Summer days

Summer has arrived in Switzerland over the last few days, and we're loving it! We had a fun weekend celebrating birthdays and eating with friends by the lake, enjoying the warmth, letting the girls taste their first icecream (they learnt very quickly how it works!) and dipping their toes in the lake. Each day has been getting progressively warmer. Apparently today is to have been the hottest (up into the mid 30s) and tomorrow will bring thunder storms. I like storms like that, and it will be nice to have some more refreshing temperatures for the girls to sleep in. 

Yesterday I decided it would be great to have a little paddling pool on the balcony for the girls, so this morning we headed off to the supermarket and chose a little one that would do the trick. The girls were quite intrigued with it. Amélie was scared of the blowing-up part, but once it was ready it was a lot of fun! 

Then, tonight we decided to go somewhere nearby to make a fire and have our dinner out. One thing we LOVE about Switzerland is that you can go almost anywhere...most nature places are open for anyone to go to. We haven't done this for quite a while, since having the girls at home and needing to watch their health, but it was a perfect evening for it. 
We found our spot...

...then mummy realised that she'd left all of the important things back at home, like the meat for the fire, the girls' food and their bottles! Seeing as it was well past their normal dinner time, I made a quick trip back home. 
Soon we were joined by some very curious cows with tinkling bells...

They came very close to the fire, and even came up and licked our tent! At this point mummy got into the car with the girls (!) while daddy tried shooing them away...all to no avail, until he moved the tent. They didn't like that so much! They soon wandered off to find some peace and quiet, and some nice, green grass to munch on. 

The girls loved being out and exploring the grass, picking flowers and just being outside. We arrived home a little later with two very happy little ones who went to sleep pretty quickly. We love summer! Hopefully it will love us and stick around for a while so that we can make the most of it before heading off to the NZ winter (which doesn't sound all too bad at the moment either!). 19 more sleeps!!!