Daley Ponderings

6/18 - Talking at the dinner table about what something tasted like.  Mommy: "My tongue said [it was yummy]."  Jonathan:"My tongue said, too." Noah: "My tongue said, one!"

6/25 - Fire safety lesson.  We learned about Stop, Drop, and Roll.  What a fun thing to teach!  We've also been discussing what to do if there's a house fire and what to say if you have to call 911.  Jonathan knows Daddy's cell phone number and our street address.  He also can recall our home number if he gives it some thought, but Daddy's cell comes quickly to mind.

6/28 - Noah's third birthday!  Since it was on a Sunday, the church sang to him, which was more embarrassing to him than I would have guessed.  When Paul asked him how old he was, he said, "one."  But after some coaching throughout the day, he now says, "'ee!"  The Weavers came over for chips and salsa (Noah's requested birthday dinner) and cake and ice cream.  There was lots of crazy fun, including a rubber band fight, swinging, and a football game in the backyard.  After that, Noah had a couple of phone calls but was falling asleep while talking to Grandma and Dad-o, so he took a nap.  Jonathan woke him up for dinner but he was too sleepy to eat.  After that, he opened presents, which was quite fun and woke him up thoroughly.  Pictures will come sometime.  We measured Noah on the height chart (a birthday tradition here) and he is just over 40" tall, which is only an inch shorter than Jonathan was at four years.

6/28 - Sometime in the evening, when the boys were playing with the presents and Mommy was cleaning up, I noticed Faith sitting up on the corner of the coffee table.  After the suspects were questioned, it was determined that Faith had crawled up there herself with the help of a box the presents had been in.

6/29 - Jonathan and Noah were playing Star Wars.  Jonathan said, "I'm Obi Wan."  Noah said, "Me not Obi Wan, me Obi Three!"

 

We now have a dishwasher in our kitchen, which Jon installed himself (running new electric, supply, and drain.) Yeah!

There is also a ceiling fan/light fixture in our bedroom to replace the bare bulb fixture.   Yeah!

5/13 - N count to 10

5/13 - Jonathan's practical math problem that he solved himself: If you have a foam octopus with 5 legs, how many do you have to cut in half to get eight legs for your octopus?

5/18 - Jonathan can do multiplication by: x2, x10, x1

5/23 - Faith will now sometimes crawl to the bathroom when she needs to go.

5/24 - Jonathan can pump himself on a swing, from still to high.

5/29 - I saw a hummingbird at the feeder!

Noah likes to play "Robo-bot" and when he does, he always has a wire sticking out of his back that shoots water, and lasers on his arms.

5/30 - Jonathan was complimenting me on the yummy lunch I made, and included the line, "Good old Mommy."  Noah retorted, "not old..." Then ensued a discussion of age and who I was older than and younger than.  Somehow this turned into relationships and fathers-in-law.  Jonathan discovered that he does not have a father-in-law, though his first guess was Papa.  Then he asked who great-grandpa Wightman's father-in-law was.  I remembered his last name, but not his first name, so I got out Mom's Honor Enough book for that branch of the family and looked it up.  Then Jonathan wanted to know the name of Whitney Porter's father-in-law, and his, and his, as far as I could.  There you go, Grandma, a budding geneaologist!

 I've been mentioning my garden doings on Serina's blog and in private emails with her, and I thought I'd compile and post the relevant info here.  (More)

We missed our intended tram for the morning, but the next one got us to church just barely in time.  In fact, we met the Dutlers coming up the sidewalk.  It was nice to visit Janet's church.  This is, in fact, where she met Stephan.  Jon told Jonathan he could go to Sunday School if he wanted to, and he did.  This was his first time. (More)

In the morning we once again took an early tram to the train station. This time we boarded the train by ourselves and rode to Bern. As soon as we got off, we were greeted by Reto, “You must be the Daleys!” Reto is a programmer that Jon met through the LifeType project. He lives in Bern and this is the first time we met him face to face.  (More)

Once again we took an early tram to thetrain station, meeting Janet and Stephan there. Then we rode to Zurich and the first thing we did was walk to the historical museum. We saw ancient gold, medieval and more modern weapons, and costumes, elaborately panelled rooms, banners and medals from Reformation times, battle reenactment scenes, giant globes and more. There was something wrong with the heating system that day and the museum was cold! While we decided what to do next, we sat in front of a working radiator to warm up. (More)

I was in need of a break from sightseeing and catching trams and we were out of clean clothes.  Jon started a wash as soon as we got up.  I asked him about his eye and he said it felt fine.  Praise God! (More)

We intended to get up early and go back to Richard's to finish vacuuming and do a wash (Wednesday - Mittwoch - being his assigned wash day.) However, we spent a while eating breakfast with our hosts.  It turned out that Richard had come home late the night before so he had started a wash first thing in the morning.  This was a good thing because we only had time for one wash.  We finished cleaning up there and then walked to Stephan and Janet's apartment.  We passed the zoo on the way and got to see some mountain goats from the bridge that crosses over the zoo.  Jon knew how to get there except didn't know the building number.  We looked at the names on the doorbells but did not find the right one, so eventually called.  It was a doorway that had no bells because you had to go through a courtyard to get to his buildling.  Their apartment is at the very top. The elder Stücklins and Wightmans were discussing July plans when we got there. (More)

The morning got off to a slow start, but we did more packing and I believe Mom and Dad came to Richard's so we could all go together to the heart of Basel.  We were originally going to see some sights and then meet Janet and Stephan for lunch, but we ended up just getting there in time for lunch.  We ate at the Stöckli restaurant which is one of Janet's favorites.  A bunch of us ordered these potato things, which will have to wait to be named until a commenter-in-the-know can clue me in. (Röschti) Stephan ordered raclette and let me have some, which I enjoyed much. (More)

The Swiss prefer to drink their water with carbonation and it's hard to find bottled water without it.  The tap water in most places (including the public outdoor fountains) is perfcetly drinkable but you have to ask for it.  At the castle, they served us the "with gas" kind most of the time, though a few glasses managed to be "without."  (This included one miracle glass for me.  Jon asked the server for no gas, but did not manage to communicate that this request was for me as well, so the lady poured some into my glass and went to get a no gas bottle with which to fill Jon's. Then I took a sip and exclaimed that it was regular water.  It had no hint of carbonation, which seemed to rule out the possibility that it was a leftover bit from a bottle that had been standing around for a while.  So Jon rushed up to the lady with his glass to ask her to fill it with that bottle.  However, his was perfectly fizzy.  We have not found an explanation.) (More)

I woke up around 6am (with alarm) and got ready to go to Valda's to get my hair done.  I got myself some yummy muesli with yogurt and sat down in the living room to eat, only to see the clock and note that I needed to leave in only a few minutes.   I gulped a few more mouthfuls as I put my breakfast in the fridge and ran around getting Faith in her carseat and my coat on.  Somehow I miscalculated the time, and I even had to rush to take the next tram.  With the diaper bag on my back, Faith in her carseat over one arm, and the garment bag in the other hand, I walked quickly to the tram stop that I had never been to before. I got to the intersection and could not see the tracks.  Thankfully, I saw the electric lines above and with only a little more confusion, stepped to the correct platform just a minute or two before the arrival of the tram.  I caught my breath during the ride and got off at Neubad.  This is a five-way intersection, and I knew that the entrance to Valda's apartment was across the street to the left of the grocery store.  So I headed that direction and did not find the entrance. In fact, the whole storefront looked wrong.  I looked around the intersection and found that the other grocery store is one street over, and then following my directions from that store, I successfully entered Valda's apartment. (More)

Waking up at the above mentioned 2pm left us just enough time to get ready to go to the Renaissance Dance Rehearsal at 3:00.  Janet wanted us to dance to medieval music at the wedding reception and thought it would be a good idea for us to practice ahead of time.  About 20 of us were there, and had a very fun time.  It's group dancing, like English Country Dancing or Contra Dancing. Each person has a partner, but all the sets of partners dance together as a whole.  Some of the dances did not use partners, but were all holding hands together in a circle.  We did many different dances and often were quite clumsy at it, but it was fun nonetheless.  The boys were not very interested in dancing, and even took a little nap.  Noah did join in during a couple of the simpler dances, but was intimidated by the more complex dances (if only he knew that we didn't know what we were doing...).  Jonathan was sad that he was by himself, but there wasn't much to do about it since he didn't want to dance, even during the simpler ones - I suspect it was more a pride issue of not wanting to change his mind after saying that he didn't want to dance earlier.  I think it might have been different if we started with the simpler dances earlier. (More)

Barbara drove us, with our two big suitcases, three backpacks, computer suitcase, and small/hand bag, to the bus station in Concord.  We got there just in time to buy tickets and get on the bus that took us to Logan airport in Boston.  Check-in went smoothly and our biggest suitcase was just one kilogram shy of the weight limit.  There was some issue with our seating (a recurring problem you will find out) and Jon went to the Lufthansa help person to try to work it out.  We ended up with me and Faith in a bulkhead/bassinet seat, and all the males one row ahead of us.  It turned out those two rows were separated by the kitchen so we saw very little of one another during the flight.  Getting through security went relatively smoothly for five people.  (More)

I am now on vacation and so can spare a few minutes to type up the notes that have been hanging in my pocket for a while.  I will apologize to my readers for making them wait so long, but I will not feel guilty.  Blogging is something most mothers in the history of the world did not have on their list of responsibilites and I will not let it grab a top priority from other important things.  (More)

This is the traditional Christmas breakfast in the Daley family.  It is too good to only have once a year, and I often make it for potluck brunches.  No one knows where the "Presnor" part comes from. The original recipe from Jon's mom has plain monterey jack cheese, but the pepper jack gives it a superb flavor that's not too spicy even for my non-spicy friends.

Eggs Presnor

6 eggs, beaten
1 c. milk
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 lb pepper jack cheese, shredded
3 oz cream cheese
8 oz cottage cheese
3 Tbs butter, melted
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 c. flour
chives and parsley for garnish

Preheat oven to 325.  Mix eggs, milk, sugar, salt.  Add cheeses and butter.  Mix
well. *Can be made ahead to this point.* Mix baking powder and flour, add to wet
ingredients and mix.  Pour in greased 9x13 pan. Bake 40 min until set and beginning
to brown on top. Garnish.