Merry Christmas from the Ramsay Family

2010 has been a year full of changes. The children all changed to the local school which made life a little less hectic. Everyone can walk or ride their bike to school now which leaves me with nothing to do! J

Monica is in the secondary school and enjoys theatre club, swimming and babysitting. James is in year 5 and enjoys shooting club, letting off fireworks (yikees) and boy scouts. George is in year 1 and is taking swimming lessons and coming along on his German finally. Tim and Ben are in kindergarten and are also in swimming lessons. A couple german words or songs will pop out every now and then ...lebet wohl kommit gut hei......

Colin has been super busy with work. Travelling like crazy to all the eastern Euporean countries. When he has some free time then he travels to other countries J.

I’ve been running a bit, reading books, baking, and talking,

Wish you all a wonderful and happy New Year! Love you all,

Colin, Julie, Monica, James, George, Tim and Ben

family@ramsay.ch, facebook and

www.swissramsay.blogspot.com

my, how you've grown

Over fall vacation we went to England to visit some dear friends. While we were there we tried to shoot some shots of the kids in their back garden....with varying success.

Tim and Ben were goof balls

George LOVED having his picture taken....Mom over here, look mom right here, I'm ready!

James was too cool to pose.

Here's Monica...the helpful child.

my 4 month experiment

This summer I visited my sisters and parents all by myself for 10 days. We took walks, went running or swimming daily. One of my sisters has run a couple half marathons and I didn't think I had what it takes to do that! I've always enjoyed sprinting (I'm a sugar addict no doubt) but I've never thought it possible for me to run anything beyond a 200 meter dash! My knees often hurt me so my mom took me to an awesome running store where I walked across a pad which showed what kind of shoes I need. Since then I've not had any knee problems! Miracle! Right before I went home (July 3) I ran a 5k fun run with my sister and some friends. It was so much fun I hoped to keep it up when I returned home.

And so the running Experiment begins:

So the middle of July, after the swim across the lake of zurich my friends decided to start training for a half marathon....hmmmmm.....I wasn't sure I could commit to it. They all signed up but I didn't. I thought I'dsee how the training goes...my poor knees. So Amy and I started training. We needed to get ourselves up to at least 10 miles. Jenni took me out on a 7 mile run and I survived. That was the longest I had ever gone. I went home and slept 3 hours afterwards. Amy and I would get together weekly for our long run. After we hit 10 miles we felt very proud...it was raining buckets during the run as well. After the 10 I started training weekly with Jenni. She took me on a 14 mile run right before the half marathon. I signed up for the race and Jenni and I ran the Greifenseelauf halfmarathon in September using the run/walk method. I really loved the concept of as long as you do the mileage it doesn't matter how you get there. That made sense to me and it was something I could start with. The race was fine but my legs felt heavy and it was late in the day. I'm determined to redo that run to have a more positive run. Since I was already up to 14 miles I felt like going longer, farther. Jen and I decided to sign up for a marathon at the end of October in Lausanne and we started TRAINING! It was so much fun, addictive, empowering, time consuming, and weight reducing. My dog Lexy joined me up until 16 miles and I'm sure she could have gone farther but I didn't want to hurt her. We trained up until 20 miles and then ran the race on halloween. The weather was perfect, the views were spectaular and Jen and I had a great run. I loved it and I'll totally do another one...next year :).

Here is beautiful Lake Geneve at Lausanne, Switzerland where the marathon was held.

All the grape vines in the distance

Jen and I after the marathon!

Runaways

Tim and Ben have started a new game:

"Mom, I want ice cream"!

"Sorry honey, I'm just making dinner. You can have some after dinner"

"Then I'm running away" he turns and runs away with his twin running after him crying and screaming "Mom, he's running away. Just give him ICE CREAM"....oh the trauma.

Then I hear them talking, "Where will you go"? "To the airport." "But you don't have any money....what will you do there"? "Just stand around."

Then they switch roles and repeat....oh what fun!

I do remember doing this to my own father when I was young. I would even grab a suitcase with nothing in it as a prop....dramatics run in my family :)

new facebook pictures

Here's Jenny

Playing with dee's hair

Jodie's new hair color

Mindy's new highlights (with Julie)

Diane's pea pod lips

Mindy, Diane, me, Jenny and Jodie

We had so much fun seeing each other. We compared our hands, feet, grey hairs and other body parts :). We went on walks together every morning, ate frozen custard, and laughed so much. Great seeing all of you!xx

Hair Care 101

Step one in the hair care process:

Buy a box of hair color at the store...any will do...

Smear on and wait...
wash out....
use the toilet before hand because you might laugh so hard when you're hair that should have been blond turns pinky/orange :)
P.S. You really should know what you're doing...don't let your sister talk you into anything...

Happy Mother's Day!

The twins wrote some special things about me today....I've put their words with the mom's in my life. Happy Mother's day! Love you!

My Mommy is special because she helps shovel the snow.

My mom is special because mom's can get babies and get food babies.

My mom has the same skin and eyes as me.

My mom is as tall as a table.

My mom's favorite food is cereal, noodles and also all the food.

I love my mom because she is so pretty.

My mom loves to kiss me.

I love my mom because she wants to marry me and sometimes when i get out of my bed at night my mom get's angry. I love her.

It's Party time---Carnival style!

We had Ben and Tim's 5th Birthday party on Saturday. It was a beautiful day and there were games, prizes and food galore.

So much food...yes, I admit I tend to go overboard when it comes to food. There was another table of food for the adults.

The piñata was a huge success! We're pretty sure that most of the kids didn't even realize there was candy inside the piñata. They were just so excited to be allowed to hit something with a stick. See how they are so patiently waiting in line for their turn?

One of the favorite games was shooting the bow and arrows at the target. Another popular game was throwing darts at water balloons. The kids also loved the magic show and story time.

Ben with some of his birthday party loot.

Whew! It's such a relief to have the party finished---until next year of course...

Special Thanks to Heidi, Illiana, Megan, Jeana, Amy, Mindy, Julie, and Rahel!

Once upon a time, not so long ago...

Two little, easy going, trouble makers were born. Tim and Ben are so excited to be 5 now! Finally they are BIG! (they think). We really love having them in our family and are very grateful for the happiness they bring into our lives. Happy Birthday guys!

girls

I was driving in the car yesterday when I heard a conversation the twins were having...

Ben: I don't want to have a girlfriend

Tim: No Way they always want to kiss you right?

Ben: Oooo Gross

Tim: I don't want a girlfriend either

(They are 4...I don't think anyone is knocking down their door except their mother who smothers them with kisses...maybe I should give them some space)

Happy Birthday James!

Born with a full head of hair!

He adored Monica and would follow her anywhere....

Here he is in spain

Have no idae how old he is here...7?

Dear James has turned 11! I can't believe he's getting so old! He's still quiet and mischievious. (Although he doesn't get into lotion, makeup and the cupboards like he used to). Nowadays he's practicing his LOUD drums, playing with his brothers and out on his scooter. We sure love you BUD!

nativity play

First of all I hope you won't get offended by the actors in this post. My creative brother in law set up the christmas play and here is who played the different parts:

Monica was Joseph, James was Mary, George was a sheep, Tim was a cowboy and Ben was a bunny. The other cousins were shepherds and an angel.

After the inital shock of the casting I sat down and enjoyed the show. Each played their part very seriously....

the chicken

I was roasting a lovely chicken for dinner last night and as I was busy preparing the mashed potatoes, gravy and carrots little people flitted in and out of the kitchen. Tim came in and opened the freezer door...a frozen chicken fell out of the freezer (incidentally this often happens to me - I shove and close). He demanded to know who did this - pointing to the chicken on the ground. Of course it was me who did it but instead I asked....Why did you open that? His response was, I wanted to get some fresh air....