Summer Tales from Harper – part 2

Hello everyone!

Now that summer has officially come to a close, I thought I would share the latest events from Switzerland. After our busy June and July, I begged my mommies to slow down and give me some time at home. After much pleading, they agreed to spend most of August at home. I took advantage of the time on my home court to change from scooting around the house to a full out crawl! It wasn’t long before I started my furniture cruising as well. I love to walk around using one of my “walkers,” but I still depend on the faithful crawl to get me where I need to go.

As August progressed I noticed other things around the house were slowly changing. Drawers I used to be able to open and empty suddenly had these frustrating hooks on them. How is someone with little fingers supposed to work those crazy latches? And the cool things I used to pull off the shelves have been moved up high. Why? I’m not quite sure. But the icing on the cake was when these little plastic things were suddenly stuck in all of my favorite electrical outlets! What is the point? Mommies have yet to explain this stuff to me; can anyone out there enlighten me on these things?

I continue to take Mommy to my music class on Friday mornings. I love playing with the jingle bells the best, but the big drums are cool as well. Mommy says we are going to start a French class together also. I think it starts in October, but we are supposed to be learning nursery rhymes and other cool things in French. I still get to see my peeps (that means friends to all the non-cool folks reading this!) once a week as well – the weather has been pretty good so we can still meet in the park. But I think fall might be on its way, we have started to notice many marrons (chestnuts) and leaves falling from the trees.

In September the fun really started – Aunt Keebo (Carol) and Uncle Wes came to visit us for a whole week. It was my job to help them learn to adjust to the jet lag. I tried to be as entertaining as possible so they wouldn’t feel so sleepy! After they got here, we all packed some weekend bags and took a train ride to Zermatt. This is a really neat hiking/climbing/and ski town. When the weather is nice, I understand it has beautiful views of the Matterhorn and other great Swiss Alps. However, we didn’t get the picture perfect weather – so we had to make the best of it!

Besides lots of walking, shopping, and sightseeing we took a train up through a mountain tunnel to enjoy a typical Swiss dinner including alphorn players (Mama even played a bit – using her skills gained as a trombone player decades ago.) We were joined at the Swiss dinner by a tour group from Tokyo – and I was the hit of the party. All my new Japanese friends loved to say hello, wave at me, and of course take my picture. It was so much fun; I had to stay up past my bed time, just to please my fans!

The next day we took a train up the mountain to try to see the Matterhorn. Wouldn’t you know when we got to the train station … all my new friends from Tokyo were there as well! Again I had to be on my best behavior to please the crowds again. The altitude at the very top was too much for my little lungs, so we sent Aunt Keebo and Uncle Wes to the top, while we checked out the 5 star resort half way up at 2222 meters! Nice place to visit -- after you win the lottery!

We went to a cool wine festival this past weekend. They had really neat things for the kids to do, while everyone else was enjoying the wines. My mommies had to test out the wines, cheeses, and chocolate while I got to check out the grapes, apples, and croissants – not a bad deal!

Hope everyone is doing well. Love and kisses from Switzerland ~ Harper