Räbeliechtli

Every fall the kindergartens all have a räbeliechtli celebration.  Usually the fathers of the children come together and carve turnips, turning them into lanterns.  Yup.  Not pumpkins, turnips.  Each turnip is hallowed out and then a design is carved  onto the outside.  The following day all the kindergarteners take a walk through the neighborhood holding the räbeliechtli and sing songs.  Oh yes, this is done in the evening when it is dark.  I must admit, it's not my favorite activity.  It's freezing and I'm not a very big fan of winter activity.
Here was the result of this years räbeliechtli.  David is a great dad and decorated Ryan's lantern with angry birds.

Here is an example of the songs they sang.

And so, this concludes our räbeliechtli tradition.  Ryan moves on to first grade.  Time to remember the good times and make room for new traditions and memories.

Fall Break

The Kanton of Schaffhausen has 3 weeks for fall break.  It's too long.  I'm sure the boys like it, but that's a lot of weeks to try and entertain two very active little boys. Thankfully David took one of those weeks off and we got to do some fun family things.  

On our first day off we went to the Verkehrshaus (Traffic Museum) in Luzern.  It's a pretty cool place.  They have all the different forms of transpiration, and anything to do with it, you can find in Switzerland.  There are trains, plains, cable cars, boats, and cars.  The boys (the big one included) had a great time.

On another day we went to Augusta Raurica.  Augusta Raurica was once a very large Roman town with at least 10,000 people living there.  This has been one of my most favorite places we've visited in Switzerland.  I think it will be a new addition on the visitors tour.  

Here are the boys sitting on a mosaic floor in part of the museum

Ryan is standing beside a model of what the town must have looked like with all of its buildings.

This is the Theater.  I stood on the platform and talked with David and the boys, who sat on the top row.  I didn't have to yell, just talked normal and they heard every word.  Simply amazing.

Across from the theater are what's left of the steps to a temple.

The only thing left of the forum temple is this altar.  Behind is a wood frame of what the entrance probably looked like.

This is the forum.   Underneath the forum there is a mosaic exhibit.

Adrian took this picture.

There's not much left of the amphitheater.  Over the years the people from the town have taken bricks and rock from the structure to build.  

This entrance is called the gate of death.  This side of the amphitheater is where the dead people and animals were carried out.  If you survived you left through the gate of the living on the other side.   

Here is where the gladiators were kept.  I stepped inside.  It was a little creepy looking out through those bars into the arena.  I couldn't help but think about those who probably stood in that very place, waiting to fight for survival.   What must it have been like for them?    I can't really begin to fathom.   

 These were some of our adventures during fall break.  I think we'll go back to these places again.  I'm looking forward to it.

School Days

It's that time of year again.  School has begun.  Here we are with the first day of school pictures and a flash back from last year.

He sure has grown a lot since last year.  

Adrian is in third grade.

Now for Ryan.

On to the second year of kindergarten.  Can't believe how time flies.

I hope everyone has a happy first day of school.

What In The World?!

This morning I sent Ryan off for the second to last day of school.  We are all pretty excited for summer vacation to begin.  He went on his way and I turned around to head back into the house.  On my way inside I walked by my little flower bed. I glanced over only to noticed more of those pathetic plums on the ground.  As my eyes casually roamed over my plants they came to a screeching halt over one of my little flowers.  This is what I found.

Where are all the leaves?  What in the world?  It only took me about 3 seconds to figure out the problem. It has been an on-going problem every summer.  Me vs. the snails.  Yes, those little boogers get me every year.  This is what my poor little plant is supposed to look like.

Thankfully the little monster hadn't made it over to the other one yet.  I stood there staring at my poor flowers only to discover more evidence of his destruction all over my flower bed.

Enter exhibit A...

And B...

This one doesn't look so bad.  But Trust me.  The leaves are all chomped on.

Well, I caught him.  Red handed.  Living peacefully under my hosta plant.  

His peaceful leaf eating days were abruptly ended as I flung him into the forrest.  

Good riddance.  

I immediately went straight into the garage for a little assistance.

Yes, friends you've guessed correct.  Snail poison.  I'm not messing around here.  We are going to the hard stuff, and it works.  Those snails can get ready to meet their maker.

They better hope my flowers come back from the grave or they are going to have to go to theirs.

Worms

We have wood worms in some of the wood work in our house.  I'm pretty sure I heard the little bugs soon after we moved in.  During the quiet of night I heard a scratching noise coming from the ceiling.  I tried to tell David about it, but he said he didn't hear any thing.  Eventually the scratching sound got louder and it wasn't just at night,  you could hear it during the day.  And now, David could finally hear it.  So I wasn't going crazy after all.  We told our builder, he came, they pulled down some boards and what do you know?  Wood worm was chomping away up there.   They tried treating the areas they could see, but that wasn't going to cut it.  Now I'm a prisoner in my own home on the living room floor.  They have taken over the upstairs, blocked off the sewing room (what in the world am I going to do now?) and are ripping the ceiling down and putting it all back together.  

These are the stairs leading up to the bedrooms.  All blocked off.

I had gone upstairs to see what was happening and to try to get into my sewing room only to find my entrance denied.  Why couldn't the laundry room have been blocked off?  I would have been totally fine with that.  As you can see there's a hole in the ceiling.  Soon enough all of the wood will be gone and they will treat the wood again, and then come back and fix it.  I'll be glad for this to be taken care of and done.  

Summer

We have had some really nice sunny days lately.  I have been enjoying the sun as much as possible.  A couple of weeks ago it was even hot.  You will not hear me complaining...ever.  But there's a problem with sunny weather here.  Especially with a drier than normal spring.  Your plants have issues they don't usually have.  

Our lovely plum tree had so many blooms this year.  And then those pretty blooms turned into little tiny green plums.  And then it didn't rain.  And we didn't think to water the tree, because we don't usually need to.  Then the warm weather came and we rejoiced.  One day, a particularly warm day, I looked up into my plum tree to notice my tiny green plums were already turning purple.  They they were still tiny.  Hmm.

So here's what they look like when you don't have a rainy spring and forget to water your tree.  

Do you see that sad looking one right in the middle?  All scrawny and shriveled.  Yes, we are quite literally growing raisins (and yes I know raisins are grapes).  But there is still hope.  I got right on to watering our tree, in a desperate attempt to save some of our bounty.  

Next to that pitiful plum is a green one, that will hopefully keep growing and ripen into something to be proud of.  And just maybe I'll be able to make plum jam like Grandma Davis this year.

Life

Phew.  Life has a way of passing you by.  Since my last post we've had two birthdays, been to an Ironman race, and had one bike crash.  

Adrian turned nine.  I can't believe he's nine.  We just got his new school schedule for next year.  Third grade!  Third Grade!  

Ryan is ending his first year of kindergarten and getting ready to start the second one.  His teacher says he's a favorite among the kids.  Interestingly enough there are two children in his class that are autistic and apparently Ryan is one of the only people they respond too.  A mother couldn't be prouder.

Then, there is the big one.  He's working hard for his family and going to school on top of it.  He just completed his first (and I say first because I know him all to well to know that there will be more in our future) Ironman.  He did pretty great.  I'm also pretty proud of him.

In case you are wondering, Adrian has an obnoxious noise maker in his mouth.  

I wish I would have noticed it, but I was trying to hurry and take the picture so David could go take a shower.  

Oh yeah, I mentioned a bike crash...just the normal bike life around here.  It wasn't great, but thankful for safety and really big band aides.

David also had a birthday yesterday.  Here's a picture I took for him to put on his desk at work.  The boys were a big help with this one.  Also, I'm kind of proud of it.   I've been working on my photography skills.  It was tricky with wiggly boys, but I managed to get their feet mostly in focus.  And that was my goal.

I have been doing regular mom things.  I recently found an upholstery shop where I can find supplies for making bags.  Kind of excited about that.  I'm a little more motivated to get back to the sewing machine.  Other than those things we are plugging along.  Looking forward to fun summer activities. 

I can make that...

I'm still selling my diaper clutches.  I really need to get into the sewing room and make some more.  But mom and dad were here and I haven't been very motivated. 

I make most of my clutches from laminated cotton.  I got to wondering if I could make it myself.  So I did what any other person would do.  I googled it.  Sure enough, there it was.  How to laminate your own fabric.  I did some research, looked around and ordered this.

It's an iron on vinyl in gloss.  It came in the mail last week and I got right to it.  I decided to try and laminate some new chevron fabric. Isn't it pretty? 

First things first.  When you take your roll of vinyl out of the package, here is what you get.  It looks a lot like contact paper with a grid on the back.

I cut out my fabric and the laid it on the grid to get the same size vinyl.  Make sure you trim any excess off the edges, other wise it will stick to your iron and make a mess. (Trust me, I know...)

Next, you peel the backing away from your vinyl and place it on the right side of your fabric.  It has a sticky backing so the vinyl will stay in place on your fabric.  You can also reposition it pretty easy, so don't worry if get a bubble.  Pull it back and re-stick it.  

The paper backing you just removed is going to be what you use to iron over.  Place it, shiny side down, over your vinyl and iron.  Now, the directions say to leave your iron in place for 8 seconds before you move it around.  Maybe my iron was too hot, I don't know.  But after I did that I got pucker-y looking laminated fabric.

  You can see it on the fabric and the paper.  So I just re-ironed it.  That seemed to help.  

  

DIY laminated cotton is tricky.  I liked the end result, but it's not so easy to work with.  If you don't ever have to turn or manipulate the fabric it will look great.  But as with most bags, there comes a step in the process where you must turn the bag right side out.  After doing this, there were creases that weren't going to smooth out.  I was pretty disappointed with that.  I'm going to try a matte finish one of these days and see if that makes a difference.

Happy laminating!