Making music . . . and cookies

This afternoon was a bit rainy and gloomy - so it was an excellent excuse to stay inside and bake some cookies.
These are almond butter cookies and they turned out to be pretty tasty, if I do say so myself. Of course I had to taste the goods!













The pictures of the sunflowers are because right now there are fields and fields of sunflowers that are so beautiful! Most are used to make oil but these were growing in a "pick your own" field with a small locked box at the end to pay on your honor. Analise and I had fun tromping through the mud and dirt to select our flowers and cut (more like hack) them down - most of them were taller than me!
And what post would be complete without a shout out to the little lady. Here she's spinning some tunes while I was finishing up the cookies . . .

Turn, turn, turn

just being silly . . .

Chatter

After breakfast this morning Analise went off to "play" while Daniel and I were still sitting at the table. We kept hearing chattering coming from the other room but couldn't figure out who she was "talking" too - finally I went to investigate and it turned out that it was . . . well no one. But she was definitely very excited about it.

Uh oh - could be worse . . .

The little lady leaves a mess wherever she goes . . . but this one could have been much worse+ - right?

At the beach

Last week was so hot that Analise and I went to the beach nearly every day.
Our friend Bethany was able to join us one afternoon and snapped a few pictures of Analise in the sand and eating her snack - cherries.
Cherries are really in season at the moment and you are able to pick them off of wild cherry trees in the woods nearby our house. I can't get over this country!

One Minute

This is a one minute video but it is an example of nearly 100 minutes over the past couple of days.
I just wish I could get in that brain and find out what exactly she's thinking.
She has my wine charms, a small glass dish (that makes a good sound), a small plastic dish and an egg carton. Even now, while I upload the video and work on the writing, she continues to move those little buggers around. Yesterday it was the clothes pins - she threw a fit when I took them away (until she saw that dinner was on the table) . . .
It's just amazing watching their little brains learn something new.

Bastille Day

Technically I shouldn't be celebrating Bastille Day since we are living in Switzerland - not France. But as I sit here with the windows open listening to the light rain patter outside, I can also hear the distant boom of fireworks going off just across the border in France and like a memory of Bastille Days gone by, I'm reminiscing about this day last year . . .


We would have listened to sound checks from the Champ de Mars in our apartment all day while they set up for the huge concert that night.
(Beth Seelinger is that you on the big screen?)


Chatted with Danielle Barbot (the gardienne of our apartment building) and the little Portuguese guy who lived across the street who always said Hi to Grady (I don't actually know his name) - but he was always standing outside on the corner watching people. We looked up our old neighborhood on Google Earth - and sure enough! He's in the picture!






Walked back and forth from our apartment to the park to make sure we had reserved our spot . . .





yep, I've got it under control . . .












Evening is approaching . . .



Finally the big show!












And even better - watching the mass exodus of people from the park and thinking "heh, heh, heh - it's nice to be home!"





Grandma and Dad with Analise . . .