Sunday lunch company

Kim, Kaioa, Zoé and Daniel came over for lunch today. It was fun to spend the afternoon with them and the kids disappeared and we didn't see them until it was time to eat again. The adults sat around and chatted and planned bathrooms.

Terrible (-ly cute that is) Two

Let the fun continue! This weekend, the rest of the remaining bathroom was removed by a team of very enthusiastic and experienced destruction workers. They hammered, hammered, sneezed out dust and didn't take a break until the toilet, bathtub and sink lay outside on the grass. The aforementioned pieces are now at the dump and we are almost ready for the plumber and his minions to come by and assess the progress.

Weekend in Leukerbad

Our weekend away felt like longer..it was great to see the kids when we got back but I promised myself that I would make a greater effort this year to just arrange child care, announce to my husband that he is being abducted, and take off. It is good for us to be together without being 'mom and dad' and the kids had fun at Nani's too. Liam was sick when we got back and his stomach is still not quite back to normal but he is eating and drinking again. It has been a busy morning; Hannes took off on the bus for a week of school ski camp and the plumber came by and turned off all of the water to the bathroom so we are ready to demolish. He talks very fast and I had to explain to him this morning that french is not my mother tongue and could he please slow down a little bit. So now he is talking louder and enunciating, that sure helps. No, it is not my hearing sir. We need to decide on a toilet, sink (s) faucets and tile. Marie Helen arrives from Germany tonight and she has no idea that I have all these plans for her....which mostly involve child care while I go out and look for the above mentioned items in peace.

The big boy bed

While going through Liam's room today, I decided that it was time to break the bulky crib down into a toddler bed. I waited until the boys came home for lunch and then we tackled it together. They love to do things like that and they were good help. So now Liam has a broken bed as he calls it and is trying out his first nap in it. He was all tucked in and seemed very happy about it all so we will see. As you can see, he really is no longer a baby. He loves to pretend like he is a baby every once in awhile but most of the time he is trying to keep up with the bigger boys.

Suggestions anyone?

We are about to embark on a bathroom remodeling project. Neither of us have been too motivated to start a project but it seems like January has brought us a fresh bunch of get-a-move-on. So here are the before pics and we also welcome any suggestions at this point. We plan to gut the room and put a shower in the end of the room where the toilet now sits and remove the bathtub and just have a toilet where it is. The window may need replacing, that remains to be seen. We will just put a long counter in between shower and toilet with sink (s) and mirror. We will find out exactly where to start when the plumber shows up this afternoon for the first look. The after pictures will follow sometime before May we hope!

Thanksgiving

Here are a few shots of our swiss thanksgiving...we had a great little turkey dinner with some very LOVED ones. Hanni and Pierre were with us too, the folks that had this place for 32 years before we moved in.

All Hallow's Eve

A tiny fireman, zorro and a local hero, Lucky Luke

Liam turns 2

IN October, Liam turned two years old. He loves tractors so most of his presents were all about tractors. Hannes got this tractor when he was a baby and so Ralph's mom got the trailer for it now and they have had a lot of fun pulling each other around in it.

14 years and counting

A summary of life since August

Doing the haka..our last eveing with the Extrem4

Do these two belong together or what?!

Kaioa
Collin, Con and Heidi

The boys with their christmas jammies

The New Year's Eve table full Conrad cutting naan
The two hides, together again

How could it have been AUGUST when I last posted? I certainly love reading your posts and checking out pictures of you and yours so I had better get myself going again doing this. The end of the summer came quickly, we tried to finish sanding and repainting some windows which continued until it got too cold outside to leave the windows open and for the paint to dry. September saw us through the first days back to school and then a few days in Austria for a breather. It was beautiful there and we realized again how fortunate we are to live so close to beautiful and interesting places to visit. But the reality is that we spend most of our time working and going to school so these places are pretty much reserved for vacation times for us. October slipped into November and the cold is here, not much snow yet. We had a December full of company, that was great. Jeanne and Tessa D came, then Con and Heidi and kids and we even had a surprise visit from Collin for a few days. There were a lot of sick people around here, stomach flu and a bad cold flu hit just in time for the holidays so we didn't spend as much time with the Idaho folk as we wanted to. Just after the new year, we had several emails from people asking about coming this summer so that gives us some fun things to look forward to.