An evening of autumn

Today was a pretty good today.  I got to help teach in the jr. high this morning, which was followed by a morning search for candles.  Why candles?  We needed them for our jack-o-lanterns tonight.  Yes, tonight was the autumn/fall/late Halloween/taste of Thanksgiving English club.  Well, I got the candles, and then I took another look at a recipe for apple cider I found online.  After using Google's online translator to try and figure some stuff out I went to Billa (the local grocery store) to begin the hunt.  I was able to find everything I needed except for cheesecloth and kitchen string.  The journey toward getting all the items was certainly laughable and humbling - limited Czech + online translations + somewhat confused workers + laughing with Martina Pixova as I talked with her on the phone asking, "What is hřebíček?"  Turns out they were the cloves I was looking for.  Score!

Well, since I could not find the cheesecloth I figured we would just throw all the ingredients in and strain them out or just be careful when serving it to not give someone a few allspice berries or orange rinds in their drink.  However, after talking with Greg and getting into some good ol' American ingenuity, we decided we could make our own tea bags out of coffee filters.  We threw the ingredients in those and stapled them off and into the cider they went for brewing.  And it turned out flippin' awesome! (you may read that in whatever tone of voice best works for you).

After cleaning up, I decided we needed more apple cider.  The tea bags couldn't be out of flavor yet.  So I went out to Billa for the fourth time today and bought two more bottles of cider.  They are brewing away right now.

Greg and Štěpán took a lot of pictures, and I took some also.  Right now, I only have mine on hand.  I put up a link to the other pictures when I get a chance.  Enjoy!

Pumpkins from Tesco for the Jack-O-Lanterns

Everything you need for hot apple cider. 

Post English club mugs.

Our homemade tea bags.

So, that was Thursday.  I have a full day head of me tomorrow: jr. high in the morning, workout after that, lunch with friends, back to the junior high at 2, Czech lesson at 4, and my first graduation ball.  So, prayer for any and all those things is appreciated.  I really desire that I would decrease and Christ would increase as I spend time with others.

Oh, and we saved all the pumpkin guts.  I am thinking of trying out this recipe some time soon.