Finally...

From 2007-08-01 Ge...

Here are pictures from our August vacation, but these are just the ones of our visit with Alex (best man at our wedding), Hilary and Megan. Megan is 3 months older than Ian and Hilary just gave birth to Caitlin on September 3 (we are staying on basically the same schedule as they are). We stayed with them from the day we arrived in Geneva until we left for the south of France (August 1-4). Our first day there, we were invited to Alvin & Laurel's for a bbq. Ian managed to get in a good 2 hour nap before we went (as did Jeff and I), so he adjusted to the time difference pretty well. We saw most of Jeff's high school friends -- Alvin, Nick, Patrick, Trivan, Mohini and her husband, Olivier, and their kids, Ishan and Aleya. Ishan is 5 and Aleya is 2 and Alvin's daughter, Arla, is 7. Ian wasn't very interested in Aleya, but he and Ishan started playing together after a couple of hours and Ishan was so great with him. When we left, we told Ishan we would see him on Friday at his house, if that was ok. Ishan nodded and said, "I really like Ian." So sweet.

Thursday was a bit rainy, so Hilary and I went shopping in the morning while the boys stayed home with the kids. Here are Megan and Ian having teddy bear pasta and tomatoes for lunch:
Alex's mom came by in the evening and we all went out to dinner.

On Friday, we went to the Swiss Vapeur Parc, which was so cool! Just check out the pictures. It was a bit of a drive, but it is so pretty to drive around Lake Geneva. Ian went in "Megan's big car", so Jeff and I were pretty psyched. Apparently, Ian and Megan were having discussions/debates about things like horses, etc. Here are Ian and Megan with the daddies on one of the trains. If you look closely, you will see Ian clutching a brioche. Our little carb-boy was in heaven with all the croissant and bread, so he usually had some sort of baked good clutched in one hand during our visit.

After the Parc, we went straight to Mohini and Olivier's for a late afternoon get-together. She made bruschetta with tomatoes and bruschetta with grilled eggplant and samosas and hummus... it was quite a feast. And the kids just had a great time playing together. Ishan really took such good care of Ian. He was so careful because there's a bit of a slope down on one side of the house that goes into the driveway where the cars are parked. Ishan was very concerned that Ian not go too fast and hurt himself running into the car. At one point, he stopped his vehicle (a toy tractor) in front of Ian's so he couldn't go, then ran to get me. Ian just kept racing around and around the house with Ishan. Olivier showed us what Aleya learned at daycare: if you sang "Hop, little bunny, hop, little bunny", she would hop. If you sang "Sleep, little bunny, sleep, little bunny", she would lie down on the ground. And that song apparently stuck with Ian, because he sings it every now and then. The kids ran races and we took a group picture. Jeff has known these friends since the 6th or 7th grade, so it's really fantastic that now all of our kids get to play together.


Saturday morning we had breakfast with Alex, Hilary, Megan, Mohini, Olivier, Ishan and Aleya before we piled into the car and drove what ended up being 6+ hours to Grambois. Ishan and Ian gave each other high fives as we were saying good-bye (again, note the remains of a croissant clutched in Ian's hand).