sledding

It has snowed a lot more this year than it did last year. Not great for me, but perfect for the kids. Luckily we live one minute from the perfect little sledding hill. Most afternoons, Alex comes in, drops his backpack and heads outside to spend the rest of the day sledding with the neighborhood kids.

One Saturday, after a good snowstorm, we invited a couple of families from church up to go sledding. The dads had fun taking the kids and the moms hung out with the babies and made dinner.

Here's everyone getting suited up to go

This was Ruby's first sledding experience here

Alex, like Pete, is built for the cold

Pete and Henry get ready for a run down the hill

Ruby surprised us by being fearless

Suzy and Ansel have a turn

I thought Ruby would be crying after this trick, but she's tougher than I give her credit for

Ruby and Henry...watch out!

Santa, is that you?

Pete's company had a Christmas party for all of their families. It was on a Saturday morning and it was completely planned around the kids. There was a balloon guy, a magician, and Santa Claus of course. He was just a little bit different than the Santa we are used to.

Before he came in, all the kids had to sing "Pere Noel ou es-tu? Je sais que tu es venu..." (Father Christmas where are you? I know that you came...". It was really cute to see all these little kids singing in French and sure enough we looked outside and there he was!

Walking up with his sack of toys...did he borrow the Pope's hat?
Ruby wasn't sure what to think about this Santa Claus

Each child was called up by name and talked to Pere Noel,

who spoke 5 different languages.

He also had a present for each of them.

saying goodbye
Ruby's ballon art

Ruby gives the party 2 enthusiastic thumbs up! Alex with his helmet, sword and scabbard

"En garde!"

What? It's just me.

They love magicians here.

It is common to have them at children's parties.

Alex trying to figure out the secret of the rings

Here comes Santa Claus

Our kids were able to see Santa for the first time at our church's Christmas party. We made sure to tell them ahead of time that the real Santa doesn't always show up because he has so many places to go before Christmas. Usually it is just one of his helpers. After seeing this Santa, Alex and Ruby both commented, "It was definitely not the real Santa. He couldn't even keep his beard on!"
Henry didn't really want to sit on Santa's lap but the candy cane was too much for him to resist. He held on long enough for this picture but the tears soon followed.

Here are a small group of kids from our ward.
Clockwise: Alex, Henry, Ruby, Ella, Elsa, Parker, Ethan, Sydney and Alexa

Henry may not look anything like me,
but I was the one who lugged him around for 9 long months

Bah Humbug!

1. fine from the judge: 560 CHF

2. misc. fees from the judge: 100 CHF

3. fine and processing fees from the Swiss DMV: 200 CHF

4. the look on people's faces when I tell them my license is being suspended for














4 MONTHS

PRICELESS!!!

There is more to the story but I don't have it in me to write about it. Needless to say I will be looking for someone 18 (the legal driving age) or older who would like to come stay with me in the months of May and June.

Swiss traditions

Here are a couple of Christmas traditions we have learned about so far:

A few Saturdays ago two ladies were selling these in our village. There are four candles and you burn one candle each Sunday leading up to Christmas. We have started burning them but haven't made it too far because we can only do it when Henry is sleeping. He has learned how to push chairs around the kitchen and has tried to "catch" the fire every time he sees them lit up.
We also received this little sack filled with the goodies you see here from our neighbors. These loaves of bread shaped like little men are very Swiss and reminded me of gingerbread men. They are sprinkled with sugar on top which makes them slightly sweeter than plain white bread. There were also peanuts and chocolate mice.

Here is a close up of the chocolate. We didn't find out until we had eaten almost all of them that we were supposed to hang them on our tree. Whoops! Who can honestly resist a good Swiss chocolate?

Christmas at school

The other day I found Alex busy working on this:
Thinking he brought it home from church, I asked him if his lesson in primary had been about the birth of Jesus. Looking confused, he asked me what I was talking about. Long story short, he was working on his homework from school. I was shocked and happy at the same time.

When I was in elementary school, every December we had a "Christmas Sing". We sang Christmas songs and Hanukkah songs and for some reason, nobody was offended. Not any more. With all the cries of "separation of church and state" going on right now, it makes it nearly impossible to enjoy our beliefs, whatever they may be, without upsetting someone else.

This December I feel like I have been transported back a few years. Alex and Ruby have both learned Christmas songs (in French of course) and worked on Christmas projects (religious and secular) at school. One day I wished someone "Happy Holidays!" and she replied back, "And a Merry Christmas to you also!" I love it that people are not afraid to express what they feel without worrying about what someone may think.

Alex has another book from school that not only teaches about Christianity but also includes sections about Jewish and Muslim beliefs. I think it's great that he is being exposed to what other people around the world believe. I love it that our family is making friends with people from so many different countries who speak different languages, celebrate different holidays and have different customs than our own. I can see the kids becoming more open-minded and accepting of others. That is one Christmas gift I couldn't place under the tree.

Turkey day

Since Thanksgiving is an American holiday, Thursday was a normal day for us. Pete went to work (in Sweden), the kids went to school and I played all day long. Come Saturday it was a different story. Our friends from church, the Atchleys, hosted several families from America to come over and celebrate. Of course we couldn't resist inviting our good friends Shane and Emma (from Northern Ireland and Preston, England) to come and join the festivities and find out what all the fuss is about.

Everyone pitched in and brought different dishes and it was truly an amazing feast. Some families, like ours, came with food from the US (cranberry sauce and canned pumpkin) while others did a little shopping at the American Market in Nyon (expensive but great when you are really dying for something back home). There were 5 different kinds of pie and of course were topped off with whipped cream, ice cream or both. Apparently it doesn't matter which country you eat Thanksgiving dinner in. You always go home full.

No meal in Switzerland would be complete without fruit and cheese for appetizers
Penny did such a fabulous job decorating her house

Ruby even had a cute little table to sit at with her friend Avery

Tom and Sarah Caine, Emma and Shane Doorish, Ruby and Pete

Ruby and her "boyfriend" Shane

the girls playing some cards

talk to the hand

Disaster narrowly averted...for us anyway

Apparently it didn't just snow in Venice after we left. One week later it looked like this...

...remember St. Marco's and all the pigeons?

Here is a view of the Rialto Bridge.
I guess you can say we had perfect timing.

Winter already?

I didn't think that it snowed in Venice...ever. I was wrong. Luckily it was the morning we were leaving to go home, so it didn't ruin our trip. It did, however, make the drive back home a little bit longer. People in this part of Italy must not be used to the snow and it shows in their driving. We were going about 35 mph and the speed limit is usually 78 mph. In case you think that road conditions were terrible, if we had been in Utah, in the same snow storm, people would have been driving at least 60 mph.

A view from our car just outside of Venice

It had also snowed quite a bit in the mountains

This was right after the Mount Blanc tunnel

We returned home to about 3 inches of new snow,

not counting what had already melted

Luckily the kids are more like Pete when it comes to snow and cold weather

They were excited to jump right in with their snow gear and shovels

Chiesa

An interesting experience we had while we were in Italy was going to church on Sunday. There was a chapel just outside of Venice in Mestre that we attended. It was held in this little two story building (typical Italian style on the inside) and of course the whole meeting was in Italian. We didn't understand any of it but the songs were familiar and it was cute to see the kids singing along in English.

When the moon hits your eye...

The whole time we were in Venice I could not get this song out of my head. This was especially true when we took a gondola ride. Although we didn't pay extra to have someone singing to us as we went (it definitely wasn't that kind of a trip), I sang a few bars to the kids for good measure.

Our gondolier and Ruby

a great family shot, almost

Our gondolier backing us out onto the "street"

Tom, James, Sarah and Sam rode in another one next to us

Heading for the Rialto bridge

A quiet side street

Ahhhh, Venice