US Visit

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

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

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 :)

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!

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

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

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.