Adventure park!

A couple of weeks ago we took the kids to an adventure park in an attempt to tire them out. Well they had a lot of fun but while we were exhausted at the end of the morning they were on a total adrenaline high! 

Halloween fun

Last week we had fun carving Jack O'Lanterns with the Martinelli family at their house and dressed as Tiger (William) and Fairy (Emma).

Unfortunately for us, they have not lasted until Halloween... With the local temperatures mold and fruit flies have set in! Not something to worry about in cooler climates.

This week we baked and decorated Parisian "sablés" in the shape of skeleton heads, pumpkins, bats, ghosts and cats.

Happy Halloween!

Visting cousins in the south of France

About this time last week we drove down to the south of France near Avignon to a little village called Apt to visit my sis and brother in law and their three little ones, T, L & S (who were on hols there from Singapore). 

The drive down was quite quick (we left early to avoid traffic) but the weather on the way way horrible!

 

Luckily the very next day, the sun was out and we could enjoy the local colours and smells at the farmer's market

William enjoying Daddy and his hat

The buildings are all quite charming if run-down

Emma and her cousins T & L

The house (of which I have not even got a pic for some reason?!) 

and garden are beautiful!

My sis and brother-in-law L & D (with William peeking in the back)

Our fish chef and selector of all yummy things (from tapenade to rosé); D.

The girls and S. ready for lunch while William is still playing

All 5 cousins! Aged 8 to 2

 We had a lovely and relaxing time- And now for our last week in Geneva before we head back to Athens!

Hot Sunday

It's 10: 20AM Sunday morning and 30.7°C !!!  So here's how we roasted through it:

Some arts and crafts indoors...

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Some Mediterranean veggies for lunch... & BBQ

 

Freshening up in the pool... oh sorry, no pics of that one ! was too busy in the pool!! but I can tell you that Emma is nearly swimming all by herself and that William needs nearly as much time to get into the cool water as I do!

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Frozen yogurt yummmy! I could have it 3 times a day!!! Luckily you can top it with loads of fresh fruit and make it relatively healthy ;-)

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 cuddles and kisses

Hope you had a good Sunday too!!!

Happy week-end & dangerous mosquitoes

We had a very happy week-end;

• Saturday morning brunch at our local market while Emma and a friend played in the park and we chatted with her parents
• an early and quiet dinner at a neighborhood restaurant (Will was with us and Emma at the park with our babysitter)

Steph at the restaurant on the swinging bench with Will

• We went to a local swimming pool for the first time this season
• Had 2 reasonably good nights sleep with William waking only once after his dream feed at 11pm around 2am and sleeping through to 6h30am! (We've resolved to rolling him onto his tummy if he seems uncomfortable or in pain in the early morning hours and it works wonders!)

William in his car seat

Poor Emma woke up Sunday morning with a swollen eye and absolutely HUGE ear having been bit by an insect in her sleep. Luckily, the pharmacist (after a laugh) gave us something efficient to help the swelling and she didn't seem to mind too much. (This morning her ear was much better and I have since sprayed her room, pajamas and sheets with Citronella as there are mosquitoes galore!)

Emma and her swollen ear

Sadly we found out we will be needing to find a new babysitter as Marta will be leaving for Bruxelles in September.

Marta in the sandpit with Emma

Family visit

We had a wonderful family week-end with Grand-papa & Pata's visit.

It was perfect! We all had some family time, play time, they had some shopping time and we met some friends, in fact even the capricious weather cooperated to a tee and we had sunny days in the park and garden and were able to eat outside at the market on Saturday. The only cloud in our sky was poor William's stomach still not functioning smoothly and hence we are still sleepy.

Emma loved having her grand-parents here to play and talk and her recently "Germanified" French even came out from a drawer in her head.

It's sometimes hard living away from family as an expat - especially when you have (and for the) kids, but it makes occasional week-ends even more special.

For pics of their visit please click here

Fun family week-end & Emma being scary

Despite the fact that it snowed thus ruining my hopes that Spring was going to be here this week, we had a really fun week-end.

Nothing exceptional happened - oh! except Emma decided she wanted to pee on the toilet and actually did it!!! once - but it was really nice, fun family time with a good proportion of laughs and games, resting and eating, a meal out, some shopping, time at the park plus a touch of "culture" in the form of a play we went to see at Vienna's English Theatre.

I wish us many more of these.

Here's a little video of Emma being scary that made me laugh. Hope you enjoy it too!