Happy 33!

We celebrated Jeremy's birthday at home with cinnamon rolls for breakfast, Chinese chicken wings for lunch, carrot cake cupcakes and a few gifts.  Then he was off for an all night shift at work.  I guess you can't lounge around all day on your birthday when you are an adult.

Thanksgiving

Liza and I had a great Thanksgiving this year with the Charles family.  We celebrated on Thanksgiving Day which was fun because people living here often celebrate on the weekend since the Thursday is just a regular work day.  Jeremy was planning on taking the day off work and coming with us but unfortunately they were in the middle of an experiment that he couldn't miss so he had to stay and work while Liza and I went and had fun.

The five Charles kids are so cute with Liza and all want her to follow them around and play with them.  It was great to have so many people to entertain her while I sat around and chatted.

We made a pinata to bring with us.  This is a tradition our family always had growing up and the Charles' were good about doing it with us this year.  I was at least 14 before I realized that everyone in the United States did not have a pinata for Thanksgiving.  Not sure if Liza will be too fond of carrying on the Smith pinata tradition.  She was scared of the entire process from covering the balloon with newspaper to hitting the candy out.  She was literally in tears while they were hitting the pinata for candy...she is certainly the most scaredy-cat girl you will ever meet.

Our hostess, Amy, was amazing.  She had every type of typical Thanksgiving food you could want and we ate and ate until we were stuffed.  Afterwards we sat around chatting and played a game.  Such a great day celebrating just like we would in the States.

Close up of the pinata.  Jeremy did a 3-D head which turned out looking very cool.

Cindy Lou Who?

Maybe it's just me, but with this long pink nightgown, her blonde hair and blue eyes I totally think Liza looks like the animated version of Cindy Lou Who?

The making of Harry Potter

While in London we decided to take a day and travel outside the city to the Universal Studios set where they filmed Harry Potter.  I'm not a huge Harry Potter fanatic - never read the books and watched the movies once - but I did enjoy the movies and Jeremy likes them a lot so we thought it would be something fun and different to do.

It is so interesting to see the small sets that they use and can transform into magical pictures and places in the movie.  All the set are close together and look rather small but in the movies everything looks so much bigger and real.

The tour started in the Great Hall.

From there you were able to walk around at your own pace looking at the different sets and props that were used.  The potions classroom was one of my favorites.  They had a little movie with people talking about all the random plastic toys and animal parts they would pick up from the butcher's shop in order to fill the potions jars with creepy looking stuff.

The Weasley house was another fun one.  They had lots of things that moved on their own - like a knife chopping carrots, the iron going by itself, etc.

Halfway through they have a small food stand where you can get something to eat and try butter beer.  Of course we had to get some and it was quite tasty - think Cream Soda with butterscotch.

Liza was completely freaked out by this book.  When you walked in front of it it would move and start crawling towards you.

Diagon Alley was full of all the magic and mystery from the movie.

Getting sorted!

Woot, woot -- fun times with Harry Potter.

London, England

The beginning of November we found ourselves in London!  

It had been years since I had visited and this was Jeremy and Liza's first times.  Lucky for us we had pretty good weather - for England standards - and enjoyed days of shopping, sight-seeing and I even got my hair cut (definitely one of the highlights of the trip for me!)

We started things off by watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.  I always have such high hopes for these types of things but inevitably I am always left a bit underwhelmed.  Lots of people, lots of waiting and lots of fences and police men in the way so it is hard to see much.  However, I still feel like a trip to London wouldn't be complete without participating in this tradition.

When we needed a little warming up we popped into a few museums.

British National Museum

The highlight here for me was the Rosetta Stone.  Something I have always heard about but didn't know much about.  Fun to see in person.

The British Museum is close to a big toy store called Hamley's.  So after exploring the museum we went and spent an hour or two at the toy store.  They have lots of people walking around a demonstrating some of the different toys.  Liza liked looking at things and she is the perfect age because she doesn't pout about wanting us to buy her things.  We went, spent a couple hours seeing the latest and greatest toys and then left without buying a thing :)

We also enjoyed looking at the dinosaur exhibit at the Natural History Museum.

The Swiss flags in London.

Exploring London Tower.

Liza is trying out the possibility of becoming the person they shoot out of cannon's at the circus.  Who knows, it might just work out for her.

St. Paul's Cathedral

On Sunday evening we enjoyed an organ concert in Westminster.  The music was great and it was a free way to see the inside of the building.

Everything looks different and magical when it is all lit up.

We also spent one morning at Kensington Palace.  We were hoping that Liza and Prince George could have a play date together but apparently he didn't know we were coming because he never came out to play.  Maybe next time.

And just to document that she was there, here is one of the only pictures we took with Jeremy's sister Janiece.  She lives outside of London and was able to come hang out with us while we were there visiting.  She had to work most days but it was fun to see her on the weekend and at night.

Halloween

Princess Jasmine and Rajah made an appearance this Halloween.

The Princess had to be bribed to wear her costume - she was scared of it along with all the other costumes at the party - but enjoyed the candy feast that followed.

Oeschinensee and Blausee

When Heather and Todd came to visit one of the places they had been encouraged to see by one of their friends was Oeschinensee.  Unfortunately we had so many other places to see while they were here we did not have time to go there.  So when a perfect October Saturday presented itself Jeremy and I decided to take advantage and check it out.

It was about a two hour drive but well worth it.  After riding a cable car up we found ourselves hiking along a short path to a mountain lake.

Liza was a great little hiker and wanted to do a lot of it on her own.

Coincidentally we saw some friends of ours when we were riding the cable car up.  We didn't know they were coming there that day but it was great fun to hike along with them and chat.   

When we got to the lake we built a fire with our friends and grilled some bratwurst and ate some other things for lunch.

Then we just spent the afternoon lounging along the lakeside throwing rocks and mud.  Liza still has flecks of mud in her hair.

Just before leaving we braved a narrow little trail over to visit a small, cold waterfall.  

On the drive home we quickly stopped at another lake - Blausee.  Heather had heard great things about this place and although it was nice it was definitely nothing too spectacular.  The lake was very small and it was getting dark so we didn't spend tons of time here.

Love basking in the last few days of good fall weather.

Nursery - ready or not

Liza made the big jump to nursery in October.  Here she is on her first day.  All smiles - until about 20 minutes into it when she decided she needed mom or dad.  

Hopefully she will be wanting her independence soon.  I think parents are always ready for their kids to start nursery, but sometimes the kids not so much.  However, I don't blame her for being a little timid.  If everyone around me was speaking German and I didn't understand I would want to run away too.  (Oh wait, that is my life and I do consider running away at times.)