We're in Training

No, no, no, not for a marathon! We're training for museums!

When we found out that we were moving to Switzerland, one of the things that I was most excited about was being so close to so many great museums. I'm a museum kind of girl, my parents instilled a love of museums and learning into my brain a long time ago and it has stuck. Now I am so happy to show our children this world as well.

My kids have gone to lots and lots of "hand's on" living history type museums, but have been to only a few fine art establishments.

At the end of this week when I'd had my fill of playgrounds and parks, I decided to take the kids somewhere that I've been excited about. I mean look at this view!

We went to Foundation de l'Hermitage in Lausanne and saw the Marius Borgeaud exhibit. Before we left I did a few things to hopefully guarantee that the kids and I had the best possible time, and my planning was super helpful! The kids were engaged for about an hour (that's a long time when you're two and four..) and I was able to get a little culture/art fix that I've felt has been missing for me.

Here are a few things that we did to help make our day a success!

1. Arrive Early and Well Fed- We got to the beautiful museum grounds as soon as the doors opened, and I made sure that the kids ate a little snack before we left….low blood sugar life saver!

Here's a picture of our little art hounds sitting in our "car".  Annie looks pretty pumped!

2. Leave Time to Get the Wiggles Out- So many museums have beautiful grounds for public use. I made sure to let the kids run and play before we entered the museum. It was perfect, they were tired and happy to take in the museum from the stroller for a good portion of the time.

3. It's an Art Museum Let Them Be Artists- Before we left I gave each child their own notebook and crayon so that they could "draw" what they saw. This worked particularly well with Quinn, who was very excited to be an artist! Anna was thrilled just to have her own notebook.

4. Bring Food- Although most museums don't allow food inside, we brought a picnic lunch and ate al fresco after we finished. This museum does have a lovely little cafe, but this momma wasn't brave enough to try it alone with two kids!

5. Don't Stress- I knew coming into this, that our museum excursion could go bad at any moment, after all some of us are particularly prone to tantrums…  I was so happy that things went fairly smoothly, and I think the kids really enjoyed the experience. Annie found all the cats and dogs in the pictures, and Quinn is old enough to notice different textures, and talk about what is happening in the paintings. After we finished Quinn asked to take a few pictures and naturally Anna insisted on a turn as well. Not bad kids, not bad!

On our bus ride home, I asked Quinn if he liked the museum, and he gave an enthusiastic yes, and then followed up with "but I REALLY liked the playground!" I believe they also REALLY enjoyed the rocks!

Have a great weekend everybody!

PS- If anyone else has tips for taking kids to museums, or anywhere for that matter, let me know in the comments!

Quinn Turned Four!

On Sunday Quinn had his fourth birthday and surprised us all by learning to ride a pedal bike! We spent the morning with our friend and her daughter. We played, we biked, we generally trashed the house then everyone took naps! It was a birthday well spent and here are some photos from Quinn's big  day!

We woke up and after a quick breakfast, got down to business!

Kevin hid the bike on the terrace under a blanket and Quinn was so happy to find it, that he wanted to ride it right then and there. After this, we went to the school across the street and got some real riding in! 

After a morning of riding and playing we headed inside for lunch and cake. I thought that I had everything all planned out for the day, until we realized that we had NO matches for the candles…oops. Our kind friend went to the neighbors to ask for some but nobody was home, so we improvised!

Quinn was a sport and even pretended to blow out the fake candles!

Luckily we had these party blowers (is that the word?) that the kids LOVED!

As you can see the cake is only the best in lemon deliciousness. Quinn even snuck a nice little sample of it while the grown up's were getting ready before the party!

We are so proud of our big Quinn. He is such a sweet and happy boy!

Swiss Grandmothers Are The Best!

Moving abroad is so crazy! When we first arrived in Switzerland, my Swiss friend said "welcome to the land of mail and paperwork!" Boy was she right. There have been so many photos, and fingerprints, and (efficient) government office visits over the last month, it's crazy. I think we're almost through all the paperwork and that light at the end of the tunnel is starting to glow!

Today, after schlepping the kids to meet Kevin and pick up our residence cards at the local government office, I decided that they were due for a nice chocolaty Swiss pastry. So we headed to a little cafe in a neat old square in town and tucked into a nice treat. It was pretty crowded with people enjoying their morning coffee and croissant, but we found a nice big table where I hoped we wouldn't bother anyone.

The kids were a little wiggly  after our bureaucratic morning trek and began chasing the birds away from our table (good luck kids, those birds are everywhere). After realizing that he was losing the bird battle, Quinn found a cement umbrella stand that made a loud clanking sound when he rocked on it, FUN.

 As the little angel was gleefully rocking, people at other tables began to stare… Between wrestling chocolate covered Anna into her seat, I asked Quinn to stop a few times to no avail. Suddenly, a grandmotherly looking Swiss woman smiled sweetly at Quinn and told him in French (with many hand motions) that he was hurting her ears and he needed to sit in his seat.

Shocked Quinn smiled back at her and immediately sat down to finish his treat! I was floored. It was amazing, I could have kissed that women right then and there!

Since we've been here,  Kevin and I have been the only ones teaching our children the subtle (and not so subtle) nuances of how to be appropriate/good/kind/safe/happy in this new city. It felt so good to have a perfect stranger, so sweetly give us a helping hand. I know the saying is cliché, but it's true, it does take a village to raise a child. We had a pretty nice "village" of beloved friends and mothers in Vermont who were such great examples to my children and at this point, our Swiss "village" is small.

But as we make more friends and our village continues to grow I take comfort in knowing that there are Swiss grandmothers around to lend a hand when mine are covered in chocolate!

Bus Life

Every morning I wake up and mentally pump myself up for another day of pushing two kids around the city in a stroller. In the beginning I was doing a lot of walking and pushing up and down the hilly winding streets of Lausanne. After my back and feet began screaming at me every night I decided that enough was enough, and it was time to master the public transportation system. As of now, I've hardly mastered it, but we can definitely get around, and my feet thank me every night!

The long and short of it is, that Lausanne has an amazing public transportation system composed of a metro and tons of CLEAN trolley buses, and this town is hilly so it's nice to pop onto a bus to get where you want to go! 

The buses are all stroller/wheelchair accessible and people are very nice and do their best to make room for strollers and elderly people. Almost daily I see the young giving their seats to older people or mothers with small children. 

The people here are so respectful and kind. When I ride with the kids I'm nearly always flying solo, so I have a general rule that they both stay in the stroller if it's a short ride. This makes our bus exit much faster, it can get a little dicey if people are out of the stroller.. If the ride is on the longer side and the bus isn't crowded the kids LOVE to sit in the seats and look out, and I love to see the city through their eyes, so many diggers.

The buses are also great because I usually get a chance to practice my French while riding. Our stroller is a double with one seat on top of the other, and people always double take when they see us. It's so funny, people will usually look at the small child in front and smile at her adorableness, then look down below and start cracking up at the giant child crammed into the bottom of the stroller. This always leads to questions (in french) for me. Usually I can answer with large smiles and many hand gestures, and sometimes if I'm lucky the inquisitor will bust out in perfect English. The kids usually make up for my poor French by smiling and flirting with whoever we're speaking to. Win win, the bus rides go by fast when the kids are entertained.

I have a great little app for my phone that tells the exact time the bus will arrive at any stop, and the Swiss do not mess around with timing. The buses are always on time and if I miss my preferred bus, another one is always close behind. 

The Swiss think of everything! A few weeks ago I met a friend at the pool for an afternoon swim, and as the kids and I were waiting at the bus stop people just kept coming, the pool had just closed and everyone was busing home. I have to say, I was nervous… it was around dinner time and we had already eaten all our snacks… I thought for sure we'd have to wait for the second or third bus to come along. I was wrong! Up rolled a giant two carriage EMPTY bus and everyone got on with no problem, there were seats for everyone. Like I said, the Swiss think of everything.

*The above "tiniest map in the world" is from here- 

http://arpc167.epfl.ch/alice/WP_UEE/?author=10

Around Here Lately

Hi everybody! We've had a busy week in our family, we celebrated Kevin's birthday, spent some time at a city festival, AND moved into our permanent apartment!!!!

We are so happy to have finally landed in our home, although our ocean shipment with all of our stuff has yet to arrive. It feels so nice to be able to explore our neighborhood and get used to the layout of our new place.

We celebrated Kevin's birthday with gifts on his birthday morning and a special night out for dinner. Kevin is the best to shop for because all he wants is bike stuff, so the kids and I bussed over to the local shop and picked up a few things to help him feel like a local.

 Hey, look at that Swiss biker over there!

We ate dinner at the neatest place. It's an old casino overlooking a park with an amazing view of Lac Leman! Dinner was delicious, but this dessert was crazy, it's a meringue double creme de Gruyere. From what we hear, it's the signature dessert of Gruyere (you know, the place where they make all the cheese), and it is seriously rich! The kind of rich where you immediately have eaters remorse, but can't stop eating it.  We ate it all.

On Saturday we had a fairly easy time settling into the new apartment. Since we have so little it only took a day to grab a few essentials at Ikea and make the move. Quinn was out-of-his-mind excited to sleep in his new bunk bed but when push came to shove he needed to put on a few comfort items to feel comfortable in his new digs. He's been sleeping on the bottom bunk with Anna in a pack-and-play right next to him and they've been having a blast. These two have grown so much closer during the short time we've been here. It makes us so happy!

It continues to be hot but for some reason, after we put Quinn to bed on the first night in the new apartment, he came out of his room sweating but still wearing this little ensemble.  He must have put it on after we put him to bed, b/c no parent would put their child to bed in this gear…two sweatshirts, a hat, and a coat on an 85+ degree night.

We have a few toys, but the kids prefer to play with the kitchen tools. I believe they were playing bath in this picture...

Our apartment is right across the street from a local school which comes in very handy since we don't have a yard. It's easy to pop across the street and run off some energy!

 Last Friday we spent a fun evening at the Festival de la Cite. This is a week long celebration focused mainly in the old part of the city with live music, circus shows, and really neat family activities. We went to an exhibition for kids to learn all about cause and effect. Everything was hands on and it was all very rustic. The kind of stuff that someone would make in their garage for a science project. Anna loved the bubble machine and spent most of her time watching the big kids pump the foot pedals to make bubbles come out of the wooden box.

But, mostly she just liked her ice cream cone!!

Our 4th of July Weekend

Happy belated 4th of July everyone!! We stayed in Lausanne for the weekend and soaked up some major Swiss sun. On Saturday we walked around at the downtown market and popped into a few stores. Kevin took the kids to lunch while I got some shop time for myself!!! We tried to buy a fan (on many occasions) and apparently the whole town is sold out. One of my new friends was shopping in France today and offered to pick one up for us, but unfortunately they're sold out there too! So I've been making ice and we've been giving the kids lots of cold "play baths" when we're at home…the exciting life of expats, I know, I know.

On Sunday we joined everyone else in Switzerland and hit the beach in Lutry. Such a good decision, we had a blast! We met a nice family on the beach who let us take their grocery store blow up paddle board for a spin.  The water was clear and warm and no one popped the paddle board, yay. The kids LOVED it so we may have to hunt one down.

We've also really got to get some life jackets, or swimming lessons…

The beach on Lake Geneva, or Lac Leman as they call it here is rocky, but that never stops Quinn from digging and having a general blast with his giant sand toys. Looks like he got some help with his digging here.

Along with a great beach, this spot in Lutry has a little outdoor cafe, a large grass area for sun bathers and a nice playground for kids, something for everyone! Our troop was naturally drawn toward the playground of course! I like how in the picture below Kevin is standing by making sure Quinn doesn't fall from that tall, tall play structure. Little does he know, while he's at work Quinn scales giant robot tree houses with no help and no problem.

After a morning at the beach we headed home on the bus, which is usually the highlight of the kids' day!

Later that night our friends took Kevin and I out on their boat while the kids stayed at the house. It was a beautiful night and we all jumped off the boat for a nice cool off in the lake! Not a bad way to finish off the weekend.

xoxo

Heatwave and finally a bike ride

We are going through a record heatwave here in Switzerland (and all over Europe)--it's been over 90 for the past 3-4 days and will be for the next 3-4 days.  The hard part about it is that no one has A/C here.  Even the majority of stores don't have A/C so it's hard to find relief.  The kids have been living with just shorts on and no shirts and everyone has been a bit cranky and it's made for lousy sleeping. I tried to go buy a couple fans yesterday but all stores I went to were sold out.  Today is Sunday and on Sundays everything in Switzerland is closed (even grocery stores) b/c it's the day of the week that you're supposed to just spend time with your family.  So that means we will be spending time without a fan until the stores get new shipments on Monday.  Melinda and I have been doing our best to be patient and calm with the kids (she's better at it than me) but it's been tough!

I have been craving a good, hard bike ride ever since we arrived b/c it's like cycling heaven here--beautiful roads through vineyards and up and over mountains.  My bike finally arrived earlier this week, so yesterday was my first chance to get in a good ride.  Heatwave aside, I set out in the afternoon and rode the through the beautiful vineyards of Lavaux.  Lavaux is a spread of about 830 hectares of vineyards between Lausanne and Montreax dating back to the 11th century.  Since 2007 they've been classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and thus protected.  They are beautiful terraced vineyards along the north side of Lake Geneva with winding roads and tons of little wine "caves" (cellars) where you can sample the wine.  You can spend the day walking, driving, cycling, or even taking a wine train through them and they are only a few miles from our apartment.

It was extremely hot, but such a great ride.  I can't wait to get back out there.  Here are a few shots from the ride.  -Kevin