We are big fans of the Great British Baking Off here. We’ve also started watching a show called Extra Slice – it’s a funny recap of the Great British Baking Off episodes. They have comedians on and they play funny clips. It teeters on the edge of annoying but one part gives me a guaranteed laugh each week. They have people send in photos of things they’ve baked. Horrible cake decorating fails basically never fail to make me laugh out loud. Laughing out loud is good for me.
Here are a few – it’s especially good when they show the lovely cake (or dog) that the person tried to emulate.
Ok – now that I’ve had a good laugh I can get on with life.
We had a really fun trip to Copenhagen last week. I’m sorting through a bunch of photos – it’s a very photogenic city.
Over a nice dinner I talked with Brian about vacations. We talked about our favorites and the places we’d like to visit. I’ve learned that I like the North. Visiting places like Spain and Portugal and Puerto Rico was great but I always end up preferring our visits to places in the North. Brian said “well, the north is rational”. It made me think. These places I like make sense, they are organized and functional and clean. Maybe they are staid or boring to some. While the Southern places are passionate, disorderly and hot (uck). Anyway – I guess it’s just my personality and I like what I like.
Here are the girls in our hotel room. We stayed at a hotel that started out as a warehouse on a busy harbor in the early 1800s. See the pretty beams? Bea was happy because the mini-bar was free and it was refilled everyday with Fanta!
I didn’t know Denmark was known for it’s beer. Brian was happy beer geek.
I’m sometimes surprised at the brands that are familiar to me over here. This makes me laugh. 7-11 is a really nice convenience store that is all over Copenhagen.
We had the most lovely weather and there were many beautiful trees showing off their fall color.
Denmark really is a biking country. Bikes were all over! All the roads have special bike lanes and they are full. There are kinds of bikes we don’t see so much in the US. Like bikes with big bins on the front for carrying kids or stuff. Of course it’s a flat country so it makes sense to hop on your bike.
Here are some random pictures that have been sitting on my computer for a while. Stay tuned for some new photo subjects – we’re going to Copenhagen for the girls’ October break!
Claire loving a goat:
Bea has been taking a climbing class after school and she loves it. Look at her go!
She also has to learn to belay – or to be the support person holding onto the ropes below.
Am I rushing the season? I found more tiny trinkets for our Christmas village and I made three new houses. I think I have a problem.
I couldn’t resist posting this series of photos. Just Claire getting some snuggles from Brian after dinner.
And now we are in vacation mode getting ready to go to Denmark. Yay!
We made our annual visit to Jucker Farm this weekend. It’s a lovely pumpkin farm – they do everything so well – I just wish we could avoid the crazy crowd of people.
She colored all the badges and worked hard on so many details. Brian says she needs to put on a little weight. I love how it all turned out!
Not sure if this photo looks appetizing but the food is always so good. They have it all cafeteria style in a barn and there’s a big grill outside for the pumpkin flavored sausages. The food is arranged on old wagons – styled so nicely. Everything is so Fallish and they add pumpkin to almost every dish. There’s pumpkin beer and of course there’s cider – mmmmm.
Every year they have a different theme for their gourd displays – this year it was fairy tales. The colors are always amazingly saturated.
After a while the crowds and the hot sun were getting to us so we picked out our pumpkins and headed home.
We are having a great Fall here in Zurich. I’m enjoying apples and cinnamon and orange plants and chilly mornings and making Halloween costumes.
Here’s a preview of Claire and Bea’s Halloween costumes. I discovered you can make the top of a cardboard egg carton into a mask. I just soaked it completely in water and then I shaped it on a bowl that was about the size of Claire’s head. To form the nose shape I tucked a marble under the wet cardboard. When it was dry I cut out the eye holes. I just love making costumes.
Here’s a glimpse of Bea’s costume. We’ve been working together on lots of little details. Can you guess?
And here’s a wreath I made. I was inspired by The Faux Martha.
Over the weekend we climbed a modest mountain called Etzel that is on our side of Lake Zurich. We have been so fortunate to have a bunch of lovely Fall days. We climbed up up up through a pretty forest and then we were rewarded with beautiful views all the way to Zurich.
Bea was grumbling at the beginning of the hike and then we started noticing there were so many mushrooms. So she took a picture of each mushroom she came across and that distracted her from the terrible drudgery (rolling eyes) of hiking. Here are a few of the many photos she took:
Laowai 