Stoos

So we said sad farewells to our family and friends (except for my angel mother who came with us-HOORAY!!!) and hopped on a plane and stayed awake for SO MANY HOURS and came back to Switzerland.  I was sooooooo exhausted and purely venomous.  Poor Brett, he missed us from being all alone for a month, and I was a mean mean person.  Having a six-month-old who doesn't like sleeping, and an 8-hour time change jet lag is an ugly ugly thing that I never want to experience again.  But we did get over it. 

The first Saturday at home we were lucky enough to get a nice day to go adventuring in the Swiss Alps with Grandma.  I did some research and decided on Stoos.  We got caught in some traffic on the way there and it was a long long drive.  So first you park in a place near Schwyz and take the funicular up to Stoos, which is a car-free village (which means not just anyone can drive in, not that there aren't ANY cars there, as we found).  One happy thing was that when Brett went to buy our tickets for the cable car and chair lifts, the lady told him that it was a special Family Day and so everybody got a coupon for a free wurst and drink.  Awesome!!  (The lady wasn't sure six kids could actually all be one family so she asked if we had their id cards, which we didn't, but Brett told her all their birthdays, and I guess she decided we were legit.)

From the funicular:

Stoos was a pretty little village.

We ate our wursts and drinks and then walked to the chair lifts.  There were actually two sets-- and it was a really long way up!

And they went very high!  (I enjoyed myself.  I had Jethro and Orrin.  Jethro was more concerned with Orrin falling out than I was, good brother that he is.  But I still wouldn't keep the windguard down because that wasn't nearly as fun.

Then we got to the top and the view was spectacular!

   

Aww, Mom and Brett make such a cute couple!

I couldn't stop taking pictures.

The kids played on the playground that was there.  I love Talmage's funny smile here. :)

The view!  It was incredible!

This airplane flew by and all of the males in the party (minus Wyatt, he's still too young... give him a year) started exclaiming and telling me to take pictures.

I took a picture of everyone with Grandma.

Then she took one of us.

Then a very kind stranger offered to take one of all of us.  Thank you, kind stranger!

And then we walked up the trail a very short little way and I wondered why in the world I had taken pictures in front of a fence when I could have taken pictures in front of this:

Oh it's so gorgeous!

My lovely mom.  She borrowed my hoodie.

So, much to the chagrin of all the kids and the husband, I said we had to take ANOTHER picture.

Then the kids played around

while I fed the babe.

One last picture of Vierwaldstättersee (otherwise known as Lake Luzern) before we headed down the trail.

It was quite steep there for a while.

Down to the beautiful valley.

Then Brett wanted to hike up here, and only Talmage wanted to go with him.  So we split ways.  Had Mom and I known what lay ahead, we may have hiked back up the short, although steep trail and taken the chair lifts down again (we had bought the all-day pass, after all).

The thing was, I was carrying Wyatt (I'm not sure what the thinking was because normally Brett always carries him, probably just because our way was just downhill while Brett had to go up) and Orrin was super whiny so he had to be held by Grandma most of the time and Hazel got a blister and was sad and hurting the whole way down.  And it was far.  I don't know if you can see them, but Ethne and Jethro are in the middle of the road in the below picture--they were so far ahead of us.

Besides the lugging heavy heavy children for forever and sad/whiny Hazel it was a nice walk. ;)  We were pretty much exhausted when we got down to the bottom.  There was a bouncy house set up for the Family Day event, so we let the kids go on it, and then Talmage left his backpack there, with his hoodie and my hoodie and a hat? in it.  We did not realize this until the following day so I called the office and had them mail it to me.  That was kind of lame, as it was very expensive for them to do that and I am not in favor of paying for my things twice.

Anyway, then Brett drove to Altdorf, the town that has the Wilhelm (William) Tell statue in it.  According to wikipedia (because I did not read it while I was there) the plate says: 

Erzæhlen Wird Man Von Dem Schützen Tell

So Lang Die Berge Steh'n Auf Ihrem Grunde.

This translates to: It will be talked about (in the sense of "stories will be told about") the marksman Tell as long as the mountains stand on their base.

Then I decided to stop for icecream to keep the kids from going to sleep at 6:30 or whatever time it was by then, and Brett was kind of annoyed because he didn't want to get them icecream, but it did at least keep them awake.  And it was very delicious.

And then we got home and it was very very late and we were very very tired and Orrin had had a blow-out that was all over him and his car seat so we took care of that and fell into bed.  

Good day. :)

First Day of School 2013

 So on Monday, still not quite fully recuperated, the kids started school.  Hazel left first because she has early day on Monday.  She was so cute in her favorite pants and panda mustache shirt.

Fourth grade.

 

Ethne started first grade!  Grandma walked her up to the school and they had a little balloon-launching ceremony (I think... I'll have to check with Ethne tomorrow).

Sixth grade for Jethro!  Man I can't believe how old he is getting! 

He and Lamin, our downstairs neighbor.  Their class got split this year, so they're not in the same one any more but they still walk to school together on the days that they start at the same time.  Also they take a little extra class once a week called Fliegeri, which is an aviation themed course.  Just a leeeetle bit right up Jethro's alley.  :)

And Talmage started Kindergarten!!!!  (He's holding up a zero for Kindergarten.)  He started an hour or so later than everyone else, so I had lots of time to take pictures of him on his big day.

I love his big eyes here-- I wish I could make an animated gif that flipped between the above and below pictures.  It's so funny how his eyes grow five sizes.  It's like on cartoons when the character gets teary-eyed to beg for something and their eyes suddenly fill half their heads.  :)

He is the cutest kindergartener in the world.  Fact.

Backpack on and ready to roll.

I guess the good side of being so far behind is that I can tell you that he's been doing really great in kindergarten.  I had slight worries that he might get frustrated with not understanding the language very much because he can be very stubborn sometimes, but there have not been any problems and he enjoys kindergarten a lot.  They have forest day once a week and he comes home with creations he's made from the little colored styrofoam things.  However, he hates answering whenever we ask him what he did.  He always glares at us and when pressed, says he doesn't remember.  Silly guy.

 

And when they all came home for lunch we could finally get a picture of them all together.  Aren't they so cute?

And the whole crew (even an extremely unwilling Orrin).

They looked so cute in this picture I had to crop it.

And then minus Orrin, because sometimes you can't win.

And although I don't think these pictures are from the same day, this kid is adorable.

So I went in my room to get something, and he was so cute sleeping that I had to grab my camera to take a picture, and just as I took it he SMILED!  Awwwwww- cutest picture of my life!!!