Alpine adventures

This whole area has an astonishing array of mountain walks, ranging from the very easy 10 minute stroll to the six hour adventure straight up a mountain. In that range, we found a special one for children - called the Children's Adventure Trail. To get there, we caught a cog railway, a cablecar, another cog railway, and then a funicular, to a lovely spot with a view of the whole Lauterbrunnen valley, a playground and a cafe. The cafe terrace overlooked the playground - parental heaven to have a cup of coffee while watching Callum and Declan choose more and more inventive ways to go down the massive slide which was cut into the hillside.

The walk was more of a stroll, really, down the valley back to the bottom of the funicular railway, with a combination of spectacular mountain views, and paths through the cool forest beside streams. There was a section along the way with a series of wooden adventure playground constructions - an enormous see-saw, a balance beam, and a set of forts. It is hard to imagine a better walk.

After a sustaining lunch in Murren, with far too much cheese consumed all round, we found some more public transport to a place called Pfinstegg - a cable car ride from Grindelwald (which appears to be the tourist trap town of this part of the Alps).

Up there, we had an exhilerating afternoon on the summer toboggan - Declan and Callum both had a go with every available adult, and Declan declared after about five goes that he was now addicted - "there must be a special chemical in the toboggan which makes me addicted to it". The advertising says you can go at up to 40km an hour, and it certainly felt it.

This day felt like a perfect Alpine day.

Jungfraujoch - the Top of Europe

This morning dawned astonishingly clear, with not a speck of wind or cloud, so we decided to make the most of it and catch the train up to the Jungfraujoch - at 3454m the highest train station in Europe.

An hour or so succession of cog railways from Wengen took us up there, with the temperature dropping at each stop. During the trip up, the boys were bribed in turn by Uncle Bob and Evan with wilder and wilder promises of how many hot chocolates they would get per snowball thrown at the other grownup.

At the top, we rushed out onto the glacier, so the boys could have their first touch of snow, and the first (of many) ceremonial snowball could be thrown. It was really ice, more than snow, but it certainly served its purpose, and we all had a great time throwing snowballs at each other. It was -1 celcius, and the sun was shining, so we were mostly too hot in all the clothes we had brought with us.

We set out on a walk across the glacier, which we realised afterwards was quite a big walk at that altitude. It took us 200m higher, to 3,650m, to Monschjoch, an Alpine hut, across the top of the glacier. It took us a fairly exhausting hour, so we were very relieved to have the promised hot chocolates at the hut at the end.

After an easier walk back, we explored the best of the attractions - an ice tunnel carved out of the glacier, the astonishing view from the top, and a last chance to throw snowballs at each other from the viewing platform.

We couldn't have had better weather for it - a beautiful day.

Swiss trains

Callum, as expected, woke up around 5, but the rest of us made it to around 6.30ish. Luckily, a Nintendo ds game will keep Callum occupied silently for hours.

This morning was our first try at the Swiss train system - from Zurich to Wengen (in the Alps) we took four trains, each of which had a connection of less than 10 minutes. We didn't think we had much hope, with five people and suitcases between us, but it was very simple. The last train was a cog railway up into the Alps - to Wengen at 1274m above sea level.

In Wengen, we found the annual cheese festival well under way. Highlights included a procession of traditionally dressed Swiss people carrying cow bells, a set of 6 swiss mountain horns being played in harmony, and getting the boys to eat some traditional swiss food - melted cheese on bread. There was also a whip cracking competition, and a stone throwing competition - this last one almost sucked Evan and Bob in, but they contented themselves with watching.

Callum and Declan both nearly fell asleep in their dinners, but we managed to keep them awake until we were back in our apartment (which has a view of the Jungfrau!).

Zurich

Zurich was our get over jet lag day, so we spent the day out and about.

First with Katy and Dan, who live nearby. They took us on a tram down to the lake, and introduced us to a great sausage place - Bratwurst mit Brot und Bier - an excellent way to get over jetlag. After a slightly shy start, the boys warmed up, with Callum realising that in Dan, he had found someone happy to listen to him talk at length about the differences between Zurich and Sydney.

Declan was mostly thrilled by the swans on the lake, which had the novelty value of being white.

We caught the river boat back up to the Swiss museum, where we whiled away an hour or two in the courtyard with Callum and Declan playing an obscure game involving the cannons which were scattered about. Bob met us there, and we managed to keep everyone awake until about 6ish with another walk down to the lake.

Holiday!

Friday September 25 had been a date of much anticipation in our house, with Callum preparing a minute by minute timetable for our morning up to 12pm, when the taxi arrived to take us to the airport.

In the event, we didn't follow it exactly, but both boys were up at 6, and packed by about 8. After a morning (a trip to the city) designed to tire everyone out before 24 hours sitting on a plane, we took off at 3.30ish.

The less said about the flight the better - although the boys were very good in the air, having a great time with the Singapore Airlines entertainment system, they were both sick on landing in Singapore.

The flight to Zurich was uneventful, and (being Switzerland) there was a very easy trip into town and to our hotel.

Excitement

The boys are starting to get very excited about their trip to Europe. Callum declared to me the other morning that he was going to start a new Google Doc of the timetable for Friday - the day we fly out.

I introduced him to Google Calendar, and showed him how to invite other people to his events.

He invited Evan and me to make breakfast for him at 6 am.

Declan in the speak-offs

Declan was chosen to represent his class in the Term 3 speak-off's (public speaking competition). He did an absolutely brilliant job - speaking clearly, smiling, and getting several laughs form the audience.

He didn't win - but in a moment that really made the parental heart glow he was the only participant who did clap the winner from the stage.

Callum and NAPLAN

Because Cal skipped a year (and perhaps because it would help the School results?) he was allowed to sit the Year 3 NAPLAN earlier this year.

It was pleasing to see he maxed out the scale on everything except Language Conventions (where he came near the top of band 6).

Callum and the ICAS comps

Each year the UNSW runs a series of competitions throughout the country with kids sitting tests for Writing, Science, Maths and English.

Thus far, Callum has got a Distinction for Science, a Credit for Writing and a High Distinction for English. As these are comepting with a huge number of students from the same year in the country we're particularly pleased with the last result as it indicates he's sitting in the top percentile of Year 4 for a core subject.

After the first two results we were suffering some parental angst about the last grade skip - the results were amazing for a 7-year-old but there are no bonus points for being young and he really needed to be achieving at the top of Year 4 if he's to look at a selective school or anything like that. So the English result was calming. (I have to say this was all parental angst, Cal was largely oblivious to the whole thing one way or another.)

Maths is still to come.

Laser Tag

Callum's birthday party was this afternoon - Laser Tag at this spot. Callum, Declan, and 13 of Callum's friends (plus me and Evan) got to play two games of laser tag, plus have some free turns at the video games. Declan (who was officially too young for it - you have to be 8), is now counting down until he is old enough to have his birthday party there.

And Callum is still mad at me for shooting him near the blue base (he was blue and I was yellow). Many of Callum's birthday cards had the words "bang, bang"on them - celebrating the party. The invitations went to a good mix of year 3s and 4s, boys and girls, which was nice to see.

Measurement

As always on their birthdays, we have measured the boys. Callum is 126.5 cm, and 25.1 kilos, and Declan is 119.5 cm and 22.3 kilos.

That means that Callum is 42nd percentile for height, 46th for weight, and 48th for BMI. Declan is 63rd percentile for height, 59th percentile for weight, and 56th for BMI. They seem to be converging.

Creativity

The other night, when Callum was procrastinating from doing his speech, both boys had a burst of voluntary creativity which was lovely to watch. Declan decided to do an "information report" about the Diprotodon (hippo sized wombat which is extinct and the subject of Callum's speech). Instead of putting his speech on index cards, Callum decided to work out what was wrong with the stapler. He got out the book The Way things Work and decided that the problem was with the leaf spring.

Final soccer match

I really thought the gala day two weeks ago was the last match of the season, but we had one more today - the North Sydney Bears' Picnic Day. They all turned up to have a (roughly) 8 a side match against another North Sydney Bears team, have their picture taken, and get a personalized trophy. The match was quite funny, as they are used to only having 5 on the team at any one time, so there was a real cluster of kids around the ball.

It was 27 degrees, so it is probably just as well that this is (finally) the last match of the season.

Walking

It's hardly news these days, as we've done it a fair few times, now, but we did the Spit to Manly walk again today. A lovely spring day, with the sun shining. Declan was keen to go, but Callum would have preferred a shorter walk (he was outvoted).

The boys are getting better and better at it. There was hardly any complaining (except for Declan's earnest scientific explanations of why his black clothes were making him hot) and lots of running ahead.

I trained Callum to say good morning to everyone we met - he's still young enough that you can see form their faces that they think he is very cute doing it.

Wireless DS

Callum and Declan were playing nintendo DS side by side, and shouting at each other occasionally. Evan asked them to be quieter, and threatened them with their bedroom.

So Callum took himself happily up to the bedroom with the DS. And Callum and Declan shouted to each other up and down the stairs. They were politer, but a lot noisier.

Miss Carapina's birthday

Miss Carapina had her birthday on Tuesday with much celebrating amongst the class. There were two slide shows from class members (which sounded quite sophisticated, including photo montages and animations) lots of streamers (contributed by Declan tearing paper into strips, balloons and slime (which was probably going too far). There was also cake, and heaps of other food, contributed by the class (or their parents).

Miss Carapina, according to Callum, was very pleased, although annoyed with the pupil (Jordan) who went too far with the slime.

Gala day

Declan had his soccer gala day on Saturday, the final soccer matches of the season. They had to play three 15 minute matches, and then the winners of each pool got to a final with another team.

Declan's team were thrilled to make the final (they were all jumping up and down for joy, when they realised) and went down in a fairly close match in the final itself.

Declan's half of the team (the red Bears) were the walking wounded - two boys had flu and tonsillitis, one had such a sprained ankle he could barely walk, and Declan himself had a huge lump on the back of his head from the day before at school.

But they all tried really hard, and thinking back to the beginning of the season, their soccer skills as a team had hugely improved.

They got a "runners-up"pennant, and I had to break it to Declan as we went home that their team hadn't actually won the final (which he thought they had, because they got the pennant).