Day 1-Titlis

I had an amazing weekend. Brett’s cousin’s family (who are renting our house in Indiana) came to Germany for 8 weeks for Ben to do a study abroad in Germany. They drove down to visit us in Switzerland and we had more fun than you can shake a stick at. My only complaint is that the time went WAAAY TOO fast! But we tried to fit in as much as possible. So, first day—we drove to a mountain called Titlis. On the way, we stopped for lunch in Lucerne (a city that Brett served in for about 6 months while on his mission). It was a nice little bread and cheese lunch on the edge of the lake.

The kids had fun watching and feeding the swans and Talmage tried to steal a cow bell from the souvenir shop.

Maybe someday we’ll come back to Lucerne and go for a boat ride.

Can I just say it was a GORGEOUS, PERFECT day. There was a beautiful blue sky and the green grass was absolutely brilliant. Sooooooooo beautiful.

Here we are. This is how we got up to the top of the mountain – by lift and then cable.

View from the top—simply amazing. Stunning. Gorgeous. Then we went through the ice caves. They had cool lights and even music. Funniest thing ever---- as soon as we got up to the top, these Asian people kept grabbing Talmage and Ethne and taking pictures with them. It was so hilarious. On the cablecar on the way down, there were some more from Taiwan who were taking pictures with Talmage and Ethne, and I saw this lady’s fingernails and had to take a picture. (I figured she had pictures of my kids, I could have a picture of her nails.)Me and Allison.

On the drive home we stopped at St. Beatus-Höhlen – a place with caves and a little museum and playground and stuff. It was all closed, but we had a fun time exploring anyway. (We kindof went there on accident – happy accident.)

This was the restaurant on top. Closed, but still awesome to see how it’s built right into the mountainside above the waterfalls. It was dark by then, so the pictures don’t do it justice, either. We’ll have to go back.

And this is a picture of the castle in Thun, which we drove through on our way home. (More on the castle later.)

And that was Day 1. Fantastic.

A few things and listen to my playlist. You’ll thank me.

Here are some random pictures I haven’t put up yet.  Just because I think they’re fun.  So why not?  I mean really, if you’re already checking on the blog, you may as well see a few pictures.  Because I’m quite sure you’re not checking for intellectual stimulation or anything.  Just to see a million gajillion pictures of my children.  So.  This is me with my adorable youngest son. Yes, we’re in the bathroom.  Nice tile?  -why thank you. These are my two youngest hooligans playing in Talmage’s bed with every toy we own and some books and their blankets.  Good times.

This is Talmage giving Ethne a hug.  Or something. This is Talmage giving Hazel a good morning hug. And one for Ethne (who’s not quite awake yet).  Talmage is very sweet.  When the older kids go off to school he stands by the door and makes kissing noises to them.My girls sitting on the end of our little lane counting cars that come by (because they watched the movie ‘Up’ recently.  Unfortunately for them, it’s a bad spot for car counting since it’s the very end of a very long dead end). My children watching a movie on our ‘t.v.’  Two pictures I took recently and had fun playing around with.  Both views from my deck.  Lovely, no? Okay, but the REAL reason I needed to post tonight was to tell you that I have a new playlist and you should take a listen because it’s GOOD STUFF.  Really.  You have to go push play, but then it will continue playing of course.  Turn it on next time you clean or web surf or whatever.

The end.

A little about Hazel.

Here are some funny Hazel stories of late. Because she is funny. And I love her.

This is a picture of a present she made and wrapped for me at school. I love the little princess cut out and tied on top.

Here is the present—a beauuuuutiful picture of a lovely flower-bedecked girl and sun, happy clouds, and a dolphin and seahorse hovering above the water. I love.

This is how Hazel dressed up Talmage in her zwergli hat and reflector and put him in a box and pushed him around. What a good older sister. One day she had me write ‘Fashion Designer’ on a small piece of paper and then she taped it to her shirt and wore it for the next two days.

One day she was sitting at the table singing and some of it went like this: “Don’t denYYYYYYYYY me, I don’t desEEEERRRRRRRVE this.”

She and Ethne played with markers—played with them, not colored with them—and I heard her say things like, “I’m old, I will die soon. No Mother, Don’t die!”

One day she colored cups, plates, cupcakes, and a cake for everyone and cut them out and set the table for us. On Jethro’s she colored a margay in a rainforest (his favorite animal (now when we ask Ethne what her favorite animal is she says margay)), and then she asked him what he wanted on his cup and he said a woodland scene with a deer and a hedgehog, so she colored that.

Another time she cut out pictures from a newspaper and made us all play together with them. Daddy’s figure kept asking the girls on dates, and I told him no, and Ethne told him no, and then Hazel said yes. Then Daddy-figure said “What should we do? Let’s go hiking.” And she said, “No, let’s go out to dinner.” And he said, “No, we should go hiking.” And I said, “Don’t go out with him, he just wants to go hiking because he’s a cheapskate and doesn’t want to pay for dinner.”

One night she was telling me that she wanted twins so that she could dress them the same, and I said, what if they don’t want to—what if one liked blue and one liked pink. And she said, “Then I’ll tell them you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.”

One day we were walking home together and she said out of the blue, “When I am old I want to still remember Jesus.” And I asked her what made her say that, and she said, “Remember the story in the Bible of the really wise man who forgot Jesus when he got old?” I’m pretty positive she was talking about King Solomon whom we had read about in our little illustrated New Testament.

Every night she wants Daddy to give her a horsey ride to her bed. One night she said, “I’ll clap my hands and that will mean for you to come and give me my ride.” And now every night she claps her little hands, and Brett comes and gives her a ride to bed.

On Saturday we came home from cleaning the church with a free printer (YAYYYY!!!! -you wouldn’t believe how many recipes I have written out by hand since I’ve been here), and so she was SOOOOOO excited to be able to print crafts again, and so yesterday she colored and made many Easter wreaths, and today she went and delivered one to each of the 5 families living in our apartment building. Her idea. Now when we walk up to our door (we're at the top), we see little Hazel-wreaths adorning each and every door.