello Friends & Family, Blokes and Girls, Lads and Lasses,

It’s Jason here writing to tell you about the exciting lives of the “SuelFam.” This month we have much to discuss and it centers around two interesting subjects: namely, the visit from Sarah’s Parents (the Abbotts) and our recent trip to Prague, Czech Republic.

First, let’s tackle the Abbott trip. Sarah’s mom and dad flew into the UK on an overcast spring day and much to their dismay…the weather didn’t get much better. For the week and a half they were here we did a lot of cool stuff though. I’ll recap the highlights:
• Driving all over Herefordshire and viewing the beautiful scenery and seeing some pretty need little villages
• Celebrating Easter with a big meal at our friends’ Claire and Jez’s house. There were at least 15 guests in total and after our big meal we threw around the American football that Sarah’s dad brought us (me) from the States.
• Going to a proper Castle called Goodrich Castle which is about 30 minutes from our door
• Experiencing Stratford-on-Avon (Shakespeare’s home): we took in the regularly touristy stuff as well and seeing Romeo and Juliet as performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company
• Navigating our way through Bath, which is one of our favourite places to take our guests but on this occasion, it was so busy that I had to drive around a parking garage for over 30 minutes…the Abbotts were freakin’ out!
• And, of course, there was London…all the usual highlights with one added benefit…the wheelchair. Let me tell you the London underground has never heard so much squealing as when me and Mr. Abbott helped Sarah’s mom down an escalator!

They flew out on a rather pleasant Monday, we breathed a quick sigh of relief and we were off again! This time we flew to Prague on Saturday and stayed until Monday. Prague is definitely a city we would recommend. It is different enough to where you are really taking in another culture and it is small enough that it is manageable. The only problem is that it is full of tourists!

We took in the Castle, the Astronomical clock (when it was built, the artist was blinded after he had built it so that he could never create another like it…yikes!), the Art Nouveau (the movement started here), and, of course, Marionettes. Yes, the Marionette tradition dates back 300 years in Prague so I was in puppet heaven! And I managed to get Sarah to let me buy a handcrafted Czech Marionette. Another interesting fact, Prague is the home of Good King Wenceslas of Christmas Song fame. Actually, he wasn’t a king but a duke. Either way, Sarah and I were humming the Carol for most of the trip.

And now we are home again to relax for the next couple of weeks until June 4th when I will be running the Blackpool Marathon…excitement is building and training is going well. I can’t describe to you how beautiful it is here in the springtime. Flowers are blooming and they have many flowering trees. There are fields of yellow amongst the green. I assume this is some sort of yellow flower/weed, but when there is an entire field of yellow it is truly breath taking.
Be sure to check out our new pictures on our Webshots page (there’s a link to the Pic Archive on the right hand side of this page). There is plenty of new material there. We hope this email finds you well and enjoying your spring. We’ll email you again soon, but until then email us back and let us know what is going on with all of you. We LOVE to hear about your lives!

Peace,
Jason (Sarah)

(Pics: 1. The Abbotts in Stratford-on-Avon 2. The Abbotts in front of Big Ben 3. What the Czech!?! An interesting street sign in Prague 4. The Astronomical Clock in Prague)