Beach Day at Lake Zurich

Today my sister had to spend the day waiting at home for a repairman to come and fix a dangerously loose panel of glass on their balcony, so we couldn't take any trips anywhere together. However, the kids and I ventured out on our own! I pushed for another trip across Lake Zurich to Rapperswil, but they all outvoted me and chose to return to the local beach again. We managed to navigate a new route there (I kept saying that we weren't lost, and there was more than one way to get there, and I was sure we would find it, and we did!), and had a lovely afternoon.

It was a nice sunny, warm, clear day - unlike the cloudy, rainy day when we visited the beach for the first time. We stopped again to watch the fish swimming in the moat around the local castle tower.

Once we got close to the beach, I let Katie out of the stroller and she had a good time chasing ducks.

Here is a video of Joey running around the sandbox, filmed by Mary, soundtrack also by Mary.

The kids all had a good time playing with the water fountain. It had two spouts, and the pressure varied if you blocked one or both of them. I only got pictures and video of Katie though.

I took this picture of the blue hills in the distance. I wonder what is growing there that is so blue?

I took this video of Joey "fishing" off the dock with a long piece of seaweed he found. Later he told me that he did manage to get a duck to bite on one end of it! In the video I panned around behind me to the sandbox to show how Lily and Katie were playing so nicely together in there. Except they weren't there. So I had to stop filming and go find them. (They were at the fountain again.)

Joey found these claws on the beach. They smelled terrible.

This series of photos shows the beautiful scenery around the beach at Lake Zurich.

The kids played for a long time on this amazing swing that goes in all directions and can hold several kids at once. Here is a little video, and a couple of pictures.

The playground structure there is pretty neat. It has a long bridge over a creek, and a ladder to a platform much higher than you'd find in the USA. In general the playgrounds here so far have seemed more adventurous than those we see back home.

Katie napped at the beach, and the older kids and I went to the beach to work on skipping rocks. Mary and Joey both managed to get a rock to skip today! They were so excited! Can't wait to bring dad here and show him. I also told them that dad is much better at rock skipping than I am. Not every rock I throw even skips at all, and when I do get a rock to skip it usually only skips once (my record on this beach is 3 skips!).

Mary, Joey, and Lily in the distance playing on the beach. There weren't many people there; it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves most of the time today.

On the way home I let Mary and Joey have my phone again, and I found a bunch of pictures Mary took of Joey making crazy faces, which they insisted I share here.

Pausing at the castle tower again on the way home. 

Lily and Katie playing with stickers back at Malorie's house. 

At one point today I couldn't find Katie, until I discovered her stretched out like this on a rug in Malorie and Siraj's room.

Over the weekend Malorie pulled out a few vegan/vegetarian cookbooks and asked the kids to choose recipes they thought would be good. We are trying to find dinners we can cook and eat all together. Tonight we made a recipe that Joey chose - Root Vegetable Ragu with Spiced Couscous. Basically it was carrots, sweet potatoes, and potatoes cooked in a tomato sauce served over couscous. It was actually super yummy! Joey proclaimed it delicious and had seconds. Katie even ate it, and she's pretty picky. Lily said she loved it even more than she loved Joey, which Joey said was "kind of offensive". Mary didn't care for the couscous (she said she doesn't like the texture), but she did try the vegetables and ate a decent portion of them, despite saying she didn't like how much red sauce they were in. She ended up making some toast with jam to fill her up. 

Before bed I made them a snack plate with three kinds of cheese we picked out at the grocery store. After all, Switzerland is famous for cheese making. We had a mature cheddar, a Gruyere, and a Gouda. Delicious! 

Unfortunately, the glass repairman never came today, so we might have to venture out on our own again tomorrow. Not sure where we'll end up yet!