Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda....

We enrolled the kids in a summer camp here for several reasons. It would give them an opportunity to meet and interact with a LOT of other kids at one time, AND allow them to do some things that we knew we wouldn't be able to do for them. h had the camera most of the days, which is why there are more pictures of her. It was also difficult to get pics of river rafting, the water park and a few other activities they did.

Just to list off the general activities:

Huge adventure park, touring the Cailler chocolate factory, touring a hydroelectric plant, a pool day, river rafting, mountain biking, learning to scuba dive, and the final day was spent at an enormous water park!

The kids did NOT want the camp to end. In their words "I wish this went on all summer!" (It makes "What we do with mom kinda boring."). They made friends from around the world: Kenya, Portugal, South Africa, China, Spain, France, Switzerland, South Pacific...and the list goes on. Unforgettable experience.


R's new best summer bud, Jacob, from Kenya.


The next 3 pics are h at the adventure park riding a scotter lift and racing downhill.






Who knows? But he sure liked this popsicle.





Touching and smelling the cacao beans....


The next three are the kids watching them make the bars of chocolate - they later sampled them fresh off the belt. Yum!







Mixing the nutella - this was a hit with the kids - mouth watering.


The "mascot" for the Hydroelectric plant. Apparently this is the only thing that interested h.



h with two of her new buds at the pool


h learned to scuba dive one of the days - she LOVED it!!! I'm sensing a new hobby.
Here she is getting the gear on and ready


She swam all over the pool, and came back for more!


Finished and HAPPY!





R's counselor was the queen bee of face painting. She could do anything. Each day the kids came home with something extravagant. Their camp was the week of July 4 - here's my Patriot.
Though he doesn't look thrilled, he had just finished an incredibly LONG, intensely fun day at camp and was ready to not smile or have fun at least an hour.


Our little Swiss Miss. The day h had this done I was picking her up in front of the main UN building in downtown Geneva. This is in her own words: "Shortly before mom arrived, a bus full of Chinese tourists (could have been Japanese but Hannah is sure they were Chinese) pulled up and began to disembark. As they got off the bus they began chatting excitedly and a guy with a camera came within 2 feet of my face and snapped a picture. As he walked away I said to Dad"That guy just took a picture of me!". The guy looked back excitedly giving me a thumbs up sign. Then, while the bus was piling out, not a single person missed looking at me, nudging everyone around them and making sure they all saw me, and taking a photo before they were out of eye sight." I would like my friend Jen in Oregon to please explain this cultural phenomenon......