Grandpa and Grandma Pothen Arrive!

This week we were busy running errands, creating itineraries, and getting the house ready for Chris' parents.

On Monday, I went into Adalyn's class and did the presentation on the United States and Minnesota.  I'm not sure what they got out of it, but it was fun to teach and hear their random comments.  It is much different teaching to a group of 4-5 year olds than 10 year olds!  They ate the apple crisp for snack that day, and unfortunately Adalyn reported not many of her friends enjoyed it- guess they prefer Swiss Chocolate!

Ready to represent Minnesota-

On Friday, the BIG day had finally arrived!  Adalyn was very excited- she has been counting down for about two months, so she couldn't really believe that Grandpa and Grandma Pothen would be in Geneva.  Chris' parents arrived around 11:00 am and were pretty exhausted from the flight.  They took a short nap, and then it was time to get Adalyn.  Once we got to Adalyn's school she could see us through the window and instantly began jumping up and down with the biggest grin on her face!  Once they all reunited, we headed down to the lake and visited the famous clock and the Jet D'Eau.

All smiles!

Happy 60th Birthday Grandpa!

After going around the lake, we visited Old Town and did some window shopping.  Chris met us down by the lake for dinner and then we headed home to celebrate Randy's 60th birthday.  Grandma had also brought goodies in her suitcase, so the girls enjoyed getting treats that different people had sent.  It was a great first day of their visit. 

Saturday, we went to the Montreux Christmas Market, which is a festive market with over 150 different vendors selling unique gift items, specialty foods, and live music.  Of course, they also had different drinks to try including mulled wine, and apple cider mixed with vodka (Punsch a La Pomme).  We spent a few hours walking along the lake enjoying the festive atmosphere, it definitely put us all in the Christmas spirit.

First stop- Punsch a La Pomme

Loving the view from Grandpa's shoulders- 

Christmas card???

Dancing to the music-

Mulled Wine

After the market, we drove to the Chillon Castle, then headed home for dinner.  We were all exhausted after a full day of touring.  

On Sunday, we went to church and then drove to Chamonix, France.  We arrived around 12:00 and had lunch at a cute little pub with amazing food.  I finally found homemade chicken nuggets that were so yummy- I might drive there every weekend just for the chicken nuggets!  Bev ordered a martini, and ended up with an Espresso Martini, which was not what she had in mind, but still drinkable!  After lunch, we went on the Montenvers train which travels from Chamonix to the bottom of the Mer de Glace up in the mountains, which is France's largest glacier.  The views from the top were magnificent- with snow capped mountains surrounding us.  We really enjoyed our time- we took the train back to the village and spent a couple more hours shopping.  It was an awesome day spent in Chamonix.  

So happy!

Martini + Chamonix= Happiness

Grandma and her girls- 

Train ride- 

Overall, we have had so much fun hosting Chris' parents so far- the weather has been perfect for touring, 50's and partly sunny.  This week, we are looking forward to visiting Annecy, a three day trip to Paris, and Adalyn's birthday on Sunday.  

    

  

A Visit to Santa's House

Life was back to normal this week, with everyone feeling better.  We filled our days with school, playgroups, and running errands.

On Wednesday, the girls and I headed to,"Le Automnales", which translates to "Fall."  Since Adalyn has Wednesday afternoons off of school, we are always looking for activities to check out, so we decided to go there with some friends.  Basically, it was similar to a home show but with kid activities.  Randomly, they even had chickens, sheep, and horses there.  The horses did shows with girls balancing on them- the girls were very entertained!  The girls had a great time playing in the bouncy houses, watching the horses, and walking around the exhibits getting food samples!

Eliza loved bouncing!  She picked her outfit out- can you tell??  She looked like quite the bruiser in her tank top and temporary tattoos on her arm!

Adalyn going for a car ride.

Santa was even there!!! Eliza was scared and kept calling him "Bapa" (grandpa)

On Saturday, it was a rainy dreary day so we decided to go visit, "Le Hameau du Pere Noel" (House of Father Christmas), which was only 20 minutes from our house.  Since it was our first holiday outing, the girls were very excited to wear their Christmas dresses from Grandma Bev.  Adalyn asked how long it was going to take to drive to the North Pole, and we had to explain Santa has multiple houses around the World.  It was amazing.  They had multiple fully decorated houses for you to walk through, the elf's workshop, Santa and the elf's house, and the stable for the reindeer.  The attention to detail in each room was incredible.  

Kitchen area for the Elves

Impressed by the toy workshop-

Eliza thought she got to pick a toy and started to take the doll and carriage-

Santa asleep in his bed... Adalyn was terrified!

Bedroom for the elves

A reindeer who ate too much Nutella in the health room-

This room was full of pacifiers- from what I understand, children in Europe celebrate Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas) who comes to their house on the night of December 5th.  If parents are trying to get rid of pacifiers, the children will place them in a shoe and in return Sinterklaas will leave them chocolate.  

Adalyn pointing to Minnesota to let Santa know where she would be for Christmas!

Mailing her letter to Santa-

On Sunday, we had a relaxing day- we went to church in the morning and spent the afternoon getting things done around the house in preparation for our next visitors.  Chris' parents arrive Friday for a ten day visit- we are all looking forward to their visit, especially the girls! 

Tomorrow I am doing a presentation in Adalyn's classroom about the United States of America and Minnesota.  This month her class is focusing on the theme, "We're All Alike, We're All Different."  They have asked as many parents to come in and talk about their home country and their culture.  In Adalyn's class of 21 students, she is the only one from the U.S.  Between the three different international schools in Geneva, 139 nationalities are represented.  There have been moments during the last two years that I have missed teaching, so it was fun to create a PowerPoint- just had to remember the audience would be five year olds instead of ten year olds!  It was challenging to think of what represents MN, and how it is unique from the rest of the World.  We came up with Halloween, Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, football, land of 10,000 lakes, farming, apple crisp, and of course, Kraft Mac n' Cheese!  You are also encouraged to bring food from your country, so Adalyn chose apple crisp, surprisingly you can bring homemade goods in to share with the class- hopefully they enjoy it!  

Some things I learned this week...

1)  Chris is not made for Europe! He had gotten a hole in the sole of his shoe, so on Tuesday Eliza and I went on a shoe chase around Geneva with no luck.  He wears a 50 in European size, which is not normal.  Everyone just laughed- so, instead I found a shoe repair store that would repair the shoe- for 50 francs, but we had not other choice.  

2)  Even though you don't see cops out patrolling the streets with radar, they are watching you with their cameras positioned around town.  So far, Chris has two speeding tickets, and I have one.  You never really want to check your mail here in fear that a ticket will be waiting for you.  We now pay close attention to the speed limit signs, which is difficult because in most cases you are just trying to figure out where you are and where you need to go.  Most of the time the speed limit around town is only 40-50 km which is about 25 - 30 mph, which obviously for us has been a bit of a struggle.     

A bientot!

 

A week of rest...

This week was full of some rest and relaxation in hopes of getting healthy!  Unfortunately, Adalyn's fever lasted from Saturday to Tuesday, and Eliza had a fever and cough Wednesday and Thursday- so,  lots of snuggle time this week.

Over the weekend, we decided we needed to do some house shopping, so we headed out bright and early in hopes of successful shopping- keeping Chris and the kids happy while furniture shopping can be a difficult task! After a few hours, we had both cars loaded with boxes and everyone was still smiling!  SUCCESS-

Promise of ice cream for being good at Ikea always seems to work!  

We agreed that since it was sunny outside, we should enjoy the day, so we headed to Chamonix, France for the afternoon.  It is so beautiful there and we really enjoy walking around the village window shopping and admiring Mont Blanc- We wanted to eat dinner there, which we have discovered our American time of eating dinner around 5:00, becomes quite a problem when trying to find a restaurant to eat at in Europe. Most restaurants don't even open until 7:00, which is when we are putting the girls to bed.  We tried many different restaurants and fortunately found one that would serve us food-it was a wonderful afternoon spent in the mountains.  

So excited to have found her first chunk of snow!  

Arcade game along the street- girls were very entertained-

Playing in the chair lift- getting anxious to hit the slopes!

Sunday was spent putting furniture together and finally clearing out all of the empty boxes from our basement.  We bought an artificial Christmas tree yesterday, so the girls decorated the tree- still trying to determine a way to stop Eliza from un-decorating the tree, I tried telling her it was "hot", but that hasn't seemed to work!  Since the Swiss don't celebrate Thanksgiving, we decided to jump right to Christmas.  We are looking forward to checking out the Christmas markets in the different villages this holiday season.  

We still pay attention to Minnesota news, and are hoping everyone survives the first winter storm of the season- this may be a good time to book a trip to Geneva!     

Profiter de votre semaine- rester au chaud et en securite! 

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween to all!  We really enjoyed seeing all the cute costumes on Facebook, it is such a fun tradition to dress up the little ones!  Since the Swiss don't celebrate the holiday, we still tried to make it fun for the girls.

On Wednesday, the girls and I carved a pumpkin together- thankfully the girls don't have high expectations when it comes to pumpkin designs, so it was a success!  Both of them did not want to put their hands in to help clean it out, so basically I carved a pumpkin with an audience.

On Friday, Adalyn was so excited to celebrate Halloween, she woke up at 5:00 am.  She decided about a month ago that she wanted her and Eliza to be "Swiss Girls."  Since then, we have been reading about "Heidi" and she was very excited.  

Ready for school- 

Swiss Sisters

Since Eliza has no hair, I improvised and made her hair!  She was a bit confused...

Adalyn had a great day at school celebrating- here they don't really promote parent volunteers, so the party was pretty low key and done by the teacher and her assistant.  That night, we were fortunate to get to go trick-or-treating!  A friend of a friend has been organizing a route the last couple years, so we were able to join.  We walked a lot (about two miles) just to trick or treat at 10 houses!  But, the girls had a blast-  

Loved picking out candy!  

Many of you know that our little Eliza is quite the eater, on Halloween she did not disappoint.  As I was pushing her around in the stroller, she was holding her bucket, which had a clementine in it.  She was awfully quiet, so I looked down and found her eating a whole orange- peel and all!  Thankfully I caught her after she only had a couple bites- nothing will stop this girl from eating!  

On Saturday, it was a beautiful sunny day so we decided to go check out Evian-les-Bains, which is a town on the edge of Lake Geneva in the French Alps, about an hour from our house, famous for its spring water.  We got a map and did a walking tour of the town- many unique shops, a visit to the spring, and a walk along the lakeside.  Unfortunately, Adalyn was super tired, which we thought was just from the excitement of the day before, so we kept encouraging her to liven up and enjoy the day.  When we got home, she was still super tired, and found out she had a temp.  So, then we felt bad!!  She has had a cough, and I think she is just worn down- so the rest of her weekend has been a lot of relaxing.  

Another lakeside pose... thanks Grandma Schultz for the matching outfits!

Getting the fresh Evian water-

Enjoying the water-

Saturday night, Chris and I had plans to go out with friends to a fondue place on the lake.  With Adalyn being sick, we were questioning whether we should go, but she seemed fine and would sleep most of the time with the sitter anyways, so we decided we would still go.  Unfortunately, right before the sitter arrived, I started not feeling well, and we had to cancel due to a stomach bug I had.

Thankfully, I have finally been able to get through to a clinic for the girls that speaks English, so I feel much better as we enter the sick season.  I took Eliza there on Friday for her skin problems, she has always had dry skin, but it was getting out of control- so we learned that she indeed has eczema,  so we loaded up on lotions and oils for her.  I really liked the doctor, hoping we don't have to see her often, but definitely comforting to know we now have a doctor.  Doctor offices are different here than in the states- at least at the clinic we went to.  There is not a nurse who sees you first- you only see the doctor.  Which is nice, since you know when the doctor comes to see you, you get to see the doctor right away, versus back in MN when they call you back and then you wait forever for the doctor.  At this clinic, there are two doctors, so basically just two rooms- the rooms are much bigger.  They have a large waiting room with tons of toys- which of course I worry about germs!!  Hand sanitizer is not used often here and never out in the public for people to use- it is very costly, about $8 for a small bottle.  I will definitely be stocking up in December-         

I can't believe it is already November- time has flown by.  We just marked three months here, which we were told would be the hardest, and I am happy to report we are all still very happy, maybe not healthy at the moment, but happy!