Snail Mail & E-Mail

Two quick updates this morning:

1. You can now send "snail mail" to our school address here again. We love getting mail, so if you think of us, we'd love to hear from you that way!

Our mailing address is:
Jadon & Brittany Huddleston
Gymnazium
Arabska 14
Praha 6 160 00
Czech Republic

2. We are going on a small cruise around Greece's islands this upcoming week (yay!), but we will not have access to Internet while we are on the boat. So we will have it until 9am our time tomorrow (Saturday the 16th) which is 2am Central Time in the States. After that, we won't see emails, messages, or anything until we're home on the evening of Sunday, August 23.

We return to school on the 26th, & then classes begin Sept. 1. Getting close! 

Home for the Summer!

We were lucky enough to spend a full month in the States this summer visiting friends & family in Kansas & Illinois. We are so grateful to everyone who made time to see us, some of them driving many hours to do so! There are not enough words to say how wonderful this past month was, so this blog will be mostly pictures (and it will be a LOT of pictures, so prepare yourselves).

We now give you, Our Summer Home:

We were welcomed at O'Hare by SO MANY American flags. It was 4th of July weekend, but we were on flag overdose right from the get go.

Our first stop was Olathe, Kansas where we stayed with Jadon's parents and got to see his brother, Jonathan, and his family.

Three members & the leader of Jadon's Accountability Group from high school youth group.

At the Kansas City Zoo! Jadon's parents with our niece & nephew, and then all the "kids."

Josiah really loved the map at the zoo, so he was our official guide.

Out for a girl's day getting our nails done & then some Starbucks & cake pops!

Funny picture & then a group shot with the family all together.

Then we traveled for a 2-day mini-vacation in Galena, Illinois. It was very small town America, and a great place to relax and sight see for a couple days.

Beautiful Illinois landscapes on the way to Galena

The largest wooden nickel! 

The home of President Ulysses S. Grant

Inside Grant's home - the two vases on the fireplace are Bohemian glass made in the Czech Republic!

When people ask me (Brittany) what kind of food I miss from America, this is my answer. Biscuits and gravy! Yum! The best cafe in Galena - Otto's Place. We went twice for breakfast & highly recommend it!

After Galena, we traveled to Manteno, Illinois to stay with my family for a couple weeks. There we got to see a lot of friends (not all who we have pictures with) and family.

First, we went to the wedding of one of my previous students, Dani (Martin) Wildermuth. It was so exciting to be there for her & Austin and celebrate with them. It was a very beautiful wedding.

My friend Kristi is getting married in TWO days!! And I was lucky enough to be there to celebrate her bachelorette party with her. So many congratulations to her & Bill!

Also at the bachelorette celebration, my friends Brandon & Katie.

Jadon & I got to see one of our favorite bands Rend Collective! It was a great night of worship & fun & jumping up and down.

Brandon & Greg hosted a Friends Birthday Party for us to celebrate all of the birthdays we've missed this year!

It was such a nice night being all together & the first time we got to meet Diana's son Dylan!

At the Cubs game at Wrigley Field!

Brandon had a role in a local production of CATS, and we were SO glad we could see him perform! It was a fantastic show!!

Out to lunch one last time as a big group - so glad we got to see so many people who we love so much!

My friend Katie & I got to see Kelly Clarkson & Pentatonix, and it was, obviously, amazing.

Group shot of my family on our last day before we headed back to Prague.

We had such an amazing month home, these pictures and my words hardly do it justice. We are so blessed by so many friends & family members, and your love will carry us far into this year!

Another Visa Update!

All went well today at our visa appointment!

We had everything we needed, and they had everything in order, so we just had our fingerprints & photos taken, and that was it!

Now we go back in 3 weeks for our final (Lord willing) appointment!
Please keep us in your prayers until then, but we think this should be smooth sailing!

Visa Update!

We are now back in Prague, and things are moving forward with our visa renewal! We found out yesterday that our applications have been approved!

Our 2nd of 3 appointments will be tomorrow (Friday, Aug. 7) morning. Now that our applications are approved, the rest should be pretty simple and straightforward (*should* being the key word). Our appointment tomorrow should mainly consist of getting our fingerprints and photos taken.

We'll write another quick update tomorrow with how it all goes. And soon we'll have a brief update about our time in the States last month. Until then, we do have some prayer requests & praises we'd like to share:

Prayer Requests:
- The Heat. It is really hot right now in Prague, and there is no air conditioning in our apartment (or in most other buildings). These couple of days we've been back we've mostly combated the heat by not leaving except to get groceries, but tomorrow it will be 99 degrees when we head to the foreign police office, so prayers for a break in the heat and rest in the cool when we can.
- Jet Lag. We are currently battling some pretty bad jet lag, so prayers not only for sleep but for rejuvenating sleep.
- Health. Brittany currently has a cough, and last year when we got to Prague, we both battled coughs for the first 6-8 weeks, so we're hoping this is not a prelude of what's to come. Prayers for rest & returned health.

Praises:
- Traveling Mercies. We made it back to Prague with little incident, with all our bags, and with a good layover with fish & chips! We know not all travel days go that easily, so we're grateful for ones that do.
- Family & Friends. While we had been looking forward to our month back home, we did not expect it to be nearly as rejuvenating or as refreshing as it was, and we are so grateful so many people made time for us! Those are weeks we will truly treasure.
- Electric Fans. It sounds silly, but let's face it, dealing with this heat "back in the day" would be so hard. So while we wish we had a/c, we can also praise for what we do have.