The Blame Bucket

I've recently starting trying out some listening skills that are described in one of my favorite child-rearing books, "Your Child's Self-Esteem". Todd and I both read it when the kids were babies, and I had decided I could use a refresher.

On Saturday, Xavier was upset and I had the chance to practice. Xavier talked for about 15 minutes, not only about the one incident that upset him at that time, but also about many things that have been happening at school these last couple of weeks. At one point, in this outpouring of feelings, he said "I just feel like a big Blame Bucket". After he shared this, he paused and said quite matter-of-factly, "I'm not sure where I got this word, but it sure sounds right".

Most of my attempts at this listening method have not worked, but I thought I'd share this snippet from Xavier.

Comin' Around the Mountain

Isabella came home from school today red-faced, and feeling quite proud of herself.

At the end of this year, the fifth class will hold a Pentatholon, or Olympics. Their teacher, Herr Lippuner, has begun training them by having them run and jump and things like this.

Today was a running day, and Isabella ran around the Mannenberg, the tiny mountain we live on, without stopping. A first for her. She rewarded herself by purchasing an icecream after school.

A small glimpse into Izzi's world :)

Under Repair: Stage 2

Holes drilled and dryer with multiple hoses installed. This coincides with the hottest days Switzerland has had since we arrived. This monster, we call unwanted house guest or sometimes pet, creates a ton of heat.

Under Repair

Todd moved into this flat in January 2010. Since then, we have had 3 major plumbing issues in our building that have caused significant water damage to our flat. Thus, requiring repair.

The first issue arose in late August 2010, and resulted in the loss of our main bedroom for more than 2 months. The work was completed just before Thanksgiving. The second issue was in our guest bathroom and was noticed right before 2011 began. Work completed in late March 2011.

I reported this latest water damage in mid-May, and today they finally began the process of repairing it after fixing the water leak above us. The process is of several steps: 1) Send 2 or 3 parties to look at and measure the water damage to ceiling, walls and floors. Mark the area of plaster that needs to be removed. 2)Drill holes in wet floors and then install drying machine with hoses running to these holes as well as into the area of plaster that has been removed. 3) We run this dryer 24x7 for 2 to 3 weeks until the ceiling, walls and floors are dry. A representative of the drying company visits every 3-4 days to check the progress. 4) Dryers are removed and holes in floor are repaired. 5) Worker comes to mud up the wall that was removed. 6) After mud dries, painter comes to paint.

This process has taken approximately 3 months in the past. We'll see how this repair goes. Unfortunately, everyone involved is getting a hang of things now that we are on our third go-around.

Day of the Tiger

Isabella and friend, Jannah, (with a little help from Xavier and Aurelia) spent all of Saturday in front of the Ittigen Migros selling products to raise money to save the Tigers. They raised 280 chf.

Here they are at the start of the day...

Back-to-School Bike Ride

Todd took the day off for one last hurrah before the kids go back to school on the 15th. We trained to Spiez with our bikes and rode back to Thun. Had a very late lunch in Thun, enjoyed the town a bit and then trained back to Bern.

A few photos to share...

Preparing to Save the Tigers

Isabella, Xavier and a couple of friends from school are going to have a stand this next Saturday to raise money for the World Wildlife Federation. They've made some earrings, and are currently working on friendship bracelets. They will also be selling baked goods-- cupcakes, cookies, and animal-shaped zopf dough-- and some items provided by WWF.

Isabella's friendship bracelet work station...

Night on an Alpine Farm

You can find small huts, or seasonal farms, in the Alps that rent rooms to hikers. On Wednesday, Isabella, Xavier and I joined our friends Karin, Aurelia and Jannah on a hike and overnight on a farm.

We took the train to Reichenbach, then a Post bus up the base of the mountain to Griesalp. Here we grabbed our packs and began our hike. After about 45 minutes into the hike, the rain and thunder started. We took cover in a small cow shed along the path for about an hour. It was still raining slightly when we set out again but cleared by the time we completed the next 90 minutes of our hike.

We found ourselves at Budalp, a lovely alpine farm. The kids spent the day playing in a small stream, feeding the pigs, playing with the dog, and watching the turning of the cheese. We hiked a bit about and mainly relaxed and dried off until dinner. We spent the evening in the main room playing games.

Although it rained more during the night, we woke to sun and had a beautiful day for a hike back down. We took a less traveled route down the mountain, stopping at another farm to buy cheese and dried meat. We also spent some time playing near a beautiful waterfall.

When we finished our hike in Griesalp, we had just enough time for icecream and coffee before beginning the journey back to Ittigen. We all arrived home Thursday night tired and satisfied.

Amo la Sardegna

We began our five-week summer holiday with a trip to Sardinia, an Italian island in the Mediterranean. The beaches were stunning, the weather hot and dry and the food and wine delicious. We spent hours each day in the sea.

The owners of the house we rented were very sweet as well. They made us a large pan of tiramisu and took us to a local beach, unknown to tourists.

Early in the trip, we took a boat cruise that took us on a tour of a large cave system, and then delivered us to three beaches that can only be reached by boat. We enjoyed this so much, that a few days later we rented a boat on our own and went back to our favorite beach of all, and spent some time out at sea swimming off the boat.

We also enjoyed the change in culture that Italy offered...relaxed and warm.

Prepare for picture overload...

Ballenberg - Fireworks - Helicopters

The kids are on summer break and it is Swiss National Day so we have a 3 day weekend.
Sunday we went to Ballenberg. It is an open air museum where the Swiss have taken various buildings from throughout the country and rebuilt them in a HUGE museum. We made it through maybe 1/3 of the place.

The place is quite impressive. The oldest building we were in was from the Italian region of Switzerland and dates from 1515. Almost 500 years old! The above photos were from a traditional Swiss Chalet. It was fairly new, it was barely 150 years old.

If anyone does actually come to visit, this is something we will probably do.


Today is Swiss National Day, basically 4th of July Swiss style. In our continuing quest to integrate into the culture, we have purcahsed our share of celebratory explosives. This has nothing to do with the fact that the kids and I like to blow things up and is simply about cultural acceptance. We are heading over to a friends to grill and hopefully watch/launch fireworks later today.

And finally, our last adventure for the weekend. Xavier bought a remote control helicopter. On day three of owership the kids managed to put it on the roof of a neighboring apartment building. We knew the school had some ladders around so Kim and I spent about an hour figuring out how to reassemble them into an extension ladder. We carried the two 20 ft sections of ladder down to the apartment. Unfortunately the catch for the ladder was broken so we had to extend the ladder on the ground. To make a long story short, Kim is not strong/heavy enough to hold a 30 aluminum ladder on the ground while putting up or taking it down. The helicopter was rescued in the end and luckily on slight injuries were incurred.