Boricua en la Lima

We went back to swimming lessons on Saturday, but Sunday was dedicated to winter sports. We got up at 6 am (earlier than on weekdays!) to head over to La Clusaz for some skiing lessons. Well Jose and Gabi had lessons while Sebas and I stayed at the base of the mountain in the cute little town trying to brave the cold. Now it wasn't nearly as cold as it was when we went to Tignes back in November, but maybe I was wearing the wrong socks or something but my toes were freezing. By the time Jose and Gabi came down the mountain at 11 am I thought I was going to lose my toes. At which point the kids decided it would be a good idea to go ice skating. Thankfully the change in shoes to ice skating shoes actually helped defrost the toes a bit! Then we had a lunch at a cute little pizza place and then headed home to try to use to the rest of the day to recharge the batteries. :) I am still tired this morning. Now one thing is for certain, if Jose and Gabi keep skiing while Sebas and I...

In your short three years you went to more places than a lot of us humans go in their entire lifetime. US, Puerto Rico, Peru, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain. And you were probably made in China so that's one more. Sorry to see you go so soon, I was hoping to keep you in a treasure chest and one day take you out and reminisce about the days when my baby was still a baby.

This was the weekend were we faced head-on the fact that we live in Geneva and tried to make the best of it, trying to live "life as locals". So last week I signed up Gabi for ballet classes, I went just to find out about prices and stuff but the teacher made her take the class right on the spot and of course she came out saying "I wanna come back EVERY day!". So now she's signed up on Mondays. Now Monday is a really awkward day. This is one of the things about Geneva that is sort of annoying, no ballet classes on weekends! So now today is Monday and I can't take her on Mondays because of work so we'll see how well the nanny can handle taking both of the kids straight after Gabi gets dropped off from school. I hope Sebas doesn't scream up a storm in the ballet school waiting room! We also went to a trial swimming class on Saturday morning. Also a bit of an awkward time, 11:45 am so we were all starving by the time it was done. It's grea...

It's amazing what a little nice weather can do for the spirits. Even though we are in that post vacation depression where we question time and time again why we live so far away from family, Geneva weather decided to be kind to us to help ease the transition back into Geneva life. We had about 50 degree weather all weekend long.  And better yet, gorgeous sunny days, quite unlike the norm. So we hit up the park, went ice skating on Sunday morning and went to the indoor pool on Sunday afternoon. Couldn't have asked for a better transition weekend! Now today we wonder, "do we really have to go to work". Sadly yes. We still havent learned how the Swiss lottery works! We also saw Rapunzel in 3D which was great only we had to see it in French and we had to lie about Sebas age and say he's 5. :) Oh, and I'm addicted to the Instagram iPhone app, which I used to retouch this picture of beautiful Route de Florissant!

After a wonderful vacation in Lima we are back to the grind. Have been traveling for what seems like forever finally made it to Geneva yesterday and somehow the kids held off until a decent time so we could try to beat the jet lag. Gabi and I seem to have caught colds along the way hopefully they are not too bad and we can get rid of them quickly. Gabi was excited to go back to school this morning so hopefully we can get back some sense of normalcy soon. Can't believe we already have another trip planned (to Rome for ~4 days) next month. I feel like I need to keep my feet on the ground for at least a few weeks before I can start traveling again! Also, when is spring coming? Customize a free digital ecard

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Finally my sister and family have arrived! Last Monday, to kill time (ha ha), we drove 3 hours to Zurich to watch Lady Gaga in concert which was amazing!  Followed by another 3 hour back early Tuesday so that we could be at work all day. My sister finally arrived on Saturday! As soon as she arrived I took them all home to take quick showers so we could head out to Milan to watch a football (soccer) game for AC Milan (I felt bad for them they were zonked out all day long they didn't sleep very much on the plane and then we had them on a crazy schedule on Saturday!).  The weather was absolutely miserable but somehow we put up with it all day.  I was happy to be able to meet up with an old friend from college who I hadn't seen in about 5 years.  The kids loved the game although everyone was pretty exhausted by the end of the day.  When we woke up Sunday morning we toured Turino which is an absolutely beautiful city (although again more miserable weather!)...

To read my "published" review you can go the Stern Fan website. But here's the original! *** As many Howard Stern listeners, I am a huge fan, not a SUPER FAN, but still a pretty big fan. I listen to the show every day, bought a Sirius radio 6 months before the show moved, read Artie’s book, etc. I’ve always said it’s like I’m watching some of the best set of friendships evolve over time and I’m just happy to have been a part of it for so long. So now that I’m living in Switzerland the fastest way to get a hold of “ They Call Me Baba Booey ” when it came out yesterday was to download it on the Kindle. I didn’t want to get the audio book because I really like reading a book on my own, but I have to say on several of the really good stories in the book I could actually HEAR the story in Gary’s voice. If you know Gary (which of course you do), you know this made some of the funny stories even more hilarious (like the part where he retells the story of the apology video ...

At long last Halloween was upon us.  The kids got dressed at 7 freaking AM yesterday morning (and they woke up around 5:30 am because we had the time change yesterday so their bodies are all out of wack).  As a result it was like 6 pm and we already wanted to go to sleep!  We went ice skating in the morning just to pass the time and both of them found it scary but wanted to keep doing it over and over again.  So hopefully we'll go again soon but be more prepared (other kids have helmets, gloves, hats, scarfs, mittens, etc.). And hopefully by the end of the season the kids will be experts!  They have these cute little "walkers" so that the younger kids can learn a little easier.  We're going to try to see if they actually have lessons. Anyway, we kept waiting to see when the kids would start trick or treating because we didn't know what to expect.  And we really stocked up on candy too just in case.  Sebas also changed costumes several times thro...

Last Thursday Gabi turned 5. Half a decade old. I can't believe it myself.  She acts like she's so big and I love to see her "mothering" Sebas even though sometimes I have to remind her she's not meant to be scolding him that there's only one Mom for Sebas.  :) On Thursday we took cupcakes to Gabi's school and yesterday we had some friends come over for cake and pinata.  They were both so excited! Especially to have some new friends (and English speaking ones!) come over.  The weather was pretty crappy so we had to mostly stay indoors which means their room looked like a tornado had hit after the party, but I'm glad we are able to have a cool "playroom" for them in their bedroom so that they can have friends over.  The cake was delicious and the company was great.  I'm glad the whole thing is over but I am looking forward to Sebas' 3rd birthday.  But that's a little far away so I guess for now I'm looking forward to seeing ...

This weekend we took a two hour trip to a town called Interlaken in the German part of Switzerland (thank goodness everyone pretty much spoke English). On Saturday morning we attempted to go to Jungfrau  ("Top of Europe") but we were a bit concerned with my mom and the altitude and also the weather was pretty crappy. So instead we took a 2 hour train ride to Luzern . I think the kids loved the train ride even more than they loved the actual town! Although it was definitely a beautiful place. You can tell that it would be sooo much nicer in better weather.  After having lunch in Luzern we took the 2 hour train ride back and then had dinner and went to sleep. I think every night this weekend we were in bed before 9 pm and slept for like 11 hours!  Sunday morning we drove to Bern  but didn't even get out of the car (it was freezing rain and I had started to develop one of my wonderful allergies).  From Bern we drove to Lausanne , had lunch in Lausanne and then dr...

...Those seem to be my son's three favorite words now that we live in Switzerland.  And he seems to make a very obvious effort of pointing out to everyone that there is COW cheese and COW chocolate.  And apparently the cows that make cheese are different from the cows that make chocolate.  Duh!!!  Anyway, since my mom arrived a few days ago and the first weekend she spent it babysitting while we went to Barcelona we decided to show her some of the sights.  On Saturday we went to Annecy where we love to rent boats and go out on the lake (when it's warm).  This time it was for Retours d'Alpage, the yearly pilgrimage to conmemorate the "descent from the Alps" of the cows and if I'm not mistaken the time to start making yummy cheese!  The little town was filled with craftsmen who were either making clogs out of wood, or other wood carvings, or men taking the wool from the sheep while the women started making fabrics for clothing from it right ther...

In honor of Mario Vargas Llosa FINALLY winning the Nobel Prize. I think this was the best day in my hubby's life. We were in Lima during the 2007 Holidays (I was about 6 months pregnant with Sebas). We left Gabi with her grandmother and went to catch a local play when we discovered that MVL was sitting right in front of us. During the intermission these guys were like kids who met Michael Jordan or David Beckham.  Now I don't know whether the day this picture was taken was the best day of my husband's life or yesterday when MVL finally (and deservedly) won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

‎10 years ago...I was at Mariselle's graduation, celebrated Carin's bday with her, went to visit my sister to celebrate my nephew's 1st bday, went to concerts for Juan Luis Guerra and Carlos Vives, said farewell to German who was moving to Geneva, started seeing Jose, and worked on Pampers (among others ). 10 years later......I was at Mariselle's wedding, celebrated Ida's bday with her, went to visit my sister to celebrate my son's 2nd bday, am going to Shakira (and hopefully Gaga!), said farewell to my friends and moved to Geneva, still married to the man I started seeing then, and now he works on Pampers. :) In short, 2000 and 2010 are two sides of the same coin. I'm blessed to still be close to all these wonderful people after so many years. Hope in 2020 I can look back and say the same.

Barefoot in Barcelona is one of my favorite OPI nail colors! However for this ocassion which called for a celebration (my girlfriend's Ida's bday) I went with Pamplona Purple on a little Swiss Air flight to Barcelona.  No more to say than good friends (some of which I hadn't seen in 9 years when we made the calculations!), remembering previous visits to Spain (I had gone with Ida and her sister in law Keysa to Barcelona freaking TWELVE years ago), good food (and wine of course), and sightseeing around one of the most beautiful places in the world.  And my favorite part was the 20F degree difference with Geneva. Thankfully when we came back it was a little bit warmer here so looks like we brough the good weather for us.  We actually surprised Ida -- they were on a 2 week trip all around Spain and we decided to surprise her on her birthday on the last leg of the trip. Her husband was wonderful helping me keep the whole thing a secret and reserving hotel rooms for us an...

We were invited to Gabi's first birthday party (a kid from school) which we almost missed cause my calendar was off by two hours so I'm grateful the mom actually emailed me the address and CORRECT time about 30 min. before the party started, at which point I ran to the shower and we made it only about 5 min. late which is great. Gabi was super shy most of the party, as were most of the other girls since it was a 95% all boy party! But in Cincinnati she would've been running the joint 5 min. after arriving! By the end of the party though she was hanging out with some friends and totally enjoying the puppet show and asking could the puppet show also come to her birthday party. Still, I can't help to think Gabi is not quite herself yet. That this move has affected her in ways I cannot even begin to understand. I hope my mom's visit this week gives her a little bit of that "home" feeling and that she'll enjoy her grandma's company. She was also p...

Someone shared this link with me on Twitter recently and I come to find out that Switzerland is actually number 2 on that list .  Now it's not surprising that it would rank so high, but it got me thinking...are they really considering all the important factors of being considered one of the world's best countries?  Here are some factors I think they were missing from their analysis which might not tip the scale so much in Switerland's favor: - Weather: I know there are some people who absolutely LOVE cold weather, can't wait to get out the skiis and whatnot.  But me being a Caribbean bred, I can't help but think that a place that is cold more than 50% of the year should not be all the way at the top! By the way same applies for Finland which came at overall #1. - Food: Part of living in a great place is finding great food.  While Geneva has so far offered us pretty good fare "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" as U2 would say, mainly a...

Well Jose was pretty much out of commission for most of the weekend so we didn't do too much except grocery shopping and go out to eat! The higlight of the weekend was going to the park yesterday after Sebas' nap to enjoy the beautiful fall weather.  I'm not happy at all about how cold it is these days but yesterday afternoon was awesome.  We just lay there on the grass soaking up the sun as the kids ran around chasing each other and tumbling and whatnot.  Once we got back home a couple of kids were out playing ball in the street and then once Sebas, Gabi, Jose and I joined it's like they started crawling out of the woodwork to play ball.  It's pretty interesting to see that happen everytime we go out in the street to play ball.  Gabi met two of the neighborhood kids who are Swedish so she was so happy that she met a girl who spoke English, she wouldn't shut up talking to her and meanwhile the girl is telling her to please keep her eye on the ball.  G...

I survived the 10 day relatively unscathed. of course I wish i could give the kids to jose and run out and get a pedicure but I guess he still has jet lag to overcome. today we will attempt the "fete de la pomme" here in the village and then perhaps the zoo/aquarium. and early to bed hopefully!

Nothing new to report except that I'm into Day 5 of single motherhood (half way through) and really looking forward to the day Jose comes back.  Normally in Cincinnati I would have lots of things to do with the kids over the weekend (zoo, aquarium, friends, etc.) but here (especially on Sundays) there's just not that much to do.  I tried to coerce them into going into the park yesterday (the beach seems to be out of the questions now that we're fully into Fall-like weather) but Gabi is a little lazy these days so she just wanted to stay home pretty much all day.  We ordered a pizza which arrived two hours late so everyone was about to gouge the other person's eyes out from starvation.  I've never seen the kids each with such gusto! The rest of the time was spent trying to break up fights between the two kids -- they fight over EVERYTHING these days! Mostly because Gabi doesn't want to share with Sebas and because Sebas wants whatever Gabi doesn't want to sha...