Musings of Amy

During Christmas vacation Chris got us the extended version of the first three Harry Potter movies and we watched them all.  There were lots of fun extras included that helped explain the story much better.  Sophie was surprised at each one and would exclaim that she didn’t know that before.  Then Sarah would say, “Well, it’s in the book.  So I already knew.”  After hearing that about 10 times, Sophie was finally convinced that maybe, MAYBE, reading the books herself might be a good thing.

Since then we haven’t seen her without a Harry Potter in her hand.  As she has read them, her reading skills have improved dramatically.  It took her about a month to read the first one.  She finished the last one in about 3 days! 🙂  Thank you, Ms. Rowling, for opening the door to the magic of literature to my children.

It also inspires them to use their imagination when they play.Ten house points to whomever can name the scene they are acting out first. heehee

Since we live in a Protestant Kanton we don’t get nearly as many public holidays as the Catholic ones.  But we still have quite a few, and one of my favorites is Ascension Day.  The ward often does a fun outing, although they hadn’t for a few years.  So I was happy when the buzz I put in Chris’ ear was greeted by the same thought from others in the ward, and a true ward activity was planned.

We met at our new church building, Hurray!, and walked from there up through the nearby forest to a fire pit to cook lunch.  The trail was easy enough and short enough that the little kids had no trouble walking it alone.  And it didn’t involve a long drive or any money.  Woohoo! The weather was perfect as well.  A tiny bit of chill in the air to start out with, but plenty of sunshine and clear skies to enjoy.  The girls’ favorite part was getting to walk my friend Julie’s dog, Lexi.  One of the few dogs they aren’t scared of. 🙂

There was a lovely Nature preserve around the bend from where we were.  So the kids headed over to check it out.  Along the way they found this very weird looking tree stump that was worthy of a photo.

We had lots of fun grilling our food.  I brought a few things to experiment with this time; garlic bread and corn.  The bread would have been delicious except for the fact that I cooked it too long and the outside got burnt.  The inside was delicious, though and we will definitely try that again.  The corn, well, the corn was a total flop.  I had mini-cobs that I had brought from Bofrost, a company that delivers frozen food to your door, kind of like Schwan’s in the States.  I threw them in my backpack still frozen, thinking they would thaw out by the time we got around to grilling them.  But they were still pretty much frozen solid.  And no matter how long I left them in the coals, they never seemed to warm up past “cold”. sigh

So, next time I need to remember to take them out of the freezer the day before we want to grill them.  Fortunately, I had brought plenty of other food, so no one left hungry. And the kids actually cooked their own sausages this time, instead of making Chris and I do it all for them.   Gee, they must be getting older. heehee

There was a pretty good turnout considering lots of people had taken advantage of the long weekend and gone out of town.These are two of our favorite missionaries.  Elder Ellis, (standing) was in our ward for almost 10 months, so we got to know him very well.  We were very sad when he went home and hope that he will make it back for a visit someday.

After we were mostly done eating, the Primary had organized a fun scavenger hunt in the forest for the kids.  There were little papers with different things they had to find.  When they did they brought them back for a treat.  The kids loved it.Especially Alexandra, who had her own special transport.

There was also a giant pile of logs that proved irresistible to kids and adults alike.Eventually a whole group ended up sitting there in the sun chatting.  It was really nice! While we were sitting there we heard some music in the distance.  We listened for a while and concluded that it must be an Alphorn.  Sure enough, a few minutes later the source came walking through the forest.  So fun!

You know the old adage about having to kiss a lot of frogs until you find a prince?  Well, when 5 children are involved, you have to take A LOT of photos to get one decent one. 🙂

My mother’s day was lovely as always this year.  The kids are always so kind and give me lots of hugs and kisses the whole day long.   And I get to cook whatever I want for lunch and no one is allowed to complain. bwahahaa  Plus, there is my gorgeous bouquet of lovingly picked wildflowers to enjoy.

They do such a good job, don’t they?

Every year I am thankful for the awesome children that make being their mom so fun.  And for my own mom who taught me how it’s done.  Love you all!

The kids, especially Alexandra, have become obsessed with superheroes lately.  Chris got them all the old cartoon shows of Spiderman, the Justice League, and the Avengers, and they have been watching them a lot.  Like a lot, a lot.  When the kids were in school and I was busy cleaning the house or cooking Alexandra would sit and watch 2 or 3 episodes in a row.  She even had her favorites that she would watch over and over again.  Naturally this led to her wanting to “play” Spiderman.  And since he is a boy who also loves superheroes, Noah was happy to go along.

They would spend literally hours outside pretending to be Peter Parker and Mary Jane, having all kinds of fun and adventures.  And since no good photographer would be without his camera, I let them take our older one outside to use while they played.  These are some of the photos they took while out saving Muliberg from the bad guys. It always fascinates me to see what my children find picture worthy…In case you are wondering what our neighbor is up to, I will explain.  She is scrubbing the outside framing around her windows.  I once even saw a woman, not her, although she may, take a vacuum to them.  Yeah, personally, if it’s outside the house it’s supposed to be dirty, it’s outside. But that is just my lazy opinion. 🙂

There were more. Literally hundreds more, but this is all I am going to use up server space for. 🙂  They did it so often that Chris was having to recharge the batteries daily.  He also started just wiping the whole memory card when it was full rather than downloading it, but I made him stop that. ahem.  Must protect our superheroes after all.

Legoland didn’t open until 10 am, so even though our hotel was 20 minutes away, we were still able to make it there right as they let the first people in.  There were no crowds the entire day. Just how we like it.

Since the rides closed an hour before the stores, we told the kids we would do all our shopping at the end, and spend as much time enjoying the park as possible. First up were the boats you could steer yourself.

Notice all the boats backed up behind Sarah and Noah?  They didn’t know you needed to floor the gas pedal if you wanted to actually move, plus the steering was a bit trickier than it looked.  So they caused a bit of a traffic jam. 🙂

This ride was just like Dumbo at Disneyland, without the 40 minute wait!

There were a couple things that were kind of frustrating for the kids.  They wanted to drive the little cars around the track, but not only did it cost extra, it took 40 minutes!  What?  Apparently you had to attend some driving course first, and then they let you ride the cars.  Um, no, they just want to get around and drive around a little course.

So, while Alexandra went on the much simpler, hassle and cost free one, the older kids went on a tour of the Lego Factory. She loved it, even though she had to go potty pretty badly!

All I can say is that I talked Sarah and Noah into going on this next ride, and while Sarah loved it, it took a while for Noah to forgive me. It was just a two person ride, so  nice lady in the line next to us, who was also alone, offered to let Sarah ride with her.  We could hear her laughing/screaming the entire time.

There was laughing/screaming with us as well.  The laughter came from me, the screaming came from Noah. At least it gave us a chance to inspect the ceiling for spider webs and cracks. 🙂

We decided a tour of the Lego Mini World was just the thing to calm us all down.  There were so many fun little scenes to find hidden in the bigger picture. You could tell the people who built them had an absolute blast thinking of what other crazy stuff they could think of to put in there.

The boys’ favorite was the Star Wars landscapes.

Fight the evil, Nick!

Best Friends! (Mostly I included this one for his great smile. We don’t see that often, so it’s extra special. Thank you, Darth Maul!)

First she held his hands, then she gave him a dental check up!

Aw, look, a friend just her size! And how you can pass up the opportunity to feel a true Force Choke!

We really liked this ride.  While the four of us were zooming around in circles, having fun,

Sarah and Sophie were busy trying to shoot us with water, and getting splashed themselves. The weather was perfect for that sort of thing.

Alexandra wanted to ride the “teacups” next, but sadly, she was too short.  The rest of us had a blast, though.  We were spinning so fast, I kept falling over onto Sarah.  After this, Sarah and Noah wanted to go again, but Sophie and I were feeling a bit queasy. 🙂  So they rode together, and Noah kept falling over from the centrifugal force.  Every once in a while we would see his head pop up, and then it would disappear again.  So funny.

The next ride we went on was our total favorite.  Seriously the best ride I have ever been on in a theme park.  We started out nice and dry. And then it all gets going. We were shooting water at our attackers as fast as they could shoot it at us.  It was  intense! There are spots on either side of the boat where people can stand and shoot at you. And there was this one guy who was cuh-ra-zee!  He was early to mid-thirties, and was cranking the water gun in supersonic speed.  We couldn’t believe his arm didn’t fall off.  At one point all we could do was close our eyes, duck down as best we could, and fire back. There he is on the left, with his shirt off.  But after that is over with you can also shoot people as they are walking to get on the ride.  Excellent!  And they have no way to get you back. bwahahahaa! It looks like we fell in, doesn’t it?  Interactive rides like that are the best.  Buzz Lightyear comes a close second, but I just love stuff with water, especially when it’s warm out, so this one wins in my book.

This ride is why I remembered to pack extra dry clothes the next time we went to Legoland, and why we all wore Crocs so our feet could dry off easier.

It’s nice to work out sibling aggression in such a harmless way, don’t you think?

Since the park was so empty, there were often no kids waiting in line to get on when our kids were finished with a ride.  So the operator would just let them stay on for another round.  Like this one, where they got to ride three times in a row!

I talked Nick into going on this medium roller coaster with me.  I had already done it once that day, and it wasn’t so bad, so he came with me again. I love roller coasters, but Chris gets so motion sick I can’t go with him.   And we looked like we were having so much fun, the girls came with me for a second round. It was a great way to end the day.  Well, at least the Legoland part. 🙂  We still went grocery shopping after this and got home at about midnight.  But it was so fun we upgraded our day passes to year passes and were planning out when we could go again on the ride home.

We knew we wanted to take the kids somewhere fun during spring vacation, so several months ago we asked them to choose between the Playmobil Funpark in Nürnberg, Germany and Legoland near Ulm.  We had been to Playmobilland, as we call it, many time, and had never been to Legoland.  They hemmed and hawed for a while, and finally decided to try out Legoland.

Chris only wanted to be gone one night, so we drove up the first day, and hung out in Ulm and spent the night there.  Then spent the next full day at Legoland and came home that same night.  Fortunately it’s only about 3 hours away, so this was a very relaxing trip, despite the shortness.

I was excited to see Ulm, since I had heard so much about it while on my mission, but never got to serve there.  It did not disappoint.  We found our hotel first, right downtown, and dropped off our bags.  Then we went out on foot to explore the city.  First stop was the cathedral.It was all of about 4 minutes from our hotel, and very easy to find due to this giant tower looming over everything.  I am lucky that my kids are very respectful in other churches, and very rarely have to ask them to whisper or anything.  This place was no exception.  Whew!  They genuinely enjoyed looking at all the carvings and interesting things hanging on the walls.  For example, we had fun trying to figure out what these things were. We all agreed they were beautiful, though.  And then there was more modern stuff like this.I liked the look of the candle sticks in the sand.  And the mosaic in the cross was amazing.

After we had seen all there was to see inside, we decided to take it up a step, or several hundred.  For 20 Euro our family could have the pleasure of walking up all the steps to the top of the church steeple.  Chris went into it knowing he would most likely end up carrying Alexandra part of the way, but she ended up walking the whole way by herself.  Pretty impressive for a 4 year old!

This was at the second highest point, about 600 steps up.  Sophie and Nicholas have a hard time with heights, and wanted to stop a few times on the way up, but they finally made it.  They did not, however, want to enjoy the view. 🙂

These three, however, thought it was pretty fun to run around on a cathedral roof.  Don’t worry, there were protective barriers on all sides.  Noah, Sarah, Chris and I decided to continue on the last 113 steps to the very top.   But as the tower gets taller, it also gets narrower.  Which makes the steps small and VERY windy.  Like vertigo inducing, total dizzy spell windy.  After just a short bit, Noah decided he had had enough and headed back down to wait with the others at our resting spot.

I almost turned back myself at one point.  I was just so dizzy from the constant turning, turning, turning.  But if Sarah was going to make it to the top, so was I, darn it!  It was also creepy because there were all these filigree cutouts in the stonework, so I couldn’t rest my hand on the side on those spots to give me some sort of stability. 

Chris took this about halfway up, looking down on the children waiting for us.  They are so small!  We are up so high!  (Yes, my children may have inherited their height issues from me.  I will admit it.)  See what I mean by all those open windows?  shudder  We didn’t stay too long up at the top.  It was small and crowded and we wanted to get back to the other kids.  But here is one of the pics Chris took.  That red gabled roof in the lower left hand corner is the roof of the cathedral!  The people in the square are just tiny black dots. Crazy.

The kids quickly discovered that going down is just as hard as going up.  Their legs were getting all jittery and shaky, so we let them sit down and take a rest for a bit.  I was glad I had thought to bring water along!  Here is the sign out front with the official stats.Pretty cool for Sarah to be able to say she climbed to the top of the highest church steeple in the world!

As a reward for walking all those steps by herself, and not killing his back, Chris let Lexi choose one of the giant postcards in the gift shop.

Afterwards we wandered around the old part of the city, just seeing what there was to see. And there was plenty.  Like this gorgeous building with the art on the outside, rather than the inside.

We also stopped to get a drink of water, European style. 🙂

Then we ran into a wall.  A really old city wall, that is,complete with a cool lookout tower.

Eventually we found ourselves on the river, which was beautiful looking but a bit smelly.  That didn’t seem to deter the throngs of teenagers hanging out there, though.  We walked along the river path for a bit and then crossed a bridge over another second smaller river to get back into downtown.  There were these bird statutes all over the whole city. And the girls made a new friend. This dog belonged to the owner of the nearby restaurant and was obviously used to random strangers walking by and petting it.  The girls didn’t want to stop!

Seriously such a charming old city.  Chris and I decided it would be fun to come back just the two of us one day.  And do some more exploring and sightseeing.

Maybe we even could stay in this famous inn. Or maybe not!  I would be too afraid of falling out of bed and into the river.

One of the things I miss most in Switzerland is the ice cream stands that are everywhere in Germany in the summer.  And they are all so cheap.  Still just one Euro a scoop, although back in the day it was one German Mark a scoop. 🙂

After delicious pizza for dinner, it was time for bed, so we could get up nice and early for Legoland!

Back in first grade, when we asked Sophie what instrument she would like to learn to play, she answered “the flute”.  But the music school we use says children have to be in the fourth grade before they can start learning.  We didn’t want her to waste two years just sitting around waiting, so she chose the recorder, which is at least a wind instrument.

But starting in August, she will be in the fourth grade, and therefore is starting flute lessons.  So this little concert in April was her final one with her teacher,  Frau Roethlisberger and Lara, the girl she has taken lessons with.  This is her teacher.  She is a very nice woman and we have appreciated all she has done to encourage Sophie and her love of music.

They played one song together and then they each had a solo number.  Sophie was a bit flustered because, as she told me afterward, her teacher had said she would play the accompaniment on the piano, and then suddenly she was putting in the CD that Sophie hadn’t practiced with.  But she still did a great job, it was just at a faster pace than she was used to. Wj9vwwdbS1g

And just for fun, at the school where the concert was held we noticed the kids had done some yarn bombing.All the lampposts on the school grounds were decorated like this.  What a fun way to get kids interested in knitting!

Back in April, there was a Friday the 13th.  Normally, I don’t give much credit to superstitions, but this really did turn out to be a crazy day.

After Alexandra was picked up and taken to preschool, I headed out to do some grocery shopping.  When I got back home, there were two messages on our answering machine.  Both were from Sarah’s teacher.  The first asked me if I could come pick her up at school as she had fallen off the merry-go-round at school, banging her head in the process, and had a terrible headache.  45 minutes later, a second call said that her head wasn’t hurting so bad now, after she had lain down on a mattress for a while, and she was probably fine to stay at school for the rest of the morning.

I felt horrible that I hadn’t been home to pick her up when she first got hurt.  I am usually always home, just in case these types of calls come in, and the one time I really am needed I am gone. 🙁  It was already time to pick up Alexandra, which meant there was only about 20 minutes left of school, so I just left it and decided to baby her when she got home.

What actually happened was that she had been sitting on the swing on the kindergarten playground, eating her snack.   Yes, she was swinging on a snack while simultaneously holding on to a plastic Tupperware dish filled with crackers.  Which means she wasn’t really holding on to the chains very well.  Sarah was, however, swinging quite high.  At one point she was so high she was horizontal in the air, and that’s when it happened.  Her grip wasn’t tight enough, she fell off the swing, doing a backward somersault in the air, and landed on her head and neck.  On the concrete.  Ouch!

She said it was the weirdest thing.  She remembered flipping off the swing and the pain as her head and neck hit the ground, and closing her eyes as she landed.  But when she opened her eyes again just a second later, a teacher was there leaning over her and asking if she was alright.  But the teacher hadn’t been anywhere near that part of the playground when she fell.  I asked Sophie what she saw, and she said that when Sarah fell to the ground, she ran to get the teacher on playground duty and told her what happened and that together they ran back to Sarah.  Yes, they went fast, but it still took at least a minute or longer for the teacher to reach Sarah.  I quickly deduced that she had actually lost conscious for a bit and that is why it seemed like she just blinked and the teacher was there.  Yikes!

However, she said she felt fine now, no headache, so I let her go back for afternoon school.  I even took her to violin lessons as usual.  Afterwards, I decided to ask my brother, our family doctor, if he thought I should take her to the doctor for an exam, or if it was so minor I could just go on about my business.  You see, in about an hour Sophie was going to be in her play for theater class and we had missed the last one because I wrote the time down wrong.  I for sure did not want to miss this one.  He advised me to take her to the doctor right away, but left the final decision up to me.

I admit it.  We went to the play first.  And Sophie did great!  Here are a few members of the adoring audience.  See, doesn’t Sarah look completely fine?  Sophie had a very short solo in the play and was very nervous about it.  But she did it!

http://youtu.be/h3yyAIH-XAU

I got to help out a bit for the play, as I was the prop technician. This meant I made the lollipops the kids are holding. Sophie helped me choose the paint colors and also helped with the assembly.  They were originally wrapped in clear cellophane and tied with a white bow, which helped their lollipop look immensely.  The kids took off the wrapping as part of their closing dance.  Then they each got to take one home as a souvenir.

After the play was over, the actors sat down at tables in the back and signed autographs for their adoring fans. There was quite a crowd gathered!  The boys waited patiently while their sister basked in her moment of glory.  It was very sweet.The only thing I don’t like about Sophie being in these plays is the glimpse into the future I get when she puts on all that makeup.Way too grown up looking for my heart. 🙂

When the festivities were mostly over, we packed up all the kids and went home.  While Chris put everyone else to bed, Sarah and I packed a bit of reading material and headed off to the ER.  After a bit of wait by Swiss standards, maybe 20 minutes?, they took her back to the exam room and started asking lots of questions.  They checked her out thoroughly and determined that she had, indeed, lost conscious, and had a mild concussion.  She would need to spend the night in the hospital for observation.

She also had to get an iv, which was kind of painful and made her cry.  But I reassured her that I would stay with her all night and she wouldn’t be alone and the tears stopped.  I don’t think it was the pain so much as nerves, poor thing.  We called Papa and told him the news.  He kindly brought us our pajamas and toiletries, along with clean clothes for the morning. By now she was all smiles, since we were going to have a little slumber party!  The hospital made sure we had a private room just for us, and got me a very nice cot to sleep in.  Sarah wasn’t allowed to eat anything due to her injury, but they asked me if I wanted to order breakfast.  I told them I would be fine, as we only had to stay until the first 24 hours after the accident had passed, and she fell during 10 o’clock recess. It was pretty funny trying to help her get her shirt off and her pajamas on with that giant iv attached to her arm, but we managed eventually.  Then we brushed our teeth and had a little chat in the dark until she fell asleep.  I was close enough that I could reach out and hold her hand whenever she wanted me to in the night.  Which I did often.  The nurse came in every hour to check on her, but there was never an indication of a brain bleed or anything else.

In the morning we were sent on our way with a list of rules for the next two weeks.  No tv, no computer, only a bit of reading, light schoolwork and no sports/running.  She liked the last two, as it meant she had to do very little homework and got to sit out on the weekly run around the lake.  But the rest was kind of tough, especially the reading restrictions. I eventually loosened up towards the end of the two weeks, and she has had no side effects whatsoever.

When I think about how close she came to being paralyzed (as she landed with her neck in a strange position), or having a serious brain injury, I get shivers.  I guess it ended up being a lucky day after all, even if a bit stressful.

Everybody had the Monday after Easter off, so we decided to work off some of our Easter treats and go for a walk around the local lake.  It was a beautiful day for  a walk, no rain, lots of cloud cover, and hardly any people.  I had brought some bread and the kids had a great time feeding the ducks and other water fowl. When we were close to the spot where Sarah got baptized Sophie found this cool shell lying on the path.  She picked it up as a cool memento of the day.  But Chris was worried it might have germs or something?  Because he made her throw it into the water.  She was very sad, and so were the rest of us.  So we voiced our displeasure until he relented and got it back out for us.

The kids were in a rare adventurous mood that I wanted to encourage.  So when Noah climbed up on the hill above us, I told him to follow us from up there.His trail blazing inspired Nick and Sophie as well.  And they followed him up and across, and then back down the hill and across the little stream to rejoin us.

This entire family of ducks was swimming in the reeds.  We could hear the babies, but couldn’t see them, they were too well hidden.  We made sure the parents got lots of bread, since they were probably worn out from taking care of their little ones. 🙂

In several spots we were overwhelmed by the smell of Bärlauch growing wild.  The literal translation is bear garlic, and it definitely has an odor true to its name.  Apparently, back when bears roamed around Europe, this plant was one of the first things they gorged on upon waking from their winter sleep.  Now we humans get to enjoy its awesomeness.

I must confess to never having cooked with it before, mainly because I have never been out in the forest when it was in season. So, I decided to pick a big handful and look up recipes when we got back. This patch was perfect, since it was so far off the beaten path.  You see, we decided to follow the boys back to the car and it ended up being quite the adventure.  It all started off fine.

We went up the stairs that eventually lead back to the elementary school.Only instead of turning right towards that trail, we headed left.  It was great, at first.  The trail was obviously not well used, but still wide and friendly looking.  Gradually it got smaller and smaller until we were stepping over and through large bushes and trying desperately not to whack Alexandra in the face with any stray branches.  At this point, the boys were nowhere in sight.  We knew they hadn’t turned back, because we would have seen them.  So the only thing to do was soldier on in the hopes of reuniting with them somewhere, preferably not in some farmer’s back yard. 🙂

After quite a while, the trees thinned out enough that we could make out the real trail down below us.  This was quite encouraging; at least we were headed in the right direction!  We kept on until we found a “path” down the hill, only it was very muddy and rather steep.  Especially for little ones.  And scared, chicken Mamas.

Chris went first so he could catch, or at least stop the forward momentum, of everyone else.  The girls helpfully discovered that if you ran down it kind of fast, it was actually better.  But telling my head was one thing.  Getting my feet to actually do it, was quite another.  I even considered just sliding down on my rear.  I mean, it worked that one time I went skiing and accidentally got on the wrong trail and ended up facing a huge patch of moguls.  (No, I have no shame.) But it was really, really, REALLY muddy, so I just half closed my eyes and went for it.  Whew!  I made it down safe and sound, as did all the little girls.Although Sophie did accidentally sit down at one point! 🙂

Now that we were safely back on the real path, there was time for more photo taking and lots of flower picking.  No, we still hadn’t seen or heard any sign of the boys yet.

When we got back to the car, we found the boys waiting for us.  They got a slight talking to, since the rule is to always stay in sight of us.   But we were relieved they weren’t lost in the woods.  They had apparently bypassed our muddy alpine slide, and just continued on through the fields up above the lake.

It was a wonderful outing, with a wonderful ending.  This is what I ended up making for lunch with the freshly picked Bärlauch.  Delicious!

And what better way to commemorate that glorious spring day than with snow!

After church we invited the Elders over for dinner.  It was a bit of a mini-Thanksgiving, since we had ham and turkey.  But still Easter-y with the Jello eggs and the deviled eggs. 🙂

We also gave them a fun little treat.

They were filled quite full, and I was worried they would collapse, but they held up until they stuffed them in their backpacks to take home. haha!  Since it was a holiday, they stayed a little longer and we played Settlers of Cattan.

The kids were sad when they had to leave.  It was a beautiful Easter, snow and all.