Yvoire, Lausanne, and more. :)

Cutest Post Office EVER!!

Such a beautiful town with flowers EVERYWHERE!

My new friends, Brooke and Carolina

A bit windy on the boat :)

We biked all the way from Geneva to Yvoire (took us 2 hours) and then took the boat back. It was such the perfect day.

This is the front of the church I attend in Gex. It is only 10 minutes away from where I am staying. I love it here!

This was SO COOL. We saw the medals and torches from all the Olympics past.  Unfortunately I didn't get a lot of pictures, but should be getting a few more from Caroliina. I'm so pumped for the Olympics now!

Huge Cathedral in Lausanne.

"ForestLand" and a night with friends in Geneva!

"ForestLand", although highly overpriced, really is a fun little place for the kids  to do something different. We paid the equivalent of  about $20 to rent (for 30 minutes) this little bicycle car for four. We rode it all the way around this lake.

It cost about $4 dollars a person to do this at Forest Land. It was pretty fun. I quite enjoyed it, especially when I figured out how to do flips!

You can hear me saying "Aline, don't zoom in too much" at the end of the video because I showed her how to use the zoom button on the camera last week and I had a feeling she was taking a whole bunch of pictures zoomed way in on me. But what can you expect from an eleven-year-old?? :)

We swam at this lake and it was FREEZING!

This is Geneva's most famous monument, the  Jet d'Eau . It shoots  water 460 feet in the air and it never stops. It is definitely an impressive sight. Especially in contrast with t he dark night sky.

This was a free concert in the park and it was SO COOL!! They have free concerts like this every Wednesday and Friday night. Tonight was Arabic music. I honestly enjoyed every second.

Soccer in the street!

Playing a little football (soccer) in the street with the neighborhood kids. I had a ball! It even rained on us a little bit and it was just perfect.

These kids were really intense "Football" players. It was scary sometimes!

I've never had this much fun playing soccer before! ;)

Audrey, our skilled goalie

Geneva, Nyon, and Mont Mourex

Saturday I visited Geneva with the Au Pair next door. Her name is Matilda. She has been an Au Pair for the family next door for almost a year now. She goes home next month. She is nice and invited me to go with her and some friends to Geneva.

Here is what I saw there:

Today we went to Nyon. It is a cool little place because it has a pool for kids, an Olympic pool for adults, and you can also swim right in the Lake if you want.The kids love it.

This kid is in heaven eating his ice cream. :)

Lookin' good, no?

And this evening I went on a walk/hike at a place called Mont Mourex. It's not even five minutes away from the house in a car. It was awesome! I enjoyed every minute and will definitely be going back to explore the trails some more.

Let the good times roll

It was Ryan's idea to record our duet. He was so excited about it. He is a great little piano player, especially at age 7. I'm totally amazed!

Just celebrating the 4th of July...in France. :)

The kids had a TON of fun making these sugar cookies. They were supposed to be red white and blue to be patriotic for the 4th, but we never could get the red to get any redder than pink, so we ended up with pink white and blue....and yellow? Oh well. ;)

Finding the Church, and more FUN.

I located a church that is really only about 15 minutes or less away from the house. We went to find it Saturday night so that I would be able to drive straight there on Sunday with no problem. Can you believe we found a church just 15 minutes away?!?

So, I went to church and it was really great. The whole experience was actually a testimony builder to me.
It really doesn't matter where you go in the world, you can always feel at home when you find the members of the church. I love the consistency in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and the organization. It is definitely a testimony to it's truthfulness. I was truly impressed by all the meetings I attended. I was very fortunate to have someone able and willing to translate for me in each meeting. There were even some sister missionaries there and one was from Centerville, Utah! She was one of my translators. :) The teachers all did such a wonderful job, everything that was shared just seemed to have an extra impact on me.

Needless to say, I will be going back there next week and I'm planning to attend a ward in Geneva, Switzerland as well, since its only 30 minutes away and it is English speaking. I'm hoping to make some friends that may be interested in showing me around some different places in my free time.

I forgot to take pictures of the Church, I will have to do that next week.


Things are still going great! I just keep thinking what a sweet deal this really is! So glad I decided to come!
I started reading "Bridge to Tarabithia" to the kids, and yesterday we made brownies. They loved that. We play a lot of games together and I'm also helping the kids a little bit with math and other things. I arranged a sweet scavenger hunt for them today, just around the house and yard. The "treasure" at the end of the hunt was a game called "Spot it". They really got a kick out of the scavenger hunt and they love the game as well. We go on a lot of walks and I LOVE that.

Aline, Ryan, and Ariane

We took a little drive to see the Old Village where the Mattana family used to live.
This is the view if you drive up to the top.

This old train track is near their house and now serves as a fun little pathway

Just going for a little stroll with Griffin (dog) and the kids

Aline

Ryan (Is he not adorable?!)

This is their house.