Musings of Amy

Since Sophie has recorder lessons on Monday nights, I contemplated having her stay home, so we could start our Halloween festivities earlier.  But instead, I just worked really hard to get most things ready before we left.  It worked out well, and I am pretty sure everyone had a great time.

I almost ditched our party plans completely when I heard how many Swiss kids from town were going trick-or-treating.  A few even called our kids to see if they wanted to meet up and go together as a group.  In the past couple of years, it has been very sparse, and I felt silly ringing doorbells of people who had no idea we would be coming.  But it seems that this year, and last year, were big for trick-or-treating again.  If the kids hear lots of talk about going next year, then I think I will drive them up there, and we can have our spooky food either for lunch, or afterwards.

As we were driving home from recorder lessons, and Sophie was listing off all the classmates that would be going trick-or-treating, I asked her if she wanted to go, fully prepared to let her.  Her answer?  “No, I think Halloween at home with just our family is more fun than going trick-or-treating.  Besides, I already got a bunch of candy at the carnival.”  So not the answer I was expecting.  We did have fun, though!

First, while I was putting the final touches on dinner, the kids painted their pumpkins we had bought earlier in the week. There just hadn’t been time to do it any sooner, but it ended up being the perfect activity for that night.  We may make it the new tradition!

This was Noah’s version of Professor Quirrell.  It has become his standard choice. 🙂

Sophie made hers into a girl that looked jsut like her, and the blue purse on the right side is her trick or treat bag.  So cute.

And the big surprise this year, was Nick deciding to actually carve his pumpkin! The kids have always had issues with the slime factor, hence why we paint instead.  But he decided to try it one more time.  We used the cookie scoop Tom and Kathy sent us for Christmas several years ago. It was the perfect thing to scrape out the gunk, without him having to touch it too much.  The other kids liked his results so much, they decided that next year they want to carve theirs as well. 🙂

In the afternoon, we had made and decorated some Halloween sugar cookies for our neighbors. We found the cutest sprinkles while we were in the States, and the kids were so excited to finally be able to use them.  Unfortunately, they melt if you put them on before baking the cookies, as we quickly discovered.  But the melted shapes made a nice sugar glaze that was actually quite tasty!

For dinner, I tried a new recipe that I saw on the internet; Mummy Pizza! It’s just regular pizza dough, with the normal toppings put on the inside.  It was a big hit, and everyone agreed that I should make it every year.

We also had our usual Bloody Fingers and Witch Knuckles as well.

And we washed it all down with some Poison as well.  (It’s known as hot spiced cider in some circles.) 

  Hooray for Halloween!  (I really, really want a cauldron to put the poison in for next year.  Wouldn’t that be awesome?)

We told our usual Halloween story, complete with cool sound effects and then there was just time for dessert before bed.  How does a little dirt with worms sound? It was the best dirt we have ever tasted. 🙂

The fun about doing this, is to see how strong the power of suggestion is.  I didn’t think the food looked that particularly gross or even much like the funny names I gave it.  But the kids totally got into it, and at one point Alexandra even asked me to stop calling it that, or else she couldn’t eat it. heehee

This year, the core group of ladies who always run/organize the Halloween Carnival decided to do things a little differently.  Rather than have one person in charge of the whole shebang, we would divide up the responsibilities.  That way no one would get burnt out, and we would still want to do it again the next year.  I volunteered to organize the booths; who would run them, what they would be doing, etc.  It wasn’t a hard thing, but it was time consuming.  It took several emails and a few phone calls to round up enough people to have a good variety of games for the kids to play.  I am so thankful for the people who spontaneously offered to run booths. There were even a few super awesome folks who have no children to bring to the fun, who were still willing to sacrifice an entire Saturday afternoon and help out.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

No matter how hard I try to be super organized, the morning of the carnival is always a mad race to finish up all the little things I wanted/needed to bring to the party.  This year was no exception.  Fortunately, the kids are old enough to give me real help, so they took over decorating the mini-cupcakes for the cake walk.  We made little pumpkins and spiders.  They were so cute! But I made way, way, way too many, and we ended up tossing about half of them.  We were all too sugared out from candy to eat them afterwards, and not many were eaten at the actual party.  Oh well, they were still fun decorations.

Part of the extra stress came when Sophie reminded me about a week before the party that she wanted to be Alice in Wonderland this year.  I was convinced that we had a blue Cinderella dress-up dress in the box, so I would only need to make a little white apron and she would be good to go.  No, no Cinderella dress to be found anywhere.  So I ended up having to sew one, which took about 2 solid days, and put my whole schedule seriously behind.  But it turned out so cute, and she can wear it next year, as well as save it for Alexandra when she gets older, so I think it was worth it. I mean, look at her! And yes, the bottle in her pocket does have a tag that says “drink me” on it. 🙂

Everyone else wanted to go as something they had already been in previous years, which really saved my sanity.  Noah even let Kaela put on his vampire makeup, which helped people to know what he was a lot better than last year.

Sarah wore the costume I made her last year, and Alex wore one from several years ago, that I think we got for Sarah when she was small. Man, kids in Halloween costumes are just so adorable!

And just the right amount of scary. 🙂

Nick, Chris and I all wore our matching Jack-o-Lantern shirts and called it good.  He didn’t play any of the games, at 13 he was too old for that, but he gladly ran one of the booths for me.  I had a lot of fun decorating the jar for this one.  And I think next year, I will do three smaller jars, filled with different things, so that more people have a chance to win.

Here is my cake walk, that almost no one visited, and those who did, often didn’t want my cupcakes.  Hmmph!    I think next year, I will just scratch it completely and do something totally different.  No idea what, but I have a year to think about it.

The kids got quite a bit of candy this year, and were super happy with the carnival.  Next year we will be in our own building, which will be really nice, even if it will be a bit smaller.  We can have it any day we want, not a week early like this year because the building was already scheduled.  We can easily go over the night before and do most of the setting up and decorating, so that we don’t have to worry about it the day of the actual party, and it will be easier to get all our non-member friends to come because it will be so close and easy to find, not in the middle of Zurich!  Yes, I am already making big plans. 🙂

After cleaning up, which went surprisingly quickly thanks to everyone pitching in and helping out , Sarah grabbed the camera and snapped a few of her famous quirky photos.  But this one was rather pretty, and deserves to be immortalized on the blog. 

Chris programmed the GPS to avoid the freeway, and take us south through the Berner Oberland.  It took us about 3.5 hours to get home, but it was totally worth it.  We had brought movies for the kids to watch, but we didn’t turn them on until it got dark and we were almost home.  Everyone was too busy staring out the windows at the gorgeousness instead.  This is just a small sampling of the beauty we saw.

  I so want to live in one of these chalets.  We passed little villages made up entirely of these things.  The wood contrasted so beautifully with the green meadows. sigh

Can you imagine being able to look out your window and see that waterfall every.single.day?  And look, they already have a dusting of snow on their roof.

Looks like a tourism ad, doesn’t it?  I have never seen so many chalets so close together before. I was kind of thinking it was just a stereotype other people had of Switzerland, but no, they really are the house of choice in certain areas of the country.  I may like them even better than the Appenzeller house/barns.

Christmas trees galore, with a beautiful dusting of snow.  We had seen the snow up on the tops of the mountains when we were down in the valley, and now we were up with it!

We kept having to yawn and drink water to pop our ears.  We were at quite a high altitude.

Chris is pretty sure that’s a glacier over there.  This drive made me really excited to take some hiking trips with the kids in the spring.  Alexandra should be old enough to walk on her own now, at least most of the way.  And there are so many trails where you can take a gondola up and then walk down.  We really need to take better advantage of the great opportunities we have here.

At one point, Alexandra was asking when she could watch her movie.  And Sophie piped up with, “Nature is better than a movie!”  Well said, Sophie.  Well said!

We left the chocolate factory and drove through a couple small, very picturesque towns to arrive at the Gruyere cheese factory.

I really liked the set up of this factory tour.  There were individual headsets to carry around, and you could dial in the number of whatever station you were at, and hear the explanation in your choice of several different languages.  We arrived just as they were cleaning out the large tubs where they actually make the cheese.  But we have seen the milk get stirred and stirred and stirred plenty of times at the Appenzell cheese factory before, so we didn’t feel like we had missed much.  And the guy hosing everything down is strangely fascinating, as well.

Look at all those giant rounds of cheese!  With the admission price, they give you “free” samples of cheese to nibble while you learn all about how it’s made, and the history of Gruyere cheese.  They came in handy, since we were too full of chocolate to stop for lunch, but were starting to get hungry before we were through here. It’s always funny to me what strange things fascinate our family about these kinds of places.  For example, someone spotted this cheese flipping robot, and we were all huddled in front of the glass for a good ten minutes watching it do its thing.

Naturally, we had to spend some time in the gift shop, but we didn’t see anything we absolutely had to have.  Or rather, that I was willing to pay for. 😉  But there was this cheesy photo op we took advantage of.

This was the view just from the parking lot.  And I thought our corner of Switzerland was beautiful.

We had just had fondue the day before, so no one felt like eating at the restaurant attached to the museum.  Instead, we drove to a local Migros and grabbed some picnic items.  It was hilarious to shop in a store that carried products we all recognized, but in a language most of us didn’t speak.  The fun of living in a country that has 4 official languages. 🙂

We literally just pulled off the main road onto a small farming path to eat our lunch.  Our companions didn’t seem to mind our presence.  The girls even let us pet them.  They are so soft! While we ate, we just slowly turned in circles to soak up as much of the view as possible.    That is Gruyere castle in the distance.  We decided to save that for another trip, and took the scenic way home instead.

On Friday, at the end of vacation, Papa took off from work and we went on a family excursion. We packed 3 adventures into one day, so I will divide them into 3 parts, so it isn’t too long of a read for one sitting.   We had heard from friends that the Caillier chocolate factory near Gruyere was a great place for kids, so we started our outing there.  We knew it was going to be a great day when we saw this in the parking lot.

Alexandra was in heaven, and the rest of us were just laughing our heads off.  I mean, honestly, how could you not?

Even though it was a school holiday, being fall time, there were no crowds to deal with at all.  We were able to start our tour almost immediately, and even though we were a small group, they still did it entirely in English for us.  So nice.  The tour consists of several different rooms explaining the history of chocolate.  When it is time for you to leave one room and go to another, an automated door opens up in a wall.  It’s a very well designed system, but the hidden doors suddenly opening did give our kids a shock.

That, mixed with the creepy music and strange flashing lights made them very freaked out in the first room.  Guess we won’t plan on visiting any Central American jungles soon. 🙂  Look at some of their faces!I do want one of these plants, though.

These paintings were pretty funny, the eyes moved around. Finally we got to more modern times.  Look at all these cool, old chocolate bunny molds.  I wish they had some of these for sale in the store.  And of course, they have to explain how chocolate really IS healthy. 🙂

Something I thought was really cool about this particular factory, is that all the milk is brought in daily by the local farmers.  They say that good fresh milk is one of the reasons why their chocolate tastes so good. 🙂 They don’t actually show the room, or where it is in the factory, but there is a screen showing you the live feed from the security camera located in the room where they secret recipes are stored in a safe.  Very cool.

They don’t let you into the actual factory due to health issues, although according to an old film we watched in the theater, they certainly used to!  But to give you a glimpse into what goes on behind the scenes, they built a working machine inside the museum so you can observe every step of the chocolate making process.

The best part is that they end up on a big tray for you to stuff your mouth full with!  Mmhhhhmmmmm!  Fresh chocolate is soooo good. Poor Sophie couldn’t have any of these chocolates.  They were covered in hazelnuts, and she is allergic, just like Papa. 🙁  But wait, there is a whole room around the corner just filled with chocolatey goodness you can eat!  The official tasting room, where there are absolutely no limits, none, zilch on how much you can stuff into your mouth.  Awesome!

Sarah and Noah were determined to eat one of every different kind.  That was quite a daunting goal.  Look at all that delicious brown goodness waiting to be consumed.  It all tasted so good.  Until, suddenly, it didn’t anymore.  Turns out that after about 6 pieces each, we were done.  Noah and Sarah included. We hung out in the theater for a while, and then strolled through the shop.  I was kind of bummed they didn’t have any seconds for sale, like at the Lindt factory, but the kids still had fun picking out postcards.  Some were even mailed to friends. 🙂  And then we went outside to work off all that chocolate before we got in the car to head to the second part of our adventure.

The kids apparently had forgotten their chocolate stomach aches, because they all thought a giant cup of hot chocolate sounded delicious.  I like mine with extra Noah. 🙂If we ever get any visitors (more hints, hints) we will definitely take you here.  It was a fun, delicious experience.

For our two week vacation in October, we all enjoyed some much needed down time.  Nick, especially, had been confronted on a daily basis with challenges and stresses since the beginning of school;  new kids, new teachers, new building, new school route, not coming home for lunch, and less sleep.  It was a relief to have everyone home and just be able to relax and surround ourselves with the known and comforting.

We played lots of games, especially Nick’s new birthday game that finally arrived just before vacation: Settlers of Cattan, Cities and Knights.  In fact, we played it a total of three times, and had a lot of fun each time.  We also went to the Transportation Museum in Luzern twice, and visited Aunt Ursula as well.

Our first trip to the Trans. Mus. was a quick one.  We had plans to meet up with Aunt Ursula later, and since we were also coming the next week with friends, we just visited the highlights.  The most important activity was making our own movie. The kids love playing with the green screen.  And since it wasn’t a very busy day, they had lots of time to goof around and make several different little recordings.  Then we patiently waited for them to be uploaded to the big screens showing throughout the entrance hall of the museum.It’s Noah the floating head!  And his sister, Sarah!And there is their other sister’s head poking up from the back.  It is pretty cool to see yourself on the screens like that.  I know, because I make a surprise appearance in the back of their movie occasionally. 🙂

When we had our fill of being famous we moved on to the Playmobil area.  Well, really, it’s about rescue helicopters.  But they have a station where you can reenact what the rescuers do with playmobil figures and vehicles.  The kids love it, even though we have been here countless times!

Over in the space section, we spun around the merry-go-round until we were all sick.  Then we played house in the space-age inspired furniture.  We think it looked very Dr. Seuss-y.  I may get this one blown up for my wall.  A good picture of all 5 kids is a rare thing indeed.

We went outside and played in the construction zone while we picnicked next.  It was a great day, weather-wise, and I let the kids play for quite a while.  When they had had their fill of tossing rocks and shoveling gravel, we packed it up and headed over to Aunt Ursula’s house.  She has lived in Luzern for almost 2 years, but she has only visited us at our house before.  So we were excited to see where she lives.

It was a gorgeous apartment, with a fantastic view of the lake.  And she had giant plates full of delicious goodies for us to snack on, along with about 6 different drinks.  The kids were in heaven.  My favorite thing was the book she pulled out for me to look at.   It seems that my mother-in-law spent a considerable amount of time writing down all the memories and history of her parents and her childhood.  There were tons of photos as well.  I didn’t have time to read everything, but what I did see was fascinating.  I hope we get our own copy someday. (hint hint)

When the kids were just about bouncing off the furniture, Ursula wisely suggested taking a walk outside with the dog. 🙂  We went up through a really nice forest path, with a river right next to it, up to a monastery on the hill.  It was a great walk, and the kids had a lot of fun finding treasures and crazy looking trees the whole way.  They also loved observing Chicco with his stuffed animal.  He was just like a little baby carrying it around everywhere, then setting it down to examine something else interesting in his path.  Then he would pick it back up again and carry on.  Occasionally, he would get distracted and walk off without it, but either he or Ursula would notice it before long and go back to retrieve it. They were really worried he would forget it completely and kept an eagle eye out for it the entire way.

By the time we made it back to the house, it was time to head home.  But we had a wonderful visit and hope we can come back during Christmas vacation.

One Wednesday afternoon, the kids were a bit bored, so I sent them outside with the sidewalk chalks and told them to find something to do.  Chris and I read an article once that said it’s good for children to be given the opportunity to be bored.  Only then does their imagination really kick in!  And it definitely worked on this day.

  They drew a whole mini-neighborhood down in the Hof.  It took them so long, the rain was starting to fall by the time they were finished.  But that didn’t stop them from driving on their cool chalk streets anyway.  There were even parking spots, just the right size for their bikes.  Good job, guys!

The First, Second, and Third grade classes went on a group hike in early October.  Fortunately, the day of the hike was gorgeous weather, so there was no need to postpone it until later.  We knew that they were going to be exploring Müliberg, which is the mountain we live on, and so we kept an eye out for them out in the forest. We weren’t disappointed.

I even saw Sophie and was able to wave to her.  After a couple of minutes, I heard them getting louder and louder and louder.  They were coming right to our backyard!  So fun!  Alexandra and I went downstairs to say hello to all the teachers and of course, give Sophie and Noah hugs.  Our neighbor who is on the school board had prepared drinks and snacks for all the kids, in case their own Znüni’s weren’t generous enough. 🙂

The kids stayed out there for a good 20 minutes or so.  We didn’t stay with them the whole time.  It would have interfered with the friend dynamic too much.  But we totally spied on them from the balcony. Hi, Noah!

They got to spend the whole day outside and ate lunch over a campfire.  They finally came back in the afternoon, smelling of smoke and full of smiles.  It was definitely a fun outing for the kids!

This year the home for disabled persons in our town had it’s annual fundraising party on the same weekend as Nick’s birthday.  We always have a good time there, so it was rather serendipitous, especially since he is now at the age where he doesn’t want a party with friends.   It was gorgeous weather, and we all enjoyed the walk through the forest to get there. Isn’t it a gorgeous setting?

We started off the festivities with several rides on the slide.

When we had had our fill of sliding, it was off to the bounce house.  Since there was no one else there, all the kids got to go on it together.

The human powered carousel is always a big hit.  This year, Nick took a turn pedaling so the other kids could spin in circles. 🙂

When he and the main operator guy were too dizzy and tired to pedal any longer, I pedaled it all by myself for the kids.  It is very disorienting to be pedaling a bike, that doesn’t move, but the centrifugal force generated kept you leaning hard to the side, like you were about to fall off.  I finally just had to close my eyes and pedal, so I wouldn’t throw up!

Sophie and Noah were the only ones who decided to go on the pony rides, though.  When we actually got close to them, Noah almost chickened out.  But there was another kid, even smaller, who was already climbing on a pony.  When I pointed him out to Noah, and told him that if that kid could do it, so could Noah, he decided to try.  I was happy that he wasn’t letting his fear of the unknown ruin his chance for fun.

They both loved it, even though Noah’s pony was very last because it had to stop and relieve itself just after they had started walking. 🙂

We also went down into the old coal mine for a tour, and watched the whole movie on the history of the mine.  Then we needed to leave so Sophie could get to her friend Bell’s birthday party on time.  She came back home in time to have dinner and cake with Nick.

Isn’t he a handsome teenager?  I tried to lit sparklers for his cake, but by the time I got the second one lit, the first one was almost out!  Should have used a candle and lit them all at the same time.  Oh well. Nick still loves the same birthday cake I made for him when he turned one!  Oatmeal cake, no frosting.  It is pretty tasty stuff!

We had ordered him a game online, but it didn’t arrive in time for his birthday.  Still there was his favorite, kind of expensive cheese to savor all to himself. Monk Cheese!  Tete de Moine!

Then, copying what was done at Sarah’s party, we wrapped the coupon for the game in several layers of wrapping paper. bwahahaha! There weren’t any movies he wanted to see, or that were appropriate for him, playing in the theater.  So he stayed up with us and watched one of Chris and I’s all time favorites for the first time; The Mummy, starring Brandon Frasier.  It was just the right amount of scary, creepy, adventurous and funny for him.  Plus it had a dash of Egyptian history in it, which he always loves.

Happy Birthday, Nick.  You are one terrific teenager!

We bought the whole family BYU gear while we were in the States.  Thanks to the fact that they are now independent, we can actually watch some of their games on ESPN, albeit a few days later. 🙂  So, whenever a game is on, we all don our shirts and root for the home team.  “Rise and shine, the Cougars are out!  They’re on their way to fame and glory!”