Summer Round Up Part Two: Virginia Beach

After a fantastic few weeks in California, we packed up and headed east to visit Kevin's family in Virginia Beach. We were there for just a week and while it wasn't nearly enough time, we did our best to soak up our last bit of American summer.

It was so nice laying low and hanging out with family. At this age our kids are perfectly content playing with all the toys at Amma and Pop's house, and just soaking in the grandparent love.

Since it's so much easier to learn a new skill in your native language, we wanted to give the kids the opportunity to have a few lessons in English while were were in the States. In California, they took swimming lessons and in Virginia Quinn took tennis. 

Man, America is the best, no wonder we have all those Olympians! You just can't beat American enthusiasm and ingenuity. The tennis coach was so upbeat and positive. Quinn's little face just lit up during every lesson. The coach gave Quinn a butterfly net at the beginning so he could get a feel for the forehand, and our little tennis guy was so happy when he would catch the ball in the net! After the net, swinging the racquet seemed natural. ....Well, sort of, we have some major practice to do before heading to Wimbledon.

Here's Quinn practicing with Amma.

The adults got some tennis time in as well. Just look at these fierce competitors.

No need for climbing lessons..

To help survive the southern heat we made sure to get lots of beach/pool time in, our favorite!

Quinn taking advantage of his new found love for water shooters...

One of our favorite nights in Virginia Beach was when we packed up and headed to the local state park for a campfire picnic dinner. It was so fun! We had all the best parts of camping without actually having to camp! It was such a blast that maybe next time we'll spend the night...

I love these two goofballs! 

Here's Quinn really embracing his new found love for marshmallows!

Pop's made sure to teach the kids how to properly put out a campfire at the end of the night.

We wrapped the week up with another birthday celebration and these kids didn't mind a bit!

Amma made a special birthday cake with a "few" cake toppers that can only be found in America!

We had a really fabulous time in the US and we can't wait to do it again next summer!

Summer Round Up: Part One California

With the easy days of summer drawing to a close I figured it was about time to look back at our summer adventures here on the blog.

We had friends visit us in June and the kids and I hitched a ride back to California with them while Kevin stayed in Switzerland for a few more weeks.

Twenty five hours door to door and the kids were awesome on the flights. Phew! Once we got to California the kids were in heaven, with cousins to play with and tons to do. We celebrated my parent's 50 years of marriage with a big family reunion complete with a Fuller Family Olympics. Here are a few pictures to highlight some of the events.
We started it off with the 100ish meter run...

After, we moved on to the donut on a string eating contest.

Anna really went for it!

 

We washed off with some rules optional apple bobbing.

There was an event for everyone, we even had a show to showcase all our talents. Here is my Dad playing the violin!

We had such a blast being together. The house was packed full of cousins and siblings so there was some major cooking and eating happening everyday. 

 Of course, with William around, there was plenty of pasta!

We celebrated Kevin and the kid's birthday with a piñata and cupcakes, but for some reason I can't find I picture of it. oops!
The kids took swimming lessons and greatly improved their ability in the pool. They also had a great time making pottery and hanging out with cousins.

It was a fun filled trip to California and we can't wait to go back next summer!

One Year In

Hey everyone! We've been here for just over a year and all in all we really love it, we have made so many friends and have learned so much. There have been a ton of life changing highs and an equal amount of family/personal growth opportunities. We made a quick list of our feelings about Switzerland one year in....

Love
1. Centrally located.... traveling is so easy!
2. Chocolate, Cheese, Wine, enough said.
3. Parks, Annie says it best... "Park today, all day long!"
4. Public Transportation, so clean, so efficient, I may never drive again!
5. So many interesting people from all over the world.

Hate
1. Smoking, SO MUCH SMOKING! I keep wondering why no one here got the memo about cigarettes.
2. It's hard to do stuff in french...paperwork, paperwork, paperwork!
3. So expensive...sigh.


Love/Hate
1. Slow Sundays...Nothing's open!!
2. Apartment living. We are getting a bit better about not stomping... sorry neighbors.
3. No Car.
4. Hills and strollers... not a match made in heaven.
5. French.

*PS- The above photo was our attempt to get a family picture on Swiss National Day.... I think it sums up all our personalities very well.

It's not all Butterflies and Roses

In June our friends came to visit and we decided to spend the weekend exploring the French city of Lyon. We planned to take the train there, but at the last minute decided to rent a car because of the railroad worker strike.

Kevin was a hero and manned the eight passenger van like a champ, the streets are narrow in these old European cities! After dropping our stuff off at the airbnb, we headed to dinner at Brasserie Paul Bocuse L'est which was a really neat place situated in an old train station. The dinner was filling and delicious, and since we were eating early for French standards we basically had the place to ourselves. Yay! After a long dinner with our tired friends, who had just traveled 24 hours to see us, we headed back to our apartment to rest up for Saturday.

Our little birdies woke up early, and unfortunately a little "off". It was one of those mornings where the brother sister squabbles were hard to stop and grumpy kids were the order of the day. Ugh. Our kids have been really great for trips lately, so I guess we were due for rocky weekend, but man I did not see it coming and I was not prepared.

The weekend was full of highs and lows, we loved wandering through Les Halles Paul Bocuse and decided to grab a variety of meats and cheeses for a picnic in the park, but my impression of wandering this amazing market will forever be colored by the memory of a certain little lady having a fierce throw down over a piece of fruit... Ah, nothing like the sweet song of a two year old... 

Just look at these yummy Lyonnaise treats though!

Here is Kevin and our friends with the spoils from the market, Our friends bought a meter of Macarons, we didn't have any trouble finishing those off!

Lyon has a neat funicular that takes you to the top of Fourvière Hill where you can walk through the ornate basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It was fairly clear when we went up and the views of Lyon and the rivers are beautiful. Our little sleeping Annie was also a beautiful sight to see! 

The boys checking out the view.

We took the funicular down and toured Vieux Lyon. We loved wandering through the traboules, which are passageways that were used by silk workers to transport their wares, then used by resistance fighters during WWII. It was so fun to push open a giant old door and wander through the winding tunnels to see where you pop out.

PULL Quinn!!

Lyon has a really beautiful park called Parc de la Tête d'Or, which is reminiscent of a small Central Park and proved to be a really relaxing way to end the weekend. We wandered in looking for a playground and stumbled upon a pretty extensive free zoo instead! Obviously the kids loved it, as they were in their natural element and I have to say I didn't mind staring at the giraffes either. 

We found the playground, and true to form our kids found their groove. They also could not pass up the chance to ride the carousel, fortunately our friend was a trooper and rode with them!

During the drive home, I had a chance to reflect on the weekend and the kids and remembered that everyone, even/especially kids have off days (or weekends in this case) and this weekend will be one that will go down in our collective family memories, although maybe not for the reasons we thought.
it would! 

So here's to making all sorts of memories!