Family faces

Family Christmas walks

Christmas Eve

Cousins

A spot of table tennis at Grandmas with Ruby.

Pantomime time

Bit of slap-stick to start Christmas off at the local pantomime. The dialogue was more appropriate for the adults, so more tittering from the bigger kids, but it was good to take Bea and Ili to an ol' English tradition.

Spot the ugly sisters . . !

Happy Christmas Card

The Christmas card from Ili's class teacher was rather sweet with all the children from the Kindergarten. Ili is on the third row down in the middle.

Snow and ice

Tried a little night skating (children showed off their moves to Papa). While it looks like we've got snow here,  it's just the ice from the ice rink. Not much snow anywhere in Switzerland at the moment — too warm.

Poor Papa!

Poor, poor Papa has a cold (so I'm told) and was persuaded that a spot of snorkeling was just the tonic. Well if this didn't make him feel better, there's no bloody hope! Not sure where it is, but looks beautiful, warm and infinitely more laid-back than here. His work/travelling colleague Sasha, is in the bottom picture (soon to be a father for the first time).

Showing off!

The children are very excited at the thought of showing papa their new ice skating moves when he's back later this week . . . .  Skating this afternoon was lots of fun, and there was a little Gondola in the middle which was cute for the little ones to warm up in!

Sabah trekking

Some nice pics from the forest and market (perhaps Kota Kinabalu?)

O' Tannenbaum

Visited the woods this afternoon although it was only one degree we didn't stay long. Long enough however to stumble upon a little Christmas tree hat has now found a new home. It was the top of a discarded tree from one of the allotments and we lobbed the top off. Saved wasting a tree this year!

That old chestnut

Trip into town this evening to catch the sparkle of the city Christmas lights, bagged some fresh yummy hot chestnuts (Heissi Maroni) and watched the singing Christmas tree with a children's school choir (second time this year, and the first time was a Gospel group — but we all preferred the nippers).

Sabah update

Received a few pics from Frith which give a taste of his field trip.

Samichlaus in the Hof

Traditionally Samichlaus visits the kids on Saint Nic's day here and our local community organised an event for the children (I volunteered by making and filling the jute sacks — all 30 of them!). Here is Saint Nic is with his donkey, and presenting the little "Säckli" to Bea and Ili (just about see them in the dark).

More skating . .

Headed skating after Bea had finished afternoon school. Ili is certainly spending less time on her bottom! Here she is pushing a friend around.

Papa in Sabah

Still not many pics yet from Frith in Sabah, but I guess this must be the "office" in the Sepilok Forest Reserve (I think that's where he is!).

Christmas baking

Tis' the season for overindulging on sweet treats. We had a baking afternoon together today and the kids did their own versions of the Swiss Grittibanz (brioche-type bread shaped as a little snowman-thingey), with Bea choosing to do a penguin version — of course!

Papa in Borneo

Frith is in Borneo for nearly two weeks — no piccies yet but will post them when I get some.

Kindergarten forest morning

Our school encourages an "integrative approach" with parents, and one of the ways in which parents can get involved is to accompany the children in the forest mornings. Today both Chris and I went to help out with Ili's group today. It was freezing cold up there but Chris was an ace fire starter! It was sweet to see how many of the boys wanted to hold Chris's hands through the woods.

Ili's teacher Frau Da Mutten.