Cora does Provence!

Cora, the world traveler continues her amazing travels! This past week it was just a little jaunt to Provence. Nat had a long weekend so we packed the car with bikes, clothes, a dog and a toddler, booked a last minute room in an amazing Chateau in Apt, France, and off we went. Nat and I took turns between playing with Cora at the Chateau playground and mountain biking on the great dry trails around the area. In the evenings we explored the cute little towns, drank glorious local wine (juice for Cora!) and ate some delicious French food. 

The room in our Chateau was a renovated stone and wooden stable, and included a little dining room and kitchen. Two swimming pools, a play ground, a pool house full of games and toys and lots of land for Tanner to run and play were available for us to use on their property. Not bad for a last minute Airbnb booking! No one wanted to leave when it was time to go. It was adorable, and the entire trip (besides a terrible traffic jam home) far exceeded our expectations of a little weekend getaway. We will be back soon, I have a feeling!! 

Our chateau! 

Downtown Apt, France

Poppy fields and vineyards, my heaven.

Playing in ruins.

Exploring.

Gardening envy.

Cora enjoying Freedom Fries in France.

Next year's Christmas card photo?? I think its winning.

Exploring dessert trails.

I feel so at home here! Nope, it's not Utah! It's France! Crazy world, full of trickery.

Western Colorado??

Fruita??

So good for my desert soul.

And so good for my wine loving soul.

And bam. We are back home to long days and brutal buggy rides to the grocery store. 

And cleaning up the travel disaster. Urgh.

But Mini Mouse helps me.

And then we paint.

And the rainy world of Switzerland is good again.

Back on the daily train to play groups and such, with of course no shoes or socks.

Our lunchtime view today.

And, us bored on the train today.

Two and a Half!

I can not believe Cora is already two and a half years old! Wowza, time has flown by. Whoever described parenthood by saying, "The days are long, but the years fly by" is completely accurate. 

Our silly, funny, smart and adventurous little girl is in love with swings lately, and can swing for hours at a time if we let her. She also is still obsessed with all the baby farm animals living around our village. 

We spent Mother's Day weekend up in the mountains in Grindelwald where we hiked, swung, ate nice food, swung some more, hiked some more, and of course, hung out with some baby animals.

Grindelwald was lovely!

Oh, she is really into dancing too. I think she was dancing here, why not?  

Exhausted after a morning of swimming in Bern.

Her SV ride awaits for July ....

Tea Parties, Mirror Rooms and Little Buddies

To help pass the time during Switzerland's dreary monsoon season, Cora spent a lot of time playing with her Scottish friends Meghan and Zoe and her American-Swiss friend Lilly, this week. We went to the National History Museum last Sunday and discovered how exciting and fun a hallway of mirrors can be, we colored and played tea parties at our house, went to play group on Wednesday morning and went to Zoe's second birthday party yesterday.                           

Cora has also been generally awesome and so much fun and she surprises me everyday with all the new things she can say and remember. She will remember things out of the blue that happened months ago, and it will take me about ten minutes sometimes to remember what in the world she is babbling about.

Another one of my favorite phases she is going through right now is every other day or so she becomes obsessed or fixated on a certain small toy which will come everywhere with us *in addition to her Kiki, of course. One day it will be her little green Baby Bear, a little wooden ice cream toy, a yellow balloon, a pink little cup,  and even a travel size baby powder bottle that she calls "Baby Baby Powder" of course. Many times she will even nap with these items and wake up with an imprint of them on her face. She cracks me up.

With Meghan in the mirror room.

The girls on a big bug.

This is just another shout out to Aunt Marisa because we love you.

BONES!

Playing on the train.

Pretty flowers to brighten up the dreariness. 

My favorite time of day- bedtime stories.

Just a pretty view from down the street.

Playing at our house. Toys were EVERYWHERE.

At least we got her to sit at the dinner table ... like usual, she did everything in her power not to eat.

I bought Cora a new tea set and it is quite the adorable hit! 

Your animals and I love you Cora!