First and Last Day of School

Happy Father's Day

Below is Colin's gift to Craig that he made in school, a handkerchief. In case you can't make out what it is, it is a picture of Craig floating on a leaf in water. Behind him is a sausage. We are so proud.

In Training

Colin's Finger

We had to make another visit to the emergency room the other day, and this time it was for Colin.

Craig accidently shut Colin's finger in the bathroom room and it was bleeding so bad, it was hard to see what was going on. Colin was very lucky because X-rays determined that there were no broken bones and he did not require any stitches. They wrapped it up nice and tight and sent us home. I keep him home from school the next day so he could take it easy.

Road Trip: Days 11 - 14 Swiss Alps

Saturday, we woke up and made the 8 hour drive to the Swiss Alps. Switzerland was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. There were waterfalls everywhere and even Chloe was pointing them out by the time we went home.

We stayed in a small town named Lauterbrunnen and our hotel that had a great view of Staubbach Falls. In the field underneath the falls were a herd of sheep with bells arounds their necks. Being there made you ask yourself - "where the hell am I?".

The following day, we walked to the train station to make the 2 1/2 hour ride up Jungfrau mountain. The train brings you to the highest train station in Europe at 11,333 feet. When we left Lauterbrunnen it was 73 degrees and it was 37 degrees when we got off the train. The mountain top was snowy and desolate except for about a thousand tourists. I really enjoyed watching Craig tell off a little old Indian woman in a traditional sari as they walked through a revolving door together. A portion of the tourist area was carved into a glacier that we walked through. It was very cool.

The next day, we took a cable car from the valley to the very small town of Gimmelwald where we bought landjager and cheese. Unfortunatley, this was where Chloe had a close encounter with a cat that left her looking like someone punched her in the eye for the rest of the day. From Gimmelwald, we took another cable car to Murren at about 5413 feet. We had some lunch before taking another cable car to the top of Schilthorn mountain at 9744 feet. It was a little scary but totally worth it. This is where the James Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service was filmed. There was hardly anyone there - they were all at Jungfrau.

When we got down from Schilthorn, we went to see Trummelbach Falls. The Falls drains 3 of the surrounding mountians, including Jungfrau. The water drains at a rate of over 5,200 gallons per second. It is really loud and intense and Colin was scaried.

We really loved Switzerland and look forward to going back. The long drive home was surprisingly uneventful considering our DVD player was broken. We covered about 2000 miles!

Road Trip: Days 4 - 10 Tuscany

We packed up early on Saturday to make the long drive to Italy - almost 400 miles. We met our friends from Belgium, Paul, Rachael and their 2 sons. We stayed at Le Torri, a 700 year old villa owned and run by a family. They make their own wine, olive oil, lemoncello and pesto, among other things. Everyweek, they host an arrival dinner for all of the guests on Saturday night. All of the food is cooked by the host's mother and it was amazing!

Sunday, we visited San Gimignano and Volterra, both walled towns. Monday we saw Siena, which was probably our favorite. The kids spent hours in the main square while we took turns with Paul and Rachael seeing things without the kids. I think Colin chased every pigeon in town. We visited Florence on Tuesday. I really enjoyed seeing David and Craig thought the views from the Duomo were great. We visited Lucca on Wednesday, but it poured almost the whole time we were there. We decided that we would have dinner at the villa that night. Just like Saturday, all of the food was handmade and outstanding. They even prepared special meals for the kids including individual plates of bruscetta, prosciutto wrapped breadsticks and asparagus toasts. The kids weren't even sure what to do with it. Thursday we drove to Pisa and climbed the tower. I don't know how many times I have seen pictures of it, but it was leaning more than I could have ever imagined. I really thought that I could have slid out the side of the tower when I was close to the top.

Chloe and I were glad to leave Tuscany because we were both getting car sick while driving on the winding roads. By the time we had left Italy for Switzerland, we had already driven over 1,500 miles.

Road Trip: Days 1 - 3 Bavaria

We started our road trip in Bavaria, staying on the same farm we were at the week before Christmas. We had plans to take a cable car to the top of a mountian and to ride the Luge, but the weather did not cooperate.
Instead, we visited a few towns including Oberammergau. Oberammergau hosts the Passion Play, telling the story of Jesus. They have performed the play every ten years since the 1600's. We were in Oberammergau the day before the play opened and were surprised at the number of visitors. It is a small village and we were not even allowed to drive into town, but were directed to a parking lot and had to take a bus into town. By the time we left, there was a line of cars a half mile long to get into town.
We went back to a local German restuarant we had eaten at in December. It made me so happy that Colin choose the schnitzel and spatzle over the chicken nuggets and fries! Even though our trip to Bavaria was low key, if was worth the trip to find some of our toys under the couch we had left there in December!