I think I'm gonna like it here

I thought that I should make a blog post with some pictures from our everyday life here in Switzerland. It is rare that I do those kinds of posts because, frankly, I don’t really like to blog, but I do it because I like to have some sort of record of our adventures together as a family, and it is about as much as I can to get those down.
Anyway, I spent the first couple of weeks here moping about missing Marseille. I loved Marseille. And anyone who talks to me regularly is probably sick of me saying that, but I really did. I missed Marseille. I’m better now, and am falling in love with Switzerland. I am filled with gratitude as it seems like this move was such a good choice for our family. Perhaps most important is that Daniel loves his job here, which was the only real missing link in our Marseille experience. As for me, I landed an internship almost immediately at an NGO called Enfants du Monde which addresses maternal and neonatal health issues in developing countries in collaboration with the World Health Organization (somebody pinch me!) I spend two mornings per week in the office and do the rest from home, and I absolutely love it. It feels so good to be back in my field again. The village where we live seems like a child’s dream to me, with so many things to entertain them and an environment safe enough to give kids the type of freedom and independence that I haven’t seen anywhere that I have lived since growing up in Washington 20+ years ago. I didn’t know that there was still a place where young children could enjoy such liberty. All these things more than compensate for my petty complaints (Daniel likes to remind me how ridiculous they are), such as the fact that I hear English more than I would like or grouchy neighbors. This is the outside of our apartment building. Ours is the top left apartment. We really get a kick out of the rainbow blinds. I guess whoever thought of that wanted to add a little color to the green.

This is the park right outside of our builing. The kids love it.

About 200 meters away from our apartment starts a network of trails that leads through the forest. One follows along a creek until eventually hitting Lake Geneva, although we have never made it that far. The kids get too distracted. Here Jaxon is sharing the worm he found with Jonas.

Being on the fifth floor we have some great views of the Alps across the lake from our windows and balcony.

Mont Blanc from our balcony

Jaxon on his first day of school. He loves his school and is making a lot of friends. It really surprised me to find out that there is no barrier or fence around the school and that the kids just get let out when the bell rings and kids as young as 5 walk to and from school by themselves. They hire crossing guards. I guess it shouldn't surprise me. It was like that when I was in kindergarten.

These pictures are here because I know I won't do a separate post for them. We went with some friends to the circus zoo a couple of weeks ago. I thought these pictures were cute.

Holy Cow!

Desalpe is one of the cultural events in our area that is held in several towns and meant to celebrate the cows moving from their summer alpine pasteurs to their winter quarters, I imagine in barns or something. I suppose it helps the cows moral to treat it as an exciting event. I know that is a tactic we use with our kids anyway, to treat something that is banal or unpleasant as something exciting. We decided to head to St. Cergue, a little village located about 20 minutes away from us, for their Desalpe, even if it is a little deceptive as the village is actually located in the Jura Mountains, which are to our north, rather than the Alps, which are located just south of us. In any case I had never before seen such decorates cows as the ones that were paraded by us. We had a great time just enjoying the spirit of it all, with all the ornamented animals and cultural displays.

I had Jonas pose for this picture, trying to be a discreet as my real goal was capturing these mens' rear-ends. I could not figure out what that thing they had strapped to them was for, until I overheard someone saying that it was a stool. A very convenient one, I suppose, even if I never saw anyone actually sitting on it.

Swiss music and dance performances were a ubiquitous part of the celebration.

We liked this little parade of Bernese Mountain Dogs. They were everywhere.

Brewing some soupe à la courge. I don't know exactly what courge is in English. It is kind of like a pumpkin. I had never eaten it before we moved to France, but now soupe à la courge is one of our favorite fall recipes. It is delicious!

We ran into some friends while were there, so we had a good time hanging out with them. We had a great time and the weather was perfect. Unfortunately Jaxon had an invite to a birthday party in the afternoon so we couldn't take advantage of it by hiking around in the area. Oh well. We don't live far.

Toujours Menthon, Partout Menthon!

Jaxon is learning all about castles and castle life in his class out school, so he has taken a new found interest in them. Last weekend we headed over to Annecy, taking advantage of a potentially rainy day to visit the castle of St. Bernard de Menthon, the particular saint, in fact that the St. Bernard dog is named after. We spent the morning at Lake Annecy.

Jonas practicing his lifeguard skills.

We took a tour inside the castle which was guided by costumed theatrical teenagers. It was actually really fun. Unfortunately pictures were not allowed. Anyway, we learned there, among other things, the Menthon family motto, which is "Toujour Menthon, Partout Menthon!"

Jaxon caught a lizard on the castle grounds.

I guess Daniel thought he would be better able to hang on to it than Jaxon, but he was wrong. Jaxon and Jonas found it hilarious. I guess it was mostly Daniel's reaction that was hilarious.

Jonas enjoyed having a chance to hold the lizard as well. Until it started pulling some tricky moves on him.

And what castle is complete without the royal horses and donkeys?

Llama Drama

A friend had told me about an animal reserve near Mont Blanc and I put it high on my to-do-before-the-weather-gets-bad list. So waking up one Saturday morning and noticing that the forecast indicated that it would be sunny with a high of 68 degrees (Fahrenheit) and 0% chance of rain at Mont Blanc, I suggested we head that way. So...sometimes the weather forecast is wrong, but we made the most out of it. Most of the animals there are native to the Alpes; however, a couple of Llamas had escaped from the Andes to make there home there. We got lots of Llama love, with no Llama spitting action, thank goodness.

What a great location for a sandbox. It kept the kids entertained so that Daniel and I could enjoy the beautiful, if cloudy, views of the Mont Blanc glaciers.

The morning we had pretty nice weather, but in the early afternoon a thick cloud came through and it started raining. We took the opportunity to hide under a tree and eat our lunch.

How did this tree grow like this?