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!
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