We celebrated our first Easter in our new home.  We had the Dhukam family in town from Dublin, Ohio and their daughter Nika enjoyed playing with Greer and Emersen.  The girls had an Easter egg hunt and went to church where there was an Easter celebration, complete with jumphouse and sno cones! 

I took Greer for her ski trip to Big Bear Lake, California. It was a two hour drive but Greer talked about skiing the entire trip. Emersen and Mom decided to stay home so it was only Greer and Dad. We skied from 9:00 am until 1:30. Greer spent a half hour on the magic carpet and then she was ready to take off to the ski lift. She loved the ride up and skied down holding on to my legs. She was very upset that she was not able to use “those sticks” that everyone else had but I assured her that she could use ski poles when she got bigger. Finally, after lunch we inadvertently got on the lift to the top of Big Bear and spent the rest of our afternoon navigating down. We had a great time. Greer loved that we stayed overnight in a hotel after skiing and got to watch movies in bed. Greer selected dinner at IHOP and we left for home the next morning. She is already talking about how she is going to teach Emersen and the new baby how to ski next year.

Although her sister is lukewarm about the zoo animals, Emersen has extended her love of dogs to the wild animals at the zoo.  Here she is enjoying her first post-cast visit to the Columbus Zoo.  She wanted to stay and watch the manatees and stingrays all day but Greer was getting bored (read:hungry).   

It may be hard to tell, but that is me squeezed into a wetsuit in Grand Cayman.  I know, I know, thank goodness everything is a little hazy underwater.  Good pictures of stingrays, green moray eels and many fish on flickr.com under vacations collections. 

Hard to say whether the girls are happy to be back in the U.S. isn’t it?  We know for sure that they missed their beds and were glad to be done with the transatlantic flight as were both mom and dad. We were back home for several weeks in December for the holidays before returning to Switzerland to pack up the house and for Virginia to finish some work in Rolle.  Virginia and I went to NYC for the weekend for a legal seminar sans children.  We got to see Wicked and do alot of window shopping.  We also were lucky enough to have planned a week beach getaway in Grand Cayman the week before Christmas.  Much thanks to both sets of Grandparents for helping out with the girls over the holidays.  We were finally able to get everything packed up from the house in Trelex, although somehow we only brought over 500 pounds of goods and had nearly 900 pounds in return.  My wife had nothing to do with this… I am not complaining though, I was able to ski at Chamonix, Crans-Montana and Port du Soleil before returning to the U.S.  The Narbel family hosted me at their chalet in Crans-Montana for two days of skiing and authentic fondue with their lovely family (Thanks Nicolas, Cammie, Oscar, Alice and Mark).  It was truly a great experience and we miss all of our friends in Switzerland. 

 Now that we are back in the states, the girls are getting accustomed to their “ohio house.”  Greer is very pleased that not much has changed in Dublin and that the mall still has all of her favorites, including Pottery Barn Kids and soft pretzels.   Greer has already enjoyed having some play-dates with her English speaking friends.  Emersen is just happy to have four sets of carpeted stairs to climb.  The granite ones in Trelex just weren’t much fun to crawl up. 

 Anyway, the blogs certainly won’t be as “sexy” as it was with all of the European encounters, but I will try and post some pictures of the girls playing together. 

We finally were able to make it to a Christmas Market here in Switzerland.  Because we were all sick, we decided not to make the drive to Munich.  Instead, we drove to the other side of the lake and went to a market in Montreux.  For any Queen afficionados, Montreux was home to Freddy Mercury, hence the large statue.  The girls got to see sled dogs, eat plenty of Christmas candy and we all (read: Mom and Dad) got our fill of spiced wine and rosti.  Mom even took Greer and Emersen up in the Ferris Wheel, and were able to enjoy the beautiful views of Lake Geneva and the ski slopes above the lake. 

Well today it started to snow.  Just yesterday, Ginny and I were noticing how great it was that the leaves were still up and bright yellow.  The grape vines in the fields were bright yellow and red and the only snow visible was still up high in Chamonix on Mount Blanc.  I really thought we would continue fall well into December.  This morning, in the middle of Greer’s pleading to go to the park and “exercise” ,as she likes to call it when we run around on the soccer field, the flurries started to come down hard.  I had already noticed the snow in the hills, but didn’t think that we would see any snow on the ground this early.  Not surprisingly, snow and the arrival of winter seems to coincide with general feeling of ennui that is lingering at Rue De L’eglise 2b.  The suisse take great pride in the many outdoor activities to do here when the weather is good.  Indeed, when the weather was nice, we always could find a new park or field to walk in.  Unfortunately, taking two bundled up kids in the stroller to the park seems to have lost its luster for them and me.   Once the ski areas are open, we will spend our weekends going there and teaching Greer to ski.  But for now, we are in that netherworld of seasons and we have to occupy ourselves.  When mom is around, she always thinks of something fun to do.  Everyone knows, I was not born with this same ability as my wife.  Instead, we  spend our time setting up and taking down the Brio train, emptying and filling the box of building blocks, coloring on each and every page of every coloring book (for the second time…) and building a fort out of any thing that is not a fixture in the house.  Although Ginny would probably say it is me that is ready to go back to the United States, I think Greer shares my sentiments about Switzerland in the late fall/early winter.   

Greer usually gets into sort of a daze in the afternoon.  She will go the sliding glass door and whisper to herself.  If I quietly walk behind her, I can hear her saying to herself  “Ohio home, my basement… lots of toys.” 

With the many roadtrips we have taken in Europe, we have been lucky to have a GPS system that speaks to us in a charming English accent.  She will get us through the most difficult interchange in Milan, or show us the small alleyway that leads to the town center in Montreux.  Up until recently, her cheery voice telling me to “turn around when possible” didn’t seem to bother me much.  However, Greer has taken to delivering to me her own set of directions when we drive somewhere.  When she gets settled into her carseat and is comfortable, she will start telling me the directions to our destination.  She will say “turn right…. turn left….. go straight away.”  She goes on like that until I can divert her attention.  Of course, that usually requires me playing the “wheels on the bus” which can also get rather old after the tenth time.  I am not sure which is less soothing….