Escaping the fog

It has been foggy down here for the longest time. I couldn't stand it anymore, I had to see some sun! Here's our backyard under the fog. The tree have frost all over them and it is cold.

On the way up it gets even darker as we enter the fog.

Finally above the fog. I feel like I can breath again with the sun. Only 15 minutes away from our house up at La Tourne above the fog.

Alicia all bundled up on our walk.

Brandon running in the snow. (Maeva is in the background having trouble keeping up with Brandon running everywhere).
Snow, what fun!
Daddy and Alicia. Notice the clear blue sky. Not a cloud to be seen.

Christmas day

Brandon was so excited he woke up at 5am and wanted to see what Santa had brougth. Although I had a hard time, I convinced him to stay in bed till 7am. Brandon insisted on buying Alicia this dog for Christmas with his own money. He wanted to have a present to give his little sister.

Reading Alicia her new book.
All dressed up and waiting for our visitors to arrive.
Cousin Mahé showing Alicia how the train works. (The pictures are a little fuzzy here, someone put their dirty hands on the objective and got finger marks all over it).
Family pictures.

Happy 65th birthday Grandma

Happy birthday Grandma love Alicia, Brandon,

Bryn and Hervé. Sending you lots of hugs and

kisses from Switzerland.

here she comes like a speeding bullet

I got Alicia in action. Watch out world, here she comes!

More preparations

Christmas stockings hung and ready to be filled.
Decorating the Christmas tree. The trees here never seem to have very many branches and always remind me of the one in the Charley Brown story.
Doing excercises

Starting to get ready for Christmas

Making Christmas cookies

Hanging up Christmas lights

Decorating the windows

Trying on Christmas hatsPlaying in the empty Christmas decoration box

Giving hugs

New pics and a video

Daddy hiding in the laudry basket.
Playing on Mommy and Daddy's bed.
Trying to reach for the bottle on the table.

Thought I would try uploading a little video to see what it looks like (a little dark but you can see who is making all the noise).

Weekend activities

Herve tought Brandon how to play Stratego this weekend. Brandon thinks the war game is really great. Although he has trouble not telling where he has hidden his flag, here is a picture of Brandon after he one a game.
Alicia pushing herself around in her little car.
Trying to master crawling. Although fun al times, being on her tummy is still not that much fun.

For the International Children's Rights Day, Brandon's school is taking part in a fund raising collection in support of the Indian association Don Bosco Ashalayam. They are supposed to make goodies and then sell them to raise money. Here is Brandon making the first part of Thomas Haas's Chocolate Sparkle Cookies.

1st snow

They are calling for snow this week. Alicia is all ready.
When it came, Brandon was the first one out and wanted to build a snowman.

Halloween

Most people don't even celebrate Halloween here. However, I like to do a pumpkin and hand out candy to anyone who will knock at my door. Last Saturday our village was having a small Halloween gathering. The local Flower shop made pumpkin soup and cakes for everyone and gave small bags of candy to the kids who were dressed up and the local wine cellar was serving their wine (all of this for free). So, I got the kids dressed up and we went to the local social event.
Here are Brandon and Alicia dressed up.
At Brandon's school for Halloween, they were doing Historical Halloween. Each child had to pick a person that they thought had contributed significantly to the world, dress up like the person and say a little speech about them. Brandon wanted to be Neil Armstrong. The little speech that he memorised to say in front of his class and the parents was "Hello, I am Neil Armstrong. I was the first Man on the Moon. I went on the moon on July 20th 1969. I said, "That's one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind"". He did very well!
Brandon went trick or treating with Maeva last night. After seeing Mark's pumpkin last year on the blog. I thought I had to do something a little better than the regular pumpkin face. So, I attempted a Jaguar. It took me over 2 hours to do! (I'm not sure I will do that again). I was a little frustrated that by 9pm only 4 kids, who came all together, had knoched on my door, so I cut up my pumpkin and made pumkin soup at 9:30pm.

Playing inside

Brandon decided he wanted to show Alicia how to play ball.
Alicia, always happy to play with her Brother, thought that this big kids game was lots of fun.

Another one of Brandon's favorite games is playing in the laundry baskets.

Alicia liked it almost as much as Brandon.
The aquarium, has a new look to it. One of Herve's friends was getting rid of his, so Herve took all of his friends rocks and fish and to our aquarium. There are new shrimp, 3 more clown fish and 3 more sergeon fish.

Back in Switzerland - Playing outside

La Bise was out making it a bit colder out but lifting the fog. So out we were to Brandon's favorite place - the playground Alicia thought the swings were a load of laughs this time.

Especially when Brandon pushed her.

She was a bit more serious on the turtle that rocked back on forth.