Chateau de Grandson

This past Sunday, we took a half hour road trip to Grandson. It is along Lake Neuchatel on the northwest border. Grandson was having their Medieval Festival at the castle.
We paid a fee to get in and we noticed everyone was wearing a costume over their clothes. They had a place where you could borrow costumes to fit in with the crowd. The kids and I decided to joy in on the fun.

There were demonstrations of different crafts, music and dancing. We toured the castle and they had some good exhibits of armor, guns and swords and for some reason old cars.

We decided to get a drink across from the castle.

On the drive back home, we were amazed at the number of sail boats out on the water. It was a beautiful day. A good breeze and not too hot. The white you see in the picture are the sailboats. I wish I could have gotten a better picture.

Boys and Geocaching

Last Friday, Stanton took the boys hiking and geocaching to keep them busy. I had fun watching Stanton's youngest son, Parker (almost 1). Their goal was to find a geocache and hike down to the dam. Devin took his camera and took some nice pictures.I bet Lucas is thinking that is a long way down!

They met both of their goals and hiked about 12+ kilometers I think. They had a good time and are looking forward to the next adventure.

Stanton captured some funny video of Devin on the trip. He posted it to his blog. I think this will come back to haunt him for a very long time.

http://familydetaylor.blogspot.com/2009/08/geocaching-at-barrage-du-chatelot.html

Visit Swiss Family Taylor Blog

We went to the public pool the weekend before Kate's school started with our friends the Taylors. It is a really nice facility. We took our underwater camera and decided to check out the feature "underwater". Stanton was quicker to post to his blog so I thought I would have you visit his blog to see the pictures. He has time and patience to do really cool things with his pictures and video. Maybe some day I'll get it together.

http://familydetaylor.blogspot.com/2009/08/cool-vid-from-our-day-at-nic-du-cro.html

Summer is Over

Woke up today, it was raining and the sky was gray. I thought it would be a good day to get caught up on the blog. I have been a little bit lazy but hey it was summer!

We had a good time back in the U.S.A. We were quite busy but it was lots of fun! I apologize to those of you that we didn't get a chance to see. It is crazy how fast time flies and we just couldn't do it all.

I wanted to post this picture of this sign that is in Raton. I made Jason pull over so I could take a picture. I have never seen anything like this before and it just made us laugh. I love the squirrel! We did see 2 turkeys within an hour of taking this picture. The bears were out in full force with the trash dumpsters. They do make a mess and get the dogs barking.
We did some kayaking which is always fun up at Lake Maloya. Aunt Linda always has some fun up her sleeve!

Up in Angel Fire, we did some fishing. I think the kids caught 9 fish that day but it was a long day! I think we got there around 9 in the morning and left around 5:30 pm. Katelyn wasn't leaving until she caught a fish. There was some big trout in that lake.

We had a nice family reunion with my mom's side of the family. We had a good time and lots of laughs!

We headed to Albuquerque and Zeb and Kelly's wedding was beautiful. They had an outdoor wedding and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was really nice once that sun went down. The kids loved the dancing!

We were exhausted from our vacation. It took us about 5 days to adjust back to Switzerland time. Everytime I turned around someone was sleeping in a different location.

Katelyn started school on the 17th of August. She is enjoying it so far. However, the boys don't start back until the 7th of September.

Fireworks at the Eiffel Tower

Paris or Bust!

We left Jason in Switzerland to go to work and we arrived in Paris on Monday the 13th. We didn't realize that the museums are closed on Monday. So off we went to see the sights on foot. We did tons of walking. We did get to see Napoleon's tomb. That is a beautiful place.We were having some fun on the Seine.
That evening we were at the Arch de Triumph.

We went up to the top and had a gread view!

The next day was a holiday - Bastille Day. We waited 2 hours for the military parade to start. Let's just say that we finished watching it at the hotel on the tv. Definately have to be a military finatic to have enjoyed it. Since it was a holiday, almost everything was closed. We did go to Notre Dame and that evening we watched the fireworks at the Eiffel Tower. That was well worth the wait. However, they didn't start until 22:45. My pictures didn't turn out but I did get some good video. I'll see if I can post it.

The cousins at the military museum at the Invalides.

The armor was beautiful. However, I couldn't believe that children this small went into battle. Maybe it was only for protection when traveling from one place to another. I don't know but it said it was for "enfants" (children in French)

The brothers messing around with the brother in-law taking the pictures.

Katelyn doing some thinking.

Kecia and the family in front of the Louve.

Katelyn and her Uncle Zeb having some fun. I wish the picture was more clear.

Trying to catch up on some sleep. They were heading back home the next day.

We had fun! They definately did a lot of walking. We saw quite a few places during their 2 week stay. Many games of Spades and Rummy were played. Lots of pasta, pizza, salami, cheese, crackers and bread were eaten! Our house is so quiet now. We miss them but will see them soon. Memories were made and will be reflected on many times over.

Onward to Venice!

The next morning we met up in Milano at the train station. We had some time to kill before catching the train to Venice.
We checked into our hotel which was nice and directly across the street from the train station - Venice Maestre. After we checked in Jason went and bought tickets for us to take the train over to the islands. That sign on the bottom left had some very important information but we didn't see it and the ticket lady didn't mention anything!

The most important thing to know in Italy is that you have to have your tickets validated at the yellow machines. Well Jason passed out the tickets and we hopped onto the train. We didn't know about the yellow machines because all of our tickets up to this point have been reservations. There was the ticket guy standing right by us on the platform and got onto the train with us. Well he informed us that our 13 (1 euro/tickets) were not valid and we had to pay the fine. Which was 50 Euros per ticket and paid in cash!!!! Needless to say we were targeted and very upset! The only good thing was that we only had to pay for 7 and not 13!

That little incident did us in for the rest of our time in Venice. We were only there for one more day and it seemed one day too much.

Anyway, here is a cute picture of the cousins, Isabella and Katelyn!

They had a gondola ride. I don't think it was a romantic one for the lovebirds.

This is a great picture of Kecia and her family!

This little guy, Sergio, was a trooper! He did great! He had a rough start with the time change and sleeping but he finally caught up and I think his mom and dad finally got some sleep too!