Parker is walking - like right now

Parker can walk now. He is just so happy with himself and so are his Mom and Dad. Payton is going to have to learn another level of patience with his little brother. Way to go Parker. You're not even 12 months and you're walking. Pretty soon I will have him schlepping a back pack with his diapers! My next goal for him is to ride his walking bike.

Swiss branding

I don't know who brands themselves more - Texas or Switzerland. The Swiss put their mark on seemingly everything. I think this branded item goes a little far. Must there really be a Swiss Edition of toilet paper? I think not. Let's just hope it isn't like Swiss cheese. I don't think Texas has even gone this far. Need I say that I didn't buy this package.

Parker didn't really care about any branding. He just liked getting buried in the shopping cart.

Pics from the weekend

We woke up Sunday morning, but Parker didn't stay awake for very long.
Later in the day we drove down to Grandson and met the Marciondo's at Le Château de Grandson (or to you and me, that town's castle). They were having their La Fête Médiévale (Midevil Festival). We are usually up for doing something on the weekends and walking through a castle is always a good idea. And this castle was only a half hour away too.
Anybody who wanted to dress in period costume could borrow one for free. The kids liked it and it was neat to see 'em dressed the part.
It was a good day. We stopped at a local restaurant to get have a cool drink before heading home. No food though, it was afterall 2PM. I can't get used to serving hours over here.

I helped Parker walk into the house. He isn't a full-time walker just yet, but he is on the verge of being so. Parker is getting big, but he looks so tiny next to me.

Pictures of the boys

After swimming today Kathleen grabbed the camera and snapped a few pictures. These turned out well and much desired. We don't seem to have many pictures of the boys together. We really like these.

Geocaching at Barrage du Chatelot

Today I went geocaching with the Devin and Lucas. We had planned on finding two, but only could do one. Both caches are located by things worth seeing. One I have seen and the other I haven't. We started at the one I haven't seen - Barrage du Chatelot. Devin and Lucas haven't seen either. This is a dam on the river Doubs, just down stream from the waterfall Saut du Doubs.

We parked and started our trek at the restaurant Roches de Moran. Although only .2 km from dam, we ended up hiking 12.9 km to get there and back - about 8 miles over 4 ½ hours. (I'm not sure the total distance is completely acturate. The tree cover effects GPS reception. We were certainly walking long enough to do it. I didn't want to stop walking because of my ankle.) Lucas guided us with the GPS to the first cache and Devin actually found it. It wasn't supposed to be a hard one and turned out to be really easy. The plastic bag containing the cache was sticking out of the ground like a flag.

After finding the cache we started hiking down into the valley to go see the dam. It didn't take long to find a really cool vantage point to see the dam and lake below. Not long after this I slipped and twisted my ankle. It felt like jello, but I wanted to see the dam. We continued on. I thought about heading back and minimizing walking it, but as I write this the next day the swelling is minimal and I can walk on it. It was slow going with me hobbling, but we made it.

Down stream from the dam alongside the river was cafe. A cafe? Down here? Yep, a cafe. We thought about getting a Coke, but they only had syrup drinks. We passed. Besides, the place had a 'Deliverance' kind of feel to it. The people there had these birds pinned up. I don't know what they were exactly (geese?), but I don't think they flew. The sure did bark at us. I passed by them first before they really took notice of us. Lucas squeaked by next, but by the time Devin started to pass by they were really barking. It took Devin a while, but he got by them unscathed.

About 10 min. later we arrived at the dam. Given my bum ankle we didn't explore to much. We just kind of looked at it and rested before starting our uphill hike back to the car. The lake level looked to be about 15-20 below the top of the dam. When the level is high the water cascades over the top creating a spectacular waterfall. I pulled a picture from internet to show this. Looks pretty cool.

We made sure to look for and follow the trail signs on the way up. We lost the trail coming down and it was while we were off trail I twisted my ankle. It took us 1½ hours to trek up the valley to the car. The signs led us straight there. We were ready for rest and air conditioning.

At home I had a hard time walking from the garage into the house. Kathleen came home to see me hobbling across the driveway. After cleaning up I went to the drugstore and rented some crutches. I'm not sure how much this will cost me. Surprisingly my ankle isn't swollen all that much and there is little pain. I can walk on it now, but I use my crutches to be safe.

A 'ski-by' view of the Eiger

Remember in a past post when I said Kathleen was thinking about parasailing? I came across this really cool video of something called speed riding. It is kind of a cross between skiing and parasailing. Well Kathleen stills wants to parasail, but not exactly this extreme sport.

The things you start to miss from home

Oh man, the list is long for the things I miss about home. This morning I got a little taste of home in the mail - yellow mustard. I ordered a few things online and they came this morning; 8 bottles of French's yellow mustard, 3 jars of sweet pickle relish, 10 cans of Campbell's condensed tomato soup, and 4 bottles of chocolate Magic Shell. This lousy hot dog was made 100 times better with good 'ol mustard. Jeez, you can't even get hot dog buns here. Darn, I forgot the relish!

Payton went back to school today

The funniest thing... Parker started blowing bubbles

Today Kathleen gave little Parker a bath and he did the funniest thing. He just bent over, put his face in the water and blew bubbles. Check out the video we took. We think it is just so funny.

Cool vid from our day at Nic du Crô piscine

The weather has been great here the last few days. The water in the pool and the lake is warm as well. School around here starts this Monday so Kathleen thought it would be good to go to the local water park Nic du Crô. We called our friends the Marciondo's and they joined us.

Jason brought his new camera and wanted to test it out. It is a waterproof Olympus camera. The little jewel worked really well and was still a tickin' at the end of the day. Check out the video.

Parker is walking (well sort of)

I don't know exactly what defines walking, but in our book Parker can walk. He has been standing up on his own for several weeks now. Then he started taking a step here and two steps there. That isn't walking, but he's now up to four and five steps. He doesn't do it all the time, but it is getting more frequent. Four or five steps - I call this walking. Way to go Parker!

Parker clean, dirty, wet and relaxed

Parker started his day all happy and looking sharp. Outdoors the day slowly turned real nice and the boys headed out. Payton took the lid off the sandbox - which had been filled with rain the night before. Parker crawled right in. Payton was smart enough to stay outside the box. By now the sun was fully out and the pool was warm. the boys and mama mi went swimming.

Later at night and before bed, Payton drew a very good T-Rex skeleton.

Cool word art

Want to make your own cool word art? Check out www.wordle.net. I made this using our blog as the source for words. I think it is pretty cool!

Swiss milk

Swiss cows milk can do wonders - even if it is just a cool looking print ad.

Parker likes being naked

I am working on a 'first twelve months' comparative photo album of Payton and Parker. Parker is just over 11 months now and last night around nine o'clock or so took some bare butt shots of Parker. We have some of Payton around this age and needed some of Parker for the photo album.

Parker seemed to be winding down when I got this urge. Man oh man, as soon as we took off his clothes he got a second wind and was crawling all over the place. He likes being naked. He was charged up and full of smiles. I snapped a bunch of pictures and this picture was the best one. It is the one going in the photo album.