June's Blessing

Sunday, November 27th, 2011
Geneva 1st Ward

With Nana Calder

Modeling the dress Mommy made

 

 A signature June curiosity face (she's always looking around)

 

The dress & accessories.

The sweater from Grandma Nita, head band and red flower clip made by my sister Kristin and the booties made by my Aunt Arlene.

Growing

We do it every day... There's a song I remember from Barney about growing. It's actually got good lyrics. I watched plenty of Barney in my teenage years as I babysat A LOT.

So yes, June is growing! We had her 1 month appointment with the pediatrician yesterday. She is now a whopping 5.2kg and 57 inches. That is a 14% height increase and a 55% weight increase--of course Curt did those calculations immediately when I told him her size. He has a very analytical, math-savy mind.

We just got back from a walk and I took a few pictures with my phone:

June at the Jardin Anglais. This is how she has to look in any photos I take when we're alone on walks. I took a photo of the flower clock for two reasons: 1. I LOVE the new colors. It is fun to see them change periodically. And 2. The new 125 year celebration sign.

 

So much attention to detail

And to show she has grown. Remember what she looked like on her first outing? See here, the 2nd photo.

Today

June looked cute and I happened to catch the end of a big smile (sleeping) when I took the photo. I had to share. 

Also, the booties she is wearing are absolutely adorable. My Aunt Arlene made them for June (thanks great-Aunt Arlene!!!)

We're sad that Grandma 'Nita had to fly home today....but we are SO glad she got to be here the last few weeks. We had a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to doing a few posts of our adventures...soon.

The next excitement is Nana Calder's visit this week! How spoiled to see both grandmas in the same week.

More photos with Candice & Tim

Remember how Tim and Candice (Curt's older sister) visited us back in March? The post is here. Well I finally am around to putting up the rest of the pictures. I must say it is a HUGE benefit to have a professional photographer (Candice) around when touring. She came up with some absolutely amazing photos of where we live and where we traveled together. 

Enjoy!

Our street

The view from our street

Shopping at good ol' Migros

The walk home from Migros. The architecture here in Eaux Vives (our neighborhood) is so beautiful.

The lake at night

Curt and Tim went golfing together in France

Riding the boat (public transport) across the lake

The view from the right bank (the 'other side' of the Rhone). We live right by the Jet d'eau on the left bank.

Just walking around. We love these two!!!

In Montreux

The Chateau de Chillon in Montreux

In Chamonix at the Aiguille du Midi

The views were breathtaking

Mont Blanc sometimes doesn't look as big as it is

It was FREEZING and SUNNY (blinding)

We got sandwiches and hot cocoa and basked in the sun. It was a great picnic.

"Ricola!" They really gave us a Ricola while we were in line to go up on the tram. So funny.

The view to the upper portion

The lower platforms (we were on the upper one to take the photo). You can see where we had our 'picnic.'

No we did not buy this for 100CHF. I'm sure it's tasty though!

Shopping on the street

Kristin & Mom in Switzerland!

My mom and sister (Venita & Kristin) went on a European vacation during June this year. They ended the trip by spending 4 days with us. We had an incredible time!

SATURDAY They flew in from Paris in the late morning. It was fun to pick them up at the airport. I have to admit I cried when I saw them--I was so happy to have my family here! After dropping stuff off at our apartment, we spent time in Geneva.

It was SO cool to have them here. It feels like it was a dream. 

 We went on a 1hr cruise around the lake

We were so lucky to have gorgeous weather

SUNDAY we went to church and then did more walking around beautiful Geneva

Waiting for the bus to go to church 

Hanging out at Parc des Bastions. Kristin won. I stink at checkers. 

Maybe we had a little too much fun in Old Town. We almost had an accident we got this thing going so fast. We laughed harder than ever.

The streets of Old Town with the Swiss and Geneva flags

 In front of St. Peter's Cathedral

 And of course we finished off the evening with amazing raclette and fondue

MONDAY Mom, Kristin and I took the train to Gruyere. We visited the cheese factory, castle and chocolate factory.

La Maison du Gruyere is where most of the Gruyere cheese is made

 

We had a little audio tour, complete with samples of real Gruyere cheese (I LOVE Gruyere!!!)

It was neat to see how the cheese is made 

and how it ages. I prefer mi-sale (medium) Gruyere

We saw sheep and cows with bells on the walk from the cheese factory to the old town and castle. I can't remember what happened when this photo was taken, but knowing Kristin it was probably pretty hilarious :) 

The sound of the bells is divine! 

Different photos of our time at the castle

Our next stop was the Cailler chocolate factory in Broc

I bought a special dark chocolate candy bar there for Grandpa Maw

The tour was really interesting 

but the best part was where we got to try all of Cailler's chocolates (really--all we could eat). People thought we were weird because we would take a bite and hand it to each other so we could try more flavors. There's no way you could try every one in the room with out getting sick. That way we could try more chocolates. I had so much fun with these two! 

On the way home we changed trains in Bulle. While in Gruyere, I had fun asking people (in French) where the best place to buy a REAL cowbell was. I didn't want a souveneir bell. A very nice lady at the cheese facotry explained where I could find a small hardware-like store in Bulle. Miraculously we found the store and I bought 2 awesome cowbells. These were the bells we brought for the cows at the Calder's in Huntsville (you can see them here).

TUESDAY we just hung out around Geneva and they flew home early Wednesday morning. Curt and I followed close behind as we flew to Utah on Thursday for our Summer Holiday.