back to life.

So here I am again. Is anyone reading this other than Amy? I do admit I've missed the story telling aspect of this medium. Despite Blogger no longer letting me upload my entire blog to print as a book, I used the posts I had written two years ago to compile (and remember) our 2017 family book. (Yep, that's where we are these days, 2017.) For those two reasons, I think I will make a solid B level effort to keep this up--and hopefully when I'm making our 2019 book in the year 2045, I will be able to use these posts to remember what life was like today.

 I'm also thinking I will make this private so I can be more honest in my writing and lazy in my photo reviewing but is that even necessary? Does anyone even still read blogs?=

We arrived back in CH on Monday night. Our flight was easy, non stop from LAX to Zurich through the night. Almost too easy. We've begun to realize that hard flights made getting over jet lag easier. Now that our kids are becoming increasingly more transfixed with airplane tv screens and better at sleeping through an airplane night, we have a new (old) monster to tackle.

Jet lag means family breakfast at 3 am. And 5 am. And 11 am. And possible breakfast for dinner at 7 pm. Thanks to some very thoughtful friends for leaving cereal for us so we didn't have to run to the store before it closed.

We spent the week before school started sleeping in until 10 am, catching up with friends and trying our best to get outside as much as we could.

 One day we went up Stoos to grill a picnic and hike. The pond/lake we grilled next to was full of tadpoles in transition to frogs. Some of my children were not happy at the prospect of leaving their beds to hike, but the frogs quickly won them over. I don't want to know how many frogs were stuffed into pockets. 

While we were eating, I heard a Violet scream and turned around to find her standing next to us, completely drenched. She had been catching frogs and fallen in, belly flop. Since we hadn't even begun hiking, I made her take off all her clothes and put on my spare shirt. She ended up being a great hiker regardless of her outfit. She said it was really comfortable and I'm assuming much better than the old hiking boots Eliot grabbed that were two sizes too small. 

Not a bad view to try to dry your clothes. 

  

Back to the playgrounds designed to weed out the weak, which is possibly Oskar.

Frogs and goats. Also, Oskar is speaking in sentences now AND tattle telling (he's been lying for ages so that's not new).  It's like he aged 8 months in 3 weeks. Today when I asked who made the mess in the bathroom, he told me, "Winston did it" and when I told him it was time for bed he said, "I want to play more." He also told me this morning that he would eat all of his snacks, then go heat all of his friends snacks.  He has come a long way from only animal noises and sound effects. It's really adorable to see how his mind works.

The younger three and me on the ski lift going up to the top. 

 

Playing with bunnies in a friends garden house and going to the lake on the first warm day of the week.

Eliot and a friend heading out for a primary campout on the lake and our first attempt at macarons. We now all know why they are so expensive and we are all a bit upset at Oskar for stuffing so many in his mouth when we weren't looking. 

We start a new school year tomorrow. E and W are in the same class with the same teacher(s) again but Vi is in her first new class in three years. She is very nervous and has had a stomach ache all day from worrying. I can't help but think how much relaxed I feel about the new school year, with so few changes and Violet going into a class with so many friends and great German skills.  Of course, our first hurdle will be waking up before 10 am tomorrow. It's really anyone guess if we will make it.