12.30.07 Sunday am

These are the knitted hats and skirts from Grammie, with matching coats and muffs supplied by auntie Kim. Too cute!

12.29.07 home from Chalet; to Markus and Dora's house

We got up early to clean like crazy--our last shot of the chalet:The girls' car just had to stop at H & M for a few goodies :) the girls got to play in the kinderparadeis together and had a ball (a play area where you check the kids in--kind of like the IKEA one). We enjoyed driving home on another gorgeous, sunny day--here's the view from K and A's:

Saturday evening we went to Markus and Dora's for dinner. He sang at Aschi and Kim's wedding so we'd last seen him then--over 14 years ago. It was fun to see him again and to meet his family--they have an interesting Swiss house/condo.

12.28.07 the sledding day

On Friday, we hit the slopes for the fun sledding--and it was just as much of a blast as we remembered from 8 years ago. Sledding at Grindelwald is a whole other deal from the kind of sledding where you get sweaty walking up a little hill and then slide down...this involves a bus ride up a super steep, twisty, snowy road about 5 miles--and then you sled down the same road! As you can see, it was another amazingly sunny day--completely breathtaking and super fun. The kids had a ball--Remy and I took it slow :) and the others were speedier but took a few falls. We got a late start and so we only did one run down. Remy kept saying "this is bee--U--tiful!" and he was right. I'll let the pictures talk.

12.27.07 The sick day

We battled jet laggy kids and adults again--lots of Ï wanna snack"and Ï wanna drink" in the middle of the night. Remy ended up sleeping with me and Con up with Siena. She kept saying that her stomach hurt and...that morning, she proved it right :( Luckily she only puked for the am, and the medicine that Heidi M recommended worked great. She was feeling punk, though, so we laid low and just hung around the house. It was a gorgeous day and the sun felt great; it was fun to go and get bread and medicine with Kim and see the sights on a blue sky day.

Swiss trip day 3--first day at the Chalet

I'm taking over for a bit now; Con and Aschi went out to go to his sister's for a computer repair job (sounds just like home!) On the 26th, we headed for the chalet--a house of one of Aschi's colleagues. Before that, though, we took in the view from K and A's place (or Conrad did--I was sleeping!) and the kids played.
We'd heard about the place and so were excited to see it. It's on Lake Brinz, which is near Interlaken. The house overlooks the lake and the mountains. It was cloudy this day and we had to get packed and get out, so we didn't leave the house until early afternoon. The kids immediately began a cartoon blitz, so we finished off the day with that--and with a brief trip to a small park so that we didn't feel too guilty :)

The long day.........Swiss trip day 2 - 12.25.07

So we arrived at 10AM Swiss time 2AM ID time on Christmas day. It was cold but not much different than ID. We stuffed all the suitcases in the van and went in for a snack and to look around. After some sandwiches we climbed back in the car and hit the road for the 1 hr drive to Boll. The weather was cloudy and icy with all the trees frosted over. We got home and lugged all the suitcases upstairs. After dinner we brought out all the presents. The Meyers stopped by so it was great to see all of them too.

After all of the presents we headed off to bed. One would think after nearing 30 hrs of being awake one could sleep for 30 hrs but unfortunately after about 5 hrs the whole family was awake which doesn't make any sense to me. I eventually got up and read for a few hrs then slept for a couple more before getting up.

Flying, flying and more flying............... Swiss trip - day one 12.24.07

We got up early and made it to the airport at 5:15 AM and met up with Heidi's work colleague who was nice enough to drive our car back home. It had snowed the day before but had stopped but the skies and weather report threatened more. We got our 13 bags into the airport and got them weighed and tagged and on the conveyor. Security was a breeze and only Heidi got the wand treatment. We then boarded the 1st plane with it starting to snow a gale but after the deicing we lifted off for Phoenix and made it with 5 hours before the next flight to Philadelphia.
We had a less then stellar lunch at Chili's in Phoenix and wandered around the airport finding a kids play area which was nice. There we some kids playing there that had lived in Ann Arbor which was funny. We then got on the plane and of course because we had only 1hr 19 mins for our next connection to Zurich the plane was 1 hr late leaving Phoenix. Luckily they made up some time and we got there only 20 mins late. So then we discover the terminal is on the other side of the airport and walk briskly for 30mins we get on the plane just in time.
The plane was a little crusty and the movie died half way through but all was well and the kids slept pretty well after dinner and into the next day. The good news was that our flight to Zurich was 1 hr less then predicted and we arrived before our ride. We found all of our bags and headed through customs and they just waved us through. We waited for 15 mins before Auntie Kim and Zoe arrived.

thanksgiving, etc.

...and the 3rd birthday!

Fun is the season here. This was way back in Nov, but I can't seem to stay caught up....

The 5th Birthday!

Horses are a thing right now...
You probably can't tell, but the frosting is purple (of course) and the sprinkles are a bit...clumpy. But yummy, yummy cream cheese frosting!
Remy had a hard time keeping his hands out of the fun...

The fishing game, from Audrey and Adrian!

Halloween

Cinderella....
With her dad, the swiss army man.
With a simpering Peter Pan (or petow pan, if you're 2).

pumpkin patch visit

This is one of Siena's good buddies--she came and spent the night several weeks ago. We unfortunately chose the coldest day of the month to visit a pumpkin patch, but the kids had fun anyway. And we warmed up with yummy Flying Pie pizza afterward!

misc pics

Earlier this month, Siena got a terrible bug bite that swelled her eye shut. Here's the evidence.



Computer kids--probably playing Elmo on sesamestreetworkshop, or watching a tumblebook through the library!