Boricua en la Lima

Last weekend of full blown kids' activities (thank goodness!). This weekend was Gabi's ballet recital and while it's been a little tough on her this year not understanding too much French, I'm still really proud of how she did on her recital.  Only problem was the unbearable heat in the theatre (why won't Swiss people turn on their A/C's???) and having to sit through a whole 90 minutes of dances (two days in a row!) when Gabi's was the very first dance.  But at least after the recital on Sunday Gabi was able to go to a friend's birthday party (even though she missed saying goodbye to her ballet friends because we had to run for the door during an opportune moment!).  She also had to say goodbye to her best friend Alessia who left for Russia today.  I'm starting to get bummed out about all the goodbyes coming but I guess I'm glad the move is happening during the summer so that once school breaks it doesn't feel like you're ripping the band

This is the month of never-ending school activities -- birthday parties to make up for the summer birthdays when the kids won't see each other, school plays, field trips and sports days (field days for those of you in the US).  And to top that off we're trying to take advantage of every single sunny day because it's been raining so much in Geneva we don't know if we can count on the weather staying nice!  I've therefore been working on perfecting my iMovie skills (I'm not doing so bad except it takes me forever to upload a movie to YouTube once I've created it and if I make a mistake like I did today it's "double the pleasure, double the fun".  Anyway, here are two videos, once for Gabi's sports day which was last week and one for Sebas' sports day which was today.

I find myself revisiting the past a lot these days. Maybe because of the book I just finished reading ( A Night Train to Lisbon ), or it may be that my daughter is now going through stages that I remember going through. It's been a rough weekend at home. I've been "bad cop, bad cop" for most of the weekend. We had a sleep over gone amuck on Friday and I'm still reeling from it. These girls are absolutely nice, these girls were pleasant and treated my kids well and even played with my son, which for sleepover scorecards earns most kids A++. But I don't know, they're just spoiled. On top of that they're parents are likely going through a divorce and I find myself hearing those dreaded punches against one parent or another ("My mom is the worst, she's got a boyfriend"). I don't know what's going on but there's something there that just says "I've had it easy my whole life and I don't even know it". Unti

This is a long one (17 min.) but I couldn't stop myself because Sebas was just doing such a good job during his school show! I hope one day he'll be glad that I recorded all 17 minutes.  Maybe when he's a famous soccer player or Formula1 racer.  :)  Although at some points you can see he's tired and at some points you can also see him sucking his thumb and wanting to pick his nose (I'll have to edit that out when he's famous). However,  I think sitting still for 17 min. for a group of 4-year olds is quite an accomplishment.  I am so proud of my little Spiderman! It took me like 24 hours to upload this video onto YouTube, I don't think I had ever uploaded such a big file (not to mention that our WiFi at home is not the speediest of WiFi's).

Alas, we come to the end of our European travels, unless we can somehow swing London in July for the Madonna concert in Hyde Park and/or the Olympics.  This last week we took a trip to Greece - visiting Mykonos, Santorini and Athens.  On the first day we slept at a hotel in the Athens port because we got in pretty late (there's only one Easy Jet trip a week to Athens from Geneva) and had to take an early boat to Mykonos.  For dinner we started tasting the local food.  Well I tasted the beer and Jose had his first of MANY, MANY gyros. Next day we took an early boat to Mykonos and checked in to this beauty of a hotel ( Argo Hotel Mykonos ). If it was up to me I could've not moved from there for the rest of the vacation! But Platis Gialos (Gialos Beach) was only a few steps away so we had to venture out and enjoy the food, surf and sand. At night we would go to the center of Mykonos to enjoy some delicious cuisine (more gyros for Jose of course), desserts and drinks

Just a couple of days ago this Coldplay footage from the European tour showed up on Perez Hilton and since we have just been to the concert I thought I would share!