January 19, 2008. Once recovered from our long, overseas adventure home for the Holidays, we hopped a train to discover Bern, the Swiss Capital. It is a beautiful Gothic city, with tons of history and incredible architecture. The big highlight for the girls was the "Bear pits". I had heard tons of opinions about the "bear pits", which are exactly that, two pits in the city, which house the city's mascots...two big bears. I was really expecting the spectacle to be somewhat sad. It is heavily debated that the situation is cruel and inhumane, but the bears truly appear quite comfortable in their set up...they get fed continuously by tourists, who drop apples and oranges down to he waiting critters. They were very silly and would just lay with their big mouths open, waiting for a ... read more

We had a busy month! We had a visit from a good friend from Texas, and took in the Holiday festivities in Lausanne. Emma arrived the first week in December. We strolled Lausanne, visited the Olympic museum gardens and took a crazy day trip to the Mountains in an attempt to ski. Lausanne is beautiful at Christmas time...full of traditional decorations and good cheer. They had wonderful festivities throughout the city the whole month of December, including numerous visits from "Pere Noel and his charming ass" (a translation on the community website..hee-hee). The plaza near our house, St. Francois had free pony rides around the square every Sunday, as well as a beautiful Christmas village with hot wine and trinkets from around the world. We took a day trip to the little ski village of Overonnaz, ... read more

We just returned from our first cruise. We are all tan and tired. It was an Italian line departing from Rome (Costa Victoria) and traveling South through the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas. We stopped in Sicily,The Greek Isles of Patmos, Mykonos and Santorini and in Izmir, Turkey. As first time "cruisers" we had a lot to learn, but were pleasantly surprised by the mode of transport. We have discovered that Italy has a different concept of structure (ie.-standing in lines, taking turns, timetables, schedules, etc.....they really just don't do it) and once we made peace with that fact , it was fun. The girls had a wonderful time. We only had one night of "rocky" travel, which left both Abby and I a little woozy. After one good up-chuck, Abby was ready to find some pizza ... read more

Next port of call, Mykonos. Unfortunately, we arrived at dusk and only had one evening to take it all in. We had great fun, none the less. We meandered around the fishing village of Chora, watching the fisherman(and women) clean their catch, getting lost in the narrow, winding streets. Bella found herself a surrogate Papoo sitting on a porch and climbed right up for a cuddle. We met Petros the Pelican who has apparently been the Island mascot for 5 decades....we were wondering why he looked so bored. He was really cute, chasing after a Greek restaurant owner with fish in his pocket. Nate had his first Ouzo on Greek soil in a waterside cafe as the girls threw rocks into the Aegan. A very lovely evening. ... read more

Our first excursion was a trip to visit Mt. Etna. Really very remarkable...I felt as if we stepped off the ship and took a bus to the moon! Mt. Etna is one of the most active volcanoes in the world, with an eruption most recently in September. Apparently, although it erupts frequently, the lava flow is very slow, so it is not considered particularly dangerous to inhabitants,as they have plenty of notice to get out of the way. It does take out pretty much anything in it's path, and it was amazing how the locals just keep building right on top of the lava...making pretty little stone gardens and patios, etc. by chipping away the hardened aftermath (wouldn't you love to see their insurance premiums!). ... read more