Short Random Ramblings

So, you know how some people sing in the shower? The other night, Aidan was yodeling in the shower! Yep. I guess that makes him officially Swiss!

Yesterday, I had a babysitter come so I could get into the city and away from my lovely kids for a few hours. I decided to check out the Frauenbad, which is a women-only beach club along the river in the middle of the city. You can see part of it from the other side of the river, but part is totally closed in. I've heard it's a nice place to relax and not have to worry about kids or men. It was really nice and totally relaxing. I had lunch and layed out for a little while. The only thing that I didn't love was that on the inside part (which doesn't have a roof) there were a bunch of women laying out topless. It's Europe, and that's normal, I guess, but all the topless women were at least 60! Who says young people are the wild ones???

While Lainey was with the sitter, they watched High School Musical 3. I don't remember this part of the movie, but this had to have come from it. Lainey says she made it up and it's not from the movie, but how many 3-year-olds come up with this by themselves??:
She walks through the kitchen, stops, turns around and puts her hand out like a stop sign and says "Stop! Everybody freestyle now!" and starts dancing. Seriously. Too funny.

Aidan is a lego maniac! Since going to LegoLand, all he does is build Legos. He got a new set from his friends James and Lucy and is up at 7 am working on it. We are getting quite an assortment of Lego masterpieces built up in our "museum".

Aidan Lost Another Tooth!

Today, Aidan lost his second tooth! It wasn't really wobbly yet, but when he was brushing his teeth before bed tonight, he started screaming "I'm bleeding, I'm bleeding!" and sobbing like crazy. I went to check on him and his tooth was still hanging on, but was bleeding like mad. He couldn't wiggle it enough to get it out, so I had to do something. I took a wash cloth and rubbed it real hard and fast and it popped out! Aidan said it really hurt, though, and I felt bad but it wouldn't stop bleeding and was literally hanging by a thread! It kept bleeding for over 15 mins! Aidan was worried something was wrong and thought he might run out of blood :0).

I finally got him calmed down and into bed with his "Tooth Beary" tucked under his pillow with his baby tooth in the pouch. Now he's got a big gap in the middle of the bottom of his mouth. His first new tooth is just popping up. He's so excited! You can kind of see the hole where his tooth was, this pic is blurry, but the best I could get.

The redder spot is his latest hole.

Going to bed with Tooth Beary!

LegoLand Deutschland

On Friday, I took the kids to LegoLand in Germany with my friend, Becky, and her kids, Joe and Ben. They are also here with GM from the Detroit area and our kids have become good friends. Ben and Aidan are in the same grade, and Joe has become Aidan's surrogate big brother and all-around idol. Unfortunately, they are the first of the GMers to be sent home. They are heading back to D-town Sept. 1st. We've been doing a lot together this summer as we are about the only Americans/Brits who are in Switzerland this summer (and because we have lots of fun together!)

Another GM family was nice enough to lend us their car so we could all drive together. It's 3 hours each way, and the idea of making that trip alone with the kids was more than Becky and I could stomach. So we set off early in the morning on the Autobahn with 4 super-excited kids. The first fun "ride" was driving 160km/hr to get there!

LegoLand is geared for younger kids and those obsessed with Legos, so a perfect fit for our kids! They had lots of rides, none too scary, and more Lego displays than you can imagine. I couldn't believe how realistic they could make things look out of Legos! Here are a ton of pics with captions since a picture is worth a thousand words: At the entrance-most of this is made of Legos!

Lego "miniland"-They had recreated Venice, Munich, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Luzern and more out of Legos! Amazingly realistic!

This football/soccer arena is made completely out of legos!

This is a Lego version of Schloss Neuschwanstein!

Lainey got her driver's licence at the Kinder Fahrschule (kids' driving school). She made sure to pick an Opel car for her Daddy!

Joe, Aidan, a Lego guy, and Ben

I LOVED the signs here! This is obviously for the bathrooms!

No pregnant women on this ride-look at the little Lego baby in the mom's tummy!

Lady Lainey fighting dragons!

This jousting ride was a HUGE hit with the kids. The horses rocked back and forth and went on a circular track. Even Joe, who's almost 9, loved it! They rode it 3 times!

Aidan and Ben going for a cruise

Aidan, as a shark's lunch

The plumber carrying a toilet out of a bathroom was super funny to the kids!

Leaving the park after a great day!

The park was pretty empty, which made it great for us! Friday was the last day of school for most Swiss and German kids so there weren't even field trip groups there. The only bad thing about the day is that it was COLD! Seriously, who would expect to have to wear jeans, sweatshirts and jackets on July 10th? Also, it POURED for about 15 minutes during the day-just as Becky got on a ride with the boys. They were soaked to the skin when they got off and we spent an hour at the hand driers in the bathrooms trying to warm them all up and dry their clothes. By the time we left, at 7pm, it finally warmed up to about 60 degrees and was sunny. I'm not sure I believe in Global Warming!

Jason Conquers Mt. Pilatus!

Dan, Paul, and Jason at the start of the hike... Sideways, but you can get the idea of how steep and rocky the climb was.

They had to hang on to these cables to make it across this part!

Ready to start the hike! (from a second batch of pics, sorry they are out of order!)Jason and Paul bracing for a big climb

A bit foggy, huh?

Notice the extra layers going on? Brr!

Rob, Paul, and Jason at the summit! Finally, a situation where GM is on top!

Today, Jason and his friends Rob, Paul, and Dan hiked all 7,000ft of Mt. Pilatus, one of Switzerland's most famous mountains near Luzern. To see a map of where they hiked, check out http://www.pilatus.ch/. You can see exactly how high it is! It has snow, or at least almost freezing temps at the top all year round!

The guys started hiking about 8am and reached the summit around 1pm. It was a pretty steep climb I'm told (because of course I'm not crazy enough to attempt such a thing!), and at some points they had to crawl up a rock on all fours!

The kids and I, along with other families, were supposed to go up to Pilatus to meet the guys at the end of their hike, but the weather wasn't great today (since when is 60 degrees acceptable in mid-July??) and very cold and cloudy up on the mountain. Plus, after our trip to LegoLand (post about that coming soon!) yesterday, the kids were pretty whipped. So, we missed our chance to take the gondola and cogwheel train and bobsled rides, but can go again sometime since Luzern is only 45 mins away.

Later this evening, we had a victory dinner for the guys at our friends Becky and Paul's house. Now it's barely 10pm, Jason is passed out in bed, probably ready to sleep until noon recuperating from the massive hike. I wonder how sore he'll be tomorrow!?!

Good climb, good food, good friends...good day!

More Apartment Issues!

Mold on my winter coat

Mold covering my Britex car seat

So, you may remember back in August I wrote about our flooding storage room and broken refrigerator or later in the fall, our torn up bathroom. Well, there's more! The other day, I went to get something out of the storage room and moved the carseat that has been sitting there since we put Lainey in a booster, but is still in really good shape. Not any more! There is a TON of MOLD growing on it! Also, I found mold on my favorite winter coat and on suitcases! I AM FED UP!

I just sent a really nasty email to the management company and our relocation company. The management company has never even apolgized or acknowledged our issues. We have lost quite a few things to damage that should not have happened! What good is a storage room if I can't put anything in it?!? I am now very worried about our TV that is down there, up off the floor, but still could be getting damp if it's bad enough to grow mold!

I better hear back from the management company ASAP! I am FED UP!

Such Sweeties!

This is a picture I snapped driving home one day. Lainey was tired and was going to take a nap in the car, but asked Aidan to hold her hand. He did, the whole way home while she slept! Then when we got home, he let her sit on his lap, got her "be-be" blanket and some books and read to her while I made dinner. They can be so sweet to each other sometimes!

(then other times they scream at each other and pinch each other-but that's another story!)

Technorama!

On Tuesday, I took the kids to a science museum in Winterthur, about 30 mins from Zurich. It was like the Hands-On Museum in Ann Arbor on steroids! It was huge and more for older kids (many of the exhibits were over my head!) but the kids and I had a blast! We were there for 4 1/2 hours and didn't get to see everything. The kids loved testing out the exhibits, even if they didn't understand the science they were supposed to be learning. Best of all, there was a huge model train exhibit in the basement. We spent at least a half hour just looking at them. We even took a special laboratory class. The kids and I did experiments on sinking/floating, acids/bases, and oxidation. Tough concepts, but made totally on level for little kids (and science-deficient adults). They even let us take home some test tubes and ph filter paper so we can do more exploring at home! Fun stuff! Watching the model trains

Lainey, getting ready to examine the peel of a lemon

Aidan doing some experimenting

Looking in microscopes at pond water-lots of creepy crawlies in there!

Lainey with a light exhibit.