Saltzburg, Austria (with Grandma Shelley)

We "surprised" Grandma Shelley with a little trip to Austria and Hungary while she was here.  We started out in Saltzburg, Austria which is a beautiful place and where Mozart happens to be from.  It also happens to be where the movie "The Sound of Music" was filmed (and the real family was actually from there as well).  I must admit that I am a bit disappointed in our trip there but only because I chose the wrong things to do in our short time (another day would have helped but time was short).  We started out our day with a Sound of Music tour because I thought it would give us a good view of the surrounding area.  I was wrong.  I would NOT recommend this tour unless you are a die hard fan of the movie and even then I would not recommend it.  Still the scenery was beautiful but I would have loved another day to really explore some of the things that our kids might have liked  better (like the cool parks).
Here is Shelley standing in front of the house used in the movie.  Isn't it beautiful?  It is a part of a university now and you cannot get inside or even very close to it.

See how beautiful the weather was?

The gazebo used in the "I am 16 going on 17" scene of the movie.  The gazebo happens to be a long way away from the house that we previously saw.

Shelley with the gazebo.

Randomly, (and totally unrelated to the movie) we stopped at an alpine slide in the country. James loved this and so we did it twice much to the tour guides chagrin.  It was cool because in order to get to the top you sad on the sled and they hooked you up to a bungee cord that pulled you backwards up a steep slide to the top.

James wanted to go super fast and so I got to take him with me.  I was afraid I was going to eat a bug the whole time because there were a few bugs around.  We would have had a video if Shelley hadn't accidentally  not turned on the video camera until we were done with the ride.  On the bright side, we have about 6 minutes of random video swinging from her wrist after our ride (yep, she turned it on when she thought she was turning it off)  (could happen to anyone)!

We did take a bit of a ride through the country to stop at a little restaurant overlooking this beautiful view.  If I ever come here again I will definitely have a car.  There seems to be a lot to see if you have access to a car.  We didn't bring ours.

Shelley, Brian and the boys.

Self pic! (just to prove I was there).

Shelley in a church (gotta take some church pics).  There was an actual corpse (an old one) on display here but that picture was lost with a bunch of other pics when our external hard drive died in October.

James pretending to lead some music and generally enjoying being out of the tour van.

Another church ceiling.  I wish you could understand that this was all carved and not just painted.  Love the churches here.  The smell, the damp feeling, everything about them!

Me and  Bubba.

We ended our afternoon here with a stroll of the tiny old town but most of the pictures were destroyed so I don't have anything to show you.  Boo hoo!  Next stop?  Vienna, Austria.

Grandma Shelley's Visit (Part 1)

Brian's mom, Shelley, arrived on August 31st to visit us for 2 weeks.  We kept her busy.  I'm pretty sure she could have used a vacation after this trip!  We started off by going to Yvoire in France for a day trip during the week while Brian was working.  The boys were happy and even took a nap and the weather was beautiful!  I've started noticing that whenever we go someplace to have fun that the weather seems to always be awesome for us and this was no exception.

Me and the boys also decided to take Shelley downtown to walk around a bit and we ended up at Baby Plage on  the lake and at Parc des Eaux Vives.  As you can see I just let the boys play in their undies/diaper and then got them dressed back up for the park.  It is normal for kids to go swimming here in their underwear (even little girls) until about 10 years old so we fit right in.  There are some makeshift tire swings and swinging ropes set up in the big trees on the beach and James especially enjoyed those.  Of course, another beautiful day!

 And then when Saturday came around we took Shelley to Gruyere which is an old town that sits on top of a small mountain/large hill.  It is beautiful and home to Gryueres cheese as well as double creme de la Gruyeres (basically the most sinful and awesome dessert ever)!  I let Brian take Shelley and Bubba into the castle and I took Johnny on a walk around the castle.  We stayed for a fondue lunch and then went on a tour of a real cheese factory.  Brian took the train and I drove there with Shelley and the boys since it is about 2.5 hours from home.  It is always a pleasure to go up there and the weather was again spectacular.

We love having company!
The next day we took a flight...but then that is a story for another post!  Stay tuned!

More Summer in Geneva

There was a fishing festival in Versoix that we decided to check out.  James caught his first fish ever!  He caught his first fish in about 5 seconds so we decided to let him try again for a second one after this. 

 

We stayed a while after and played on the "beach" (it is all rocky and made of pebbles) and then had dinner there and listened to the music while the kids made some friends and danced for a while.  It was a nice day.

The kids also did a painting project with me. I saw an idea for marble painting online and decided to try it with the kids.  I decided that I would also buy a few extra canvases and prepaint them so that the boys could be creative and so that I could get their handprints and footprints. It was fun but they had to take a bath immediately after and I had to scrub the balcony off afterward.  We have hung the pictures throughout the house and I have had friends ask where we bought that red/black and white picture (the marble painted one).  I have even showed a few friends how to do this project and I am helping the primary do this as part of an activity on Saturday.  

James had taken to giving Johnny lots of toys to play with in the morning.  Johnny enjoyed it until the toys got to be too much for him to move when he would start yelling for us. 

This is also the time when I James lost having his toys in his room.  Can you tell why?  He just made one too many "boats" out of his toys.  I moved the toys to my room for a few months and just yesterday I moved them to the living room.  

We also went raspberry picking a few times with Brian and the kids really liked that. It makes the raspberries actually affordable at about $4 a lb. if you pick them yourself.  The boys especially love every minute they get to spend with Daddy.

 As you can tell we had a laid back and fun ending to our summer. 

Cow Beauty Pagent

Another thing we decided to attend in August was the annual St. Cergue Cow Beauty Pagent.  It was fun.  The cows got all gussied up and put on their best hats and strutted their stuff.  They even awarded an enormous cow bell to the winning cow. 

The kids had fun seeing and petting the cows, playing on the playground, watching the pig race, eating the food and watching the mountain horns be played.  It was a nice day together as a family.

Zermatt and the Matterhorn

Back in August Brian decided we should head up to Zermatt and see the Matterhorn.  I got us a room at the International Youth Hostel there (totally recommend for families since dinner and breakfast are included and you can request a family room and crib if needed).  We drove up to the farthest town that allows cars (can't remember the name of it right now) and then took a train up to Zermatt.  Regular cars are not allowed as they would never be able to make it around the tiny and very twisty streets.
We decided to go Friday afternoon and made it to the hotel just in time for dinner and to check out the sun setting behind the Matterhorn.  The next morning we had breakfast and took our bags to the train station to put them in a locker for the day.  Then we decided to take 2 different lifts up various mountains to get different views of the mountain.  The first lift was further away but had a better view of the mountain.  At the top of the lift there was a lake with a playground there for the kids to play with.  We stayed there for a couple of hours and let the kids play while we enjoyed the view and the beautiful weather. 

Zermatt (and the Matterhorn) are notoriously prone to overcast weather but we were blessed to have the most clear day ever!  It seems to happen to us most places we go.  We bring the awesome weather with us.  After the first lift we descended again to Zermatt, had some lunch and found another park to let the kids play in.  After that we put the in their backpacks and they promptly fell asleep.
Then we took a second lift that took us right up under the Matterhorn for a close up view.  The kids woke up and played at the lake that was up there.  We spent about an hour up there then came back down and slowly headed through town on our way back to the train station.  We bought a few souvenirs to take home and caught a train back down to our car and made it home late that evening. 

It was a super quick trip and we ended up missing church the next day because the kids didn't wake up in time (we had decided to come back Saturday just so we could make it to church but it ended up being too much for the kids anyway).  We had lots of fun and (if the weather looks good) we totally recommend it to everyone.  Can you get over that beautiful blue sky?  It was amazing!!