A Rock Climbing Party

Today was Grace's 8th birthday party at Milandia's Climbing Centre. The event began with a few basic lessons. The girls learned how to belay and then they were off! Actual climbing time was about 1.5 hours and included an aerial obstacle course for the very brave. I had a hard enough time watching and taking photos from the ground the course was that high up! But it did look like fun and super challenging. I think I may celebrate my birthday there too. I'll spare you those pics.

How to make an origami purse

Origami is a popular activity in our house. Grace will spend hours folding paper into many different objects and today she wanted to make a purse/wallet. This was the tutorial she picked and it was a breeze. She is now happily decorating her paper purse. And asking for our loose change to fill it.

A future cartoonist is born

Even Grace's signature is memorable. I love these! 

Ally's writing + drawings

Ally is a typical little sister and that means she enjoys doing anything and everything Grace does so it was no surprise when she started copying Grace's drawings. She also copies Grace's writing. Today she drew and wrote the following. Can you read what it says?

Art Workshops

Grace attended a fantastic art workshop under the direction of Hélène Gérain over the weekend at the WAC in Uster. The workshop focused on Egyptian low relief and Grace's favorite part of the workshop was writing her name in hieroglyphs.

Future classes include:

• Greek pottery
• Roman mosaic
• Blazon, techniques of heraldry
• Stained-glass windows of medieval churches
• Helmet and purse

Cooking with Danna

Today we spent another lazy Sunday afternoon cooking with Danna from Miso Cute. Grace and Ally adore Danna and the love cooking with her. The actual hands-on cooking is half the fun though. The other half is learning about why some food choices are better than others or how to identify or how to identify the best grade maple syrup. Today the girls cut their own oregano and made pizza from scratch. We all agreed these were the best pizzas we've had in a long time. 

We may live in Switzerland...

but we still watch the NFL playoffs. Rob does anyway. This was Grace's maily to Virginia earlier this evening. Football in Europe means soccer which is why Grace signed her message with soccer balls instead of footballs. The kid will officially have lived in Switzerland half of her life in a couple of months!

Kletterzentrum Milandia

Today we went to the Kletterzentrum in Milandia. Grace is having her 8th birthday party here and we wanted to check it out. Grace is a natural at climbing (Ally too) and we're signing her up for a couple of courses so she can learn to belay. I used to rock climb decades ago in eastern Washington state so doing this with her brings back great memories. 

Flumserberg + Oberiberg

The last couple of weekends we've been making day trips to go skiing. We've been to Flumserberg and Oberiberg.

Flumserberg offers skiing very close to Zürich but it's also very crowded. It's accessible by public transport which makes it very popular for folks who don't want to drive or don't own cars.

I skied with Grace at Flumserberg while Ally took another class and Rob enjoyed some cross country skiing. I really enjoyed the views and the little stations when you exit some of the chairlifts stocked with Swiss Tools --just in case you need to fix anything on your skis, etc. Switzerland is the land of planning and efficiency. It's great! And skiing with Grace gets better and better. I love skiing with her and Ally is now at the point where she can tag along. This should be double the fun.

Oberiberg is also close to our home but the snow on this day was almost non-existent. Only the girls got to put on their skis and it was for one bunny hill with a magic carpet. It's still the low season for skiing here so we are super excited for the February sport holiday to roll around. First up though is Grace's 8th birthday party. More on that in the next post.