Finally, some snow

In the last week the temperature has dropped to below zero and it's snowed. We took a quick trip to Chaumont yesterday to check it out. Sadly, we forgot the sled, but I'm sure there'll be another chance.
Allie and Toby enjoyed falling and rolling around in the snow.


The sledders and teeny tiny Stockwells


Toby learns about snowball fights and snow under the collar.


Still not clean enough.

Alasdair is 5!!!!

This year saw Allie's first proper birthday party. We decided just to invite friends from school, as we noticed that when he's also with English speakers he tends to only talk to them. He also sees a lot of them because I hang out with the other English speaking mothers. He chose Olivia, Elisa, Liv, Eloy and Xavier who are all very nice children, which was a relief, because I know the obnoxious ones now. At 2:30 (sharp!) most of the mothers dropped off their children and ran! Xavier's mother came a bit later and stayed for coffee. So there we were, me and 6 raucous children, with 2 hours to kill. I had a vague timeline of festivities which somehow seemed to come together between the insanity. This included the old favourites of 'pin the tail on the donkey', 'musical chairs' and 'musical statues'. They also played their own French version of DuckDuckGoose. Children are much more cooperative when prizes are offered. After a lot of shouting about who was first and who really won, we had cake... and really 'badforyou' snacks : chips oozing msg, sausage rolls and fairy bread (white bread, no crusts, butter and hundreds and thousands on the top.yum).


Here's a clip of the other children singing Happy Birthday to Allie. L to R they are Olivia, Xavier, Liv, Allie, Elisa and Eloy.


After cake, presents were openned and they played till parents arrived. The last half hour had me a bit knackered because of the long day of planning and dealing with below:

Things would have been a bit different if Toby had been there, but he 'chose' Allie's birthday to upstage him with pneumonia. I took him to the doctor the evening before and she gave me a prescription for a radiograph the next day, if he had a bad night. It was pretty bad, and he was very tired and sad the next day. You can tell when Toby's really ill because he doesn't have the energy to be bad tempered! So on the morning of Allie's birthday, i took Tobe to the hospital and Walter took Allie to work (which he thoroughly enjoyed, luckilly). After the X-ray, we had a consult with the chief of radiology, then the chief of paediatrics and came home with a prescrip. for antibiotics, and some follow up appointments. During the conversation with the paediatrician I mentioned that Allie was having a party that day. She said "I don't think you should do that, as you may get all the other children sick". I replied "I can't possiblly not have a party for Allie. It's out of the question". "Well, you can try to keep Toby upstairs during the party". That's what we did. Walter had only come back from the US that day before and had jet lag, so he got quiet time with Tobe. They watched DVDs, played with trains, read books and slept, while mayhem reigned below! Sadly, no Walter and Toby in the video, though.

Toby's not having a party. We'll just have friends over as usual, but with added cake. He'll be into it soon enough.

Morat or Murten

The town of Morat lies on Lac Morat (one of the 'three lakes' in our region) or Murtensee. I'm calling it Morat, because I'm from Suisse Romand ;) It is supposed to be one of the best examples of a medieval town in Europe. Naturally, it's on our list of 'things to get done', so we did it twice this month! The first time at New Year and the second this week with my parents.

On the 2nd January we decided to go and take a look, as everything here was still closed and no-one was around. It's in the canton of Fribourg, so maybe the holidays were different.... By train it's only 20 minutes, and we aimed at lunch in one of the world renowned patisseries there. Everything was closed, except for one busy busy patisserie. Walter got a selection which we ate in the main street on a perch. It was quite nice, sitting in a covered medieval street, munching on delicious pastry and bread creations. The shops (from what we could see) were all lovely, twee places, and I'm glad they were shut.
Walter and the boys finish lunch.

The police station, site of the old gaol, with the Fribourg flag.

"Look up Kate, there's another piece of charming medieval architecture"

Next stop were the famous walls, which were fortified using stones from a French speaking church to keep out "Charles the Bold' of Burgundy. I'm not sure why he was bold... The views were fantastic, and the heights a little sick making. We walked along them to the church at the end, of which a portion is medieval.
G'Parents and boy round the back of the church.

A grave on the outside of the church.


A couple of panos on the walls.


By that time we were suitably knackered and no tantrums had been had, so we didn't flog a dead horse and went home.
The Swiss have the reputation of 'good garbage management'. Any sacs on the street have to be officially sanctioned. We thought this was a bit of an exaggeration since we hadn't seen any....till now.


On the way to (or from) the old town, there was a nice park. Perfect for rewarding little boys who had put up with traipsing around town.


My Dad resting in the sun. THe walls are in the background.


Before Christmas, one could find Mistletoe in local florists, by the bunch. I have never seen real mistletoe, as it only grows in places with no pollution. This is what it looks like in the wild- birdsnest clumps, parasitising the host tree! We saw it everywhere on the train to Morat.

Toby finally sleeps

We sometimes go to 'family' afternoon at a local swimming pool. Only families with children up to the age of 5 are allowed into their super warm pool, for an hour on a Sunday afternoon. It improves the mood on a wet, foggy or freezing day. Tobe rarely takes naps now. We went on one such day, and this was the product by tea time:


He was sound asleep in his chair. Aaawww.

Guess what Santa brought this year....

..... The Laffertys!!!!

On Christmas eve evening, Sherry (Walter's sister), Randy(her husband), Brendan, Drew and Anna (enfants) stopped by. They had landed in Milan a couple of days previously and were rather tired and jet lagged. On Christmas morning the wee boys got quite a lot of nice surprises :)

Allie entertains with a new 'guitar'.


Aunt Sherry indulges budding musician Toby as he 'plays' his new recorder.


We had traditional Christmas fare.



On Boxing Day (the 26th) everyone took the train to La Chaux-de-Fonds to the Museum of Horology. I stayed home with poor Allie, who had a nasty cough and fever. Walter took the camera....
The 'Carillon' outside the museum.


No trip to Chez Nous is complete without a visit to Neuchatel itself... after a visit to the local park.
The biggest attraction- the commando slide. Anna demonstrates.



Boy cousins test the swings.


After taking the bus into town, we had a chilly picnic on the lake front. Much easier and nicer than the smokey cafes.


We walked through town, and up the hill to the Collegial.
Everyone on the viaduct (see previous post of Emma's parents visit in Nov. for full pic of viaduct).


We actually got into the central courtyard of the seat of Cantonal government, which was a first for us, and filled our water bottles at the fountain.


The duck faced fountain, that is..


On their last day, we went to Zurich. There we said goodbye and the Laffertys took the overnight train to Venice. We walked around the town and visited the church where there are some nice coloured windows by Chagall.

Churches are a great attraction during winter sightseeing as they are nice and warm.

The Laffertys' visit was much too short. We had a lovely Christmas with them, plenty of fun card games, and Allie and Toby were thoroughly spoiled. Now we're sad, and everything's much quieter.