Can you find this in America?

In our little country, it's hard to find so many things that one takes for granted in the States. And ofcourse, everything's bigger there..... or is it? I bet you can't get one of these:

Probably a good thing too.

Summer Funnin

There's always plenty to do when the sun's out.... or at least when it's hot and muggy.

A Visit from the Zurich Frick/Gobets

Kim, Christian and Loic tootled over on Sunday past for some BBQ and beach fun.
We ate.

See the cake? Kim made it...mmmmm.... we ate it after our beach jaunt...mmmm... it came complete with flags of some of the Romande Cantons. Which one is Neuchatel?

Christian, Loic and Tobe during an escape attempt by Loic. He is a faaast mover, and doesn't let his parents rest much.


Kim enjoys a quiet moment at the beach.



I've taken the boys to LaTene quite a lot, and have never noticed the giant sword at the exit! Guess who did...

A Bike Ride to the Beach

One evening recently we packed a picnic dinner and cycled to one of my favourite beaches.

Getting ready with hunger close behind...


Building up a nice appetite.


The 3 handsomest diners.

There's just a wee 'problem' with the lake. It has what the locals call 'duck fleas', which give one itchy bites. We thought this was a myth till this weekend. On Monday, Toby was covered in what looked like pimply, little mosquito bites. Naturally, we did a little internet research, and naturally we were grossed out by what we found: The 'fleas' are actually larvae of a flea type animal that live in waterfowl. After part of their lifecycle spent in snails, they come out looking for the birds. When they find a human, they burrow in and die, since they can't live in us! Bleurk. Poor Kim had a bunch too, that got very itchy. Tobe seems mostly olivious. These larvae are easily removed by vigorous towelling right after coming out, or showering. Ofcourse, we'll be religious about that now. It's not putting me off. It's just too hot to be put off.

Hothothot

Finally, after a few weeks of rain and cold (there was even snow in the Berner Oberland) we are having some heat. We can now do a bit of this:



And definitely more of this:

Fete de la Jeunesse

It's feterific here! All the lower schools celebrate the end of term with 'spectacles' and fetes. The Saint Blaise fete is always an entertaining evening, and this year was no exception. The theme was "Music of the World" and Allie's class were Canada. Allie got to be one of the 'grizzlies'! He started off down at the church. After their performance there, they had to walk up to 'Pre Brenier' (the park at the top) to perform there, then down to the primary school for a final performance. All the classes rotated around these 3 locations, so that everyone could get a look. The culmination was at the secondary school.

I took Allie down to the church to get ready.


Toby had the best view.


Are grizzlies meant to be cute?


One of the other classes were 'native Americans'. They had just come up form the primary school to perfom at the church.


The 'Indiens' leave the church and head up the hill, with Tobe and Walter to wave them on.


This is our French teacher's daughter. She's a year older than Allie, and sometimes comes over to play. Her class was "Trinidad".


This is the view of the secondary school, where the festivities continued after the performances. It was incredibly busy, so we went home after some chatting, and collapsed in a tired heap. Apparently, there was a 'disco' for the children that went on into the night! We were all too exhausted. On a side note, this is another example of us being out of step with the Swiss. We've discovered that we'll go somewhere and everyone else will be somewhere else. Back in the states, we saw this as a good thing, but here it means we're probably missing the best thing going on. The bloke on the right of the pic. is our French teacher's husband.


The grizzly waves after his last performance.


This is most of the performance down at the primary school. Keep an eye out for Allie!