Tom and Katie's Swiss Adventures

Big Sister, Little Brother

2012-02-06T22:42:00.001+01:00

There are a lot more of these, but I couldn't wait to post one. I'll sort through the rest of the pictures and pick out some other good ones later.

Those are my cuties!

Andrew - 1 month

Laura - 26 months

December Doings

2012-02-05T16:00:00.002+01:00

Helping Daddy put his favorite ornaments on the tree.

After asking to "old im, Daddy?"

At Lac Noir

She really did love it - she was just cold here.

With my babies!

Another attempt at a family photo on Lake Geneva.

Picture with Grandma at the Montreux Christmas market.

We didn't get any pictures of the market, but we did get a picture of Laura playing on the playground!

Christmas Eve Eve - celebrating with Grandma before she left.

The stockings were hung by the radiator with care...

Chateau de Chillon

2012-02-05T13:59:00.000+01:00

We took my parents to Chateau de Chillon one weekend when then castle was all abustle with roaring fires, medieval crafts and people in period costumes. We walked around and admired the crafts and enjoyed lentils with ham and a delicious vegetable soup in the enormous dining room. It was Andrew's first outing and he slept through all of it.

Cutie Pie.

Proof that we got out of the house!

I'll never grow tired of the beautiful vistas here.

The castle is built right on the water.

We could have take the train to the front door of the castle, but drove instead. It took half the time and was much cheaper. Swiss trains are nice and timely, mais tres cher!

Family Photos - Kinda

2012-02-05T13:50:00.001+01:00

We all got out and dressed one day so that we could take some pictures of all 4 of us. We managed to get a few, but the morning was wrought with problems. First, the nice camera was dead (which we discovered once we got to where we were going), fortunately, Grandma had hers in her pocket, so hurray, we could still do it. Second, it was snowing, snowing (and getting harder by the minute). Oh well, it will give the picture a distinct wintry-feel. We'll all get a little wet and cold, but we'll dry! Third: We're finally all set up and ready to go, but don't have time to really look at the pictures to make sure they're turning out ok. Result - we are minuscule in the photo. I zoomed in a little, but we're so small that if we zoom in to a normal size then we're blurry.

Oh well, someday we'll succeed in getting a good shot of our little family.

Laura Galore!

2012-01-29T22:42:00.004+01:00

Only peruse if you want to see lots of Laura :)

Working on her pumpkin. He had a "happy face" according to Laura .

What is she thinking?

Always curious. Her favorite part about the pumpkin was taking the lid on and off.

Smile, Laura!

Hugging her pumpkin.

Birthday Girl!

Photo shoot of the birthday girls. It was challenging getting her to cooperate. I guess that's part of life with toddlers :)

This smile was achieved by me jumping up and down.

We took photos at the park behind our house after nap time. Didn't get the perfect shot, but got lots of good ones of typical Laura expressions.

Laura: Wound pol, mama?

Mama: Yes, Laura, you can go around the pole.

We gave her this section to eat.

Somehow my pumpkin cake didn't turn out as well as the ones my mama used to make me. It tasted great, but the face was kinda scary.

Show off our presents. Thanks everyone!

Tom surprised me with a personalized pumpkin for my birthday.

Enjoying the English Tea set from April

My busy little bee.

Macarons!

2012-01-26T00:12:00.004+01:00

When we visited Paris 2 years ago, I discovered a new dessert...macarons. Soft shell on the outside, yummy filling on the inside. Oh so good. Ever since then I have been on the lookout for macarons. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for my budget and waistline), the Swiss macarons have nothing on the French ones. I have found some good ones here, but for the most part they cannot compete with French ones, especially the Parisian ones.

My Parisian Macarons

Tom has been very patient and indulgent in my macaron obsession. We buy macarons everywhere we see them. He even brought me some straight from Paris when he had a day trip there. However, since they are hard to find and quite pricey (the good ones can be close to $2 apiece), I cannot indulge my taste buds as often as I would like. To solve this problem, Tom bought me two macaron cookbooks for my birthday complete with the promise to make them with me. It has been a great present. Not only is it fun to do together, but the results are quite delicious, even if they aren't as pretty as the store-bought ones. Here's a documentation of our first attempt.

After ageing our eggwhites for 5 days, sifting our almond flour to remove the big chunks and carefully folding everything together, we piped our batter into the macaron pan Tom included with the cookbooks. (In the end we found that the macaron pan is great for making universal shapes, but TERRIBLE at making good looking macaron shells. They were eatable but ugly!)

Piping the batter onto a cookie sheet. Is Tom doing it like the picture?

Stage 2 - The Filling

We didn't have time the first night to do the vanilla buttercream filling for our vanilla shells, so here's our 2nd night on the job.

Pairing up the random shapes that we had and sandwiching them with the cream.

Our food pictures leave much to be desired.

Hurray, they're done!

After letting them sit for 24 hours in the fridge (supposedly to allow the cream to infuse into the shells) and then letting them sit at room temperature for 30 minutes, Laura got to eat a "ma-ka-kon" as she calls them.

Enjoying macaron success! Laura is as hooked as her mama :)

All in all, making these little cookies wasn't quite as complicated or challenging as the cookbooks made them out to be. They were a little bit involved, but they turned out fine. The certainly weren't beautiful, but they sure did taste good! Thanks for a fun b-day present, Tom!

P.S. We just finished our 2nd batch last night. Again, they turned out tasty, but hideous. We tired to color ours this time and instead of a vibrant bluegreen like we were hoping, they turned out a pastel aquamarine. Not an appealing color to eat. If you get past the color though, they're quite good! Picture to follow.

Catch Up

2012-01-25T23:21:00.001+01:00

I was looking through pictures and realized that I've missed quite a few of them, so here is my first post to help catch up to real time.

We visited Hauterive quite a bit before Andrew was born. It was a perfect place to take Laura and since it was cold, we often had the place to ourselves. Here's a family shot taken in October.

Laura helping carve her first pumpkin.

The horrible construction I had to deal with while 8 months pregnant, with a toddler and with Tom gone. We had to park our car a block away for a week while they were laying water pipes. Those stairs were not fun to do while pregnant!

Here we were heading to the ludothèque (toy library) to exchange Laura's suitcase for something else. I love the concept of a toy library. Does such a thing exist in the US?

We went to the zoo over our birthday weekend. I think Laura enjoyed the massive playground more than all the animals.

Trying to get a good shot of a 2 year old is challenging enough without your camera going crazy. I actually had Laura cooperating and the camera went berserk. I managed this one non-fuzzy shot before it completely shut down.

Taking our little bee to the store on Halloween. We only got a few funny looks from people.

Back at Hauterive - pretty fall colors and a baby bump!

Our Little People Nativity scene had molded while in storage, so we gave everyone a bath. Laura had a ball washing baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph while wearing one of Mommy's gloves. She also had to wear an apron like Mama. Monkey see, monkey do!

Sweet :)

Snow Babies

2012-01-16T22:35:00.002+01:00

Tom taught Laura how to roll her eyes. I was annoyed at first, but now I think it's adorable. Might as well enjoy it now while it's cute!

We took a trip up to Lac Noir one Saturday so Laura could sled. It never stopped snowing, so it was a little cold and wet. Laura didn't last too long, but she really enjoyed it while she was out there.

Mommy had fun, too :)

Andrew ventured out in the snow later that day on a walk to the park. He lasted about 10 minutes.

Daddy built a snowman taller than Laura! She was very possessive of the snowman (she is possessive about most everything these days). She couldn't stand it when some people took a picture with HER snowman after we'd walked away.

Monkey see, monkey do! Laura is feeding her baby like Mama feeds Andrew!

Grandma with both of them! She did this so much better than I ever have managed. One of them always seems to be crying when I try.

Andrew's Birth Story

2012-01-05T14:26:00.000+01:00

Tom documented Andrew's birth from his side of things, so I thought I'd balance out the perspective by adding my own.

I was convinced that Andrew was coming early. I was prepared for him to make his debut up to three weeks ahead of time. I had been an early baby, Laura was early, and I was having TONS of Braxton-Hicks. I was just hoping I'd be able to make it to the hospital before he decided to pop out. However, the days went by and nothing happened. Each night I went to bed wondering if it would be THE night. I was so sure he was coming early that when I hit December 1st and was still pregnant, I felt as though I was a week past my due date!

We had a routine doctor's appointment on December 1 and I was discouraged to find out that the baby was big (estimated at 4kg!) and that I wasn't dilated at all. We went home with an appointment for induction on Tuesday (it was Thursday), a prescription for a 'contraction cocktail' and various other snippets of advice on how to get the baby moving! That afternoon, my parents, Laura and I headed downtown to search out the odd ingredients for my cocktail and to walk around. We found a few of the ingredients, let Laura play on the playground, stumbled across a practice run for the St Nicolas parade on Saturday, and enjoyed some yummy coffee at one of my favorite cafes.

A friend of mine had made us a pan of eggplant parmesan for dinner and I ate a huge helping - thanks, April - and then had some of my raspberry leaf tea - thanks, Marti! Then Tom and I got distracted playing a computer game together, so it was 12:30 when I finally got to bed. At 12:50 (before I had had a chance to fall asleep and well after Tom started snoring), my first contraction started. I started timing them just out of habit and they were coming every 10 minutes and preventing me from falling asleep. I got in and out and in and out of bed - I kept thinking I'd be able to go to sleep. Finally around 1:45 I decided to take a shower to see if that would take care of them. I still didn't really think I was in labor and was paranoid about going to the hospital in error! The shower didn't really help and the contractions were now every 5 minutes. Sleep was impossible as I found myself gnawing on the bed sheets every time a contraction came along. So I just got up and found my What to Expect When You're Expecting book and the sheet from the hospital on when to call. I devoured the false/real labor symptoms in the book and still didn't know what to think, and the hospital's information said not to call until my contractions had been 5 minutes apart for an hour. So I walked around and read and waited until 2:50 when I finally woke up Tom. He did really well this time - it only took about 5 minutes to get him to full awareness and get him to listen to me! (With Laura he went back to sleep after I told him my water had broken) We called the hospital and they told us to come "gently" to the hospital - meaning we didn't have to hurry. We got dressed and went upstairs to let my parents know that we were going. I still wasn't sure my labor was real, so didn't make any promises to them!

We got to the hospital about 330 and walked from the parking lot to the ER and then walked ourselves up to the maternity ward through the deserted hospital. It took a little while because I had to stop every 5 minutes, but we made it with no problems! The midwife met us and started our paperwork. Everything was nice and relaxed. Then she check to see how much I was dilated. She had a funny look on her face, so I was convinced that I was at 0cm and was just having false labor. She then told me I was already at 9cm! She was shocked and so were we! Things weren't relaxed after that. The midwife started moving at 100mph. She called a bunch of people, got my IV started and moved us into the birthing room. I think we freaked her out just a bit :)

We got settled into the birthing room about 430 or so and things slowed down. (I think it's that goofy medicine (oxytocin?) they give me to increase contractions...it was the same time with Laura...anyway...) The midwife calmed down when the doctor got there and everything was ready for the baby to arrive. I was free to push when I wanted to, but wasn't having any urge to push. We waited, and waited, and I stood up for a little while and waited some more. I got tired of the waiting and just decided to try pushing to see what happened. Tom was a great coach and 20 minutes later at 5:30, Andrew Paul Holst entered the world! I couldn't believe that he'd arrived so quickly (with Laura I pushed for 2 hours), but was happy to be done with it! My work was finished and I could just admire and caress the sweet, wet, beautiful new baby in my arms. The first think I noticed was his back - it was hairy! "Tom, he's just like you!" I said. He was quiet and precious and content just to rest on my chest. He was worn out from the birth, too!

The doctor and midwife finished taking care of me and an hour later (not a very fun hour) the three of us were finally left in peace. We called our parents with the good news and sent a dozen texts informing the world of little Andrew's arrival. We were excited to reveal his name. Andrew was my father's father and a wonderful man. He loved the Lord and served Him quietly and faithfully for as long as I knew him. I pray that our Andrew will grow up to do the same. Paul is the name of Tom's brother as well as the second name of my mother's father - both of whom are also worthy namesakes. We pray that our little guy will love the Lord and serve his family like the men before him.

All in all, it was a quick and easy delivery. It's hard to believe that only 2 hours after getting to the hospital we were holding our new baby. He's a sweetie and growing growing. We had our one-month appointment yesterday and he is already 5.2kg...Laura didn't weight that much until 2 months! He goes 3 hours between meals except once at night where he's gone up to 6hrs! There are some advantages to having a big baby! I've really enjoyed the 4 hour stretch of sleep that I occasionally get from midnight to 4. Life is rather hectic with a newborn and a toddler, but I think we're doing ok. Laura LOVES her baby brother and only acts out towards us as she copes and not towards him for which I am thankful. She just loves to hold and hug and kiss "Baby An-Drew". Today I showed her that he would grasp her finger if she gave it to him. She was tickled pink and kept trying to get him to hold her hand the rest of the evening. Tonight was the first time I had to put her to bed while also having to manage Andrew (Tom is out of town for 3 nights - so far, so good!). After I turned the lights off to sing and pray, her hand started roaming. I thought she wanted to hold my hand, but no, she was searching for Andrew's. She held it the entire time and had to search for it if she lost it. Too sweet :)

2011-12-26T17:24:00.001+01:00

A few more pictures...

Waiting to head home from the hospital! It was COLD and WINDY the day we brought Andrew home. Additionally, the visitors parking lot at the hospital was full, so Tom had to park a mile (literally) away and then take the bus. Instead of taking my precious three-day-old out into the elements, we waited in the foyer and let Tom do the traveling. I snapped a few pictures while we were waiting.

Laura went on St Nicholas Day to retrieve her newly stuffed stocking. Everything with Mommy being gone and Andrew arriving must have had her a little off, because she wouldn't go near St Nick to get her goodies. She did get her stocking back, though. It was stuffed with the traditional Dec 6 fare - peanuts, oranges, gingerbread and candy!

Laura decided that she didn't want to nap one day. I heard her in her room playing and talking, but was dozing on the couch with Andrew, so figured I would just let her be and enjoy my brief repose. When I finally went in to get her, her first word to me was, "mess!", and indeed it was. She had emptied the little bottle of Andrew's iodine everywhere and taken every last wipe out of the box. Everything was pink from the iodine, so we had to strip her and the bed and wash everything. Her hands were pink for days... The little rascal :)

The "mess"

First Family Photo

2011-12-25T20:58:00.001+01:00

We've found it really difficult to get family photos with all four of us. If one child is happy, the other isn't. And if we decide to take pictures when Andrew is happy, by the time we get all set up, his happy window is over. However, we do have a few, this being the first. It may not be a perfect picture, but it's real life :)

Sweet Andrew sleeping in his bassinet. I love sleeping babies.

More Andrew Pictures

2011-12-07T21:54:00.001+01:00

Andrew is 5 days old today. Crazy how much has changed in less than a week. We came home on Monday and have been enjoying being at home. Laura is doing pretty well, though you can tell she's struggling a little with all the changes. She's super sweet (most of the time) with Andrew though and we only need to worry about her smothering or poking him too much. She loves to watch us change his diaper, swaddle him and feed him. Then she goes and does the same with her baby. I'm waiting for her to start nursing :) She hates it when he cries and sometimes cries with him. I'm enjoying seeing them interact as well as having my parents here to give me a hand with the two of them!

She LOVES to kiss Baby Brother.

What we got when we told her to show her teeth when she smiled.

Big hand, little hand

Ba-by An-rew, nose!

Tom's starting him early on GT and airplanes

Trying for some artistic shots :)

Father and Son!

My sweet baby snoozing away! Did you notice they have the same blankets in Switzerland as you get in the US?

Introducing Andrew Paul Holst

2011-12-04T00:20:00.001+01:00

At Katie's first doctor's appointment after finding out she was pregnant, the doctor insisted that Katie's due date was the 1st of December; Katie was indignant, having already determined that the due date was supposed to be the 2nd of December. In our broken French we found it impossible to argue. I, personally, had a difficult time bringing myself to care much about this trivial detail in the life of my first son, and to be honest, over the coming few months came to side with the doctor leaning toward the 1st. But not so with Katie. She made it her mission to prove that lady wrong. And though it took nine long months, she succeeded.

We went to the hospital on the 1st for the official "due date check-up" and you could see the fire in Katie's eyes as they told her she wasn't dilated at all. "I always knew that doctor was wrong," she told me with a gleam of satisfaction. The nurse gave us a "contraction cocktail" all-natural recipe that was supposed to get things moving, so to speak, but Katie was not going to get to try it.

At 12:50am on December 2nd, the contractions started and at 5:34am, we had baby Andrew Paul laying in Katie's arms, whimpering and looking thoughtfully at his persistent :) Mommy (he looked to me like he was a day or so over-ripe!).

Anyway, I'll spare you the details for now and let you see what you really care about: the pictures. I'll update a bit later with a more thorough account of Katie's victory.

Katie on the 1st of December--just to prove that she was not, in fact, in labor yet.

Andrew Paul Holst...hand-picked and fresh!

She really does NOT look like she just gave birth. You would think that we staged this picture some days later, but I promise you, I didn't.

Laura meeting Baby Brother!

I think she likes him!

That's what Laura does when you tell her to "smile".

<<---Same baby--->>

Gramps and grandson

Andrew Paul Holst

Chillin' with Daddy in the sun

That's all for now, folks. Come back later once we've all had a bit more time to catch up on some sleep!

Family Photo

2011-11-02T21:45:00.001+01:00

A picture of all four of us! These are a rare occurrence - it is HARD taking good pictures of/with a toddler. I'm open to any tips you might have! This was in front of our rental house in France. I loved the meandering grapevines (the grapes were good, too) and all the flowers. Laura enjoyed watching the numerous caterpillars that were chowing down on the rose leaves right outside of our door.

Laura climbed up in the apple tree with Daddy and actually cooperated for a picture! This is her face when you ask her to smile (sometimes).

Desaples

2011-10-22T23:53:00.002+02:00

Every fall "the cows come home" in a traditional celebration called La Désalpe - literally coming down from the Alps. We made it to two different festivals this year and Laura loved them. She saw cows, sheep, donkey, goats and horses up close and personal. At first the loud bells around the necks of the cows scared her, but she got used to it after awhile. While Laura's favorite part was the animals, I liked shopping in the markets the best. Such fun, crafty, Swiss stuff to be had... I didn't buy much, but looking is half the fun!

With all the traffic, we were a little late to the first parade of cows in Charmey. It meant we got a good view, though. Everyone just pulled over and ran across the street to watch the cows go by. Either that cow is really big, or our car is really small...

One cow broke ranks and headed straight for us!

Laura is really distracted.

The decorated sheep.

She's started smiling on command (sometimes). This is her sporting pig-tails for the first time. At first I couldn't keep them in and now she asks for them all the time. She needs something done to her hair though, it's finally!! (it only took 2 years) long enough to get in her eyes.

Before winter arrived (it's 32F outside right now), Laura decided to play on the porch in this interesting outfit.

Time for a break!

Our second desalpe in Semsales. Laura talked about the donkeys for days.

An interesting float? in the parade. The man in back was playing music by manually cranking a handle.

Hard at play...

I take no responsibility for this outfit.

Happy to be outside at the park behind our house. This fall has brought the opportunity to search for chestnuts. We find them and then feed them to the deer who live next to the park.

Laura wanted to be like mama. She carried her baby around like this all day - even on our walk to the park.

Apples and More

2011-10-01T00:05:00.003+02:00

One thing I love about our house is the apple trees in the back yard. They produce more apples that we could ever hope to use in a season. However, we try! Laura loves going out to "pick" apples. Though her contribution is usually finding a (worm-free) apple and eating it while Mommy and Daddy do all the work. She eats a whole apple much better than one all sliced.

My cuties. Laura really enjoyed wearing her boots.

Always willing to share.

Our friend, Matt, flew in from France to visit us for the weekend. It was great to be able to catch up with him, feed him fondue and show him a few of the local sites. Laura is still talking about "Map" and "train" and "bye, bye" meaning that we took Matt to the train station and said goodbye to him there. She loved having a visitor.

Know what it is?? Play-doh! It was super easy to make and is a wonderful toy. I was so excited to have it turn out successfully. Now I just have to resign myself to the colors getting mixed together...so hard...

Family Vacation

2011-09-30T23:20:00.002+02:00

We've had plenty of travel opportunities since moving to Europe and have enjoyed being able to do some intensive site-seeing. However, the vacations we've had have not been very restful. We decided that it was high time for a "do-nothing" vacation. So we had our first relaxing, low-key vacation as a family a few weeks ago. We found a house to rent in the teeny-tiny town of Braux, just north-west of Dijon, FR. It was a perfect location and just what we had hoped. We took walks in our little village, played on the jungle gym in the back yard, ate peaches off the tree and grapes off the vine, swam in the pool and did a little non-intensive site-seeing. I want to go back...

We went to a local market (about 15 minutes away) our first morning there. We bought honey, some green beans, bread and jam (ooh, the jam was good!). We strolled through a community garage sale and then had beef bourguignon and lasagna for lunch at a little cafe. Laura took time to play in the pedestrian zone while mama finished eating.

She's growing up...doesn't she look like a little girl here?

Anything can be a toy when you are 22 months old. This chain entertained her for at least 5 minutes.

There were three rental houses on the property in addition to the house where the landlord lived. Our neighbors were Austrian and (of course) spoke excellent English. There were 8 of them traveling together (2 families) and they invited us to their brick oven pizza night. It was fun! We rolled out our dough, choose our ingredients and then had to bake our pizza in the brick oven without shoving it into the ashes. It is hard!! Everyone made a pizza and then shared it with the rest of the group. I was stuffed by the end of the night. I also experienced having goat cheese (yum!), tuna (not so yum), creme fraiche (didn't really notice it), an egg (not too bad) and various other unusual ingredients on my pizza. It was a fun evening and an enjoyable new experience. Meanwhile Laura dozed away next door while we watched her on the monitor - it was a night out!

My pizza had goat cheese, zucchini, olives, peppers, bacon and creme fraiche. I thought it was pretty good and it didn't get singed a bit.

On our way back from a walk in our little village (also a belly shot for those who have been asking).

This is what Laura does when we tell her to smile. She's also gotten so heavy that she now requires the two arm hold :)

We visited Flavigny - another teeny little town - one rainy morning. They are known for their anise factory as well as being the film location for the movie Chocolat. It was a very quaint town with lots of ups and downs. I loved the pretty stone house and all the beautiful flowers decorating them. We had a delicious lunch at the co-op cafeteria (quiche for me and potatoes and roast chicken for Tom) and just enjoyed a slow morning.

The gate to the city.

For our last outing, we drove across the valley (10 minutes) to an old chateau and church on a hilltop. They were closed, but we enjoyed walking the grounds around them. The view were beautiful and we were the only people there. It was so peaceful and quiet. Laura discovered that chestnuts are fun to hunt and we found a plethora of them! Her constant chant was "nother un" meaning she wanted to find more to step on and extract them from their spiny shells.

All in all it was a great vacation. Just the rest and together time we needed in the midst of Tom's crazy work and preparations for Baby Brother's arrival.

More pictures to come! We also saw our friends Matt and Stephanie, but I don't have any photographic evidence...yet!

Papiliorama!

2011-09-22T20:20:00.000+02:00

We visited the butterfly gardens one rainy day when Tom was off of work. Laura loved all the animals, especially the ducks and the monkeys. We visited all the areas: butterfly garden, night creatures, rain forest and petting zoo. I did NOT like the night creatures. There were hundreds of bats flying around and while they never ran into you, it was unnerving seeing something flying towards your fast extremely quickly. You could feel the wind of their wings as the flew past you. I couldn't get out of there fast enough and tried to hide behind Tom most of the time. It didn't phase Laura and we did get to see a sloth. I don't think I'd ever seen one before and it was pretty cool.

Checking out the fish and making her fish face at them.

She didn't like the goats - not even the babies. She kept close to Tom and kept saying, "no, no, no" in a pitiful voice.

One of the many butterflies we saw. It felt like it was raining butterflies in there. Laura couldn't stop doing her butterfly sign.

Vainly looking for the ducks that she'd chased away.

Bonus picture of Laura at the fountains at the shopping center close to our house. It was actually warm enough one morning to go play in the water!

1er Août

2011-09-22T19:47:00.001+02:00

For the Swiss national day we decided to do a mountain brunch again. We hiked in, ate at a mountain farm and then hiked back to the car. We did it this year with 7 children!

We walked through a lot of cow pastures on our way to the farm. Laura loved this part. This cow actually licked Tom's hand which she thought was great.

Part of our gang. The farm we are heading to is at the top of the white road you see in the distance.

The terrain was fairly uneven and at times a little tricky to navigate. I had been very careful to step around cow piles and puddles and over the big rents in the ground that the cows cause. I came down this path after hearing someone say that the dirt was firm. I misunderstood or he misspoke because the dirt (and other stuff) was NOT firm. I planted my right foot in nice squishy place where I sank to the top of my shoe before managing to pull it out. Lovely! I think the cow is laughing at me.

At the top!

She was supposed to be sleeping...

All in all it was a fun day, though quite tiring. Laura loved it and did great despite a missed nap. Maybe we'll do it again next year with baby brother in tow!

2011-09-15T21:17:00.001+02:00

I was looking back through pictures and realized that I'd missed quite a few in my updates, so I'm traveling back in time a little bit.

As far as life in general, things are going well. Baby Brother will arrive in less than three months! I'm getting bigger (it feels like I'm a lot bigger than last time) and this little one is a gymnast. I'm always getting kicked and poked and can occasionally feel him hiccup. Laura continues to be sweet, though she has definitely entered the 2's phase. She likes to be independent and does not like her will to be thwarted! She's still my precious little girl, though. Always hugging and sharing and blowing kisses. I love to hear her say, "wuv oo!". How it melts our hearts :)

3/26 - Goofy girl playing with Daddy

3/27 - More pictures from our visit to Hauterive. I really love that place and looking at these pictures make me want to go back. Maybe we can squeeze in another cookout before Brother arrives. Laura loved throwing rocks in the river. Here she is showing her dirty fingers to Daddy. She hates to be messy.

Look, Daddy, a rock!!

A halfway decent picture of L.

This is what she was doing most of the time.

Looking at the minnows with Tom.

Easter 2011

She was smiling and playing and laughing up a storm before we started taking pictures. Then everything went blank. I promise, we were not torturing her.

5/7 - After a visit to the Villars chocolate factory (they have the BEST hot chocolate!!) we walked over to the botanical gardens. Laura meandered so Tom took the opportunity to take pictures.

At the gardens Laura didn't care about flowers, fish, bees, trees, etc. All she wanted to do was throw rocks in the grates. I wish I knew what was going on in her little head!

Wedding Photo

2011-08-24T22:31:00.000+02:00

I should have gotten a picture of the three of us in front of the beautiful chapel in which Lisa got married, but didn't think of it in all the activity. Fortunately, Lisa's photographer snapped this one of us at the reception. It was the end of the day and we were all tired, but the picture still turned out. I love the look on Laura's face. I had to jump up and down (literally) to get her to smile, but it seems to have worked! It was a fun day full of good memories - thanks for a great party, Lisa and Jonathan!

4th of July and More

2011-08-11T11:04:00.000+02:00

We had our first 4th of July in the States in 4 years. When did GA start selling fireworks?? Laura loved pointing out all of the flags. There were lots of them! We didn't do much to celebrate, but it was really nice to be in the US for the holiday. We did enjoy the firework show from the neighboring country club and Laura slept through all of them. She barely moved a muscle even though they were exploding right above the house!

Playing at the local park.

Four Generations all together!

Aunt Ellie - Laura loved Ellie! A month after getting back and Laura is still talking about Ellie.

Summer Happenings

2011-08-06T16:52:00.002+02:00

We've had a busy summer, but a good one. My sister got married in July, so we went home for a month in order to attend and to be able to participate in some of the pre-nuptial festivities. It was great seeing Lisa so happy and excited. During that month, I got to meet up with two of my girlfriends from college at Panama City Beach. It was wonderful to have some quality girl-time and fun to introduce Laura to her first beach experience. It was great to be home for awhile and spend some quality time with friends and family.

Laura loves putting on her boots. One evening, she decided to walk in circles around me wearing nothing but boots and a diaper. Silly girl!

Laura's first day at the beach. She wasn't sure what to think. We managed to get her wet, but she didn't want to get out of the stroller or walk on the sand. Sigh - she doesn't know what fun is! The next day we got her in the water and she was giggly and happy - thanks to Cristina for encouraging us all that it could be done!

Proof of a successful trip into the water! The water was a perfect temperature and Laura really liked the up and down of the waves. She did not like the breaking waves, but once we got past the breaking, she was happy as could be.

Laura and I spent a few days with my parents down in AL. They have this great park nearby, so we took Laura one (cloudy!) morning and she loved it. I loved that it wasn't steaming hot at 10am.

She was very focused while climbing.

Well, at least when she wasn't making faces at the camera.

Three sisters all together at a fun shower for Lisa.

Getting pampered before the big day.

The beautiful bride! The photo doesn't do her justice, but it's the only one I have. Check out the pro's pictures here: http://www.ohsnapshotphotography.com/blog/?p=1469

It's a....

2011-07-27T20:35:00.000+02:00

Boy!!!

Yep! We are going to add a little boy to our family around December 2. I'm 21 weeks and all is going well. I don't have any good belly shots yet (the 2nd pregnancy is definitely not getting as much attention as the first!), but I'll endeavor to get some taken in the near future. Having the baby so close to Christmas means that we'll be spending the holiday here in Switzerland away from family back in the States. It will be our first Swiss Christmas and our first Christmas on our own. We must really be growing up. How did that happen?? We'll be happy to take any name suggestions, although we make no promises to use your suggestion :)

His little foot is so cute. The doctor didn't manage to capture a picture of it, but in the ultrasound on Monday, we watched him open his mouth and start sucking his thumb. He doesn't even weigh a pound yet, but he already likes to suck his thumb. Amazing.

UK Holiday - Part 2

2011-05-08T23:18:00.000+02:00

Since we now have two cameras, I am having trouble synchronizing the download of photos off of each. Therefore, almost three months after our holiday, I'm finally getting these off of the other camera. Enjoy!

We splurged one night and stayed in a castle! We had a gorgeous room (the photo doesn't do it justice) and a three course meal in the dining room. It was nice and really pretty, but we were a little out of our league. I'm not used to being called madame at every turn and having my bags (which were horribly disorganized and counted a few plastic kroger type bags among them) carried in for me. However, it was nice to have dinner alone while the receptionist listened out for Laura and enjoy the beautiful grounds. The castle used to be one of Henry VIII's and was visited by him and Anne Boleyn so I got to enjoy feeling like I was somehow a part of British history.

We did a photo shoot on the grounds the next morning. It was really wet and muddy. Rain boots (wellies as our British friend called them) would have been very useful.

A not so attractive side of the castle. The entrance is just behind us and then the part to our left was not yet renovated.

There was a beautiful church right next-door.

Funny face

Laura loved the pony.

I think Laura is telling me a funny secret here.

The main entrance (they valet parked your car just past the gate).

The only half-decent picture of the three of us.

Later that day we went to a zoo. It was so fun to introduce Laura to the live versions of animals that she'd only seen in books. The one was a new one, though, a tapir from South America. Laura got to feed him carrots.

Fish, chips and mushy peas!

The castle in Cardiff that we never managed to visit. It was pretty from the outside, though.

The Cardiff neighborhood we stayed in was full of blocks and blocks of these. It was difficult to discern which one was ours at times! It was interesting and quaint, but I think I prefer that my residence have a more distinctive personality.

Daily Life and an Easter Egg Hunt

2011-04-19T22:45:00.000+02:00

Here are a few snapshots that give a glimpse into what I do everyday :)

Laura loves to put clothes on and then take them off again and necklaces are a must! She also can never be too far from her water cup as she drinks from it constantly. I have to remember to take it with me whenever we go out because almost without fail, I'll hear the, "click, click" of her tongue asking for a drink.

She found her hat in the diaper bag (emptying it is one of her favorite things to do) and then wore it crooked for 30 minutes.

In an effort to keep my own purse for myself, I gave Laura an old one of mine to play with and filled it with mommy-like accessories. She loves it and carries it all over the house while constantly dumping and refilling it.

She must see us on the phone a lot because she loves to play with phones. Does this bode ill for her teenage years??

We went to Hauterive one Sunday afternoon for some fun by the river and a quick grill-out. Laura helped Daddy make the fire-ring.

Lounging (with her water cup not too far away)

I dressed Laura up (thanks for all the cute dresses, Lu!!) for the Easter Egg Hunt that our friends hosted this past weekend. Laura missed the hunt, but was more than happy to fill her basket with the colorful eggs we spread out around her.

She already knows how to carry things on her arm...do I do this a lot?

She was fascinated with opening and closing the eggs.

She looks like Spring :) Thanks to Margaret for the cute sweater!

Spinach

2011-04-12T22:04:00.000+02:00

Surprise, surprise! This girl loves spinach. She eats it plain. She then begs for more. I'm not quite sure where she gets it from, but I'm not going to complain! I thought she was too funny covered in spinach and happy as can be. She's learning how to feed herself and doing a pretty good job of it. I don't always have the patience to let her do it (my kitchen is enough of a wreck as it is), but I do try to let her at it as much as possible. She's already got the, "Mama, I want to do it!" look down pat.

Holiday in the UK

2011-04-04T21:18:00.000+02:00

Our British friends from Switzerland moved back to the UK last year, so we decided to go visit them at the end of February. We had fun seeing their new place, sloughing through the muddy countryside with them and having a traditional Sunday Roast at Richard's Mom's. I love the UK and hope to have many more visits there!

Strolling around rainy Cambridge

At one of the bridges next to the University

Rich and Em who graciously welcomed us (baby and all!) into their house and lives for the weekend.

(Notice the people punting in the background??)

The University campus was absolutely gorgeous.

One of Laura's many scones during the trip. (Don't be fooled by the face, she really loves 'em :)

One of the few times she actually fell asleep in the car (and of course it was 10 minutes before we arrived at our destination).

Our traditional British Tea in Cardiff and one pitiful looking Laura. Poor thing got sick, but she was still a pretty cheerful girl. As for the tea, we got to choose our tea and our cake. Tom got plum cake and I somehow managed to ask for chocolate-chili-orange cake. It was... interesting... I don't think I'd get it again, but it was an experience. The tea was delicious (I got pearl jasmine and Tom got Russian caravan in case you're interested) and Laura chowed down on the scones.

Playing in the Dirt

2011-03-19T15:44:00.000+01:00

This winter has been unusually beautiful and warm for Switzerland. I have no complaints, though - I think it has been wonderful! We've been to the park, taken walks, and enjoyed quite a few hours on our porch. All my porch plants are dead, but the plant-less pots make wonderful playthings. Laura loves moving the dirt from one pot to another, flinging dirt everywhere in the process and generally making a big mess. I love it, too, because it keeps Miss Laura occupied and out of trouble! I really enjoyed watching her play. She was so intent on what she was doing. The pictures were taken Feb 8 - I still cannot believe she is outside without a coat and hat!

Continuing the Trip through Time

2011-03-19T15:29:00.000+01:00

Nov '10 - a beautiful day to swing in the park

I love this photo :)

I wish I knew what she was thinking here.

Nov '10 - Laura has Tom's eye color - some indeterminate shade of grey/blue

The newly-weds! Sadly, we weren't able to attend their wedding in Russia.

Nov '10 - She is finally learning how to hug :)

Nov '10 - L is really ticklish underneath her chin

Nov '10 - I'd dressed Laura in at least 4 shades of pink, so Tom wanted to document her "pinkness"

Nov '10 - one of L's favorite toys is my wallet. I'm really afraid that I'm going to forget to look for it when I'm out shopping and it won't be there. Then I'll get to explain in French why I have to put all my groceries back.

Nov '10 - At our apt in Colmar - this is an example of what my floor looks like on a daily basis - can anyone else identify with me??

Dec '10 - Our 9th tree together!

Dec '10 - A picture downtown with the Fribourg Cathedral

My stroller wasn't quite up to the challenge.

The best picture we got of Laura in front of our Christmas tree.

Dec 24 - Checking out the presents after the Christmas Eve service.

Dec 25 - trying out her new toy

Ded '10 - snow in Atl!!

Dec '10 - Father and Daughter hug after an epic snowball fight (by Atlanta standards, that is).

Dec '10 - Sweet girl in front of my parent's tree

Dec '10 - Wearing Tia's present on her head...

Jan '11 - A typical pose for Laura - lounging in her chair. She often asks for a book once she gets into this position. I love her little round belly in this shot.

Jan '11 - The plastic chair was not the most stable, so we decided to invest in an Ikea option. Laura loves it!

Laura and I made love-bug valentines for V-day

A Quick Trip Through Time

2011-03-02T22:59:00.001+01:00

My baby is no longer a baby, but a budding toddler. She's walking, talking and starting to display her little determined will! She still coos and babbles and is generally sweet and precious, but babyhood is behind her. How quickly it does happen. Here are a few pictures to give you an idea of what she looks like now! Get ready to watch her grow before your very eyes :)

May '10 - A visit to Nice with Ellie

May '10 - Introducing Laura to climbing early

June '10 - Laura playing with Daddy one afternoon while Mommy took a nap.

4th of July and a visit from Cristina - what could be better?

July '10 - Enjoying the makeshift pool on the porch

August 1st - on top of a mountain after eating brunch at a local farm on the Swiss National Day

Aug '10 - A trip to Gruyeres Castle with Great Alice

Aug '10 - A stop at the Nufenen Pass in CH

Aug '10 - Training Laura to like airplanes early

Sept '10 - my cutie pie

Sept '10 - eating a banana with silly Daddy

Oct '10 - a happy girl at bath time

Oct '10 - playing on the teeter-totter with Mommy

Oct '10 - Family portrait on a toy that is way too small for Mommy and Daddy

Oct '10 - Being mischievous while Mommy had her back turned

Oct '10 - At a local farmers market - Laura loved eating the apple with her two lone teeth

Oct '10 - Aunties, Gramps and Grammy all together at last

Oct '10 - Happy 1st birthday, Laura!! (She's asking for "more" in the background)

The birthday girls and Daddy

Oct '10

Nov '10 - Out for a stroll in wet, but picturesque Colmar

Dec '10 - playing in the 1.5 feet of snow on our balcony

(the happy face only lasted a minute or two and then we quickly came back inside)

Well, that at least gets us up to right before Christmas, but it is late (will I ever get to bed early??) and I must sleep. Hopefully I can get the rest of my update up sooner rather than later - stay tuned!

Six Month Photo Shoot

2010-09-24T21:59:00.006+02:00

We had a highschool friend of Tom's come over to the Holst household and take Laura's six-month photos. This is just a small sampling of the photos shot that day - too many good ones to post them all. Isn't she a cutie! If you're in the Atlanta area, we'd definitely recommend Tim Harman as a photographer!

So Behind!

2010-07-19T21:22:00.001+02:00

Hello all you faithful blog readers! (do you still exist??) It has been ages since an update, and I bet you can guess why! Having a baby has certainly changed a lot of things around here. We're doing well, though and are keeping busy. Here is a list of random things that have happened in the last 8.5 months in no particular order.

1) I've learned how to make baby food. Before Laura, baby food was something you bought off the shelf at the store. It said Gerber on it and was made of who knows what and was only for baby - not for me. After seeing the price of $2 a jar (or there abouts) at the store here, I started investigating making my own baby food and have been pleasantly surprised. It is a little time consuming and makes me looong for a decent size freezer, but on the whole, I'm really enjoying making Laura's food. I've learned that baby food is really just ground up adult food (that may sound obvious, but it was a realization for me...). I've also learned that I like Laura's food and I am even sometimes jealous of it (like when she gets the last of the salmon). I also don't know how I ever lived without my Blendtec blender. Thank you Holst family - it has been invaluable in the baby food making venture!

2) How do single or working parents ever get anything done?? I'm home with Laura full time and barely keep up with the bare minimum of chores. Got any hints?

3) Laura is pretty flexible - I just have to give her the opportunities to be flexible. I've only had one or two incidents that I can remember where she didn't do well when we were out or traveling. Other than that; she's been an angel. She just goes with the flow and adjusts to her surroundings. It is often I who doesn't want to mess with her schedule when, in fact, she probably would do just fine. Tom pushes me to do so, and I'm glad he does, but at times it is just easier to stay home :)

4) Sleep is important. For both Laura and myself. I slept for 5 or 6 hours straight for the first time about a month ago and it was heaven. I still am not getting enough sleep, but it's more my own fault at this point. I have a hard time going to bed before midnight (a 10 year habit is hard to break) and my "alarm clock" wakes me up without fail and has no snooze...

4a) We let Laura cry it out when she was about 4.5 months old and was one of the hardest things I've ever done. We read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (which I highly recommend) an decided that we really needed to teach Laura how to sleep. She wasn't sleeping well or for long periods of time and it was taking a toll on all of us. There were gradual improvements in the first week, but it took about a month before Laura was really sleeping well. It took all the willpower in my body not to go into her sometimes, but it was worth it. She now goes down with a fuss (most of the time) and sleeps 12 -13 hours every night. It's amazing what a difference her sleeping well has made in my life. It is wonderful to be able to put her in her bed and know she will sleep. Ahh.

5) It is really hard being away from family. Having Laura has really made me homesick for my family. I hate that they can't share these sweet months of her babyhood with me. Skype is great, but it only goes so far. Maybe someday we'll be closer to home again.

6) I can't help but be cheered up by a Laura laugh, smile or coo. To me, she is the sweetest thing on Earth and she (almost) always brightens my day. I praise God for giving me the gift of her. He is teaching me so much through her and I feel so honored to have the responsibility of raising and loving her. We just love her to bits and still can't believe that she is ours :)

7) Where did "me" time go?? I now spend Laura's waking hours taking care of her and her sleeping hours taking care of the house, Tom and my own needs (ie showering). I don't have time anymore for reading for hours on end, blindly surfing the net or working on various craft projects. It's been a paradigm shift. My priorities have totally moved around and my spare time activities are at the bottom of the barrel! I'm not complaining - really - I'm just amazed at how much things have changed. I view my time differently and am much more aware of how I spend it. For example, Laura goes to sleep for her morning nap. Do I: shower, sleep, clean up the kitchen, pay bills, update our budget, iron or curl up with a book? I have 2 hours at most. How will I spend my 2 hours of allocated free time?

8) It is really neat to see the world through Laura's eyes. She is growing, changing and learning everyday. It is fun to watch her explore and learn about the simple things in her world. It makes me appreciate how much I know how to do without even thinking about it. Laura learned how to chew the other day and I was so proud of her. Before she was just swallowing the pieces of banana. Now she chews (gums rather) anything that need chewing without even thinking about it.

9) Life is about to change again. Laura is just starting to crawl. I can't leave her alone or else she might end up who knows where. She isn't quick or accurate yet, but full mobility is just around the corner. My cupboards, shelves and windows are now longer safe. She will soon be in (and her fingerprints on) everything!

10) I'd like more children someday, but how will I ever manage more than one? I feel like I'm barely treading water as it is!

Thanks for reading my random thoughts - sorry about the dearth of entries. If you want pictures - find me on FB - I've been uploading everything there.

Some Videos of Laura

2010-04-25T21:56:00.003+02:00

Video is a wonderful thing and a great way to document Laura's growing up. Hope you all enjoy these as much as we do :)

Christmas at the Beach

2010-03-12T16:19:00.001+01:00

After spending Christmas Day in Dothan, we drove the 10 hours (!) to Kiawah Island, SC to spend a few days with Tom's side of the family. After living in Europe, driving 10 hours seemed like a ridiculously long way to me. Here, driving the 1.5 hours to Zurich seems like major undertaking and driving to Italy, Germany or France seems almost undoable. I was curious, so I looked up how far we could get from Fribourg with a 10 hour or less drive. The answer: London, Amsterdam, Vienna, Prague, Zagreb, Rome, Barcelona - just to name a few! Why don't we go to some of these places for a week long visit? Anyway, the long drive wasn't bad (for me at least, I slept) and we stopped by to see my friend Danyel and her family in Albany on our way.

Danyel and I have been friends since 10th grade...what year was that...1997? My how time flies. It was good to see her and catch up, even if it was quick.

Danyel's cuties - Zoey and Taelor.

Laura's first walk on the beach.

Smiling and happy after bath time. Thanks to Tia Andrea for the cute ducky pjs :)

Tom and I went on a bike ride on the beach with Nancy (Tom's mom). I had so much fun - maybe it was because it was the first really active thing I'd done in a long time (didn't do anything like riding a bike while pregnant) or if it was the perfect weather and scenery. Anyway, it was a great outing. I saw so many shells and starfish. I kept stopping so I could look at everything. Next time I go to the beach in the winter, a bike ride on the beach will be a definite "to do."

We're riding off into the sunset - haha

The men spending some quality time together - waging war!

Cutie Pie

Paul, Kimberly and my nephew, Joseph!

Mother and daughter

Pictures!

2010-03-10T12:21:00.001+01:00

We had some professional pictures take while we were in the US when Laura was 2 months old. We take tons of pictures, but none turn out like these did! I love them! Let me know if you want one - we have the rights to the pictures so can print off as many as we want. Click here to see the rest of the pictures.

Ellie's Artistic Shots

2010-02-10T22:19:00.001+01:00

Tom, Laura and myself at sunset

Ellie likes to take pictures - lots of pictures - of everything. While I make fun of her for taking pictures non-stop of every random thing, I have to admit that she gets some really neat pictures; some I would never have even thought of taking myself. So, thanks Ellie for some unique photo-memories of our beach trip this year :)

The photographer herself

I don't know if I've ever seen a starfish on the beach. This trip made up for it, though. I probably saw hundreds on this beach. I always thought they would be perfect and colorful. However, most were like the one above, slightly misshapen and the same color as the sand.

On the pathway to the beach.

Can you see us?

I don't often think about going to the beach in winter, but it was lovely. It wasn't crowded at all, and though it was cold, walking along the water's edge was still very enjoyable.

This is a shot I never would have taken, but I really like it. Don't know why, but I do :)

Long shadows

Another interestingly blurry shot

Paul and Kimberly

Christmas in Dothan

2010-02-10T16:57:00.000+01:00

We had a great time in the US over the holidays. It was fun bringing Laura to her home country and crazy to think she was a US citizen, but before December hadn't ever been there! We were in Atlanta for week catching up with friends, doing some shopping and just enjoying being home. Then we went to my parent's to spend about a week there and introduce Laura to my sisters and grandmother for the first time.

All dressed up at the Christmas Eve service at my parent's church.

A family shot after church on Christmas Eve.

Four generations of women.

Proud Aunties

Laura looks much more alert in this Christmas tree shot than she did in the one we took two weeks before in front of our tree in Switzerland.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

I enjoyed seeing so many stockings hanging on the fireplace this year. Laura's is on the end. I made it with my mother-in-law the last time I was in Atlanta in preparation for her arrival. It made me feel like she was really part of the family to see her name up there as well.

The Story of Laura's Name

2010-01-13T22:06:00.003+01:00

Tom and I have always thought that we would have a really hard time agreeing on names for our children. We were pleasantly surprised then when Laura's name was chosen without much difficultly. After we found out we were having a girl, we went to a cafe in Lausanne to celebrate and talk about names. We threw out names we liked and the other either vetoed or it went on our list. We came up with about 20 names to which neither of us were opposed. Both of us have always liked the idea of naming our kids after family members. Both of our fathers are named Lawrence (though my dad goes by Larry and Tom's by Ed) and at the cafe Tom said, "we could name her Laura in honor of our dads." From then on, we never really considered another name. We went through baby books, but nothing else took our fancy. We both really liked Laura, but more so, we liked the sentiment behind it. What better way to name her than after both of her grandfathers? They are both men we love and respect, but most of all, they love God and seek to serve Him above all. We hope and pray that Laura will emulate the faith in and devotion to God that her namesakes display.

Here Laura is with both of her grand-daddies. May she grow up to love them as much as we do!

Catching up on the Blog...

2010-01-13T21:26:00.004+01:00

We've been a little busy the last 2 months - as you might can imagine :) However, things have been going well. We had Tom's mother and grandmother here for 12 days and then my parents came for two weeks. It was great to have help and so much fun to see the new grandparents (and great grandparent) with Laura. After that we were on our own for a bit and then we headed to the US for the holidays. Now we're back in Switzerland and figuring out how life works on our own. So far, so good! Through all the craziness and travel, Laura has been a doll - I couldn't ask for a better baby. And her smiles and coos would melt any heart; I just can't get enough of her!

Laura's an official US citizen - she has her own passport at 1 month old. She's already all set to be a world traveler.

Laura's first Christmas tree and Katie and Tom's 8th together :)

Blurry, but cute.

We traveled back to the US with Dave, Lu and their 3 kids. They were moving back to the US on this trip and thus had a LOT of luggage. It wasn't too bad with 4 adults, though to manage all the bags and 4 kids. Above is us in the Zurich airport with everything. We put Cambelle on Tom's back just for the picture and afterward she was sad it wasn't a real way to travel. It was fun to travel with them and have one last hurrah before they left. We'll miss you guys!

Grandma and Grandpa Brown

2010-01-13T21:21:00.004+01:00

Grammy getting to know Laura.

Laura and Grandpa just chillin'.

A Christmas picture with Laura wearing the same suit I did when I was a baby.

Mom, Dad, Laura and I ventured out to Morat one day.

Just too cute...

All 10 kids at Laura's first Thanksgiving celebration.

Here we all are!

Announcing Laura Madeleine Holst

2009-11-07T10:41:00.003+01:00

I’ve always said that I thought Katie was made to be a mom, and this past week has confirmed my suspicion. It’s strange to me that being a mom has to begin with such a shocking event as a birth—there’s no getting your feet wet or getting used to the water. Usually it takes Katie a long time to get into a cold swimming pool, but at least in this case, the sink-or-swim method paid off! One week ago Katie gave birth to Laura Madeleine Holst. She was born at 6:20 AM at L’Hôpital Cantonal de Fribourg in Fribourg, Switzerland. She weighed between 3.0 and 3.3 kg (6 lb 10 oz and 7 lbs 4 oz—the scale was messed up!) and was 47 cm (18 ½ inches) long.

Laura Madeleine Holst

She came right on time to share Katie’s birthday with her on the 30^th of October! Yes…I was planning well in advance this year for Katie's birthday gift! Below, I’ve recounted the whole story for you. I know that most are not interested in all of the details, but I figure that some are and I’m quite proud of it myself; therefore I feel that the waste of extra ones and zeros is well worth it. But I won’t be offended to find that you just scrolled down to look at all the pictures instead of reading the whole story.

I suppose that the story has to begin with the night before. We knew that it was likely to be the last night with just the two of us for the rest of our lives because my mom and grandma arrived the next day and by the time that all if our visitors left, we would have a little girl to add to our family. It wasn’t a bad thing at all, but it was quite profound to think about the change that we were about to experience. We spent the evening by going out to dinner at Katie’s favorite Italian restaurant downtown Fribourg and then we put together the glider rocking chair that I got Katie for her birthday in anticipation of little Laura. It was a fun evening and well spent.

Katie Enjoying her new glider rocking chair

I’d been a little bit sick and have a large and pressing project going on at work now, so I needed to get to bed on time and had my alarm set quite early the next morning to try to get some things done so I would be more free when my family arrived. This is an important piece of information in understanding my actions in the next part of the story.

You see, Katie came in to wake me up at about 1:30 am. She was coming to tell me that her water had broken. Well, I didn’t believe her. I am quite a hard sleeper and often it takes Katie some effort to actually wake me up. And my near-lifeless body—even my brain—has the ability to operate on its own in an erratic fashion until my consciousness returns. I thought for sure that my alarm had been going off for the last 10 minutes (perhaps I’d even hit the “snooze” button several times already) and that she was trying to get me up. And obviously a good way to wake me up was to tell me something surprising like that her water had broken. Well, I wasn’t falling for it, and had smoothly coaxed her into leaving me alone for a few more minutes. Believe me, my train of thought made perfect sense at the time—in reality it had completely jumped its tracks and was steaming off through a pleasant dream in La-La Land. A few minutes later, Katie came running back in and this time she managed to convince me to open my eyes a little bit. I still didn’t believe her until I looked at her and saw that she had no pants on and a towel in between her legs. At this point, I figured that I would at least humor her since she had gone to the trouble to work up such an elaborate joke. I don’t know when the synapses in my brain actually allowed the thought to pass, but it was well after I was up and walking around and looking at the clock which for some reason said 1:44 AM instead of 5:44 AM when I was supposed to wake up.

Too Early!

Even after I knew it to be a reality, my brain must not have been in high-gear because I felt that I should have time to shave and take a leisurely shower (she wouldn’t want me to meet our daughter without being really clean would she?)—and even spend a few minutes figuring out what to wear.

Katie getting ready to go to the hospital

Well, we finally made it to the hospital after calling our parents to let them know we were on our way. We had to go to the Emergency Room because that’s the only entry after hours to our little hospital. They didn’t seem too concerned and let us go alone to the maternity floor. As far as we knew, there were only 3 people in the entire hospital—the two guards and the mid-wife that we met when we got to our destination.

Now begins the fun part—which I will abbreviate for the sake of decency. We got to a pre-labor room and the mid-wife hooked Katie up to the monitors to listen to Little Girl’s heartbeat and monitor the contractions. She put an IV in her (standard, in case they need to immediately put her under for a C-section) and took some blood. And by the time she got around to checking Katie’s dilation, she was already at 6 cm (2.5 in.)—which surprised the mid-wife. I went to move the car from the Emergency Room curb (got a bit lost on the way) while Katie went straight to the delivery room. Katie decided to labor a bit in the huge bath-tub in the delivery room since we expected to have a number of hours of labor. But about 10 minutes after getting in the bath, she had a really strong contraction with the urge to push. But the mid-wife had said that she shouldn’t push until she was fully dilated. The mid-wife wasn’t even there at the time so I was running around frantically trying to find the little orange button with a picture of a mid-wife on it. By the time the mid-wife got there, it was over, but upon checking Katie again, she found that she was fully dilated already at 10 cm (4 in.)—only an hour after getting to the hospital. She said that we needed to decide immediately whether or not we would deliver in the bathtub, because we might not be able to get Katie out for much longer. Katie decided to take the more traditional route of the delivery bed. In hindsight, it might have been better to stay in the tub because as soon as she got out, the strong contractions stopped—who knows though.

Here's our delivery room with a jacuzzi and mood-lighting

For the next two hours, we struggled to learn how to push, breathe, and hold each others’ hands to make it through. It pretty quickly progressed at first, but then slowed before the crowning. And don’t believe Katie’s story if you ever hear it from her—she has almost completely forgotten what happened already J. Anyway, the short version is that the doctor started to get a bit anxious because it was taking so long from full dilation, so he mentioned using a vacuum to assist, and as soon as he said that I’ve never seen Katie anything like that in my life, but she was bound and determined that the baby was coming out then, and so she pushed (I’ll spare the details), and there was Laura’s little head (I don’t really understand why God made our heads round instead of long and thin), and Katie had no clue what was happening and didn’t even know the head was out but we got her to calm down enough to push once more and then, at 6:20 AM, there was a beautiful, slimy, little, delicate baby girl with blue feet, gurgling on Katie’s chest looking as calm as can be just blinking and looking around with her eyes. I bet you’re glad it was only the short version!

While Katie was recovering a little bit, I got to cut the umbilical cord and take her to get measured. Her lungs definitely worked by that time and she let us know it—poor little thing!

Laura Mad getting her first check-up!

Then came probably the worst part—the stitching. I don’t think there was anything really bad or abnormal about it at all, but we weren’t expecting it and it was not fun. I’ll spare any more details of that. At the end Katie had a little faint while walking to the toilet, but she’s no worse for the wear. And as quickly as it began, it was over and we had beautiful little Laura Madeleine with hardly enough energy to open her eyes. And they rolled Katie down to a normal hospital room while I went to make a few phone calls.

Besides being a perfect birthday gift for Katie, Laura was quite a surprise for my mom and grandma who arrived it Switzerland about 30 minutes after Laura. They got on the plane before Katie went into Labor and by the time they got off the plane, she was here! They didn’t find out until a few hours later when they got off the train from Zurich to Fribourg and I greeted them saying, “I bet I didn’t get any more sleep than you guys last night!” They were very pleasantly surprised and happy that Laura was here. It had been a worry to all of us that little Laura might not arrive until it was time for them to go home, but she worked it out to spend as much time as possible with Grandma and Great-Grandma!

Visitors’ hours at the hospital weren’t until the afternoon and I could hardly keep my mom from jumping in the car to go up there early to meet Laura. But the time finally came, and we went to see them. It’s usually hard to stay awake the whole first day with the jet-lag and the long flight, but little Laura was a perfect distraction, and they had no trouble making it until bed-time without a nap (I must admit that I was fading pretty hard by the evening!).

Four generations of women in the family

Our next few days were spent trying to hurry the time along until the 2pm start of visiting hours and then hanging out with the girls at the hospital until close to bed time. Katie and Laura got to know each other and start to figure out how to manage their lives together. Everything started off really well with all of the tests that they ran and the beginning of breastfeeding and such, but Katie was pretty run down at the end of a few days in the hospital room with another mother and screaming child and lot’s of visitors.

Our first family photo!

We even celebrated Laura's first Halloween with a hat from Cristina!

Lot's of this at the Hospital

Finally, after 3 ½ long days in the hospital, they got to come home. We filled out all of our paperwork to get Laura’s birth certificate and loaded up on all of the equipment, supplies, and flowers that we received in the hospital and took them out to the car on a cold, rainy, windy Monday afternoon.

Grandma made Laura a beautiful dress for her trip home from the hospital

First trip in the car-seat!

Now that we’re back at home, things are only beginning to really sink in for me. I’ve had it pretty easy so far with all the help we’ve had from my mom and grandma. Laura has hardly kept me awake at night at all (not quite the same for Katie). It still feels a little bit like we just have visitors and we happen to be baby-sitting at the same time. But every time I just get to hold Laura and stare into her eyes or come close to falling asleep with her in my arms, it soaks in just a little bit more, and I realize that I’m definitely in love. It amazes me that I have the privilege of caring for such a beautiful and delicate little person and it bewilders me that someday she’ll be grown up and asking if she can take the car. But I’m happy to let that wait…in fact, the slower it goes, the better…

Tom and Laura hanging out at home

Don't grow up too fast, Laura!

Birthday Girls!

2009-10-30T23:17:00.000+01:00

Well, today was a day that we will not soon forget in the Holst household. Today we had the privilege of bringing Laura Madeleine Holst into the world.

It gives a new significance to the term "birthday" as it is not only Laura's birthday, but it's also Katie's birthday! Today Katie is 28 years old. And just after midnight, her water broke and we rushed to the hospital to deliver Laura at 6:20 am here in Switzerland. She was born at 6 lbs 11 oz. and 18.5 inches long. Both mother and daughter are in excellent shape and are recovering surprisingly quickly from the delivery.
But anyway, I know what you really want to see are the pictures, and as we are all exhausted here, I'm going to save the full update for later and just post the highest priority items:

Katie and Laura...happy as can be

Our first family photo!

Tom's mom and grandmother arrived from the States about 3 hours after the birth--here's a photo of 4 generations of women in the family!

Laura and Great-grandmother

Laura and Grandmother

That's all for now; I'm about to collapse from lack of sleep! Stay tuned for a continuous stream of updates and a full run-down of her entry into the world...coming soon.

October Doings - Still Waiting!

2009-10-26T13:28:00.011+01:00

This October has been an interesting month - we've kinda just been waiting around for Baby Girl to make her appearance, so it feels a bit like we've been living in limbo for the last few weeks. We're ready to meet her, though! Can't believe that the due date is only a week away :)

We started off the month by going to the hospital to turn baby girl around. She had been breech for awhile and it was making me nervous. We didn't want to try a normal birth if she was breech when I went into labor and I would prefer to avoid a c-section if possible, so an ECV (where the doctor turns the baby around by pushing on the belly) seemed like a good option. Things went great and everything worked perfectly. Thanks, God! The actual procedure only took 2 minutes and didn't really hurt at all - just a little bit of firm pressure. I couldn't believe it when the doctor said he was finished! We were in the hospital for a total of 5 hours for monitoring the baby before the procedure and after, but all in all it wasn't a bad experience at all. Now Baby Girl is head down and ready to be born!

We were invited to a wedding for a couple at the church, and this is where the wedding was held - just beautiful!

It was a slightly rainy day, but we did get a rainbow out of it :)

In our wedding attire with a pretty rainbow, beautiful countryside and some cows in the background.

Us in a few years? In case you can't tell, Tom is under Kacey and Cambelle while Will, Baby Girl and I look on.

Sorting out gifts after my shower - thanks everyone! Can you find both Maggie and Cloé? They enjoyed playing with the tissue paper. And see the pink bag on the left? My bags are packed and I'm ready to go...

Maggie hasn't been able to get enough of me the last few weeks - she comes and sits with me wherever I happen to be.

We thought this one was funny - big pillow for Maggie! Wonder if little girl will "know" the cats at all. She has to have heard them purring since they do it right next to my stomach at times.

Cloé enjoying one of the new baby things - she acts like she owns the place! In the background you can see the crib and stroller.

Baby Shower

2009-10-18T09:52:00.004+02:00

My American friends are great and decided to throw me a baby shower last weekend. We had a great time. I invited some of my European (and one South African) friends, and for most of them it was their first baby shower ever. It was fun introducing an American tradition to them. We enjoyed ourselves by playing a few games, eating delicious food and just talking. Here are some picture highlights.

The delicious array of goodies.

Marti is loaning us her infant car seat. Her husband installed it in the car for us and wow. Either our car is really small, the seat is really big, or a combination of the two... It is in the middle and takes up a good portion of the back seat and starts to encroach on the front as well! Tom as to fight a little bit with it to get his seat back far enough so he can drive. I still have faith that our little Nissan Micra can meet our needs, but it may be tight at times! If we put the stroller in the trunk, baby girl in the middle, her diaper bag next to her and us in front, that's basically the whole car! We will just have to see how things go!

We played a game where the ladies had to cut off a piece of string in a length they thought would fit around my waist. A few were really close and then some were twice my size! I was very glad not to have as big of belly as some of them estimated :)

In other news, it was sleeting/hailing last night!! We had to scrape our car in order to drive home. The mountains are now covered with snow and the temperature has been hovering around freezing. I'm hoping that this is just a little fluke and we have at least a little more fall weather heading our way before the long winter sets in. I enjoy winter and snow, but mid-October seems a bit early!

Family Shots!

2009-10-08T23:29:00.008+02:00

We did a photo shoot this past weekend (36 weeks) of our growing family. Thought I'd post some of the picts here for you all to enjoy.

Thanks to Tom for running back and forth between the tripod and the shot after just running an 11 mile race that morning!

Update: Here's a picture of Tom from earlier in the day. This is at the very end of the race on yet another uphill segment.

Zurich

2009-10-08T22:44:00.007+02:00

Tom and I went to Zurich for our birthing class the 2nd weekend of September. The class was very informative (and all in English!) and helpful. It at least made me feel better about the birth, so if nothing else I'm better prepared mentally. We also took the weekend to do a little of exploring around Zurich. We only had a few hours, but got to walk around downtown a bit. It was a gorgeous day - perfect for a sausage and some ice cream from a road side stand as we walked!
The Grossmünster is on the right and the Fraumünster on the left.

A statue of Zwingli - a pastor who helped lead the reformation in Switzerland in the 1500s.

A closer shot of the Fraumunster where the stained glass windows were done by Chagall!

The Grossmunster - Zwingli was a pastor here.

Another belly shot for all of you who have been asking :)
Taken Sept 20th when I was 34 weeks.

US Visit

2009-09-19T23:02:00.009+02:00

Tom and I had a busy two and a half weeks in the States. He went to DC to visit some friends one weekend and then to Wisconsin for a wedding the next. I went to Dothan to visit with my family and then hung out with the girls the next weekend in Atl. As usual, it was great to be home and see friends and family (and speak English to everyone we saw!). Here are some highlights from the trip.

My favorite picture from the trip - me and baby girl with my sisters :)

A family photo after church.

My mom, sisters and I did a good bit of baby shopping while I was there. We scoured Goodwill, garages sales and 2nd hand baby stores. It was a lot of fun and we found some good stuff! I washed all the baby clothes before packing them up. They looked so adorable (and pink!) on the line that I just had to take a picture.

As per tradition, Tom and Craig dumped Matt in the river the night before the wedding. Matt got his revenge, though and pulled them in after him. Tom hadn't packed with that in mind and had to get another shirt to wear at Walmart the next day :)

The only picture I have of Tom looking all snazzy for the wedding - don't he and Craig look nice!

Remember the swan?? It has now been a part of 5 weddings - one in Alabama, one in Kansas, two in Georgia and now one in Wisconsin. Fortunately, Tom managed to stuff the thing into his suitcase and didn't have to carry it onto the airplane!

Matt with his bride, Katie.

The wedding party spent some time after the wedding just hanging out. Here's Karl flying a kite during some of their free time.

While Tom was at the wedding, I got to spend some time with Cristina and Ashley. It was great to see each other and talk each others ears off!

Since Tom didn't see my family in Dothan, we met my sisters for coffee one evening before we left. I'm glad he likes his sister-in-laws!

Tom's dad is building an airplane in his basement (and it should be done soon!). Cristina came over one day and was very excited to be able to sit in it and work some of the controls.

Cristina concentrating and me with my belly. The plane does have wings - they just aren't attached for some reason (I know there is one, just don't know what it is) at this point in time.

Ellie is doing marching band for the first time this year and we were able to attend her first game. She is the 2nd person back closest to us. Her school even won - Go North Cobb!

She's somewhere over on the left.

Home Improvements

2009-09-19T11:40:00.005+02:00

We've (maybe I've is more correct, but we'll go with the plural :) been wanting to paint the guest room for awhile and transitioning it to the guest/baby room was just the push we needed to ahead and do it. We picked a neutral shade of brown to complement the colors currently in the room and then went to work. We moved most of the furniture out, so that for about 2 weeks, no room in our house was organized anymore. There were bed parts in the living room, baseboards and dresser drawers in the hall and bed linens and curtains draped over any surface available. Then we (mostly Tom) vacuumed, taped edges, painted, and then sanded and re-stained baseboards. Then we got started on the closets before putting the room back together, which meant we had to empty them out and find places to put all the stuff. It's finally done and we are pleased with the results. Below are all the during pictures - I'll post the after pictures once I take some.

Tom enjoys painting words and pictures during the process.

Cloé and Maggie both took to sleeping in this spot during the project.

A snapshot of the chaos we lived in for 2 weeks.

Touching up a spot by the baseboards. Before the baseboards matched the floor - we really like how the new color complements the wall color.

The insides of all the closets were painted white and look tons better.

I'm happy that we're almost done!

Tom captured a great picture of the sunset complemented by a crescent moon one night. God's creation holds so much beauty!

August 1st in Locarno

2009-09-19T10:46:00.007+02:00

Tom had a 4 day weekend over the August 1st holiday (the Swiss national holiday like our July 4th) so we decided to take weekend trip to Locarno in the Italian part of Switzerland. We were able to go with our British friends, Richard and Emma and had a great time hanging out with them and getting away for a few days. I think my favorite part of the trip was the fabulous Italian food! We had dinner out both nights we were there and the food was absolutely fantastic - bruschetta, caprese, pesto pasta, ravioli, and molten chocolate cake were just a few of the things we tried. I'd go back again just for the restaurants!

We took the Simplon Pass over the mountains instead of taking the tunnel like we usually do. We thought something different would be nice and we wouldn't risk running into the dreadful traffic that sometimes bottlenecks at the tunnel. The pass was beautiful even though it was cloudy and not a bad drive at all. We enjoyed lunch at the top with a view of some gorgeous mountains. It was a bit chilly at the top, but it just got us more ready for the hot weather in Locarno!

We visited the Verzasca Dam again (the one which Bond jumps off of in Golden Eye) and this time saw a group of 7 guys bungee off of it! Watching them jump was scary enough for me - I don't think I'll ever "take the plunge" though both Tom and Emma seemed eager enough.There he goes...

Emma, Richard and Tom atop the medieval stone bridge just a short drive from the dam.

It was a hot day so a lot of people were swimming in the freezing cold water. You can also see a few girls preparing to jump in from the rock in the middle - a few brave souls even jumped from the bridge!

Trying to take an artsy shot...didn't work out so well :) The water was really cold - even having my foot in was hard!

The Madonna del Sasso - a well-known church in the area. It's style is very different from the cathedrals I'm used to seeing around Europe, so it was nice to see a change from the norm.

On the evening of Aug 1, we took a cruise out on Lake Maggiore to watch fireworks. The boat ride was very pleasant and the view of the fireworks was superb!

Our last morning was spent just walking along the lake. There was a great walking path and we found a quaint cafe for coffee and then another delicious restaurant for lunch before heading back to Fribourg.

Update on Baby Girl :)

2009-09-14T17:42:00.004+02:00

It's hard to believe that time goes by so quickly! Little girl will be here in less than 2 months now!! We had our last ultrasound 2 weeks ago and everything is looking good. She was about 3 pounds and moving around like crazy. I feel her moving all the time now and she frequently has the hiccups :) It still amazes me that there is something alive and moving in my stomach.

We've been busy getting ready for our little one to arrive. I enjoyed doing some shopping for her while we were in the US. There are way too many cute baby girl clothes in the world! I could have spent endless amounts of money on adorable clothes that would probably only last a month or two! As far as things here, the former guest room (now the guest/baby room) is painted and has furniture back in it. We just have to buy a mattress for the crib, buy a pad for the changing table, and put away the pile of things that we have accumulated and the room will be ready. The dresser drawers are stocked with clothes and the changing table is replete with diapers and wipes - ready for little one's arrival. Thank you thank you to everyone who has already given/loaned us things. It has been a HUGE help!

This past weekend, Tom and I traveled to Zurich to attend a birthing class in English. It was very helpful and really nice to meet some other couples in situations similar to ours. We also could understand everything and were able to easily ask any question that popped into our heads. It was also fun to take a short trip to Zurich and do a little exploring there.

So that's where we are at the moment. We're looking forward to welcoming her into the world and introducing her to you all! Enjoy the picts below and hopefully I'll get some of her room posted soon as well.

Ultrasound picture from June 15

Ultrasound picture from September 2
(the thing next to her nose is the umbilical cord)

Strawberries!

2009-08-09T21:22:00.004+02:00

El and I picked strawberries in a nearby village. We came home and made a strawberry pie, strawberry shortcake and strawberry smoothies.

Tom and Ellie took a walk one day in Fribourg. Above is them and the La Sarine (the river that goes through the city). Below is just one of the many colorful plants at the botanical gardens they visited.

Climbing

2009-08-08T23:49:00.005+02:00

We took Ellie to the climbing wall one afternoon. After one false start, she climbed right to the top like a spider. It probably helped that Tom was a good, patient instructor!

She made it!

Just having a little fun.

A few days later, we hiked to a place where you can climb on real rocks. It's a very different feel from the climbing wall and fun to be out in nature. T & E climbed all the way to the rock you can see poking out just to the left of the center.

Ellie at the midway point. If you blow the picture up, you can see me sitting and waiting at the bottom which is what I did for almost 2 hours. I should have brought a book...

At the top with Lake Gruyeres in the background.

Just because she's cute.

La Côte d'Azur

2009-08-08T20:04:00.011+02:00

We've been wanting to visit the French Rivera, so we used Ellie as an excuse to travel there :) The above is the view from the balcony of our rental apartment in a little town called Cap-Martin (20 min outside of Nice).

The medieval town of Cap-Martin was way up on the hill where this castle is. We walked (yes, walked!) up there our first night to have dinner. The town was really cool - lots of twisting streets, old stone buildings and roads, and a feeling of being from another time. We forgot the camera, so no picts of it :(

Welcome to Monaco! One of the smallest countries in the world with an area of 0.76 sq miles (D.C is huge in comparison at 68 sq miles). We were just a few minutes from here, so had to take a day and explore the country. You could tell it was a very affluent area (not a good place for me to go shopping), but fun to walk around. It turned out that the next weekend, Monaco was hosting the start of the Tour de France, so it was good we went when we did.

In front of the Monte-Carlo Casino. We didn't go in, but enjoyed looking and watching all the really nice cars drive by.

The Prince's Palace where the royal family lives which we got to take a little tour of. We even managed to time it to see the changing of the guard. If you are a fan of Grace Kelly, you'd have plenty of company here - she was well loved and you can find her likeness everywhere.

On the other side of the bay after looking out on a lot of nice yachts.

Our second day was spent mostly in Nice. It was a hot day and crowded as the Ironman competition was starting there the next day. We had fun spotting all the competitors walking around the city - many were quite obvious :) We took went up to the top of a hill and got a great view of the city where we took a break from the heat with some ice cream - yum!

Later in the day, we took to the beach. The beaches there are all very rocky, so it was a bit hard on our feet, but nice all the same. Ellie and Tom got in and did some swimming, but I was a wimp. After being hot all day, it rained as soon as we got to the beach just enough to significantly cool things down. I did get in up to my knees, though.

On our way back we stopped in a little town called Eze where we were planning on having dinner. However, we soon realiezed that we were a little out of our league. On our way up to the village, we saw the valet parking lot of one of the hotels. It had an 1930s Rolls Royce, an Aston Martin, a Lamborghini, 2 Porche, a Mercedes and an Audi. Then we saw the menu prices - 100 Euros a plate - so we made other dinner arrangements. It was a fun town to walk around in and that part was free!

On our way back to CH, we stopped in Avignon. We had lunch within view of the famous Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes) and did some shopping. I was in heaven with all the cutsy little shops and didn't have nearly long enough poke. It was enough though and it was fun to be able to talk to the store keepers a little. It was actually really nice to vacation in a French speaking region. Our French is still far from fluent, but it is good enough to get by, which is better than I can do in any other language!

The well-known Avignon bridge. There's a song in French about this bridge which we sang some at the daycare, so I had to go see it. Right behind us is a beautiful, fragrant field of lavender.

Verkehrshaus der Schweiz

2009-07-22T13:36:00.008+02:00

After Lausanne, we headed the the other direction into the German-speaking side of Switzerland to visit the Swiss Transportation Museum (that's what the title says...). It was huge and a bit crowded, but full of trains, planes and automobiles. Tom and Ellie were most interested in the aviation section :)

Since trains are have been used for so long and are still a big part of transportation here, the train section was extensive. This was just one example of an old engine.

My favorite train - the chocolate train!

As Tom's dad is in the process of building a Volksplane, Tom was excited to find a small exhibit on them.

The entire museum was interactive. Here, Tom got was able to simulate flying one of the Wright Brother's planes. The controls were linked up to a computer program, and he did well - not crashing at all!

Yet another interactive exhibit; this one simulated paragliding.

Here, Tom got to drive a race car.

Lausanne

2009-07-22T12:45:00.006+02:00

Tom's sister, Ellie, came to visit us again this year. Her first weekend here, we took a day trip to Lausanne to visit the Olympic Museum and see the town. It was a beautiful, sunny day so walking around Lake Geneva (and finding a gelato stand) was a great way to spend the day.

Lake Geneva, a water skiier and the Alps.

The Olympic Museum had a large park outdoors with various sculptures and exhibits. Inside they had information on each of the Olympic games as well as the medals and torches from each. It even had old uniforms, shoes and gear of some of the athletes who competed in the games.

This is the world record for the high jump. It's crazy, I can't even reach the bar and someone has jumped over it!!

The area we were in was called "Ouchy." I thought Le Chateau d'Ouchy was amusing and that the building was very pretty.

Lausanne has a gorgeous cathedral. It was worth the uphill hike to see it. Right outside there was a market of some sort (maybe their version of a communal garage sale?) so I enjoyed poking around and looking at the stuff.

Via Ferrata

2009-07-15T17:16:00.006+02:00

A few weekends ago, Tom and some co-workers decided to climb the Moléson by way of the via ferrata. (You may remember that Tom took me and Ellie on this last year.) Anyway, I wasn't about to do it again, even had I not been pregnant, so Lu, her 3 kids and I took the cable car to the top and met the guys there for lunch. It was a great view from the top and there were even para-gliders preparing for take off so we got to watch a few of them walk off the mountain and take flight. Then after a lunch of rösti, we all hiked down the mountain together.

Via Ferrata means "iron way" in Latin, and you can see the metal ladder type rungs that the guys are climbing. You are attached to the mountain via a harness and a connecting strap to a metal bar next to you, but it's still a challenging and daunting climb (at least it was for me).

On the top after a successful climb (Dave, Olivier, Michaël and Tom)

Kacey was super-excited to see her Dad and ran out from the restaurant to meet him.

Later after hiking over to watch the para-gliders take of, Kacey took time to pick some flowers. This picture conveys her "joie de vivre" to me - I love it!

It's a...

2009-07-03T13:49:00.005+02:00

Girl!!

We went for our 20 week ultrasound back in June and found out that we're going to have a little girl :) Everything looks good - 10 fingers, 2 kidneys, and all other body parts were accounted for. She's kicking up a storm most days and I'm enjoying being in the 2nd trimester of pregnancy. Here's another belly shot for you... It was taken right after I had a much over-due haircut in which the stylist spent 20 minutes fixing it. I wish it would look like that every day!

Flying in the Alps

2009-06-23T16:43:00.005+02:00

One of Tom's friends recently received his pilots license here in Switzerland. He asked Tom if he'd like to fly with him sometime and of course, Tom jumped at the opportunity! Here are some pictures of his flying adventures one sunny, Sunday afternoon.

Michael and Tom ready for flight

Lake Geneva (I think)

Pretty mountains

Our house! Can you find it? If you click on the picture to zoom in, there's a brown circle around it.

Coming in for a landing. Even though it was quite windy, Tom said Michael did an excellent job of flying and especially landing.

Hola Barcelona!

2009-05-27T17:40:00.012+02:00

I've been wanting to visit Barcelona for awhile, so when we found super-cheap tickets back in January, we jumped on them and went at the beginning of May. It was a fun trip, especially since my sister, Lisa, met us there and my neighbor, Chantal and her friend, Frederic, joined us.

Our first night there, we ate at a hole-in-the-wall around the corner from our apartment. The food was excellent and even we picky girls were satisfied (Lisa is a vegetarian, Chantal doesn't like seafood, and I didn't ever know what I was going to like :). We had a pica-pica meaning just a little bit of a lot of dishes. It was a good way to sample a lot of the cuisine. The desserts were the best in my opinion - cinnamon ice cream, orange-chocolate cake and Catalan cream crème brûlée - yum! And just so you know, if you get paella negra (a black rice dish), it is black because of squid ink, no wonder it tasted so fishy...

Yay, Lisa made it! She had a 3-leg plane trip a 10 hour layover in Paris before arriving in Barcelona. Our first full day there, we took it easy and had a relaxed beach day. The water was freezing, but the weather was perfect for sitting on the hot sand. Lisa and I got our feet wet wading in the surf while looking for sea glass and cool rocks. What we realized later is that we'd unintentionally found one of Barcelona's nude beaches - whoops! All part of the Spanish experience, I guess... Fortunately, Lisa's head is blocking the topless woman behind her :)

There were special seats for me everywhere! I felt loved. We laughed when we saw this sign, though. She is the strangest looking pregnant woman I've ever seen!

We took the funicular up to the top of Tibidabo - a mountain that looks over the city. We had a great view and got there right at sunset. So pretty!

The mountain-top church all lit up at sunset. There was also an amusement park up here, but we didn't have time to explore it before it closed down for the night.

Barcelona's famous Sagrada Família. Construction on it started in 1882 and they plan to finish in 2026 or so (they were working on it while we were there as evidenced by all the cranes). It's original plans were drawn up by Gaudí and he worked on it for much of his life. It was unlike any other church I've ever seen - very intricate and detailed. Maybe I'll get to see it one day in when it is completed.

Cool little alley way that we walked down on our way to dinner one night. We had tapas that night - a meal consisting basically of appetizers. They were very rich and very good.

Gaudí's House of Bones (though I prefer the unofficial name - The Dragon House). It's called the house of bones because the columns in front look like bones when you're up close. Tom and I toured this house one morning and it was impressive. The inside is even more unusual that the outside. To me, the funny thing was that people actually live there. Tons of tourists tromp through the first floor and then up the steps to the roof, but all the other floors contained occupied apartments. Wonder what the residents think of all the tourists.

Yet another Gaudí attraction - Park Güell. Our only group picture on the twisty mosaic bench. We girls are all sporting our shopping finds from the day before.

I'd heard about the bench, but it was a lot longer than I realized. Here you can see about half of it twisting around the raised courtyard.

Lisa liked the lamp posts, so got a picture with one of them.

In the apartment showing off my burgeoning belly :)

Visit from Tex and Melissa

2009-05-27T17:03:00.004+02:00

We had our first visitors in 9 months back in April. Tex, Melissa and Maggie decided to come visit us again this year. It was fun to see them and see how much Maggie has grown and changed in one short year. Tom and Tex enjoyed squeezing in a ski outing before all the snow melted. Right before they left, we all went to Lucerne together for the day. The weather was perfect for site-seeing and it was nice to spend the day together.

Tex and cute Maggie after dinner one night. Note the candle burning in the lower right corner... Maggie insited that we burn them and then took great pleasure in blowing them out after we were finished.

One of the famous wooden Lucerne bridges.

The Lion Monument in Lucerne. It was sculpted to remember the Swiss Guards who died during the French Revolution in 1792. I really liked it.

Taking a break with Melissa while Maggie picked flowers.

Thanks for coming, guys! Maybe we'll see you again next year :)

Cat Post

2009-05-27T16:49:00.003+02:00

Just a few fun pictures of our cats :)

Maggie thinks she is hiding.

Cloé enjoys drinking out of the sink faucet in the mornings.

Yes Sir,

2009-04-28T09:37:00.008+02:00

That's my baby!!

In case you haven't heard, Tom and I are expecting! We're very excited and looking forward to meeting the new little person that God has given us. The baby is due at the end of October and we will be having it here in Switzerland (and no, sadly it won't have Swiss citizenship). We've had our first doctor's appointment and so far so good! We even got this great picture of the baby and it's only 2 inches long!

Anyone want to make a guess as to the gender or the due date? My technical due date is Nov 2, but when I went to the Dr, they moved it up to Oct 22 based on the baby's measurements. So we shall see...

Swiss Snow Fun

2009-04-05T16:08:00.006+02:00

We've had a lot of snow here this year, and while yesterday and today have been beautiful examples of spring (finally!!), I thought I'd post some pictures of our snowy day activities.

Skiing with some friends on a beautiful winter day. There was a run here that went all the way to the bottom of the mountain - after a few runs of that and my legs were shot!

We came out one morning to see our car absolutely covered in snow - you can see the accumulation on the top of the garage door.

We never had to shovel snow when we lived in GA, so this is a new experience for us. Here's Tom clearing our driveway even though there is still snow coming down.

We went for a walk in the snow one day just around our neighborhood. I should have worn waterproof pants. The boots worked perfectly, but the snow was higher than the tops of them.

Another ski day! Tom, April and I met our neighbor at the Moleson for a day of skiing.
There were about 6 inches of fresh snow and a cloud covered the mountain the entire day. Both conditions made skiing different than usual. After a challenging morning, we were ready for lunch. This was what April and I got - it's Rosti (similar to hash browns) with bacon. We laughed when we saw that they'd made a face out of it.

It was a cold day - as evidenced by our frozen hair!

With the cold, the cats want to go out, but decide rather quickly that inside is a better option. So here they are asking to be let back in - a common occurance.

Ireland

2009-03-28T18:18:00.020+01:00

We had some friends going to Ireland for vacation, so we decided to take advantage of the cheap airfare and join them for a few days. We enjoyed ourselves and had fantastic weather for our trip. Guess it made up for all the rain we had in England!

Bunratty Castle - a restored 13th century castle. We toured the castle during the day and then came back at night for a medieval banquet. They entertained us with live harp and violin music and then some singing of traditional Irish songs. For dinner, we drank our soup from the bowl and then the rest of our dinner with our fingers. It was very touristy, but fun nonetheless. The evening finished with a a guy playing the bagpipes.

Cliffs of Moher - a beautiful, though crowded vista of Irish cliffs and the Atlantic Ocean.

We took a short hike in Burren National Park. The whole area we were in on the west coast was the rockiest country I've ever seen. There were rock walls everywhere - sometimes it seemed like there were walls just to do something with all the rocks. It was pretty in its own way, but it wasn't the vivid green I expected of Ireland.

The roads in Ireland and especially this area were rough. They were narrow, very bumpy and curvy too. It was an adventure - we couldn't believe the speed limit on these roads was 60mph!

A neolithic tomb in the Burren (it dates to between 4000 and 3000 BC)

Clonmacnoise - one of the ruined monasteries we visited (it dates to 545 AD). It had some beautifully carved crosses - an example of which is seen here.

We met up with Thomas and Laura Davison on St. Patrick's Day in Dublin. Here are Tom and Thomas on their respective 6-inch diameter posts. They watched the whole parade from these vantage points. They definitely had better views than Laura and me, but our ground positions were less trying on the leg muscles.

An Irish bagpipe band.

An Irish wolfhound (at least that is what I'm assuming). There were guys carrying all sorts of random stuff on their backs made out of some sort of foam material. The guy in front of the dog is carrying a 10-12 foot boat!

The parade was full of non-Irishy things as well. This is an example. Many people dressed up in elaborate costumes and dancing around. What impressed me most about the parade was that except for a few cars, everything was propelled by manpower. A huge float would pass by and you'd see 8-10 people behind it pushing! And they did this for the entire parade.

A round tower from the second monastic ruin we visited - Glendalough (also from the 6th century.)

Glendalough means "glen of two lakes" - this is one of them. We hiked along the entire right side of it on this beautiful day!

The fanciest McDonalds I ever did see...

Newgrange - a passage tomb that is 5000 years old, and we went inside it! This mound was designed so that at the solstice, the sun would enter the tomb and shine on the floor and it still works today. You enter the internal chamber through a narrow rock-walled tunnel. And even I had to duck to get through! The tunnel takes you into a small chamber with three small alcoves off of it. The entire length is probably 1/16 of the diameter of the mound. So this huge mound was built for a teeny little chamber. And the original stone roof infrastructure is still in place - crazy to think about when you're inside standing under a 5,000 year old roof!

We were in Ireland right after all the lambs were born. They were all over the country - you could see them bounding after each other or just hanging out with mom. Tom said I pointed out every single sheep we saw, but I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. I did like seeing all the sheep, though :)

Visit to Maryland (also belated)

2009-02-24T09:40:00.004+01:00

Tom had a business trip to Maryland last September. Since he was there for 5 weeks, I went and joined him for 2. We have quite a few friends in the area, so it was good to see them and Margaret even flew up from Atlanta to hang out for a few days! Tom enjoyed the food - he ate countless burgers and steaks while there. But mostly it was nice to catch up with some friends we hadn't seen in awhile. We even got to attend Craig and Sarah's daughter's birthday party! We also got to see Thomas and Laura a few times, but alas, no pictures to prove it.

Margaret introduced me to picking crabs in Annapolis. It was really good, but it was also a lot of work. I think I picked 1.5 in the time it took her to do the rest of them. The crab cake we got there was also delicious - I could get used to the Maryland food!

Stephanie and Matt live in the DC area, so we got to see them a few times while we were in town. Margaret, Stephanie and I met up a few times as well - this picture was taken right before Margaret flew back to Atlanta.

Visit from a fellow Techie (a little belated)

2009-02-24T09:21:00.003+01:00

Back in September, we got an e-mail from our Tech friend, Ben. He was coming through Switzerland with a friend and wanted to see if we could coordinate a quick visit. Things worked out and he and Carolyn arrived in Fribourg at 11pm, came to our place where we ate and chatted until 2am. We then got up the next morning, had a grit casserole (a touch of home!), talked some more and got them back to the train station in time to catch the 11am train to Zurich. Though it was a quick trip, it was fun to see him and catch up a little. Carolyn and I discovered that she went to the same tiny, Christian college in Indiana as my cousins - she was surprised that I'd heard of it!

The four of us on our balcony. Looking at this picture makes me wonder if it will ever be green here again. The snow is great and beautiful, but can't compare with the lush green foliage of spring and summer.

Taking a touristy picture at the train station. We're in a hurry - that's their train pulling up to the right!

Catching up in the USofA

2009-01-21T22:32:00.005+01:00

We had a great time back home seeing friends and family. This is just a quick post of (most of) the people we saw and the good times we had with them.

We reunited with one of Tom's old co-workers and his wife (Phillip and Margaret) at their house for dinner one night. The food was great and the hanging out even better. The Burgesses joined the crowd and then we all posed in front of their HUGE, real Christmas tree.

My friend Danyel and her two girls, Zoey and Taelor, came over to Dothan to visit for an afternoon.

Christmas Eve with my family. We just got back from a lovely Christmas Eve service at my parent's church.

Christmas in the Mountains after Christmas with Tom's Family. We traveled from 4 different cities to converge on Fall Creek Falls State Park near Pikeville, TN. It's in the middle of nowhere, but was just beautiful.

On our way home from the TN mountains, we stopped in Chattanooga to see Lisa and Jeremiah. We went to Sticky Fingers - a wonderful Chattanooga rib place. Here are Lisa and Jeremiah chowing down on some ribs. The ribs were gooood. Sorry, J - I didn't have a better picture of ya!

My old college roomie Kimberly and college buddy Cristina. We had fun catching up at one of the numerous Starbucks in Kennesaw. Then we went to the mall and didn't find a single Georgia Tech sweatshirt for Cristina out of 2 department stores and 5 sports shops!! All the UGA you'd want, even Notre Dame, but no Tech. Just sad. Happily, she is now the owner of a GT sweatshirt after a visit to the GT bookstore.