Lugano, Switzerland and Milan, Italy

In May, Brian's brother, Geoff, had to go to Milan, Italy for 2 weeks for work. We decided to drive down for the weekend that he had to spend there and see him. We drove down on Friday and just hung out the first night.
Since Milan isn't exactly high on our list of places to see we decided to take a day trip to Lugano, Switzerland and check it out. Lugano is about an hour from Milan in the Southern Swiss Alps. It is in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland and WOW is it beautiful! It is a beautiful lake nestled among amazing mountains. Who could ask for anything else? Brian and James checking out the lake. A pic of the city from down the shore. Did you know that Lugano has its own little Jet d'eau? We didn't either but here it is. It is not as big as the Geneva Jet d'eau but it was still cool. Of course we are suckers and had to let James have a bit (or a lot) of play time. Here he is riding the carousel twice. First in a red Lamborghini.... and then in a big old Mac truck! He loved both rides. We decided to rent a "speed" boat (speed is really and oxymoron here since it wasn't speedy at all) to cruise around the lake for a bit. This is the only documentation that I was actually on the trip. Well there is other documentation but I'm not sharing as I reserve the right to keep pregnancy pictures private. James really, really, really, enjoyed having his Uncle Geoff around. I mean really enjoyed him. He was a little wary for about 5 seconds then he pretty much assumed that Geoff was there solely for his own entertainment and he took advantage. Here they are playing on the boat. (Don't forget too oooh and aaah over the amazing background scenery).Geoff made the grave mistake of letting Bimmy listen to his cell phone ring tones. James pestered him over and over to hear them. Here he is making Geoff play them for him. And about 3 minutes later... this happened. Geoff has the magic touch! Poor Geoff had to endure no air conditioning and then to have a little heater fall asleep on him. Better him than me. He didn't seem to mind too much. He even slept through getting off the boat and slept all the way through a lovely sit-down lunch. He woke up just in time to have a few bites of our leftovers as we were finishing up. Here is Brian (the designated driver) enjoying his power to zig-zag us wherever he wanted. We did a lot of zigging and zagging. After the boat ride and lovely lunch we just walked down the boardwalk along the side of the lake and enjoyed the views. This is the only pic I have of the two brothers together. And it was pretty hard to get them to pose even for this one. Boys! Then we found a park. So Bimmy got to play some more. Have I ever mentioned that I just love that there are beautiful parks all over the place here? I love it! And they generally have some amazing little kid friendly things to do. Here is Brian chasing Bimmy down. James loves to be chased by his daddy. And here they are playing in a water fountain. Brian kept splashing the poor little guy but he was having so much fun anyway. On Sunday we decided to check out the Duomo in Milan before heading back up to Geneva. The Duomo is a huge and very ornate cathedral right downtown. It was beautiful. Of course, no pics are allowed inside so this is all you get. We even found a free parking spot about a block away. Apparently this cathedral has more statues than any other cathedral in the world. I believe it. They were all over the inside AND the outside. All in all, it was a fun little weekend getaway and it was great seeing Geoff. We lived about 3 miles from him in Texas so we really miss having him (and his family) around all the time. We used to do Sunday dinner every week and lots of other things too. Family (and friends) are what we miss the most here in Geneva. Here is just an extra picture of Bubba in chilling in the plaza in front of the Duomo. He really was great the whole time. Just remember, when people visit we go out of our way to have a great time!!! In fact, Brian's mom arrived this week and he surprised her with a weekend trip to London for the two of them (unfortunately I'm too bleeping pregnant to fly or I would be there too)! Yes, we are trying to entice more people out to visit!!! We love a good excuse to travel!