Dashing through the snow

Dashing through the snow in a plastic blue and orange sleigh, through the fields we go laughing all the way....

Sunday afternoon we went to a little place near Engelberg with the peak of the Titlis towering over us at more than 3000m. We saw a church near the road surrounded by a lovely snow covered hillside, perfect for sledding on. So we pulled into the car park and unloaded the brand new sled (German crafted blue and orange plastic with steering wheel and brake). 

It was great fun and we started slowly to get a feel for how fast it went and how the sled handled. 

Sunny surprised us all took it down the really steep slope and got air as she literally flew of the top of the hill. She screamed,  then a few seconds later the sled reappeared without Sunny. Fortunately she was ok and eventually reappeared to give us the thumbs up. Impressive effort from mummy!

We took the boys down with us a few times dressed in their little eskimo outfits. They really enjoyed it, except one time when Andrew got a big spray of snow in the face. Event then he was ok, just murmured a bit and started licking the snow. 

Mingyu and I got brave and went down mummys  super steep course together, we were honking down the slope and even a minor adjustment to the steering wheel felt like we would go over. 

The snow was really dry and soft  so it was no problem to fall over. Just like falling into soft downy feathers.  

Loony in Lugano

What to do on a foggy Saturday afternoon in Cham ? We had just finished the shopping and about to have lunch at home when the epiphany came. Let's go to Italy for a real pizza and pasta dinner !

Sunny was a bit hesitant and Mingyu was excited to try some real italian food, the boys got dressed and away we went. The target was to go to Lugano a beautiful lakeside town in the Italian Swiss canton of Ticino, not far from Milano. So we didnt have to take our passports and visas since we could stay just inside the swiss Border. It wasnt long before we were out of the grey fog and into the bright sunshine looking at the jaw dropping view of lakes and mountains. 

On approach to Lugano the GPS system insisted to take us to Licino, which fortunately was a small suburb of Lugano (where we took the foto of the all the boys ). However I shutdown the GPS and followed our nose down tot he old town of Lugano by the lake. There was a lovely waterfront promenade and behind the waterfront buildings a number of walking only shopping arcades opening out into piazzas. 

It really was like being in Italy, for a start the people all speaking Italian, dressed differently and a lot more lively than downtown Cham!

We wandered through the arcades and had some super yummy gelati and later stopped at one piaza and had dinner alfresco, the boys could sit up in high chairs and were pretty well behaved. Andrew did get a little excited and lifted the table cloth long enough to tip a glass of wine over my leg. Dinner was pizza, pasta and wine. 

Driving time from Cham was two hours each way and we stopped in Lugano from 4.30 until 7.15pm. In Summer I can imagine it would be very popular place. 

Bicycle Police

Mingyu was proudly announcing that he had done lots of excercise by walking to and from school twice in once day. When Asked why he did not ride his bike, his reply was the bicycle police would get im and make him write lines in german for two hours in the police station.
Why would they do that, we asked. Apparently the bicycle police had visited the school and told them about bike safety including having lights and reflector stickers on. Mingyu's bike did not have so he stopped riding his bike and started walking to school. Poor kid.
So today he can take his bike to the repair shop and get fixed!

Funny Words

For some time now Samuel has been enjoying a good belly laugh usually each night around dinner time and usually from Mingyu pulling a funny face or even simply looking at him. He starts with a chuckle and continues with a full blown belly laugh with tears coming from his eyes.

Andrew has now just caught the same characteristic only his laughing is triggered by Sunny. All Sunny has to do is mention a word ie Pizza and he goes into the belly laughing fit. Yesterdays funny word was biscuit and that set him off laughing. I wonder what todays funny word will be...?

Funny Bubs

Funny Bubs

Berlin Hotel Room devastation

The hotel room wasn't ready when we checked in so we sat on one of the lobby stools for an hour waiting, fortunately they served us some drinks. The boys had fun on the stool and on the floor, keeping the hotel staff amused.

We had breakfast on Sunday morning with my colleague and fortunately they gave us a big table in a separate room, the devastation was huge with food everywhere, over the table and floor from the little munchkins. 

Mingyu had a swim in the new pool, it was very cool design and modern style.

Berlin Zoo

Berlin has a sensational Zoo and Aquarium with Rions and tigers (as Mingyu says), polar bears, elephants, and all kinds of fishes. Nice grounds too and it was all at our doorstep of our Hotel !

Berlin Pics

A must see in Berlin is KaDeWe (Kaufhaus Des Westens) a lovely old shopping centre with loads of goodies and a foodhall to die for. On the seventh floor is a supermarket with champagne bars scattered throughout for you to sip your fizz while shopping. 

I met my former Korean boss in Berlin, he is now the CEO for Siemens in Germany. 

First snow arrived today

The first snow arrived tonight as the rain turned to sleet around six thirty pm and then to snow by 8pm. When I arrived at home, Mingyu was waiting to have his ass whupped in a snow fight on the balcony. He scored two direct hits to my head and whereas I could only score glancing blows. Who's whupping who ?

Better get the skiing kit together, could be an early winter !

BONKERS IN BERLIN

How hard could it be to take a few kids on a plane to Berlin for the weekend, a breeze, a doddle you say ?  

We had a 'learning experience'.

The fun really started in the airport at the security section when the stroller had to go through the machine. So we unloaded the babies and held them with the carry on baggage in the other hand and went through the machine. THe alarm sounded when I walked through with Samuel, the guard gave Samuel a scan and patted him down then took me into a booth for the same thing. Fortunately I kept my clothes on, the guard asked me to take my shoes off and put them through the xray before letting us continue. 

We took a lufthansa small plane which means taking the bus from the terminal, Mingyu could not understand it especially when I jokingly told him we were catching the bus to Berlin. 

Onboard we had to change seats around because there was not enough oxygen masks for all of us and the babies in the one row. This will be the same for the big flight to Australia so we will need to be in separate rows.

On the flight the boys got restless and were crying and complaining, there was two colleagues sitting nearby and they got an earful all the way. Afterwards one said we had our hands full with the boys. 

At the berlin airport we picked up the baggage and went to the taxi rank, after waiting for a big cab the driver rejected taking us since he had no baby seats. We then resorted to catching the bus into town and walking up to the hotel. On the way we had a fish and chip break and a dunkin donut break in the space of less than 700m.

The hotel screwed up our booking for two adjoining rooms by leaving another guest in one of the rooms. We had to wait while they sorted it out and after 1 hour we were in a small room with the boys getting sleepier and crankier. I had to go to the conference and Sunny complained to the hotel and requested another rooms. She eventually got a suite and put the bubs to bed. When I arrived at 1130 pm they were all asleep. Around 12 Andrew started to wake and needed lots of attention to get back to sleep. For Sunny it was just a continuous tag team going from Andrew to Samuel and back for most of the night. 

  

Home coming

Last friday night I returned home  from a weeks training in Germany to see Sunny and Mingyu holding sparklers in their hands from the balcony.  They threw them from the eighth floor onto the ground, one nearly missing me by a bees knee. It was a dark night and the sparklers looked pretty cool from where I was standing. 

We celebrated Sunnys birthday last Saturday on the 4th October (real birthday on 6th). There was lots of yummy food and cakes, lots of swiss cakes. There was a chocolate cream birthday cake, a fruit torte and a blueberry yoghurt cake. Twelve people came over for afternoon tea. There was only one coffee served but several glasses of champagne went down before singing happy birthday. I hope you enjoyed it lovey.

Mingyu says he wants a hundred people over for his party !  

Sunday is Pancake day

I like thick pancakes, golden brown, with ice cream, maple syrup and fruit on top. The reaction from the rest of the Family indicates they get a thumbs up from them too.

I think tomorrow morning should be a pancake start to the day. Why not ?

These are pancake shots and after shots. You can see Andrew liked them so much he was pursing his lips for hours afterwards. Even Sunny and Mingyu stopped teasing each other for a post pancake pic on the porch.

Samuel

Samuel is following along behind Andrew especially when it comes to crawling and physical development. Although he still has got the larger body weight he has only advanced to crawling backwards, while Andrew is in fast forward. But he has a great sense of humour and when he starts laughing he either cant stop or he laughs at the smallest thing, especially when Mingyu makes a face. Its a real belly laugh and he goes on laughing and laughing.