Colmar Christmas Market

Catching up on more Swiss adventures.

In the beginning of December we took a quick overnight trip to a French town of Colmar in the region of Alsace. Alsace is a gorgeous place to visit in the summer and fall, as it is known for its wineries and wines. Our friends brought us some yummy wine from there when they went to visit.
In the winter, visitors to Alsace typically stop in the town of Colmar and see the famous Marche du Noel, or Christmas Market. And you know what you can get in a wine region in the winter... yes, hot spiced wine! Score.

We headed to Colmar on a Saturday. It was a pretty long drive (about 4 hours) so we were hoping that the trip would be worth it. Especially since we decided to stay there overnight (we didn't feel like spending 8 hours in the car in one day).

We got there around 3pm and right after checking in and dropping off our bags, we headed to explore the Old Town. It was literally 5 minutes from where we were staying.

 A picture with French Santa... Pere Noel.

It was a really cold winter day so we had to bundle Katherine real good. She was in tights, pants, socks, sweater, winter jacket, hat and mittens, and on top of that she was zipped inside her stroller bunting... She must have been real nice and toasty in there because at one point she just fell asleep even as we were going over cobblestones and all... haha...

There are five markets with different themes within the Marche. We wandered through them for a long while, sipping hot wine and entertaining the munchkin when she was getting restless inside her layers.

 Ice sculptures...

We stopped by one of the stands and got some amazingly delicious local sausage and crusty European bread. Yumm! Even Katherine tried some and liked it.

It was getting dark (and colder) quickly so we headed to the hotel to warm up and stretch out.

 Silly Mom and Dad put toucans on my head and give me a paci to use as a chew toy (she does not take a paci and really has no idea how to suck on it, but to this day she chews on a side and laughs hysterically and babbles as she does that... too funny).

We had dinner at the restaurant within our hotel and as typical it was delicious. We sampled some local Christmas beer and hung out there as Katherine was climbing all over us and the table.

The next morning we got ready, packed our stuff and went for another stroll trough the town and around noon we started heading back to Geneva. On the way, as we were passing Bern (German part of Switzerland) we got caught in a horrible blizzard that lasted pretty much the entire time until we got over to the French speaking parts. Seems like every time we went to the German parts we had to get stuck in a blizzard. Same thing happened back in April when we went to Lucerne to spend Easter 2012 there...
And also on the way, we got flashed with the traffic camera twice for going barely a few miles over the speed limit, so we knew we had a couple tickets coming... Sure enough they arrived after we had already left Switzerland to move back to the US. Too funny. They have a very reliable and merciless enforcement system.

Overall it was a really cool trip and definitely put us in a Christmas spirit. We loved how the town was all decorated, we loved seeing everyone mingling around, laughing and having a great time. The spiced wine was delicious and local crafts were charming. I would highly recommend this place to anyone who is in the area during holiday season.

Discovery place

I have been to the Discovery Place Kids here in Huntersville before when Katherine was smaller. Most of my friends are members and now that the flu and cold season is finally over (fingers crossed!!!) I figured it was time to get our membership and start taking Katherine there.

Here are a few photos and videos I took from the first time we went there....

 

Couple of things come to mind after our visit. First of all, DO NOT take your child to the water table unless they are super well behaved / can control their play, or unless you have a change of clothing with you. Katherine dumped a bunch of water in her lap about 20 second I put there in the seat. She loved it all the same so no harm done. Next time this will be the last thing I do with her when we go.

Another thing: notice how she is scared of GRASS!!! I knew she was scared of real grass, she cries every time we put her down in our yard, it's hilarious! We joke that she is an indoor cat. She has seen grass many times and sat on it etc but recently she's just scared of it. But I never knew she would also be scared of fake grass!! Too funny!

And finally, we are working on that walking skill and it is getting better and better! She will now push a push toy and walk holding just one hand. We went there on Friday and by Sunday her walking has already gotten SO MUCH BETTER!! It is amazing how fast babies learn new things.

I need to clarify that I started writing this post a few weeks ago, since as you can tell from the Easter pictures, she is no longer scared of grass AND her walking has improved exponentially.... haha... Mama can't keep up with the baby...



Easter

This year Katherine took more of an active part in Easter compared to last year.
Luckily the weather turned out to be great most of the weekend and we were able to spend a lot of time outside walking, going to the park and playground and enjoying the sun.

We are lucky that our neighborhood has a very active and fun loving HOA, which always puts on great events for residents, big and small. Apparently every year they hold an Easter egg hunt for kids of all ages. There is always a petting zoo, face painting, balloon artist, old fashioned choo choo rides, a cover band playing etc.... Fun!

So on Saturday morning we headed to the Clubhouse for some fun. We met there with a few of our neighbors who also have kids the same age as Katherine and went around to see all the different things that were going on.
Katherine participated in the 1-3 year olds' egg hunt and did awesome! She was marching all around the grass like a pro (holding on to our fingers that is, as she doesn't walk on her own yet) and picking up what she could get her little paws on. The only thing we messed up on was we did not get her a little basket for the eggs... Note to self for next year: Must purchase a basket for the girl.
At one point we threw one of her eggs back on the grass because we wanted to snap a few pictures of her picking it up and another kid swooped in and snatched it from right in front of her!!! Oh my! I was so mad! I was ready to tackle that brat to the ground!
Anyways, after all the kids were done, they had an egg hunt for adults, which I participated in, and I won us a free Bud Light! Haha...
After the egg hunt we headed home and Katherine had a nice long nap.
Here are some photos...
Walking to the Clubhouse.... Pretty pretty trees all in bloom!

 Easter Bunny. She wasn't so sure about him at first but then she decided to smile.

 Family.

 Entire field covered in eggs.

 And the kiddos getting ready to start running.

 Katherine saying "what what, wha's going on??"

 And off they go!

 Yay I got some eggs!

On Sunday we started the day early with a Mass. We headed to church 30 minutes earlier than we normally do and even then we came first of all to a completely full parking lot (full as in the police blocked all entries since there were no more spots! And we had to park in a neighboring subdivision) and two - to a church so packed that we barely had a spot to sit! Incredible!

In the afternoon we headed to CJ's Aunt and Uncle's for an early Easter dinner of delicious Easter ham, mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus, and we spent the rest of the day hanging out there. It was really chill and fun!
Here is Katherine hanging out with her Godmother Janice and her Great Nana.

And here is a little family portrait we took on the front doorstep on Easter afternoon.

Katherine's birthday party

On February 24th we celebrated Katherine's 1st birthday officially with our friends and their kids.
There was no real theme, we just had a lot of pink and girly stuff, napkins, flatware, plates and cups, pom poms and such. I made the tissue paper pom poms to decorate the room and also her birthday banner. I think they came out great!
We had lots of tasty finger foods for grown ups and pop corn and pretzels for babies.
I also made pink frosted cupcakes (vanilla and chocolate). I was a bit nervous how it was all going to come out, but I was really happy with everything in the end.
For Katherine's official smash cake we got a cool little cake from Harris Teeter. We signed up for their 'Baby's First Free' program which means that her little cake was completely free. I was initially planning to bake a cake for her but then we decided we had enough going on with all the other party components and we went with the Teeter cake. It was awesome!

The party went from about 1pm till 4pm and everyone had a fantastic time! All the food was set up on the big kitchen island, with the cake and cupcakes on the breakfast table. We had plenty of adult seating in the living room, and the dining room was turned into a play room for all the babies.
Oh yeah, we had about 20 adults and 10 kids, not counting us. A big crowd! All the babies were playing like crazy, everyone got along and we had no meltdowns which is truly the measure of success in my eyes.

Around 3pm we rolled Katherine into the living room in her high chair for the official candle blowing and cake tasting. She did good, but was not so into the smashing business as she was earlier in the week (remember the smashed cupcake?) I guess there were too many people watching her and she was feeling shy.

The good news is she lasted the entire time without whining or anything. At 4 she went down for her normal nap and once she woke up we opened all her wonderful presents. We are so thankful to all our friends and family for being so thoughtful.
All in all it was a great afternoon, we had fun seeing everyone and the babies had a lot of fun playing together.

Here are some pictures.