Catching up and our long weekend in Zinal

It has been a VERY long time since we had good weather, so we enjoyed the sunny weekend even more than usual. It was a long weekend and we spent it in Zinal. Zinal is a small mountain village with a lot of charm. It is a nice area to ski in the winter they tell us but any season there would be nice. There was barely a cloud in the sky and we played in and outdoors all day long. Unfortunately our kids have not discovered how nice hiking is (are you snickering dad, remember our refusal to budge on a hiking trail at Yosmite?) so we had to do our walks separately. Kind of dumb but that is how it is at the moment. Alinya wasn't super happy all weekend and the rest of us seem to be fighting pink eye and bronchitis so it was interesting keeping everybody happy and entertained! Liam is at Maria's for the week so I can finally get into my pre-preps mucking out. Anyone interested in organizing a very disorganized household in three days? No takers? I am looking forward to having the whole place polished up soon! Come on summer :)

A magical mother's day

......so it started out with flaky croissants in bed, homemade raspberry jam, coffee with steamed milk and a variety of exotic fruit, served by three adorable, sparkling clean children with smiles on their faces and beautiful gifts given with love. I was reveling in my perfect life when ZAP this lovely dream disappeared and reality took it's place. Yes, prince to frog, shiny coach to pumpkin, slipper to serviceable shoe--ugh. The hot mug of sweet tea was how the day started and it was accompanied by a little girl and a grown man who already own huge areas of my heart. Breakfast was a normal Sunday morning affair, not too fancy, not too plain--just right, as Goldilocks would determine. After our morning events, the boys were to prepare lunch with their dad and I was to have the preparation time off. There was an above average amount of grumbling, sassing, crabbing and general discontent. Children were given a stern talking to, some even sent to their room in search of a better outlook. 'It's not fair that mom doesn't have to do anything, it's always us doing everything'--u know the drill. It pretty much continued throughout the whole day and bedtime was a welcome moment. I jokingly said that I would put them on ebay during the night and said that I'd even pay for pickup. Of course that is not true but I guess maybe next year could be different. Worse? At least I was looking forward to Monday for once :) Hope you had a magical mother's day too.