Girls' Trip to Lyon, France

Two weekends ago, Chloé and I met up with some girlfriends in Lyon, France (an hour and a half away from Geneva) for some girl talk, shopping, and good eats. Lyon is a beautiful French city (the second largest in France and only second in size to Paris). I can't wait to bring Jacob and Abram for a day trip and some good bike riding around this city.When we arrived on Saturday morning, there were little farmers' markets going on along the river. Look at these beautiful baskets of strawberries!Me, Chloé and my good friend, Sarah, who is also Abram's nursery leader at church.
Since she is still my little baby, Chloé accompanied me for the trip and for all of the shopping. During this trip, she officially reached the "I can crawl and I know it" stage - aka as "get me out of this stroller, I want to climb on everything and eat anything I can see on the floor" stage or the "I am going to arch my back so that you can't contain me in the stroller anymore" stage. She is so cute though, even if she has grown out of the perfect little shopping companion stage. This was the one floor on the top level of a baby shop that seemed okay to let her crawl around on. We decided that she could be the baby model for all of the baby things that they had on display there. Here is the girl group. Thanks for the fun day which also included two stops to Subway sandwich shops, a chance to scope out the Gap in France, some serious shoe shopping, and a great French cuisine/lunch that sometimes kept us guessing what we would end up being served. Lunch turned out to be fabulous and mouthwatering in the end. . . phew!

Our two year old superhero

Abram loves to be superman and run around in his cape/bath towel (made by his great Aunt JuLee). Grandma Berg sent Abram a shirt that says "My Dad Rocks" on it. I made sure Abram knew what his shirt said. Next thing, Abram ran to his dad saying, "My shirt says 'My Dad has rocks!'"

All Aboard!

Here we are with the Price Family as we checked our luggage in and prepared to board for our first cruise experience (the Price's third).
Our view from the cruise boat as we sailed away from Venice - St Mark's Square in view.Our ship.
While Chloé napped, Jacob and Abram played a round of mini golf on the ship.Chloé attended her first cooking demonstration.We scurried on deck for the emergency practice.
Disembarking for our first port city (aside from Venice)- Bari, Italy
Our family in Bari
One thing that was great about travel by cruise boat was not having to worry about cooking dinner or where our next meal would be coming from. Here we are at the dining table on formal night.
After dinner each night, we walked down the corridor to a little dance hall/lounge where a band was playing. Abram loved dancing every night after dinner.

Easter Weekend 2009

The Thursday before Easter, we drove to Italy to spend time with the Price Family before we all boarded our cruise ship. On Friday, we headed to Verona, Italy to spend the afternoon.Verona Roman Ampitheatre, the Arena, completed 30 AD

See post from last year for our last picture in front of the Ampitheatre.
Entrance to the Romeo and Juliet Museum and "Shrine"
Chloé met a little Swiss German girl in Verona. She thought that Chloé was a little dolly.Abram riding his bike through Verona.
That weekend, we enjoyed Italian cuisine (pizza and pasta at Ada's of course), as well as a Japanese lunch buffet, and Taco Bell from the US Army Post food court. Here we are in Piazzola Sul Brenta doing "1-2-3-swing!" with Abram. We had fabulous take out pizza with the Price's that night.
On Easter Sunday, we went to Sacrament Service in Padova, Italy.

We came home to greet Grandma and Grandpa Petty who had just gotten back from their Mediteranean Cruise. Here is Grandma, happy to see her grandbabies.
During nap time, the Easter bunny came to surprise the children with an Easter egg hunt. We were glad to have Kelsey Price in on the hunt because it created a little competition for Abram. Chloé made her first "crawl" the day before, so she was not quite the competitor for all of the eggs this time.
We caught a little Easter basket interception on video. Situation: Abram held out his basket for Kelsey to take an egg from his basket, but she thought that he was handing over his basket. As she put her arm around his basket's handle, he got upset as she seemed to be snatching up his entire basket.Chloé was the only one who would pose/look up for the picture. The other two were too consumed in opening their eggs filled with candy.As Abram opened all of his eggs, Daddy helped him discover a 100 Euro bill in one of the eggs.
Here are the grandchildren eating breakfast with Grandpa before he took us to board the cruise ship on Monday morning in Venice.Cruisin' post coming up next!

Crawling Chloé

So the day before Easter, Chloé started her first real crawl (not army crawl or scoot). She is all over the place now. She is climbing up on pillows and toys, climbing to a standing position, and crawling to me constantly for me to pick her up and play with her. She needs more supervision than ever it seems. As Jacob was watching his Amazing Race iTunes dowload tonight and I was catching up on email, we heard her crying in her crib. I was certain that she was sitting up; something she is doing when she wakes up from her nap now. Sure enough though, she was standing and hanging onto her crib railing. She must even be crawling and climbing in her sleep.Swinging in Piazzola Sul Brenta, Italy

Aosta, Italy. . . almost to Switzerland again

And can you tell where she gets her blue eyes?

Back from Greece

We just got back today, so more to come about our trip...
Greek temple in the picture

Easter fun

The other day I noticed that one of my neighbors was having a spring party for her children and all of their little Great British friends. For a moment, I was sad that Abram was not in on the festivities, but then I quickly decided that we could have our own little Easter party. If I ever feel like I am in a rut socially for me or for Abram, I know how to get out of it - call someone and plan something! I found out later that my neighbor had knocked to see if we wanted to join them for an egg hunt, but we were off at one of the neighborhood parks and had missed the invite. Of course, I should be packing us for our trip to Italy and cruise to Greece instead, but packing is really no fun, so we made room for some spring crafting and fun. Thanks again to the wonderful Crafty Crow blog that inspired so many quick and simple crafts that the children enjoyed. Our theme ended up being about chicks and eggs. I also have to mention that though we did lots of activities, each activity was so simple and easy and appropriate for 2-4 year olds (with mommy assistance at times of course).

We completed a glue and pre-cut shapes activity and made chicks on paper. Abram carefully placed every shape on his chick. A male chick I suppose?
We made these cute little chick finger puppets out of pipe cleaners and gave them each a little home of an old egg shell.
We dyed eggs. The white kind. My friend, Michelle, and I laughed about how we actually had to go seeking them among all of the brown eggs on the store shelf because they are actually hard to find around here sometimes.
We rolled out cookie dough, cut out easter shapes (baskets, eggs, bunnies, etc.), baked them, and then colored them with Foodwriters (edible color makers) since I didn't end up making frosting. And put all of our creations into paper "baskets". See tutorial below to make some yourself.
We also read this book.
Happy Easter! Now I better start packing! Any helpful hints on what to pack for a cruise (especially when taking children) are welcome!

Simple Paper Basket Tutorial

I have recently discovered the world of free and downloadable tutorials. There are so many simple/easy ideas out there that seem even more "do-able" because there is a tutorial to go along with it. I made something "original" (although I am sure that this is not a novel idea) and it turned out so nice that I wanted to share.I had some beautiful "baby girl" 12 x 12 inch scrapbooking paper (which was more of a cardstock thickness) that made beautiful easter "baskets". You can do this with any size of heavy weight paper though and your basket will be either small, medium, or large depending on the paper size.

#1 - Fold paper into three equal parts. For a 12 x 12 inch paper, fold every 4 inches.Cut slits at each folding line four inches deep, on both sides of the folded line. You will have four slits to cut in all.
Gather up the three separate pieces of paper that you have created by making the two slits on both side. You can gather them as loosely or as tightly as you would like depending on if you want more of a "boxy" basket or a "boat-shaped" basket. I made mine more "boxy".
Punch a hole about 1 inch from the top of each side.
Thread a ribbon or string (6 inches or other desired length) through the hole you have created.Tie the ribbon or string to secure each side.
Voila! You have a basket that you made yourself!

Back from a German Volksmarch

We visited Frank and Emily and Frank this past weekend. We went on a 6 km Volksmarch ("people walk") with all three kids (Frank's request), ate some schnitzel (Jessi's wish), went bowling on base (Jacob's request), watched Twilight (Emily's wish), and had a picnic by a German castle in Tübingen (just 15 minutes away from Frank and Emily's house). Of course, I need more photos taken by other people. More to come! Thanks for such a great time Frank and Emily. See you again soon!

Brian and Annelisa's visit

Brian and Annelisa left for London this morning. We had such a great time with them. Abram was sad when Jacob announced that they had left early this morning. I just wanted to recap their trip. More pictures to follow, as many of the pictures were taken on Annelisa and Brian's camera and not ours.

They arrived in Switzerland on Tuesday evening. The children and Jessi were able to do some day trips with them on Wednesday to Annecy, France. Uncle Brian treated us to a pedal boat ride while we were there. We met up with Jacob in Geneva for the evening to eat meat and cheese fondue.
On Thursday, we did a day trip to Chateau de Chillon in Montreux, Switzerland. We played outside the castle, while Brian and Annelisa toured the inside of the castle. In the afternoon, we visited the Nestle chocolate factory in Broc, Switzerland. We were all very satisfied by the taste testing of chocolates that concluded the chocolate tour as well as the information we learned about chocolate made from milk vs. milk powder, what different ingredients make up milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and white chocolate, where production items came from, etc.

We also stopped in the cheese town of Gruyéres. Gruyéres was a beautiful old city on a hillside with a castle at the top. For dinner, we met Jacob at home to enjoy a traditional Swiss meal of Raclette.Thanks for visiting us, Brian and Annelisa. We can't wait to see you and your children (that we talked so much about) in June!