Monkey See, Monkey Do

Brady is now mimicing when we make certain sounds. It's very fun and cute. It keeps us all very entertained. He especially likes mimicing "raspberry" noises, clicks, large gutteral grunts, squeals, and "uh oh". For example, Bill and I both have been doing this thing at night when we put his PJs on involving his feet. We take his socks off, smell his feet and say, "Ewwwww, stinky feet." Now, when we start this process, he also squeals a sound similar to "Ewwwww." Super cute. He's still not copying real words, but we think he's well on his way to being a big chatter.

I don't really have a picture to illustrate this post, but just because it's very cute, I'm going to put this photo of Brady getting a kick out of some bubbles that Bill has just blown.

Zurich Botanical Gardens

Last weekend the weather was very nice on Sunday, so we decided to make a jaunt over to the Zurich Botanical Gardens and have a picnic lunch. The gardens are beautiful. We enjoyed our picnic lunch and taking in the sites. The Botanical Garden is part of the University of Zurich and hosts a very large lawn and pond area where we picniced. There are also 3 climate domes that have sub-tropical, tropical and savannah climates and plants found in those climates. It was very cool.

On the way home, we decided to take a look at the view from our buildings rooftop. We have access to the roof, however, unlike most apartment buildings in our area, our rooftop is not really suitable for hosting rooftop parties/grill-outs, etc. It has a sloping roof and only a limited flat area. Plus, as I'm super-afraid of heights, it gave me the heebie-jeebies being up there. However, the rooftop did give us a beautiful view of Zurich.

Euro 2008 ist hier!

The city of Zurich (and country of Switzerland for that matter) is getting ready for Euro 2008 that starts in a week. Euro 2008 is actually the UEFA European Football (Soccer for us Americans) Championship which is actually co-hosted by the countries of Switzerland and Austria. The winner of this championship will go on to compete for the FIFA World Cup. Several cities around Switzerland (including Zurich) and Austria are hosting matches. There are also public viewing areas where folks can go watch the matches on large screen TVs since tickets to the matches are pretty much impossible to get. These areas are called the "fanzones". In fact, the entire Bellevue Platz which is a very large square right near the lake is being turned into a fanzone (and part of the zone will actually float on the lake.)

The city is getting close to frenzied. We have already received mail indicating that public transportation will be messed up for about a month. (Almost half of Zurich's trams go through Bellevue Platz normally and won't be able to during the Euro 8008.) We have received a letter from Canton Zurich indicating that emergency vehicles will be staged out of a school in our neighborhood. The city will pretty much shut down at 2:00 pm each day during match days. The stores (most of which are NOT open on Sunday) have published Sunday hours and have started to display Swiss-themed soccer goods. This should be an interesting month.

The Coyles have been doing their part to get ready for the festivities. Brady has been honing his soccer skills.

Bill and I have obtained tickets to the Fanzone (because we were new UBS customers...UBS gave us some free tickets!) We have obtained a "bracket" to monitor how the various teams are doing. Bill and I have even been buying Football related grocery items that are on sale for the celebrations. (One particular bag of potato chips came with a Swiss car flag so we can show ourselves to be true fans.) With neither of us knowing much about Soccer, this should be an interesting month.

If you are interesting in knowing more about Euro 2008: http://www.euro2008.uefa.com/

Or if you are like me and wanted more of a definition of what's going on, Wikipedia had a nice "cheat sheet": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_2008

The Top 10 Ways You Know Brady Likes His Food

In pure Letterman style, I've crafted a top 10 list for how you know if Brady likes his food. I've been giving this much thought over the last few days as I watched Brady eat lots of new food. We are done with all the Gerber food we brought from the States, so it's been interesting as we've determined what to feed the little guy. So without further ado:


THE TOP TEN WAYS YOU KNOW BRADY LIKES HIS FOOD


10. Brady makes his little crunched up face and snorts.

9. Brady shakes his hands in front of him in an excited manner.

8. Brady finds bits in his bib and eats them.

7. (Similar to #8), but includes bibs in the dirty clothes hamper with dried up bits of spaghetti. (YUCK!!!! Mom nearly died when she saw this.)

6. Brady hordes the food in his fisted palms to save for later. (Usually done with cereal puffs)

5. Brady examines the food, tears it apart into smaller pieces, examines the pieces and then proceeds to eat them all.

4. Brady gets mad if you take the food away (mainly happens with teething cookies).

3. He eats with both hands at the same time, shoving bits of food (mainly meat) into his mouth non-stop.

2. He licks smooshed-up pieces of food off of his palm after he joyfully smashes them on his highchair tray.

and the #1 WAY YOU KNOW BRADY LIKES HIS FOOD:

1. He is a Coyle/Jones - it's a given that he'll like all food

I love Tchibo!

I have found a new favorite place - Tchibo. I did a case on this store at Kellogg, but didn't really put it all together until I had a discussion the other day with a woman at the American Women's Club about a skirt she was wearing. She said she got it at Tchibo. Well, Tchibo is actually a coffee place - like a scaled-down version of Starbucks. You can buy your coffee for home there too. But as they advertise, "Jede woche, eine neue Welt" or "Every week, a new world". They also sell completely random stuff that changes every week. I visited one yesterday and browsed. I was amazed. They actually had decent clothing for women, men and children. All the clothing was packaged in plastic bag-type packaging. They also had random home stuff and travel stuff. But they change their lineup every week. If you see something you want, get it today because it won't be there later. A new friend from the Women's Club, Susan, talked me into going with her today on the way back from scrapbooking. So, we went in and both got some nice hiking pants and some scarves. (The scarves are very popular here in Zurich - not for winter, just for fashion.) I was very excited...and decided I will probably need to check this out once a week. As Susan explained, this is her verion of Target here in Zurich.

Short and Sweet

Yes, this is my third post of the day...but I've had a lot of catching up to do. To keep it short and sweet:

• Brady has gotten his 3rd tooth - this is the first one on top - crankiness abounds in the household right now, poor little guy
• Brady is now sitting up from a crawling/tummy position
• Brady is definitely pulling up more - and for the first time was partly pulled up in his crib when I got him up from a nap today

• 
  Brady and I are now yearly members of the Zurich zoo. We checked it out last Thursday and will be going back there often. Here's a picture of Brady in his "safari gear".

And on a funny note, Bill and I have had several laughs over bread here in Zurich. Most bread we buy is fresh bread rolls or loafs from the bakery. This is great and we use it for most everything. However, on occasion we still have the feel for good old-fashioned toast. Well, they sell toast bread in the grocery store and it's called "Toast" even though it's not toasted. And it is clearly marketed towards ex-patriates. Here, Bill demonstrates the patriotic toast

Katzenetz (Cat Net)

Our neighbors are now probably thinking we are tacky. Most parts of Europe don't have air conditioning - our apartment included. We have these nice, huge windows which should help create some breeze when the warmer days approach. However, our large windows do not have any screens. (This seems to be a common occurrence here in Zurich.) Half of our windows open by tilting from the top, but the other half only open by swinging inward. The issue with this is that Monkey (our cat) has and will continue to try to get out when we open the windows that only open inward. And since we live on the first floor, this just compounds the issue. Now, Bill and I both thought that there had to be some crafty solution to this issue since other Zurichers have cats and have these large screen-less windows. Well, after much searching on the internet, browsing in many stores and after asking the advice of several other people, the *best* solution we've come up with is the Katzenetz (see picture above). We've installed it and unfortunately the window in our living room that needed the net directly faces the front where everyone walks by. Oh well...I guess we'll be tacky for the sake of keeping Monkey safe. By the way...if anyone reading this has any other solutions, please email me!

Brady's Got "Sticky Fingers"

Despite our best intentions, our child has developed a nasty shoplifting habit...well, not really. The other day as we strolled through the local grocery store, I was about to get in the check out line and realized Brady had grabbed a head of lettuce from the produce section. He'd been holding it the entire time we were in the store...but I hadn't seen it. Oddly enough, he picked an organically grown head of lettuce. I guess if you're going to have sticky fingers, you should be environmentally friendly!

He's also started grabbing loose straps of strangers' backpacks, crutches and anything and everything that comes into close proximity of his stroller while on the Tram. I'm going to have to be especially diligent while we go through this phase!