Ratatouille

First of all, CONGRATS to my bro.....he just proposed last night to Andrea and we couldn't be more happy for them. I desperately woke up Mimi this morning to find out all the juicy details. As soon as I acquire a picture of the happy couple, I'll be sure to post it!

Today we just nested. I cooked most of the day. With winter setting in I just can't seem to make enough soup, and right now the butternut squashes are out. It's my favorite time of year for sure. The clean crisp cold air, soup, and a hot chocolate, YUM in the tum. I had quite a helper today in the kitchen:


Oh wait, it wasn't really Chance doing the cooking.....it was Ratatouille.

And we had Jack come play today. The boys made cookies and had all sorts of fun eating the dough and playing pirates.

Drivers BEWARE: Tuesday Afternoons

I now know the meaning of PTA mom.....it's getting to be too much and a little insane, and now I understand what it means to be constantly on the go toting your kids around to after school activities. And I only have one kid. Yikes. But the good news is Chance loves his current "Athletics" practice which is basically track and field for a munchkin. Last week they did the javelin throw and used starting blocks to push off for a race. Chance is close to the youngest and so not the fastest runner, but the funny thing was that he'd sprint down and turn around before the other kids did, and then he'd sprint back, and every time he actually thought he was winning by running faster. We have lots to learn. Athletics practice is at a sports field and too hard to get to without a car, so we joined Mobility, a pay as you go car service that is really handy. I just need to get a little better at driving it. This is what I look like as I've gotten off the train (well, sort of what I look like except me wearing anything close to a suit these days is unlikely)....I use my little card to unlock the reserved car, I find the keys in the glove box waiting for me and off I go...to get honked at.

The best part is that the cars are red, bright red, and say MOBILITY on them way too many times, which just screams NOVICE DRIVER ABOARD. This is the one that we rent every time, the oh so good looking Renault Modus.
You'd think I could do it since the Swiss drive on the right too but the rules are just so weird....like when you are driving straight down the road, one might assume that you'd have the right-away to cars pulling on to your street. WRONG. You must yield (sometimes) to cars approaching from the right, even when they are clearly coming in to your path. Round abouts are okay for now, I really like them actually, much more efficient than the 4-way stop, but it's the damn pedestrians that I need to worry about. Somehow I just need to pay more attention, AND QUICKLY, to the cross walks. You'll get fined if you don't stop, and more importantly you'll probably hit someone cause they are assuming you will stop. Boy I've got lots to learn but at least I don't have to worry about where I am going and how to get there cause my trusty TomTom takes me on the perfect route every time.

Mallorca, Take Dos (2)

Last week it was back to the beach - the exact same place as last year on the Spanish island of Mallorca. It's a cool island, I like it....pretty simple with lots to offer. Easy airport, cool drive thru the middle flatlands populated with dilapidated windmills, nice beaches, and rugged mountains to the west. We researched and searched for another place, so I could have another dot on the map, but decided to go with the familiar and easy, so it was back to Sa Coma beach on the northeast coast for some sand and sun.

It just so happened that our friends, the Kelly Family (Chance's friend Ava), decided on the same place and so we booked our vacation at the same time so the kids would have a little friend to play with. It worked out quite nice actually....fun on the beach together first part of the day, and the kids danced to the mini disco every night after dinner. We even got to trade a couple nights of kids free dining which is always a plus.

Everyday was a bit like groundhog day......just like we like it.....first part of the day at the beach enjoying the sun, cool breeze, warm calm ocean water. Ryan did a bunch of snorkeling, even dragging Chance out on his back one day venturing really far out in to the deep waters to see some fish around a rocky, grassy reef. Chance learned that it was more fun to dive under the waves than ride on top. Our hesitant toddler from last year transformed in to quite a little fish himself! The pools were a little too cold for our liking but the beach water was mighty nice so long as the sun was out and the wind was calm. Our 2 year stint so far in cold-country has toughened us up somewhat to swimming in the cold!

And sand castle building is never complete without also supporting the longhorns at every opportunity we can.

After naptime each day, we'd head down to the pool bar. We indulged in some Sangria and worked hard coloring pictures. Check out the detail.

One day we venture out to a look out point, where there was a castle, fort-like thing with a moat. We saw the sign directing us there and decide to start the hike. 2 minutes in to the walk and Chance is complaining heavily, so Ryan nicely offers to carry him on his back. A little while down the road, this more descriptive sign appears, and Ryan rethinks Chance's mode of transportation. :)

The last day our flight was a late one so we drove across the island in to the mountains to 2 lovely towns Deia and Valldemossa. We went to Deia first, looking for lunch as my guide book said that "on the way up to the church on the hill it'd be lined with restaurants". Well there was not a one. We finally settled on the only restaurant we could find, paying 16 euros for a little tuna sandwich (that's like 24$)! Then on the way back out of town (I might add that we left the town the way we came in)...some how we passed all the restaurants that we should have seen driving in. So is life I guess.

Now it's back to the grind, adios Mallorca, perhaps we'll be back next year. Check out the pics in the left hand column.

Dear Jesus

Chance:

"Dear Jesus, Thank you for letting me go to the park today with my special friends (Jack, Gabriella and Ava who he hardly sees anymore). Weren't you proud of my great attitude?"

We made it back Sunday night from our vacation in Mallorca, land of the beautiful beaches, great weather and decaying but cute windmills. It's always hard to come back to reality....Chance back to school, Ryan immediately gone to London and me trying to keep my head above water with all this school PTA Board stuff. I am now in charge of the PTA part of the school newsletter and website and it's turned out to be WAY more time consuming than I had thought! Enough complaining....and on to more amusing things. A Mallorca write up is in the works as soon as Ryan gets back from London....

I keep wanting to mention Chance's latest developmental phase which I think is so cute. He's trying to figure out time and quantity, 2 concepts which are quite hard to grasp. The things I constantly hear these days are...

Is it morning time? (when it's late afternoon).....I'm done with my breakfast (when we are eating dinner).....is it morning time at Mimi's house? (when it's afternoon here)....is 20 more than 10?....how old will you be when I am 50? when I am 76? when I am 90? Will you be dead then? I have 5 thousand monies, no 30 monies....

It's all just so random but cute that he's trying to figure it all out.

On another subject of Chance....he's started an afterschool "Athletics" program. Yesterday they worked on the high jump. I was really impressed actually that he sort of got the correct move down. Check it out!



Oh and lastly, the week before we left, it was doctor day at school. They opened up a "hospital" and brought in all their "sick" animals to be cared for. Ba and Puppy got home each having received 100 shots and lots of bandages.....Chance calls them the British word "plasters"

Jalopy vs. Nadal, It's a Toss-Up

Never before Wimbledon this year was I at all a fan of tennis, much less did I even know anything about the sport at all. But some how Ryan wrangled me in to watching it when he told me about Andy Murray, a British tennis player no-name....well no name we had heard of before, and for some reason I was extra interested when he told me that this guy had been living out of the back of his car. And so he was named "Jalopy" in our house. Now whether the story about living in his car was true, we'll never know, but that's how my interest in tennis began. We watched Wimbledon, routed on Jalopy until he got beat in the quarter finals (I think) then my next favorite star appeared in the finals when the Swiss guy was playing Nadal, a Spanish guy. And given my Spanish roots (well roots in a loose sense of the word) Nadal has been my man ever since. And he won I might add.

So tonight Jalopy faces off with Nadal in the semi finals of the US Open. Nadal is now #1, and Jalopy has climbed from 600 in the world to #6. It's a toss up really, I want them both to win. Maybe there will be a tie. Can you have a tie in tennis?

Oh Crap It's Croup

Well the croup has invaded our home again, making Chance stay home from school today and keeping us up all night since Chance couldn't breathe! I thought we were over this since it's been 2 years since the last episode, but I guess not. No fun!

Happy 2 Years in Zurich!

Today is our 2nd anniversary here in Zurich, 2 years ago today we landed here fresh off the boat. I sat in the Globus cafe this morning and reflected on our time here a little bit. Seems like time has flown by, and at last we are comfortable here in our home away from home. I can't imagine if we hadn't extended, that we'd be going home this summer. Seems like we have just gotten started.

In the 2 years we have been here:
-Chance has evolved from a toddler to a kid. When we first arrived we could take him anywhere, and he'd find something to hold his attention. Any water fountain or piece of green grass was his playground. Now he doesn't want to go to the park unless his friends are going to be there!
-My biggest and proudest purchase when we first moved here, my luxury stroller, has been put away and replaced with a scooter
- Our time here has brought us closer as a family, and Ryan and I closer as a couple. We've had to rely on each other for everything, and depend on each other for support that we wouldn't have had to do in Austin.
- We've gotten to experience more family time. Weekends spent fixing the house and mowing the grass have been replaced with days in the mountains, at the lake, at the park.
- Being here has opened our eyes to our love of travel, and thru travel has given us a deeper understanding of the world around us, of other cultures and languages. It has given us an appreciation for differences, and we hope that Chance will leave here seeing people for people, for who they are inside.
- It has given us an empathy towards foreigners in our home town, for the struggles that they face being in a new land foreign to your own. Since we have experienced first hand the difficulties, I think we can better appreciate how hard it would be for someone to move to Austin, especially with English as their second language.
- Here the news is entirely different. We hear more stories about people from all over the world. It's eye opening and it's made us reflect on how our country effects the entire world, and how we as Americans, are perceived throughout the world.

So as we venture forward through our final half of this journey we look forward to seeing more of the world, watching our child develop in to a very well rounded kid, giving him more opportunities to see castles and fortresses, world famous places, magical places that most kids only read about in books.

We love our adventure!

Die-Hard Football Fan

Here it is folks......the long awaited start of the fall football season. We all know what Ryan will be doing every weekend that we are in town: watching game after game. Unforunately for Ryan's sake, all the games he watches aren't live, and so he lives in constant fear of finding out the score before he watches the game. I walked in the living room today, looked up at the game Ryan was watching and saw this contraption rigged to our TV to prevent scores from yesterday's games to be seen as they stream across the bottom of the screen. Extreme, anyone? Just the thought of it cracks me up.

New Blog

I've added yet another link to the Blog Column, that I pirated from my friend Amy's blog. I have no clue who this guy is but s/he apparently used to snap interesting pictures and comment on peculiar things. Maybe this mystery person has gone home cause they haven't posted since December?