On Saturday we spent the morning with other Embassy families on the Ambassador’s lawn participating in a “Spring fling”.  The boys had fun hunting for eggs, doing a bunny hop sack race, racing with spoons on eggs and all kinds of fun games. Our Community Liaison office did a great job.  Here are some pictures (excuse the huge sun spots, we roasted hot dogs over a fire by the river the night before and I forgot to clean my lens. Oh well.)

Jackson with our neighbor Dominic

Owen proudly craddled his egg and spoon the whole way!

bunny hop

In other news, we closed on our house last night! here is it for those who haven’t seen it on facebook yet!

We popped a bottle of bubbly and had some chocolates to celebrate! Looking forward to seeing it for the first time in our jetlag fog on July 2nd!!

We are all packed and heading out after Seth gets off work today to take a family road trip. We have some foreign service friends that live in Brussels and they are away in London for the week and have offered their home! So, free lodging and some time away!    We are going to drive tonight as far as the base and spend the night their. We are hoping to take the boys bowling and for lunch on the base before driving on the Belgium. We are not super spontaneous so planning this a few weeks ago is kind of pushing my spontaneity level. These family road trips tend to be quite refining but I think a little family time might be just what the boys need. We have been packing our schedule way too tight with playdates and have had little time just the 4 of us! So, here’s hoping for the best…6 hours each way!

We hope that you all have a blessed Easter!

About a year ago we were at one of Jackson’s friends birthday parties and I met a new friend. We were leaving as she was arriving so we only said about 5 words to each other including our names.  I knew right away that she would be a friend and I just wish I had met her when we had first arrived in Bern!  Nina has been such a wonderful friend and shares in this life with 2 little boys too!  It’s been fun though because although we have the boys in common our friendship is more for us! We have enjoyed crafting and chatting and brocante shopping, lots of fondue! and more chatting.  She and her family are moving to Warsaw in a few weeks so we planned a little dinner party for her with our group of friends before she heads out. And before I get teary I will move on to the party

It was such a nice evening.  I picked a menu that was mostly do ahead so I could just enjoy the party myself once the guests arrived. We had an antipasto platter for a starter with prosecco and then for dinner we had lasagna and salad. My friend Letizia help to host and made homemade tiramisu for dessert!  It was delicious!  For the table I tried to decorate with a Bern theme. I had found some cheery Bern pictures at a brocante soon after we arrived in Bern. I used those as place mats and topped them with toblerone bars and for the guest of honor, a Bern bear chocolate bar.  Nina has a gorgeous lemon tree so I thought the lemons and tulips were pretty and reminded me of Nina’s taste! For the appetizers I found some little Bern canton flag toothpicks.

I wasn’t great at getting pictures but here are a few. Some are a little blurry but still worth including I think!

You will be missed Nina! So thankful that we met and shared this year in Bern together! Looking forward to crossing paths many more times in the years to come!

Yesterday a friend and I hosted a baby shower for our mutual friend Haley! She is a fellow American and friend and we thought it would be fun to do the good old baby shower tradition here although it isn’t a custom in Switzerland.

We decorated super simply with fresh tulips and baby booties on the table.  The baby’s great grandmother made some precious pink booties with little socks knitted on and the baby’s grandmother made a little set of pink booties…they both looked so cute on the table! We hung a little ribbon line with vintage baby girl cards on it! And that was it for decorations. Simple and sweet.

We had punch and snacks as people arrived. After we all visited for a bit we  had Haley open her gifts. When the gifts time was done we moved into a lunch/brunch time. In case you think we didn’t feed the momma to be enough here was the menu…

Menu

strawberry lemonade punch

Prosecco with pomogranite syrup and pom seeds

hot artichoke dip

vegetables and dip (Haley is addicted to ranch)

Lunch

individual quiches

curried chicken salad

fruit salad

skewers with tomatoes and fresh mozerella dipped in pesto

bread basket with muffins and breads

Dessert

(everything was mini because we couldn’t imagine anything big after all of the previous eating! )

mini lemon cupcakes with cream cheese icing

brownies

oreo truffles

almond tarts with raspberry jam filling

Needless to say we were all stuffed by the end!  Katie hand dipped pretzels for the guests to take as a favor. They were so pretty with pink chocolate and sweet little pearl candies.

It was a really fun morning! We are looking forward to meeting Haley’s little miss!

Last week we celebrated Owen’s 2nd birthday! Happy Birthday to our sweet Owen! You have filled our lives with so much joy and love!!

For Owen’s party this year we got to be back in Texas and celebrated with Seth’s side of the family. Owen’s 4 cousins came over and we did it up with a puppy themed party.

The kids made collars for their craft and wore felt floppy ears. Aunt Sara painted their noses black! We had a houseful of cute pups! While they crafted they munched on dog food (ie peanut butter Captain crunch)

Seth led the kids in a Simon days game with fog commands. Owen pretty much toddled around watching the bigger kids and enjoying the extra attention.

For dinner we served hot dogs and puppy dog tails (ie curly fries) in big plastic dog bowls. Each kid got their own bowl and thought that was pretty fun!

Er had his party a day early and headed to the farm on his real birthday. So on the morning of his real birthday he got to go with Seth to pick out his first ever doughnut! He approved!

Happy Birthday O!

ps-We are loving our time in Texas….and I am obviously falling way behind on blogging!! Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!!