The Days Go By

Putting together this blog is a great reminder for me as to how lovely our lives really are. Honestly, while this move to Geneva has been a brilliant experiene, I have not enjoyed living in the city. Even though we have great experiences, I do sometimes get down about daily life. Sometimes I feel that I am just waiting for the weekend, when we'll all be able to hang out as a family. We work so well together.

During the week, I go to parks a lot, but even that can be a disaster. The parks are not so clean. For example, today I went to one that is fairly small and there are always kids there, often large groups of kids. I would think adults would keep the children's area a bit sacred. However, the adults there are usually smoking, and then they throw their cigarette butts on the ground. Today, I found a nook that was filled with various refuse, most likely from a homeless person. I found myself feeling a mix of sadness and compassion that someone was using the park in that way, because he or she had no home available, but then also feeling sick to my stomach that any children at the park would be running into that. It's not the first time I've seen such things here. Before moving here, I had the idea that Geneva, being in Switzerland, known for its wealth and cleanliness, would be a sparkling city.

In any case, even though I like to share all areas of my life here, I don't like to dwell on things I find hard to appreciate, just like in my real life. So, now that I've gotten the above off my chest, I'll turn focus to the fun we are having...

Joran plays his guitar -- collecting money on the street?

Working on staying young at heart.


UN fountains

Picnic at La Perle du Lac, a beautiful, expansive, lakeside park, also connected to the Botanical Gardens. Makes for a wonderful day. These parks and the UN are close together, so we visited all, had schwarma for lunch and ice cream, too.

When I met John, I had a car colored "Champagne Beige." I was always insistant about adding the "Champagne," not just beige. John started talking about me adding champagne sparkle to everything. He spoke of it like it was our measure of quality -- if there was no champagne sparkle, it wasn't good enough for us. I love this sparkly photo! Our life together is brilliant!

Live well!

Jolene