Just a quick update for tonight...getting late here.
Today is a landmark day for a few reasons:

• May, Ella & I went to the Post Office together this morning. Much easier and less stressful than my first visit. We got notice a few days ago that we had a package. Peigi D (teacher friend of May's mom) sent Ella a lovely handmade sweater and book. Thank you Peigi!! The sweater is adorable ...pictures to come.
• I started Czech lessons yesterday morning and May started studying them tonight. -Not an easy language. Yup, not an easy language at all.
• On a much more geeky note, I finally got around to unlocking the locked-out admin account on a laptop I carried over here. Rich Z -remember that utility we used in the lab in April?...made myself another bootable CD copy here & it works like a charm on XP, too. So, in effect, we gained a laptop today.

So, about the Czech language. The good news is it's fairly phonetic, meaning what you read is what you get. English, of course, is far from phonetic. If English were phonetic, then comb, tomb, and bomb would rhyme. Likewise, words like cuff and tough wouldn't.
Anyway, in Czech, the words sound like they look. Now for the bad news: Czech words are tough to read...they just look like something's missing...like vowels.
Here's one fun tongue twister they got:
Strč prst skrz krk
(clicking on the words should give you the sound)
So, if you hear it, you're feeling our pain.

For more tongue twisters, in any language...check out this site:
http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/tonguetwisters.htm
Enjoy - take care and good night.