International Day Art by 4th Graders

The students in Coretta's fourth grade class spent two weeks trying to create and select the perfect tessellating equilateral triangle to use as a pattern, tracing the tessellating pattern, selecting the colors, deciding on the placement of colors, and painting and blending.

This will be auctioned off to the highest bidder at the International Day Festivities this Saturday.

I'm quite proud of their collaborative artistic efforts. Great job fourth grade.

Brunnen, Switzerland

The last day of our weekend getaway, we decided to stop in Brunnen, Switzerland which is about thirty minutes away from Hunenberg. Nick had been hiking here before, but hadn't made it into the city center. It was quite beautiful. The kids were able to play at the park, and Nick and I were able to take in the sunshine and beautiful scenery. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday!

Bellinzona Trip

This particular weekend, we decided to venture into the Italian part of Switzerland known as the Ticino region. In Bellinoza, they had their annual Medieval Festival going on at one of the three castles that make up the city and believed that this would be fun for all of us. We started on the road early morning, and were there in two hours time.

Our hotel which was called Hotel Benjamin, had the facade of a castle, and was on the outskirts of the city. It had a wonderful outdoor park for the kids and a buffet style restaurant up the way. We would definitely stay there again. Neat, clean, quiet, and friendly. And to top it off, only a 6 franc taxi ride to the town center. Can't beat that.

The first castle that we visited was known as the Castle Grande, and didn't have a touristy feel at all. I got the sense that this was where the locals went for picnics and leisure time with their families. You could see many people sprawled out on the castle grounds, young and old alike, enjoying the sun and solitude.

We stayed here for a while, the kids had some gelato, and then we made our way to the second castle where the Medieval festival was going on.

It took us quite a while to find our way to the second castle, but once we did, it was about a fifteen minute hike upwards. As we climbed, we had some of the most beautiful views of the city. Geno did exceptionally well, as long as he could go at his own pace.

Once we made it to the top, there were some ladies sitting at a table. We thought nothing of it and passed them. We then find out that in order to get into the festival, you had to pay an admission fee. Once we paid that, it was just a little more of an incline to the top.

Once there, we decided to have a cold one and sit at the picnic tables lining the area.

It is here where our adventure gets a little interesting. Looking for a picnic table, I asked two younger woman if we could sit next to them. They said it was fine, so we all sat down. The above picture shows some of the looks Geno gave to these poor women before deciding to spill his sprite all over the woman next to him. She proceeded to ask me if it was pop, water, or beer. I stated that it was sprite, which she seemed relieved. She stated that she would be driving home later and didn't want to smell like booze just in case she was to get pulled over.

After this encounter, we decided to venture into the castle's walls. It is here where you truly felt as if you had stepped back in time. Everyone was dressed in Medieval clothes, and different booths were set up where these people in costume sold their goods. The goods for sale, were all goods that one would purchase during the Medieval period such as leather goods, swords, jewelery, as well as food tied to a spit fired grill. Not that I would necessarily want to eat anything I saw tied to these grills, since many seemed to resemble small skinned dogs.

While here we watched grown men jousting, king processions, and people playing era appropriate instruments.

Once we finished there, we made our way down from the castle, where Geno ran into some more of his two legged feathered friends. There is something about a pigeon that makes Geno feel that it is his ambition to chase them. He could do this for hours on end, even if other passersby want to feed them. Cheap entertainment I guess.

Coretta and Geno both enjoyed climbing the rocks around the castle as well as standing at the stoned fence taking in the scenery. There is something about castles that can really bring a family together.

Above are some pictures of the La Spada Della Rocca festival where we saw people creating pottery, jousting, and enjoying the day.

I look forward to our next weekend getaway and wonder what treasures we will find there.

Nick's Latest Hike

Nick went on this historic hike with friends this past weekend. It was about an hour and a half away and looked quite beautiful. The highlight for the group, was when our mutual friend decided to walk along the stream, lost his footing, and fell in. While trying to get his balance, the current kept pulling him down, but finally made it to safety. Here are the following links that give perspective about his hike, if interested:

Weg der Sweiz

Historic Hike from Ruetli to Bauen.

Geno's first time Bowling

Since it has been raining for the past month, and it is hard staying indoors with the kids, we decided this past Sunday to take the kids bowling. This being Geno's first experience, he was excited. St first, he was apprehensive about wearing the bowling shoes, but once over that, he liked the idea of taking a ball and rolling it at the pins. Every time his ball would hit the pins, he would walk back to us and do a little dance. It was so cute.

The real winner of the day was Coretta whose best game was 153. Bowling is definitely an activity we can do together.

Geno Speech Therapy Session

Today Mrs. Zeigler and Geno spent time creating a cast on Geno's fingers and then pulled them off to create finger puppets that he decorated to resemble Mom, Dad, Coretta, and Charlie. Once these were made, he let these figurines ride on his train set. This once again worked on his fine motor skills and the role playing aided in his speech language proficiency. Here are some photos of the process.

Athletics Day

Coretta's school had what they call Athletics Day today held at the Herti Stadium. It is a day dedicated to physical fitness and focuses primarily on track. Coretta, in preparation for this event, realized that she is quite good in running.

Today she took home two third places and a first place in the 400 meter relay. Coretta's first track meet is next Friday in Zurich. Way to go Coretta!

My Mother's Day Gift

Nick and Coretta picked out this stunning Swarvoski necklace for me in honor of Mother's day. It is in the shape of a flower which symbolizes my love of nature and each stone represents a member of the family: Me, Coretta, Geno, Nick, and Charlie. I absolutely love it!

Geno's Developmental Update

Geno has been doing quite well in speech therapy and is learning new words every day. Although I am pleased with his progress, there are some words I would like to eliminate from his vocabulary such as "stupid" which seems to be his favorite word these days.

He is growing into a handsome little boy with a very strong will which can be challenging for the rest of the family. He always wants to"do it myself" or he simply won't do it. He has been getting better at asking for help which is also good to see.

When he is happy, he is extremely happy, and when he is mad, he is extremely mad. Clearly there is no in between. What I have learned the most about my son is that he is very independent, driven, smart, and wants to learn things his way.

For example, during one of his speech therapy sessions, his therapist had a stack of UNO cards in her bag. He pulled them out and immediately asked to play. She dealt out the cards and to my amazement, he could play UNO. He knows all of his colors (which I already knew) but he also knows all of his numbers as well. He would say ": I have a green 7 or a yellow 9." To me this shows great intellect. Although I was shocked, Tabea his speech therapist was not. She has labeled Geno as a very clever boy that knows many things and once his language catches up with his brain, it will amaze all of us with what he can do.

His motor skills have also improved. he can ride a bike with ease, he cut with a knife, and so forth with no problem at all. I sometimes forget that my son is left-handed, but once the utensil is in the right hand, he does well. The only thing that we need continuous work on now is cutting with a scissor.

School is going well for him too. He is having a hard time transitioning when Mommy isn't teaching on a particular day, but other than that it is going well. In fact, he knows all of the alphabet by their phonetic sounds which I find very impressive.

Next year, however, we have made the decision to switch schools for him. One of the influential factors is that we would like for Geno to become bilingual: meaning immersed in German. the school we have chosen has both English and German, has a Montessori approach, and seems quite academic. They also have forest days where they spend the whole day in the forest with a forest ranger who teaches them about nature as well as yoga classes and project based learning called the think tank.

Geno is a loving, animated little boy who loves his family, his friends, his dog, and life. Wonder what the next few months will look like? Stay tuned.

Nature Hike in my Neighborhood

While the rumors continue of snow back in America in May, I am happy to report that the spring like weather is perfect in Switzerland. One of our favorite family outings that we do, is to go on nature hikes in our neighborhood. We have been blessed to live in a rural village in Switzerland with all the natural beauty and quaint Swiss villas that never seem to get old in seeing in person. It still amazes me how we can walk outside our door and immediately see cows, pigs, horses, and sheep any time of the day. Sheep are especially common right now, since the grass is long and many people employ the sheep to chew down their grass in their yards.

Geno particularly likes these nature walks because he can show off his skills with riding his bike. Every time we go on our walk, our first stop is over by the public school so Geno can ride up and down the inclined road and lift his feet high in the air and steer to the bottom of the hill following that up with a few circles at the bottom. he then soon after says, "Again?" which we always follow up with, "Sure!" I am so amazed how quickly he has picked up bike riding.

Charlie, as well, enjoys these long walks, but usually needs to stop in the nearby ravine to take a dip and cool off. Because of the valleys and ridges, Switzerland is a beautiful area to explore with beautiful countryside all around you. These walks are not only good for you physically, but good for the soul.

Niederrickenback

Today Nick decided that it had been a while since he was up in the mountains, so he and his friend Bob left for Niederrickenback around 9 am. here are some beautiful photos that Nick captured along their hike today. Just another reason why I love Switzerland so much--the natural beauty.

Coretta the Superstar

Here are some recent photos of Coretta taken after a day of shopping in Zug. Here she is modeling her new hat which is a throw back to the 80's and screams to me Debbie Gibson. 80's is still big in fashion these days. In fact, I heard that Zubaz are making a comeback as well. I think those should stay in the closet however.

Toni's Zoo

Today for Mother's Day, I decided to take the kids to Toni's Zoo in Lucerne for a day in the sun with the animals. Once we got there, we paid the admittance fee, bought some popcorn to feed the animals, and made our way through the grounds. We saw peacocks, ostriches, llamas, alpacas, monkeys, miniature ponies, cheetahs, owls, turtles, penguins, and even squirrels. Yes you heard me. I said squirrels. This specific species is not seen anywhere in Switzerland, so I guess you could say that squirrels are exotic in Switzerland.

Coretta and Geno had fun feeding the monkeys grass, and feeding the ostrich and the miniature popcorn. Afterwards, we went and sat down in the patio area where Geno went on the kiddie carousal and Coretta and Geno played on the park equipment.

Great way to spend Mother's Day!