Organ Grinders are Thriving

Organ grinders in Switzerland are still thriving and have beautifully hand-crafted machines that put out top rate music. The pride these men take in their craft is wonderful. The grinder's bag and key is a traditional accompaniment. The key is for the organ and opens the drawer where the rolls of music are kept.

Allschwil Village Festival 2005

Here is a picture of the heart of our village! We took the kids to the festival today where we browsed the craft stands, played games and listed to music. We topped off the afternoon with an ice-cream cone and a bike ride back home.

See more pictures!

Keeping Customs Alive

Another beautiful thing about Switzerland is that the people work very hard to keep their customs alive. They dress in traditional costumes whevener they can and still practice intricate lacework and other "hand-arbeit" or hand-work crafts.

Piggy Bank?

We went to our local village festival today and I found these adorable "Piggy" banks - except they are cows! They are hand-painted and I fell in love with them! I'd love to sell these on my Cards and Candles website!

My Little Magician

We recently went to a friend's house for dinner and Connor came down from playing with this magician's costume on. He looked so sweet, I just had to take a picture before the moment was lost!

High Water!

Here is a shocking picture of a bakery on the Rhein river in Basel. The waters are high and can be seen through the bullet-proof glass in the photo! The bakery installed the reinforced glass after being damaged in a previous flood.

We were lucky not to be affected much. There have been some train delays in the Eastern part of Switzerland, but not where I live which is on the 3-country border of Switzerland, Germany and France. Thank you to all of you who wrote to check in on us!

You can see more pictures of the Swiss flood here!

Quick Update

Busy busy busy!

• Tobias is enjoying his time at school and was excited the first time he came home with "homework". He had to cut out 10 words out of the newspaper that contained the letter "o" and paste them onto a piece of notebook paper.
• My darling Tobias also received 2 stitches on his index finger because he cut it while using his Swiss-army knife that he received for his 7th birthday. He was being careful, but the knife closed on his finger while he was using it!
• Connor is doing well, but has a large bruise on his chin. It seems Toby tied him up and then pushed him over to see what would happen.
• Marianne and baby Patrick are doing well and leaving the hospital today after a week. I hope to visit them again soon.
• I've been up to my eyeballs with several websites that I maintain for charites and friends.
  - The Basel Childbirth Trust for English-speaking families in Basel.
  - My Cards and Candles website where Melissa and I sell imported scrapbooking and paper craft products.
  - A new site I am working on for a Fasnacht (Basel's yearly Carnival) Clique here in Basel that Roger belongs to.
  - A website for the Montessori school that Connor attends.
• I still do occasional work for my "real" employer - Perot Systems
• Melissa and I have also been putting our heads together to come up with some great new Autumn and Winter products for Cards and Candles and preparing for a coming Parenting Fair where we will have a table set up for sales.
  
• Then there are the Yahoo groups I moderate such as the Cards and Candles Craft Forum and the Basel Parenting Group.

There are lots of local fairs and parties planned for this weekend, so I'll have more pictures soon! One last bit of information - I've booked my USA trip to visit Mom and my homestate of New Jersey for late February 2006!

Welcome Patrick!!!

Baby Patrick was born yesterday and he is a beautiful healthy baby! Marianne and Peter are going to make wonderful parents. I hope we can all spend many holidays together and that Tobias and Connor get to know their new cousin as he grows.

First Day of Primary School

Tobias was very excited and proud to start Primary School today. He could hardly sleep last night and tossed and turned for over an hour before he finally fell asleep. Urs took the day off and brought Connor to Montessori. Then we walked with Toby to his new school.


Tobias and the other children are getting their first look at each other. Luckily, Toby knows Laura (Melissa's daughter) and Elizabeth (Sarah's daughter).


Tobias in his new classroom.


And here we are....all the parents grinning and taking pictures of our children on their very first day of REAL school!

2005 Block Party

Yesterday we had our yearly Block Party! The organizers set up tables and BBQ grills and hire a truckload of toys for the neighborhood kids to play with. We get to meet neighbors that we didn't even know we had and the kids had a great time. Tobias was chased by a flock of teenage girls who wanted to tie him up!

We grilled Bratwurst and had beer and cola and I brought along a few leftover Apple Muffins. We finished it all off with a bottle of red wine. Too bad it only happens once a year!

Where I Work

This is where I work in Zürich 2 half days each month. Not much of a salary, but at least I get to have lunch and coffee without my kids yelling "HON!!!!!". Hon, you say? Yes, my boys both call me Hon instead of Mommy. When Tobias started talking, he used to call me Honey and it sounded so sweet that I just couldn't correct him. It was later shortened to Hon - which stuck, but for who knows how long? Will an 18-year old Tobias still call me Hon - and if so, how will I explain that to his girlfriends? We'll see!

Tobias is a Penguin

Tobias has spent every weekday morning - even the cold and rainy ones - of the past 2 weeks taking swimming lessons to earn his Penguin badge. Today he took the test and passed with flying colors! It is incredible how far he has come since learning to swim last summer.

Found Blogs

I've been visiting other blog sites and going through their favorite links and found two wonderful sites. Both blogs are by the same woman and although my life is very different from hers in many ways, I can appreciate the love of family and simple things that she can so easily convey in her writings. Please visit Joys in the Journey for some wonderful words that we can all use. I always feel warm inside after reading her posts.

Her second site is actully the first one I found where she has listed some of her delicious muffin recipes. I tried "Carla's Cranberry Muffins" and they were wonderful and very easy to make! Take a look at Praise Her in the Gates for more great muffin recipes!

Enjoy!

I've Started Flying!

Ok, not really flying in the air, but I joined FlyLady.org and she is helping me to get my house under control again. I've got toys and magazines coming out of my ears. The mail is piled on the kitchen table along with various printed recipes I found on the internet that I may never use, etc, etc....

I admit, I have lost control of what is in my house and it is a very unsettling feeling. I love the feeling of walking into my home and not seeing papers that need filing or toys under the sofas.

I discovered FlyLady a few years ago while reading a magazine article about How to Declutter your Home. She is a real inspiration and keeps me on track by sending me 15 e-mails a day! A sample mail may be - "Do you know where your laundry is? Take 15 minutes to fold and put laundry away" or "Spend the next 10 minutes emptying your trash bins".

She also breaks the home down into 5 different "Zones". This week we are working on Zone 2 - The Kitchen. Besides the basics like "reclaim your kitchen sink" and "throw away 27 things to declutter" there are things like "Clean the microwave inside and out" and "Wipe fingerprints off walls". Every day there is an optional "Mission". Today's Mission is to "Scrub down your counter tops, I don't mean to just wipe a rag across them! I mean you get some hot soapy water and you wipe down the counters from front to back and side to side."

Yes, 15 e-mails a day are A LOT, but you can choose to receive 1 condensed mail a day instead and because my computer is on ALL DAY LONG and I check my mail several times a day, the separate mails work better for me.

I have been following her routines for 5 days now and there is a marked improvement already!

Lunch in the Park

After a particularly nasty morning with drizzling skies and grey clouds, I met up with Melissa, Martha & Diego, Sarah, Emma and Michelle for lunch in the Dino Park with our combined 13 children - all between 2 and 7 years old! The day turned into a warm and sunny afternoon and the hours flew by as our little ones explored, jumped and slid their way into exhaustion.

See more pictures!

Swiss Independence Day!

On August 1st, Switzerland celebrated it's 714th birthday! We celebrated in the traditional manner with an evening of BBQ grilling, firecrackers and Lampions hanging in the backyard.


I love the lampions and look forward to getting a new one each year. They are lit with a candle at the center and represent the various cantonal flags of Switzerland as well as the Sun, the Moon and other themes.


Ruth, Fritz, Urs, Connor, Tobias and Karen (below) were there to celebrate with us.