Weihnacht in Basel

About a week before Christmas, we drove an hour to Basel to visit the Christmas market.   The Basel Christmas market is one of the most popular in Switzerland.



We only spent a couple hours walking around, but the Christmas market was quite large with lots of delicious food and people everywhere.

We ate a couple pretzels and a hotdog for lunch.  We tried glühwein (mulled wine) and sipped on some good hot chocolate in cute little Christmas market mugs.

"Schoggi" - Chocolate in Swiss German

Here are a few pictures of our day.

Maddie made a candle with Bryce's help.  Making candles is a big thing here around the holidays.

It was fun, but we decided that Basel wasn't one of our favorite cities we've visited.  It seemed pretty industrial and just not as pretty as other cities we've seen in Switzerland.  We did have a fun afternoon at the market.  We also stopped in France just over the border to do some grocery shopping :-)

Heisse Maroni--Roasted Chestnuts.  Little stands are everywhere selling heisse maroni around the holidays.

The pretzels are so good!

We walked through a few really cute streets to and from the car.

Merry Christmas!

I was able to snap a few pictures of the kiddos just before we headed to Bryce's office Christmas party.  I love these photos.  So funny.  He is always so focused on her.  She is so crazy and full of life.

We actually took a last minute trip to the beach.  I'll have to share more about it soon.  It was very untraditional without presents or a tree and so special at the same time.

Hope you had a wonderful holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus!

God told me

I can’t stop thinking about this, so I had to share.  Change of tone.

On Monday, I went to a play date at a nice Starbucks with a couple girlfriends.  While our kids played in a mini kids corner, I walked over to the counter.  As I held Carter in my arms, I ordered my favorite-Chai Tea Latte-my first Starbucks drink in over 6 months (!!).  Both the barista and the woman behind me were admiring Carter and making him smile, then shyly burrow his head in my neck, then look up at them with another smile, and repeat.  The woman behind me said, “Excuse me.  He is beautiful.  Such a happy baby.  God has just told me to share with you that he will be a great friend to others with much loyalty.” 

I smiled and said, “Thank you”, unsure of how to respond because I don’t know if I’ve ever received such a comment.  For a split second, I debated about whether I really believed her or not.  I made the decision to believe her because I want to believe her.  Then, the first thing that crossed my mind was, ‘I am so thankful that I will be able to see him be a friend to others one day.  I hope I am alive and he is alive for me to see that.  I would love to see him grow.”

And I just keep thinking about this.  My kids.  My precious time with them.  My life right now.  God told me to tell you, life is shorter than you think.  He loves you.  He created you. He wants a relationship with you. Don’t wait to get to know Him. 

If you had asked me on Sunday, June 9^th, 2008, if I think about death on a regular basis, I would say, “No. Why would I?”  That Sunday, Mom went to an urgent care down the road for a headache.  She got migraines often.  Then on Wednesday, she was with one of the best doctors in the country at Duke Medical Center, diagnosed with an inoperable glioblastoma multiform.  Brain cancer.  Three months before our wedding.  With her first grandchild just 6 months old.  She was 53 years old.  She died in her sleep early Thursday morning.  I have thought about death almost daily since June 13^th, 2008.  Maybe you think this is morbid, or unhealthy, or that I should maybe see a counselor.  My question is, why wouldn’t you ever think about death? 

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Psalm 90:12 

Mama's little helper

A few days after Thanksgiving, Maddie helped me make a pie for the first time.  Then we made another one.  And another one.  Now, she wants to "make dough" all the time.  But really, when she says, "make dough" she means "eat most of the dough and roll what's left."  She is really becoming the little helper in the kitchen.  The other day, it was 3pm and I headed into the kitchen for a snack.  She immediately got up from playing with toys, followed me in, and said, "Momma, we make dinner?"  When I actually am making dinner, she quickly pushes her stool over to the stovetop and says "Nannie stir" or "Nannie help" or "Nannie do it."

Another funny note about that stool that gets used almost all day--when making dinner yesterday, she wasn't on it, so I used it to get a spice down from a high shelf.  She practically jumped up on the stool while I was on it, saying "That's Nannie's stool, Mama.  Nannie on it.  Please move, Mama."  As soon as I got off, she hugged me, kissed me, patted my back, and said "Thank you, Mama."  I'm not making this up.  She's hilarious.  I am so thankful that she likes to help in the kitchen!  We have so much fun together.  

Here are a few pictures of our pie making afternoon.  When she would eat some dough, she kept saying "just a leetle"...

We brought the pie to our friend's house, but don't worry, this was extra :-)

"I need a leetle more"

Day trip: Mt. Titlis

We had a "first" the other day.  We walked on a glacier.  Just about 1.5 hours south, Mt. Titlis has snow on it all year thanks to the glacier at the top.



We were all really excited to break in our new Swiss sled.  Sledding is really big here, as in, serious tobogganing down ski-size hills with sharp turns to avoid cliffs and praying the breaks work on the sled.  We haven't done that yet, with the kids and all.  But we did buy a sled in hopes of going on some winter walks.

"Winter walking" is basically like hiking on maintained trails in the snow.  Many people will bring sleds to pull the little ones and even sled down little hills along the way.  The Swiss are such outdoorsmen.  Maybe this is why they have kid clothes for all weather like those tights and waterproof bibs.  In the middle of winter, you still see people sitting on sheepskin OUTSIDE the cafes drinking their espressos with jackets on or men standing around a bar table drinking a beer outside the restaurant.  People still walk to the store in the cold with their reusable bags or actual hand baskets to buy their groceries.

We haven't had any snow in the Zurich area yet, so Maddie (ok, all of us) were excited to play in the snow.  We took a series of cable cars to the top, including a rotating cable car that apparently holds fame because this was the site of the world's first rotating cable car.  It was very foggy and wet everywhere but all at once we broke through the cloud cover.  The sun was shining with blue skies and mountains upon mountains with snow capped peaks.  It was unimaginably beautiful.  I was speechless.  It felt like we experienced a little piece of heaven with just the view alone.

I was actually glad we didn't have our sled because it did seem a little dangerous with the skiers, people, and cliffs.

At the top, there were loads of skiers and snowboarders getting on and off the chairlifts and others just taking in the view with their cameras.  Maddie would have been happy all day picking up mounds of snow, throwing them, laying in the snow, and sliding down tiny hills on her bottom.

We experienced the Titlis cliff walk-Europe's highest suspension bridge-which was crazy (and no extra cost!).

Then we walked through the glacier ice cave (also free of charge) where I got slightly claustrophobic as the ceiling got lower but that was definitely another "first" for the record books.  

We got our sled back on the way down and were hoping for enough snow to pull her a little ways near the lake, but no such luck.  Once in the car, we started looking for places to eat dinner with a good Swiss food restaurant in mind.  Less picturesque but much better for the kids, we found ourselves in a grocery store restaurant inside a shopping mall with lots of Christmas lights which meant happy kids.  We all know that happy kids results in happy parents as well, since it didn't take long to stop, eat, get bathroom breaks and head home.

[Funny: we got stopped at least 5 times by East Asians who wanted to take pictures with the kids.  A couple of women just picked Maddie up and their friends starting snapping photos.  It actually made her quite nervous.  And this isn't the first time it's happened...Carter tends to be popular with that head of hair.]