Happy 7th Birthday George!

Here is Tiger our new cat (boots got hit by a car). George LOVES him!!!
George as a baby
George 3 and helping make waffles
Here he is with his bunny Snowflake in england (it didn't come with us)

My dear sweet George is 7 today and I can hardly believe it! He's quite the old soul and we love him. He adores cats and likes to be with the big kids. Dislikes ice skating we found out today but he's desperate to go skiing again. Very stubborn and very cuddly. He's a thinker and knows exactly what he wants.

girls trip to annecy, france

My goodness I need to buy a camera! I can never seem to find one that works or can figure out how it works! Any way here are a couple of pictures I stole from Tanya's website from our girls trip. It was lovely to get away to France...shop and eat our hearts out!

sisters

I have 4 sisters...3 older and 1 younger. (also have a brother who is the oldest but this post isn't about him). I love my sisters! Adore them really! They are beautiful, wise and they love to laugh (at me, with me, whenever).

I was driving home from the grocery store last week and I saw a mini van with a woman inside that looked like one of my sisters! It made my heart hurt because I knew it couldn't be her. But I wanted it to be her! I wanted to pull over, have a chat, and take her kids to play with mine while she shopped. Its hard living far apart from all my sisters. I always get sentimental like this when I know they are all getting together.

So girls here's the deal: when we are old and gray I want us all to try and live within 30 minutes of each other. And if you can't swing that then we have to get together at least 4 times a year!

Rocks for Sale....

Colin drove down this winding road to the Binnon Valley in Wallis to look for Pyrite (Fool's Gold) with Monica and James. They LOVE rocks and had soooo much fun.

Mineraliengrube Lengenbach

Beautiful clean blue lake

Typical Wallis

Happy Birthday Little Girl

13 years ago I rushed to the hospital with a groggy husband who didn't believe I was really going into labor (3 weeks early). I proved to be right as usual and we brought a beautiful little girl into the world. 13 years later we are still marvelling at her...

miracle

I had the craziest thing happen yesterday on my anniversary. A year and a half ago I lost the diamond from my wedding ring (while we were living in the UK). I looked everywhere! but eventually determined to get a bigger diamond :). We kept doing other things with our extra money so I've just been wearing a russian wedding band that I picked up at a car boot sale in England. Anyway late last night after I got home from parents night (colin is in Poland for work) I was cleaning out the filter from the dryer and I spotted what I thought was one of Monica's earrings. I picked it up and thought that it must have come out of her earring as it was just the stone. But the stone looked very familiar to me...so I scratched it against the glass door of the washer to see if it was real. It scratched back! I was very shocked! So I rushed up to my jewlery box to see if it would fit....it did! How did that diamond travel back to switzerland and let me find it a year and a half later in a different country?! Amazing!

In other happenings school started up 3 weeks ago....making my life CRAZY! We've finally started all of the other things up as well (after taking a 6 month break for the children to readjust to german). George is in swimming, James is taking kumon, piano, drums, trumpet (from his uncle and a friend) and scouts (in zurich there is an american troop), Monica is taking piano, guitar, YW's and kumon. Just makes life busier when you add these elements plus a kitty that insists on being played with!:)

I also haven't been able to put this book down!!! So if you like the Jane Austen time period then grab a copy! I'm still thinking about it!

15 years goes by so quickly

Today is our wedding anniversary! HaPPy 15th AniVerSaRY Darling!!!

Here's the family at Terramitica theme park in Spain

Our family this year in Utah

Colin when we were dating...

On his mission in Detroit

Our wedding Day

Engagement pic

up in the hills here in switzerland

Daddy and Georgie (they had a special bond)

Dad and the twins

Boots

We got a new kitty on Sunday evening (Thanks Rahel)! The first night she meowed a lot but finally settled down by Colin's feet. The kids are loving her to bits and I'm trying to control that love:) She's a good little kitty and has been eating, drinking and sleeping well. She loves to play with the kids and hide from them. Here are a couple pictures...

family reunion

So I forgot to take any pictures during my summer vacation....OOPS! But my dear sister in law took a bunch and here are a few from our time at Lake McCall, Idaho:

Monica loved everything! Water skiing, tubing, ski doos, fishing, playing with cousins!

George loved the tube and going slowly on the skidoos.

James enjoyed the tube, ski doos and the knee board.

This as close as the twins got to the water....chickens! But it made watching them pretty easy!

familyphoto

We got some family photos taken in Utah this month. Here is the crew up in the Provo mountains. You can see more on our website ramsay.ch

retro

I was looking through some old photos and I came across this old photo of us going sledding. The twins were one or two so it was a couple years ago. Below is a picture with Colin's 2 brothers. Daniel on the left and Marcel on the right.

Here Kitty Kitty

So here he or she is in all her glory. Her mom is above with the other kittens. My kids are in love and we have been visiting daily to torture the poor thing. My kids also really want a female kitty so we can breed and breed and breed. Yeah right....I'm not getting stuck with lots of little cats. I'm not a cat person so this cat will soon be living outside I hope! George is determined to name it kitty kitty but I think we'll find another name for it...maybe Boots? Off to the USA tomorrow!!! See ya!

the birds and the bees and other nonsense

So as I was in the bathroom this morning my little boys came in and watched me using the toilet...Tim started out the conversation, "So you have 3 holes?" I thought we must be having the where do babies come from talk so I clarified and explained what the 3 holes were for and then I remembered that yesterday I had a wart lasered from my foot. they actually found 2 more little planter warts so in total I had 3 warts removed leaving you guessed it 3 holes. Finally my brain kicked in and I said, yes I have 3 holes on my heel. Yes! That's what we're talking about!!! Yikees! Save that talk for another day...

Watch out Pedestrians!

The little boys have each gotten something new to ride (all hand me downs) but they were excited. We finally put the training wheels on bikes for the twins and put the seat down for George (he would like the whole bike down a bit more-oh well). (Yes they all got really short haircuts when we were in England last week).

As soon as I took this picture they went back to their old big wheels...oh well!

I highly recommend boys of this age to fix all the bikes! They worked really hard all afternoon. Thanks guys!

swiss german

My husband speaks swiss german (which is an unwritten language similiar to German that the Swiss speak here). Anyway now that the twins are in preschool he was talking to them last night about whether they can speak swiss or not...

Ben can you speak swiss? Ben, "No, I can't"

Tim says, "I can speak Swiss!" Colin, "Really?" "What can you say?"

Tim, "Swiss, Swiss, Swiss"

Well he got us there! Perhaps German lessons wouldn't be a bad idea.

pardon?!?

Would you like some ice cream boys? Yes, they scream at me. Would you like chocolate sauce on top? Ummmm no thanks says Ben. No thanks, says Tim. I want Ketchup on top! UEGH! Sorry that isn't served that way!

Pedicures anyone?

My comatose, jetlagged husband took a short nap (6 hours) and woke up to this! The twins giving him a lovely pedicure. I wish I had a picture of the handfuls of lotion that they had. Monica was the photog and she did a brilliant job of capturing the event! My sister and I were at the spa getting a real pedicure (our cuticles look better...then his). Check out my sister Mindy's blog (Is anyone out there) at the side of my blog to see what other antics we've been up to. She's a better blogger than I am...more devoted and a fabulous writer!