Can I just say I am having an incredible time here! My accomodations are wonderful. We're staying in a renovated estate with large stables. The estate has been complete renovated to be a modern business training center (like the Villa Graziadio only much larger). My hotel room has a twin bed in the main room and then a loft up about 20 stairs. I can stay in either bed and I think I will try them both!

Today when I got to the airport there was no one there to meet me. I wondered around the airport for about 20 minutes. Finally I decided to call and ask. I found a payphone and tried to call. While I was trying to get the phone to work I overheard someone else talking on the phone and describing my exact situation. So I just waited until he hung up and introduced myself. Eventually there were four of us there waiting to be picked up. About 45 minutes after arriving someone showed up and took us all to the center. We arrived at 5:30 and the first session was at 5. So the whole West Coast contingent was a bit late. When we arrived Ambassador Whittlesey was giving an introduction to all of the US participants describing how we were on a diplomatic mission as ambassadors of the US. It was really neat.

After the introduction we had about 15 minutes to check into our rooms and join the group for dinner. I took a super-quick shower and headed over to dinner. Dinner was amazing. I had dinner with a Councilman from Queens, a US Ambassador, a writer for a national political journal , and a real estate developer from Florida. Totally amazing. We discussed the war in Iraq, the history of the Reformation in Switzerland, and the recent history of China and Taiwan. So cool! It is so enjoyable to be surrounded by so many accomplished people.

Tomorrow the Swiss representatives arrive. Essentially, my job for the next week is to have one-on-one interaction with as many Swiss as I can to help them understand US perspectives on policies, business, and history. I am going to love this! But for now, it is 10pm in Zurich and I am dead tired. I am going to church tomorrow at a Presbyterian German church. Should be fun, even though I won't understand any of it. I took a few photos and will post them tomorrow.

Switzerland Trip Begins

I began my trip to Switzerland today. Let's just say it was pretty stressful beginning. First, I lost my driver's license on Wednesday. I can't find it anywhere. I didn't have time to get a new one, so I'm off to Europe and New England with no license. Doh!

Second, it took nearly two hours to get to LAX today. That is almost three times the usual 45 minutes. I thought my head was going to explode thinking I would miss my flight.

Third, today is my son's birthday. It's so sad to leave your newly nine year old son crying on his birthday. Its so hard to think that I'm nearly half done with raising him. :(

However, all of this was undone when I arrived at Tom Bradley terminal and was ushered to the "VIP ROOM" of Swiss Airlines. Very nice. For those of you who haven't experienced this it's a completely different experience. There are about five flatscreen TV's in here and unlimited food and drinks. There's wireless internet and newspapers in every language. I don't know that I'll ever enjoy coach again! :)

I'll give you more news when I land in Zurich tomorrow!

A new blog is up...
This blog is hard to keep current because it requires a manual visit to the Blogger site to update. I'm trying out a new service from yahoo! called Yahoo! 360. Check out my 360 page (http://360.yahoo.com/michael_lyn_williams).

Little League Season is OVER!

After a long, and sometimes difficult season we finished our Little League Season. In retrospect, we probably should have put Matthew in one more year of tee-ball. He was not ready for the kid-pitch part of the season. We started strong, but ended pretty slowly.

Vacation

Well, vacation is finally upon us. I'll post photos over the next few weeks. We're looking forward to seeing friends and family in TX, OK, NM while we drive through the SW USA. Should be a LONG and fun trip.

Star Update

The kids had their final school musical today. Of course all the regulars were there. But the big surprise was Tea Leone (sp?) came in and sat right behind me and Marcus. She had her little boy with her and said, "Look, there's a boy like you!" She looked EXACTLY like she did in Spanglish. It was kind of freaky. :)

Revenge of the Sith

For Matthew's birthday a few weeks ago he received the book "Revenge of the Sith". We started reading chapters to one another, but I didn't want to know how it ended, so I stopped. I spoke with him the other day and he stopped too. I think it was too depressing and scary for him. :(

So..I went and saw the movie yesterday with my good friend Hung Le. We wanted to preview it before deciding whether our boys could watch it. I must say, I'm pretty torn about it. There are a few scenes (eg, the younglings, and the destruction of Annaken) that would really bother Matthew. So I haven't decided yet what to do about it. My initial thought is that he's not really ready for it yet. But I may change my mind over time. Any of you with young boys (age 6-9) feel free to weigh in on it with me.

Overall, I liked the movie. It was a wonderful piece of connecting the dots...how did Annie become Darth Vader? Is Chancellor Palpatine really Darth Sideous? How did Yoda end up at Degobah? Kenobi at Tattoine? How did Vadar not know about the twins? What happened to Padame? How did the Republic fall? What caused the rise of the Empire? What happened to the Jedi Knights? All these, and more, are answered quite satisfactorily. Additionally, its a wonderful treatment of how "good" and "evil" are mostly a point of view, and how no one is intrinsically "good" or "evil" but their choices make them so. I found it enjoyable and well worth the $7.50 for a matinee admission. Now the $10 popcorn on the other hand...

General Update

Oh my goodness it has been much too long since I've updated this blog. My apologies. First, all is well. We've enjoyed our spring semester in Malibu and the kids are nearly out of school (one more month!). We've not traveled anywhere or done anything exciting since our trip to Italy in December. But we're doing well.

Matthew is finishing up baseball season. He's had a tough year. We moved him up to Little League this year from TeeBall. We maybe should have kept him in Tee Ball one more year. He's the youngest kid out there and has had some difficulties with hitting "kid-pitch" balls. But he's improved a lot and will be much better next year when he's a little bigger and stronger.

Madison has devoted the spring to learning to read and her art. She comes home from school every day and begins working on some art project. She's absolutely adorable. Plus, like Matthew, her first book was "Green Eggs and Ham". She read it for the first time back in early April. She's doing great. We hope to get her into gymnastics or dance classes in the fall.

Marcus is really learning to speak. He is very verbal now. He talks all the time and sometimes people who aren't even in our family can understand him. Madison is the best at understanding him. She always knows what he's saying. He's too cute. I've posted a ton of pictures recently on the website. Check them out! Let me know if you don't remember the password and I'll remind you.