New York New York

The day after Bluet's birthday party we headed to Connecticut. Of course, one advantage of Connecticut is that it is but a short train ride from Manhattan. With Emily at work and Wilder and Ilona in daycare, Bluet and I headed to the city for the day. Bluet's big obsession is tall buildings and whether or not they are taller than the Eiffel Tower. So first stop was the Empire State Building, sadly shrouded in fog, followed by the much shorter and more visible Flat Iron Building. We then checked out the nearby Lego Store.



Next we headed out to the Brooklyn Museum to check out the David Bowie exhibition - obviously this was something I really wanted to go see, but also Bluet had enjoyed watching his videos on Youtube ('It's a lady who sings like a man', she said of the life on mars video), so I thought/hoped she might enjoy it. And she did - you get to wear headphones and listen to music as you walk around, there are his old costumes, and lots of music videos, and she did not want to leave. In fact, once we were back in Connecticut she would let me listen to nothing but Bowie in the car driving around. I even bought her a 7" single from the shop, as it had a picture of the cover of 'Aladdin Sane' which she really likes. So that was a success. There were no photos allowed in the exhibition, but here she is on the way there and just after.

Wilder in America

3 weeks ago Emily, Wilder and I went house hunting in Connecticut (spoiler alert, we didn't yet find one). Anyway, I think he appreciated the extra attention, trips to Target etc, and Ilona and Bluet had great fun with Veronika for the 3 days I was away.




We bought Wilder his first cheerios - he loved them. In fact, in the 2 weeks since he has more or less decided he doesn't want to eat anything he can't pick up with his own hand, which makes it a little tricker to keep him fed, and the floor underneath his chair clean.



Ilona and Bluet outdoors in Switzerland


And playing with the Lego I brought back from New York

Canoe trips

Yesterday Bluet was playing with Lego, with her lego people having a picnic on the beach. A little later on I saw she had cleared them away and asked what had happened to her picnic, and she told me that they had finished and packed everything up into the canoe, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. This is because on the float trip in the summer when we were camping on the river, all the food was packed into Nana and Wayne's canoes at the end of each meal. Here is the lego picnic packed into the canoe.

Also we went and practised bike and scooter riding, and later Bluet took a photo of Ilona and printed it out.

Kindergarten

Bluet loves her kindergarten. Yesterday Bluet's entire class came to visit our house (apparently this is a thing they do - every Wednesday (but postponed by one day because of rain), the teachers take all the kids to 4 different houses. So about 20 small children ran into the house, straight upstairs to Bluet and Ilona's room, back downstairs to eat all the cookies we had made, and about 10 minutes later they were queuing up outside to go onwards to the next house. Bluet was very excited about this visit, talking about it beforehand, helping make the cookies, and holding the basket of cookies to offer all the kids. Then she had to bring this toy duckling to the house, where it would stay overnight, then return to school today with tales of what it had seen. Of course, this meant Bluet had to sleep with it in her bed, and woke me up in the middle of the night when she couldn't find it. In the morning it watched breakfast and getting ready, then was strapped firmly to Bluet's bag for the trip to school.

Also, here are some things Ilona can now do: 1. play with little Lego

2. Do her own hair

Sun and water

Last Saturday we headed off into town to run some errands, and so Bluet could get her hair cut. It was hot and sunny, as you can see. Then on Sunday we headed over to a friends house where they had paddling pools - sadly the water was not quite as warm as Bluet would've liked, although this did not stop Ilona getting through 2 changes of clothes.

Ilona, in a moment on her own, decides to play with Bluet's Lego

Waiting for Bluet's hair cut

Old news/new news

How to catch up? So the end of our time in Missouri allowed Bluet and Ilona to catch up with their cousins. One day we went down the road next door to visit Thane, and Bluet and Ilona got to open more presents


I think that they got to open new presents every day (it seemed like it anyway), which was fun for them. Then Ilona brushed her teeth. And we headed to the Brunot farm once more. After entertaining the cows and children, I headed back to St Louis with Scott to visit record shops and play with lego, and then onwards to New York for three days catching up with the city.

Then Bluet and Ilona and Emily joined me and did Bluet see snow? Yes at the end of her holiday, Bluet did eventually get to see snow, and discover that making snowballs makes your hands cold

breakfast in the diner attached to the hotel (the New Yorker hotel, it is very cool)

Of course in New York we stopped in the Lego store

Snow in Bryant Park

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////and then back to Zurich, where Bluet and Ilona now have a nanny (Alexandra) looking after them. She is from Slovakia but wants to speak German with them, so they are learning something. Bluet apparently even replied to a question in German, not that she will tell us she knows any German. It is going very well. Bluet even managed to bake us all some muffins