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.

Bluet's Commute

Now Bluet goes to kindergarten, she has to learn the route to walk, because here after a while kids walk to school by themselves. Fortunately it is not very far - 5 minutes for an unaccompanied adult, or 10 minutes for an adult with a slowly moving kid. This is the way we go.

This being Zurich, there is of course an enormous hill to go up before you get there. At this point Bluet inexplicably decides she needs to push Ilona. This does not last long.

Running up the school steps with excitement

And then when we get there the doors are not yet open, which is why Bluet looks sad

A video from the weekend

Demonstrating advanced football and scooting skills

This weekend

On Saturday it was a family trip to the city. After visiting a Swiss car boot sale equivalent near the lake (it was very posh. Lots of bad oil painting) we headed up the posh shopping street (Banhofstrasse, literal translation, Train Station Street), where Ilona perched on a posh shop window, then Bluet had to too, but obviously as far away as possible

On Sunday we went to the local school playground to play football and scoot

And here Bluet shows concern for a small scrape on Ilona's knee

Travels with my witch

Witches costumes are not just for Halloween, but also for general Monday morning activities - as long as you hold the brim of the hat with your hand at all times, to make sure it doesn't blow off in the wind. Today we went on a short bus ride to Oerlikon, where there is an old factory which has been converted into a park that I wanted to check out. As you can see it isn't exactly child friendly, but this did not stop Bluet climbing the stairs all the way to the top. I think that they used to make trams here, so the top is very high.

Brooklyn Hipster pose

And then at the bottom, these 'stones' are actually small fragments of broken glass - perhaps this is how the Swiss 'recycle'

Casting a spell

Meanwhile on Saturday we went to Ikea. Which is reassuringly the same as all the other Ikea's I have ever been to. Here we are in the playground before we got the bus home

And then on Sunday Bluet did some scooting amongst the autumn leaves

Christmas Day

Unbelievably, Ilona was 4 weeks old on Christmas Day. She mostly are and slept, wearing some rather fetching Christmas duds. However whilst she was briefly awake she got to lie on the floor, unencumbered. A rare treat. Today we got out the jungle gym for her, which you may remember from when Bluet was a month old.

This was the first Christmas where Bluet had any idea of who Santa is. The night before Christmas, we read "The night before Christmas". We then left out a glass of whisky and a cookie for Father Christmas, and checked first thing in the morning to see if he'd eaten and drunk. He had (and particularly enjoyed the whisky). We then had to hunt for her stocking (Santa had left it at the end of the bed, and Ilona's was outside her door because he didn't want to wake her from her pre Christmas slumber). This kept Bluet occupied for long enough to forget that the real meaning of Christmas is to open presents, giving me time to make coffee and breakfast muffins, which should probably become a Christmas tradition.

Bluet with stocking filler

Then we moved onto the presents under the tree. If took a while for Bluet to get going, the first few presents plucked were not for her. But once she had it figured out the wrapping was off in seconds, and the floor disappeared under paper and toys. Then because Ilona is too young, bluet got to open a second round. It was pretty fun seeing Bluet enjoying herself so much, opening presents so rapidly that sometimes it was hard to keep track of whether or not the presents she was opening were actually for her. 

Today (Boxing Day) we played a little outside (where Bluet finally got to stroke Kato, the cat left behind by the previous owners, who we don't feed, but who still frequents our garden), attempted to watch the jungle book, let Ilona lie on the floor some more and suddenly the day is done, with Emily singing Bluet her nighttime songs while I write this.