At the risk of you all thinking all we do is day trip, eat chocolate and go to the circus every day I am going to post these picture highlights from the summer.  Like most of you, I don’t often get pictures of the rough days so if it seems dreamy just give me a call and I can fill you in on the other side! Lots of these I thought I would devote time to blogging individually but Fall is here and it is clear that I am WAY behind. so here it goes…

On August 1st we celebrated Swiss National Day with our Swiss friends here. We went up the Gurten, the kids played and then we all ate dinner together. We headed home before the fireworks, got the kids to bed and then watched the fireworks show from our front lawn. The show ended with a big smiley face firework. Our neighbors went on into the wee hours of the morning with their own fireworks shows.

this was just before Ella fell off into the water, poor girl! Jackson was so proud to be pulling her across.

she paid him back for bumping her into the water by bumping him in the little cars!

Owen begged and begged until Seth finally took him too!

this is sweet Matthis, he is a month younger than Owen!

In August, Seth got tickets for Jackson and I to go to the Swiss National Circus. Jackson was ecstatic and loved that it was a date just the two of us. His only disappointment what that there were no clowns. As we passed the circus truck on the way out he asked to have his picture taken next to the clown that he thought he would see.

Last yr we arrived just before the Toblerone festival…this yr we knew we couldn’t miss it! In mid-August we headed downtown to get ourselves some FREE chocolately goodness. We didn’t hang around for the chopping up of the giant bar like we did last yr but the kids participated in games and we got lots of sweet samples!

Wait, see, you just had that little thought creep in that life looks dreamy over in Switzerland and then….

BAM. Back to reality. Owen is cutting 2 yr molars, Jackson and Owen have colds, and it was a rough napping day today!   It’s good to look back at these pics and think of happy times when we are having a rough day! Life is good.

It’s been a heavy week at our house. My grandfather passed away, we have been making some big decisions regarding bidding, tough news from the US, missing my bestie living in Germany so I can talk to her in my timezone and just general emotional burnout from it all.

BUT we are plugging along and enjoying the simple things.

The boys and I kept busy this week with playdates and meeting people at the pool. Our pool is more of a park/pool mix. It is a huge grassy area with a park and a bunch of different pools at different play levels. They also have a huge sandpit and a cage with bunnies so when the kids tire of the pool we just bounce around to the other areas and burn off all of that summer energy. Everyone rides home quiet and satisfied.

The other uber exciting thing from our week was the “fill a bag for 6 swiss francs!” In a country where almost nothing seems to cost CHF6  this was a bargain!! The grocery store runs a sale a couple of times a week where they have a spread of a variety of produce and you can fill a bag as full as possible for one price. Yesterday it was eggplant, a variety of peppers, zucchini, and tomatoes. I PACKED that sucker. When I checked out a pepper fell out if the top. The check out lady gave me that “are you serious lady?” look and I think my look back said something like “well, yes, yes I am, now ring it up sister”.  I see ratatouille in our future!!

We are preparing for another wave of guests! My little brother and his wife are coming in two weeks. A couple of days after they leave I will leave to go home for my grandfathers memorial service. And I will return back from the US in time to greet our friends the Angermiller’s and their boys!!  We head to the commissary next weekend to prepare.

We are looking forward to Jackson going to preschool 2 mornings a week starting in the Fall (week after next) and maybe a Mommy and Me swim class for Owen and I with friends one morning while Jackson is in school! That mixed in with playdates, trips to the park and lots of guests coming in and out is setting us up for a busy Fall!

That’s about it from here. I hope that no matter what you are going through you can find some joy in the simple things today!

We celebrated Jackson’s 4th birthday on Saturday!  For months he has been asking for a camping party. I browsed a few blogs to find some ideas and here is what we ended up with!

there were big storm clouds all day so Seth put the tent up in the living room

I made fish using cardboard and duct tape. We put magnets in at their mouths. Unfortunately we used a metal bucket which more often caught the “hook” than the fish

One of Jackson’s friends father makes amazing cakes. He brought a chocolate truffle cake. I had things ready to toss on the top for decorating. We found marzipan rocks at a shop here that looked like real rocks!

Nama read Curious George Goes Camping in the tent!

overseeing gift opening

And due to the weather and being nervous about lighting a fire with a bazillion kids we continued the fun and on Sun night we roasted marshmallows and made s’mores!

At bedtime after the party Jackson was already brainstorming next yrs party. I didn’t have the heart to tell him we will be living out of suitcases, moving who knows where and that his guest list would be none of the kids from this party. Each yr is quite different for him. Proud of the little guy he is growing into!!

Jenny and I went to a ladies cooking night a couple of weeks ago.  We had a lot of fun. The lady from the church that taught the class owns a business where she teaches and hosts parties for businesses and individuals. So she had everything set out specifically in sections for each recipe and had recipes there. We broke off into pairs to make different parts of the meal and then enjoyed the feast at the end. Jenny was assigned to the cucumber carrot salad with yogurt sauce and I was assigned the naan bread. the other parts of the meal were a vegetable curry, Tikka Masala and a mung bean dish. Everything was really good.

you can tell the tikka masala was good!

we finished the meal off with a mango yogurt dessert!

This evening Jenny and I are making our own batch of the chicken and cucumber salad. We are going to eat it with Roti bread (like we used to have in Penang) that I found at the Asian market here.  Yum!