It felt so nice to be back in Switzerland. Like going home. We stayed in a town called Andermatt – it's way up high in the mountains and it is surrounded by famous alpine passes. Here are some photos from our first day there. Claire caught a nap on the train – and then we…

It's always nice to come home. I was so pleased to be back in my garden after our vacation. I immediately started puttering and inspecting all my plants. I picked a couple bouquets of feverfew and bachelor buttons. My peas were completely overgrown and flopped over. The peas were mostly overgrown (sad). I decided to…

We went away to Switzerland and to Norway and I have so many photos to sort through. Here's Brian – a quintissential Swiss scene where mountains and cows go together. I captured him and he captured the cow. I'll get the rest of our photos sorted soon.

We're gearing up for a vacation to Switzerland and Norway. Bea wants to bring the new drone along and decided she needed to sew a custom little bag for it.  I helped her figure it out and it was not easy! But she has worked really hard and look, it turned out great. Here's link…

Here are the girls heading off for their last day of school.  And another biking photo – Brian biking home from Yerkes Observatory a couple weeks ago. Yay summer!

Over the weekend we took a field trip to a fascinating place called the Yerkes Observatory.  The observatory houses the world's largest refracting telescope. It was build in 1895 and it became a super influential place full of a who's who of the world of astronomy. I didn't recognize most of the famous scientists names…

My favorite thing lately is to get outside early in the morning. Here's where I have my coffee most days. I'm enjoying my garden so much!   Here's the vege patch. Peas. green beans, tomatoes, one bell pepper, lettuce and some herbs. It looks polka dot because our maple tree is dropping a ton of…

Last week felt like almost summer. When I looked out the window it was green and sunny but when I went outside – oooh – still chilly. I finished one sock – discovered this pattern designer who lives in Zurich and of course she has a swan sock pattern. We found a squirrel in our…

We had our first outside diner of the year. It was chilly. I took some photos at the Chicago Botanic Garden – it was so sunny and colorful! We're beginning to have some shade. I've started working on another of our windows. Got all the glass out and all the scraping done in two days…

Here's a recap of how we celebrated Claire's 13th birthday. Starting with birthday pancakes. Family dinner with cake and presents. A trip to the city with friends – had to visit The Museum of Ice Cream and the Bean About the cake – Claire had mille feuille a long time ago and remembered it as…