I made a weekend bag out of an old curtain that I’ve been hanging on to for a long time. I’m taking a weekend trip to London with a couple girlfriends. And then it seems like so soon when I will say good-bye to them. I’m hoping they will let me show them Chicago someday.
Things feel strange lately – I’m ready to move on. Ready to finish sorting through our stuff. Ready to go grocery shopping on Sunday. Ready to see my family. Ready to see the girls in our new home for the first time.
Bea and Brian had Thursday and Friday off so we took a quick trip to the mountains. To Brienz. It was a very quick trip because on our second day it rained and rained and rained. We were sad that we didn’t get to do some hiking, but it was one of those days that you can tell is not going to clear up so we headed for home.
In the short time we were there I managed to take a ton of pictures. Maybe I’m trying to fit a bunch of Swiss memories in our last few weeks. First a few photos from the train. So picturesque!
Here we are in Brienz – it’s famous for it’s pretty chalets and it’s wood carving traditon.
OK – now I will interupt this post to say that Switzerland your capacity for kid friendliness has amazed me again. Not only do they have playground train cars and playgrounds set in the most spectacular settings they also have special play areas on boats.
Here’s what you find under the deck of that paddle boat above – the most charming space filled with toys and art supplies and coloring pages. It was hard to get a photo but the beautiful color on the walls and the tidyness of it just felt so nice. I want to live there. Bea sat right down and started coloring. You can even leave your kids there with a nice older couple and go up to the restaurant for some kid-free time.
And here are Brian and the girls watching the whirring mechanism that turned the boat paddles. Cool.
OK – I’ll stop raving about that boat now. Here’s the waterfall on the other side of the lake from Brienz – called Geissbach Falls.
It was starting to rain so we didn’t hike up along the waterfall very far. Brian and Bea went on a trail behind the waterfall – look close and you can see them below.
Here’s the old hotel next to the waterfall.
This funicular takes you down from the hotel to the lake.
Here’s a poster that celebrates the anniversary of the rail line in this area.
Last photo – the curtains in our hotel. All the quaint chalet style decorating makes me want to fill my house with the same stuff… maybe.
Finally it’s been warm this week and the leaves have popped out and it smells so good. I’m thinking about our move a lot and I need to get organized and start some lists. I might finally start potty training Claire this week. What else?
We got a new wagon:
It’s the same shape as this wagon:
Bea and I got crafty with some things from the tool box:
That’s not Bea – it’s Claire in a bee costume:
Happy penguins swimming under a rainbow:
My kids are professional mess makers. This is the consequence of them playing nicely on there own. A mess!
We chose Valencia for our vacation because of a cheap air fare – we didn’t know we would like it so much. Lots of photos!
We spent just little time in the old town area. The girls were preocupied with their promised ice creams. I’m not showing the photos of Bea with her give me my ice cream pouty face – good grief.
Oooh – big candy store:
Valencia used to have a river running through it. After a major flood in 1957 they decided to divert the river and then the river bed was turned into a 7 kilometer park area. It’s really nice because it runs right through town and lots of people can enjoy it. The cool part (literally) are the many old bridges that you walk under – they give you some nice restful shade and they are so interesting to see from the underside.
The girls were really good walkers. We walked all the way from the old town down to our hotel – stopping to see all the interesting trees and playgrounds and fountains along the way.
This playground was within the old riverbed park. It’s a huge Gulliver from Gulliver’s Travels and you can climb and slide all over him.
We spent most of one day in this area called the City of Arts and Science. All the curvey white buildings were designed by Santiago Calatrava who coincidentally designed Stadelhofen – one of the main train stations in Zurich that Brian travels through most everyday. The design of the buildings definitely reminded us of the Gaudi architecture we saw in Barcelona.
There are a bunch of museums and performance areas within the City of Arts and Sciences but we were only inerested in the penguins. We went straight to the aquarium.
We were there pretty early so we were lucky enough to have the penguin exhibit all to ourselves. Bea bliss.
One last kid friendly activity before we had to hop on a plane and head home. We rented one of these bike buggy things and took another trip through the old riverbed park.
We loved our trip to Valencia, Spain last week! I think it was because it was such a kid friendly trip. I can relax when the kids are happy and that makes for a fun vacation. I think the best part for the girls was the beach. We went each of the afternoons that we were there. It wasn’t hot but the girls didn’t mind – they just couldn’t wait to roll around in the sand. So here are the beach photos and I’ll post about the rest of the trip later.
We went to the vineyards near our house today to enjoy the open wine cellars day. All the little wine producers offer samples of their wine – you can walk to several. It’s great on a fresh spring day like today. This is the third year we’ve done this and they have continued their series of really nice posters.
We had some friends over and celebrated Claire’s birthday on Saturday because we are going to be in Spain (yipeee!) on her real birthday.
Before I write some sappy stuff about my sweetheart – a funny thing: Bea bought Claire some play money for her birthday and we all got laughing because some Swiss 1,000 Franc notes were included. We all had to recall the stories of people pulling out a 1,000 Franc note to pay for something like a carton of orange juice at the grocery store. You hear of it often – people paying with a 1,000 Franc note and not a batting of an eyelash. Oh Switzerland.
This morning I looked back to see what I wrote on my blog when Claire turned two. She was just starting to say sentences and she didn’t really understand what her birthday was all about. What a difference a year makes. After seeing Bea’s party a couple months ago she is all about the party. In the days leading up to her birthday she kept saying “Mommy, let’s talk about my birthday party… are we going to have cake and balloons and candy?”
I think Claire might be the most outgoing person in our family and that is fun. She looks forward to going to our Mom & Tots group each week because she gets to see her best friend Sophie. She goes to dancing and music class and is so good at listening to what the teacher says. I think she’s the teacher’s pet.
She is a good little caregiver. She reallly likes to play tea party – where I just sit on the couch and she asks me in such an earnest tone what I want to have. She has this way of coming in close, nodding and looking right in your eyes when she says “you want ice cream?” Or she’ll bring me some pretend coffee and tell me in such a concerned way that it is “really really hot” – shaking her little finger as she tells me.
I’m hanging on tight to the baby things she does. Things like wrapping her arms tightly around my neck when I pick her up. And holding her hand – I hope that never ends. She will once in a while fall asleep in my arms after a really big day and even though it is breaking my back I love it. That smooshy warm heaviness with her blankie draped over my shoulder.
In my post last year she had started her obsession with kitties and she wanted to do everything that her sister was doing. So I guess some things have stayed the same.
Laowai 