After our first few days in the mountains the sun came out.  We went to the Cheese museum in Gruyere. They had a really great mural at the museum’s restaurant. And I discovered my new favorite dessert. It’s a local speciality – meringues dipped in double cream.  After the museum we climbed up to the…

For our Swiss vacation we stayed in a town called Gstaad in the Bernese Oberland region.  The thing about Gstaad is it’s fancy with a capital F. Famous people go there. We saw more than one Bentley around town. The little shopping street has stores like Hermes, Cartier and Louis Vuiton. We obviously didn’t choose…

I’m interrupting my huge number of Switzerland photos to post a couple first day of school shots. Aaaah – school has started. I just dropped Claire off at her first full (half) day and I am getting what I have been craving so much this summer. I am getting some time to myself. I feel…

There seemed to be a vein of cheese running through our vacation days. We had raclette three times and fondue twice. The girls and I had a running joke about keeping Daddy from going overboard buying cheese every time we went to the grocery store. Here we are on the first night in our little…

I’m going to start documenting our trip to Switzerland with the last day – a full day in Zurich. We traveled to the town where we lived and visited with Bea’s kindergarten teacher, Frau Rutishauser. We met at the swimming area along Lake Zurich and some of Bea’s classmates came too. It was sweet to…

We returned from our Switzerland vacation yesterday and just like that Summer is at its end. Here’s a photo of Bea and Claire and a cow sculpture. I’ve got lots more photos to sort through and post, but I also need to get two girls ready to start school on Wednesday. School already! Wow!

I’ve been watching goldfinches eating seeds from my coneflowers and that means the end of summer is upon us. We have a trip to Switzerland coming up and then right after that school will start. It has been a really good summer. The girls have been smiling. I feel blessed to be able to fill…

Over the years we’ve spent a few fun vacations in South Haven with Grandma and Grandpa C. The last time we were there Claire’s legs looked like this: And a few years before that Bea looked like this: This time I arranged a quick vacation with Grandma J. and Jenna. South Haven is about half…

I couldn’t get a very good picture, but our butterfly emerged and we let him go in the backyard. Unfortunately we didn’t get to watch him coming out of his chrysalis. We totally missed it – he was sitting still getting some strength into his limp wings when we noticed him. It was really cool…

I picked my first potatoes today. I planted them back in April and I have been wondering if they were ready? Yes, they are! I can’t wait to make some potato salad.