A weekend in the Eternal City!

A few weeks ago while Kevin's brother and his girlfriend were visiting, we packed up the kids and headed to Rome for the weekend.

Ah Rome, you dirty, hot, bustling metropolis--they're really not messing around with the nickname Eternal City. This place and it's cities built upon cities is mind blowing. We felt especially lucky to get to experience it with an architect. I bombarded Brad with questions about arches and columns and structures as we toured around and we learned so much.

We lucked out and found an apartment near the Colosseum which proved to be a great home base for exploring the city. We walked through the Roman Forum marveling at the ruins and structures wishing we had a time machine to bring us back to 800BC when the forum was in it's infancy.

The kids, especially Quinn, loved the Colosseum.  He loved talking about the gladiators and fights with lions and bears. We even learned that they used to flood the stadium floor and set up mock naval battles! What!?! Mind blowing.

While waiting around for the adults to finish gawking, Quinn and Anna took up their natural position and staged their own epic battles with their toy diggers.

As always we picked out a few good spots for dinner and, as always, Italy never disappoints!

This place called Gusto was delicious and even had a little cheese shop inside where you can take home a little midnight snack if you want to.

Unfortunately there are no food pictures. As you can see, I've licked my plate clean, it was that good. You'll just have to trust me on this one.

By far the highlight of my trip was going through the Vatican museum and seeing the Sistine chapel. I've been once before as a teenager and as I've been reading about the life of Michelangelo lately I really wanted to get another peek at the chapel. But first Anna needed a nap..

The kids were SERIOUS troopers and fought the crowds like champs. Quinn really liked the map room with all the maps of Italy. He told us that he wants to be a map maker when he grows up.

The museum also offered a kids audio guide that both kids really liked.  It went through some of the major works and told a few kid friendly facts about each piece. The Chapel was really neat and we lucked out and scored some seats along a side wall.  It was incredible to sit and take in the amazing frescos covering the walls and ceiling.  Kevin and I even spotted Michelangelo's self portrait!

After a morning at the Vatican, we needed to stretch our legs so we headed to the Villa Borghese Gardens for the afternoon at the park.

They have the neatest little lake with row boats to rent and the kids loved trying to paddle the grown-ups around. Fortunately they didn't hit any of the other boaters.

Unfortunately, I had two minor boat collisions... Well, actually I just hit the same boat twice.. oops.

After the our little boat ride we tested the gelato and it was approved by all.

Nothing beats a nice cold gelato in the park!

After our sweet treat, the kids pretended to be statues and we headed out to catch some more sights on the way to dinner.

We walked to Trevi Fountain and Kevin tossed a coin in to assure our return to the Eternal City! We even got a nice guy to take our family picture...As you can see, the kids were impressed and, as always, camera ready.

After a long day of exploring we enjoyed a late roman dinner. Then headed home where we were surprised to see that the corner flower shop outside our window was open 24 hours a day!

Rome is such a great city to explore with kids! While there are tons of museums to tour, there are also so many neat historic sights, buildings, fountains and parks to see. 

 I spy Kevin and Quinn!

Our kids climbed on and jumped off every fountain they could, and even took advantage of the sidewalk for an afternoon nap!

 

We had a great time in Rome, and were really glad that Brad and Claire didn't pack up and head home after spending a weekend with us! 

The Chocolate Train!

Kevin's brother Brad has been visiting for a few weeks and the other day we took the Golden Pass railroad for a scenic and scrumptious tour of western Switzerland.

We boarded the old-timey train in Montreux and headed up through the mountains to the Maison de Gruyère cheese museum for a tour and a cheese tasting. The kids loved seeing their favorite cheese being made and aged, and of course we all had a blast soaking up the sun on the playground after the tour.

Quinn and Anna admired the stacks and stacks of gruyère, and later Quinn imparted his knowledge of the finer points of milking a cow to his sister.

Uncle Brad took over with the kids on the playground while Kevin caught a quick nap!

After the cheese museum we hoped on a bus for a quick ride up to the quaint little town of Gruyères. With it's cobble stone streets, castle, and plethora of fondue restaurants we were in heaven. We met up with some friends for a gluttonous lunch of cheese, bread and potatoes, then wandered the medieval streets up to the castle.

Quinn, always finding a place to slide!

After lunch and a quick hangout we said goodbye to our friends and headed to the Maison Callier the famous Swiss chocolate museum! Wow, that place was awesome! The tour was interactive and showed the chocolate making process from start to finish. The end of tour brought us to a room filled with every chocolate that Callier makes, where guests were free to taste as much chocolate as they wanted! Whoa, let's just say that I had my fair share...

After the tour we relaxed in the sun while the kids ran off the chocolate rush at the playground.

After a full day of chocolate and cheese we hopped back on the train for the two hour ride home with happy tired kids and full bellies.

Tour De Romandie

If you know us, you know that we love pro cycling, and when we learned that we were moving to Lausanne one of the things that Kevin was most excited about was the chance to be so close to so many pro cycling races.

A few weeks ago on a rainy Sunday, we hopped on the train to Geneva to check out the finish to the Tour de Romandie as it was our first pro finish, we got there early and found a spot on the barrier near the line. It was a good thing that we were so close, because for the .05 seconds that we saw the racers whiz by, it was totally worth it! HA!

Kevin got a few blurry shots of the bikers, Quinn had the best view, and as usual Anna slept peacefully through it all.

The highlight of the day for me was when a kind bike mechanic took some time out of his busy schedule to pump up my stroller tire. Bikers, so nice.  It was kind of hilarious and by the time he was done pumping up the tire there was a whole crowd of people laughing and taking pictures of the ordeal. As you can see, Anna wasn't too bothered by the whole thing!

Lausanne Street Food Festival!

When we heard about Lausanne's street food festival we knew immediately what our weekend had in store, eat delicious food from trucks, watch the kids run around on the grass, repeat until sick.

We didn't quite take it that far but I'm not going to lie, we did go to this event two days in a row, and man was it worth it!

The festival was held outside of the events center and featured something like forty food vendors from around the globe. It was so easy to grab your choice of food and settle into it while sitting in the grass watching the kids run by.

Thank goodness for spring, because with it comes the return of family friendly outdoor festivals like this one! They even had an area where kids could paint pots and plant herbs in them to take home. It was crazy, I felt like I was back in the U.S. with all the food trucks and kid friendliness going on!

We spent quite a bit of time painting and planting, but I think the most fun for Quinn and Anna were the slack lines that they set up. They even had long wooden poles, so that those of us who are not professional tight rope walkers could get in on the fun.

We had dinner there Friday night and came back for lunch on Saturday, We tried a ton of food, and I heard more spoken English then I've heard in a year! Apparently all the anglophones went for a little taste of home, we certainly felt right at home!