Laowai

We’ve developed a tradition of giving Daddy a mug for Father’s Day. It amazes me how difficult it has become to get a good photo to put on the mug now that there are two girls. Here are some photos that didn’t make the cut. 

So, We may not be able to smile at the same time, but we love you so so much.

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY! 

Love – Bea and Claire

For me, one of the best parts of being a parent is doing art projects with Bea and seeing her drawing skills develop. I just love to look at the things she makes and lately she’s been using lots of concentration and her drawings often have a story to go with them. Here’s a round up of what she’s into lately.

We started making collages. I cut stuff out and she glues. And now whenever we come across a little scrap of paper that she finds interesting we must save it for her collages.

When we were on vacation a couple weeks ago we discovered maps are a great diversion for her. Maps are easy to find in and around the train stations – especially in touristy areas. She spent most of our train ride home drawing on a map. She’ll say here is our house and here is where we feed the ducks and on and on while drawing and circling things on the map.

Her drawing have gotten more detailed lately. This is Peppa Pig (a cartoon she watches).

And this is me

While I was cutting out fabric over the weekend (see last post) Brian and Bea were off on another little adventure – discovering more Switzerland. This time they went to a town called Aarau. The town is on the Aare river and apparently people from the region think that the Rhine River should be called the Aare River because when the two rivers join the Aure is the larger of the two. And that is the extent of my knowledge of Aarau. Here are some pictures.

Happiness is realizing I do have enough fabric for the shirt pattern that I’ve been wanting to make. And then getting the afternoon to myself to cut it out. 

Thanks Brian.

This has been a long week and it’s only Thursday. Brian has been gone all but Monday evening. It’s been cold and rainy so we can’t go swimming. I’m about to strangle my kids by about 5:30 each day. Tonight I couldn’t cope with the end of the day routine so I declared a movie night and rented Dumbo from iTunes and made a quick batch of brownies. Bea got all the pillows out and we put jammies on earlier than normal.

I don’t remember watching Dumbo all the way through before until tonight. What a beautiful movie. It seems to have a lot of animation styles The scenes where they set up the circus tent in the rain has these 30’s style men in sihlohuette. The landscapes that are scattered throughout the movie have a soft, painterly, baby book style. And then there’s the scene where Dumbo and the little mouse get drunk and have an almost psychadelic styled dream scene. Good stuff – and Bea liked it too.

The one good thing about Brian being gone is that I take the time to sew. I finished a shirt last night and I’m really happy with it. It’s an easy tunic style that I could wear everyday. It doesn’t have any fasteners to fiddle with so it went together really quickly. I am so missing the fabric stores back in the US. Fabric here costs around 15 to 20 dollars per yard so I have been trying to make do with my stash of fabric until I can go on a shopping spree back in the US. Of course I’m not really suffering – I simply miss fabric shopping.

Here’s a photo of the shirt – by Bea. I think it looks much nicer than this photo shows and I can’t wait to make another. It’s the Tova shirt and dress pattern by Wiksten.

Hope you all have a nice relaxing weekend and please send some of that US heat wave our way.

 

On our second day of our mountain vacation we walked through the valley to a town called Lauterbrunnen. It’s known for it’s many, many waterfalls. And, Dad, they have cross-country skiing trails there.

Here’s the valley, it’s edged in cliffs. You can see some people down the path in this photo. They are crazy fools.

They are base jumpers. Do you know about this? They basically jump off a mountain and fly along the edge of a sheer rock with a special suit. Then they float to the ground with their parachutes. As we walked along the path we heard, a couple parachutes flutter open above us. Later these dudes walked by us while we were picnicking and I overheard the one explaining to the other that when your legs inflate your head goes down. And he demonstrated by angling his hand. They go so fast you can’t see them flying along – you only hear the parachute open. Yikes. Later we saw the same guys riding up on the gondola with their puffy parachute-filled backpacks. I’ll be keeping my feet planted on the ground thank you very much.

Next we went to this waterfall that has carved it’s way through the mountain. You go up an elevator and climb lots of stairs to see the water rushing next to you in a vertical cave. It’s a really touristy spot. There were a bunch of Indian tourists who kept trying to touch my children – that was strange. 

Here’s how Bea felt about the whole experience.

She cheered up later and there was some giggling.

Here’s the gondola station at the town where we stayed. The gondolas are a big part of the experience in the area. This gondola is on the route to the Shilthorn (yeah, I feel like I’m cursing every time I say it). Anyway the Shilthorn is a peak that was featured in one of the James Bond movies. So they have the 007 logo painted on the gondolas. 

On our last evening we walked down to our hotel and watched the gondola float above us. It was so quiet and the light was making the mountains glow. We saw a few kitties at farm houses and we stopped to pet them. The girls were über sleepy when we finally got back – a great way to end our vacation.

We returned Sunday from a great vacation to the Jungfrau region of Switzerland. I have so many photos to share – I hope not too many. Here goes.

This is where we stayed – in a small mountain town called Gimmelwald. There’s not much there except a few modest hotels and hostels, some farmers and their cows and a gondola station.

Here’s a barn (I guess it’s a barn?) with the ceremonial cow bells hanging under the eaves. As you hike around you really do hear cow bells ding-a-linging. If you want to learn all about Swiss cows in the mountains read this.

Goats too.

Heading out for a hike. It is so very nice that you can be way up in the mountains and you only had to take a pleasant train ride and a gondola to get there. There are lots of options for beautiful quiet hikes… er walks, even if you have a stroller to push.

We walked to a rushing stream that came from the glaciers above. I was so reminded of spending time along rivers like this as a kid. Maybe it was the sound of the water or the smell of the woods that made the memories pop into my head. I remembered Dad making himself comfortable on a rock, Mom getting snacks out from a backpack and getting busy jumping from rock to rock with Jennifer. 

The wildflowers were all out to greet us.

Later we walked up to the next town. Up, up, up. In the background you can see the gondola cables, a cow fence and then the railing for the stairs that we were on.

The next morning we were back on the gondola. It’s Bea’s favorite thing. She says she likes when it swings. I like it too but I still find myself gripping the nearest railing as we go so smoothly along. 

That’s enough for now – I’ll do the rest in another post.

Five years ago today I started this blog. Back then I thought it would be a way to record our experiences and stay in touch from far away China. What a surprise that the far away place turned out to be Switzerland. Brian likes to say “there isn’t just one path to happiness”. I think it is so true – I could have been happy in China or back in the US or lots of places. So today I am in fact happy. And I’m glad I have made blogging a habit so that I can look back at my path and all the roads I have traveled over the last five years.  

I can’t celebrate five years without thanking everyone who reads my blog. I’m glad you’re all out there reading all the trivial things I write about and looking at the photos of my not-trivial little girls.

It’s a chilly rainy day. A good day to introduce Claire to Grandma Dice’s molasses cookies. Oh there is nothing like the smell of those cookies – when the molasses hits the cinnamon, cloves and ginger – it just fills me with a warm feeling of home. They give me such a sense of contentment I get lulled into the idea that they are pure goodness for my children. I mean I almost forget that they are cookies, that they are made of butter and sugar not carrots and broccoli.