July-Sept. 2011

17.09.2011

Niall is now 1 year and 5 months old. He can say: hallo, tractor, cracker, pooh / caca, Mama, Daddy, Papa, bye-bye, cow, car, Zaza (Sarah), tütu (=Tür zu (close the door)), shoes, socks, alle alle (all gone), wauwau, cheers, chou-chou (train).

01.09.2011

Oma and Opa visited for 1½ weeks. The first Monday we had a fantastic thunder storm. On Thursday Sarah started school. She is going in the same class as her friend Wissem and so far she really likes it! The school is in the neighbouring village, so there is a little bus that picks up the kids in the morning and takes them back home after school. On Mondays there is no school in the first year, so Sarah continues to go to crèche. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday she has school only in the morning and afterwards she goes to a child minder in the village. And on Fridays I am at home with the kids and Sarah only has a little bit school in the afternoon. Since the last weekend Nick is in the US (for a week), so Oma and Opa helped with the school and crèche runs.

breakfast before school
first day at school
Schultüte (German tradition)
second day at school / on the school bus

15.08.2011

Grandma stayed with us for a long weekend. The weather was great! It was actually too hot for the walk in the vineyards at Lac Léman, which we did... One evening we were hoping to see some shooting stars, but instead we watched the moon rising above the mountain Moléson. We also have new neighbours who are originally from England. Their two girls are of a similar age as Sarah. Sarah invited them over for a picknique. On Monday we went for a walk (and ice cream) in Montreux on the lakeside.

07.08.2011

We had holidays for the last week!!

Last Sunday I went to Brescia in Italy to go to a Sting concert (Symphonicity tour). It was an open air concert in the lovely cozy town square. I arrived in the afternoon, just in time to sit in a cafe and watch the rehearsals. It was a lovely relaxed atmosphere, perfect summer weather. Some band members had dinner in the cafe next to me, some did some shopping, Sting was walking around not far away... Only for the evening the whole town square was completely blocked off. The concert was great, like a best-of but with a full symphonic orchestra. I stayed in a hotel in Brescia and drove back to Switzerland the next morning (after a relaxed breakfast of course). This was a very nice 'ego-trip'!

I met up with Nick and the kids in the Valais and we went to Zermatt together. In the afternoon we walked to a gorge. We stayed in a really nice hotel in a family room, but none of us got much sleep... At least we were able to watch the sun rise on Matterhorn from our room!!! The breakfast was really good. Niall tried everything he could get his hands on, including grapefruit, which he liked! Then we took a train and cable car up the mountains and went for a walk. Sarah did really well, walking for 2 hours on gravel and steep, narrow paths! We also saw several Edelweiss flowers! After some well-deserved ice creams, we had to get back to the cars and drive home.

On Thursday we went to the zoo in Zurich

13.07.2011

Oma & Opa spent a week with us. At the weekend we went to the Papillorama. They have exotic animals and butterflies there, and a great playground. Niall got very, very excited about the tortoises, which were the first animals we saw. The best thing was the part with nocturnal animals. It was quite dark in the whole building, and warm and it smelled of wild animals. It was quite difficult to find the animals (e.g. sloth, snakes) in their enclosures in the dark. But the weirdest thing were all the bats flying around in the dark and very often almost flying into our faces.... Sarah and Niall still enjoyed it! We also went for a walk in the nearby woods.