Thanksgiving in the Swiss Alps

Being an ex-pat is always hard around the holidays, especially when you live in a country that doesn't celebrate that particular day. That is what it is like living in Switzerland. Nick went to work for a half day today, Coretta and Geno had school. No four day weekend as a family spending time with extended family and friends. This year we were able to find a reasonably priced turkey (8.4 pounds for 49 dollars) which was a bargain from last years 100 dollar turkeys.

We celebrated around 5:00 pm. Everything about the day was going as planned, until we tried to turn our stove top on to make the potatoes. Nick turned to me and said that the stove top wasn't working. When I went over and tried it, he was right. Just two red dashes. No power. I quickly went to read the manual, which stated that either a fuse was blown or you need to call customer service. Nick went and switched the fuse. We tried again. Nothing. At this point, I am laughing. We have a friend coming over for dinner, and our turkey is ready, but no way to cook the potatoes or heat the corn. First thing we thought of was to call one of our neighbors and ask to borrow their stove. No one was around, so we quickly moved to plan B. Plan B was to put the potatoes and water into the stove, crank the heat, and hope they will boil. As we are thinking up this master plan, our dinner guest arrives and had a good laugh at our expense. Finally realizing that it may take all night for the potatoes to boil, we made a consecutive decision to cut the turkey and go ahead with the rest of the food. We had turkey, homemade wheat bread, corn, stuffing, and apple pie. Although we couldn't make the potatoes or gravy, it still turned out well. Here are some pictures of our Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to all of our friends and family that are celebrating this season around the world. We love and miss you.

Coretta´s first Play: Aladdin and the Magic Lamp

The rehearsals are slowly coming to an end. Coretta has one more rehearsal before the opening night on Friday November 27th at 8 pm. The other shows are Saturday November 28th at 3 pm and 8 pm, and December 5 at 3 pm and 8 pm. Nick and I are attending and are looking forward to seeing the hard work put forth by all of the people that were part of this play. You can see some photos from their rehearsals by clicking on the official site English Theate of Zug and click on the upper left corner on pictures of rehearsals.

Coretta´s Unit on Mountain Gorillas

Coretta has been working on an Endangered Species Unit Titled Then and Now for a few months in school. The objectives of this project were to choose an endangered species that interests you, research information about your topic, create a visual (poster, booklet, paper) and create a diorama of their natural habitat.

Coretta chose to research mountain gorillas. Since 1963, there are only 200 mountain gorillas left and did you know that they share 98 percent of the same genetic make up as humans?

Coretta´s research and information was thorough and concise and she did a great job presenting it to us at school today. The pictures on his post are from our time at her school today which include a picture with Mom and Dad, her diorama, and poster. A job well done Coretta!

Homemade Carrot Cake

I decided to try my hand at making a carrot cake from scratch with cream cheese frosting, and the picture shows the results. It was, to my surprise, very delicious.

Coretta Sprains her Wrist

Coretta was out playing with her friends on Friday night, and when she came back in, she was holding her wrist. She wasn´t crying, but when I looked at her wrist it was swollen in one spot and her face was white as a ghost. I was worried that she may go in shock, like Nick did when he sprained his, and decided it would be best if she went to the Cantonal Hospital and have the ER Doctors take a look at it. Nick drove her and they didn´t get home until 10 am. Her hand was wrapped in he color of her choice, and was given pain medication, and gel that needs to be applied morning and night.

If it is still causing her pain and difficulty, we have been encouraged to take her into her pediatrician on Monday. Apparently in small children the X-ray does not necessarily show small fractures, so we will see. She is a trooper.

Geno´s Christmas Program

Today was the Christkindl Market for the Beehive International School. Since they will be moving to a new location on December 12th, what better than to have the Christkindl Market at the new location. The new school is located in Lindencham and was previously used by two kindergarten classes. It has two spacious rooms, a nice playground, as well as a place downstairs that has a lot of space for teacher planning and storage.

The Christkindl Market took place from 2 pm until 4 pm. The students immediately noticed the playground. They now have six swings, a wooden train, and a rope jungle gym in front of the school as well as all of the other equipment the Beehive International School already has at it´s current location.

When all the parents and students arrived, parents were able to look at all of the books at the Book Fair on display. If you purchased anything from the fair, they would automatically give a certain percentage to the school to buy even more books for their current library. The teachers also posted their wish lists for the classroom and seemed well received by the parents.

Soon after, it was ready for all of the children to put on their costumes and get ready for the program. All the children had a green velvet coverall and a red velvet hat to represent Santa´s little helpers, and one student was dressed in a beautiful red velvet dress with white trim, and she represented Santa. Once into costume, the children walked into the room set up for the performance singing their first song which was the Fire Truck, after Ms. Richarz announced the afternoon events. Although this song was not so Christmas orientated, the students have been learning about fire, candles, and matches, so it fits in with their thematic unit. Her is a youtube video of the song:



The next song was one entitled I am Special. Which the children sang and also had certain movements to. The next song, was This Little Light of Mine where the older students held real lit candles and the younger ones held cardboard replicas of a candle. They also learned and performed a song called Oh Light that they learned in English and German.







The last song of the performance was Feliz Navidad where the students wore their paper hearts around their necks and would have been a moving performance if you ignored Geno and his sidekick causing mischief. Look at the video below:



Afterwards, the teachers were presented with a gift and then we all proceeded to the next room for refreshments, conversation, and snacks.

The students clearly have spent a lot of time preparing for their performance and it was definitely a job well done. Thank you to the teachers for all of their hard work in putting this event together. It was greatly appreciated by the parents and students equally.

Grandma Lucca's Cinnamon Rolls

One of my fondest memories growing up, was visiting Grandma Lucca's house and waking up to the smell of fresh cinnamon or caramel rolls from the oven. I finally decided that it was time for me to try and make these myself using her recipe. They turned out pretty good I think. Check out the picture above. Thank you Grandma Lucca!