Here we go again...

We are moving!  Again.

I just pulled out chocolate chip cookies from the oven for our going away party tomorrow.  We've just invited a few close friends here.  One week from tomorrow, the kids and I will fly home to the USA.  Bryce will follow once the packers, movers, cleaners, and the handover of our keys are all completed.  

It seems really crazy that we're actually moving again, even though our original contract was 18 months which would put us to right about now anyways.  The funny thing is, it came very unexpectedly.  We moved here really thinking, we'll be here for maybe 3-5 years and then move back "home" to the east coast where almost all of our family is located.  We basically settled in here, even started looking into the school situation for Maddie this past summer (just out of curiosity, but still).  In late summer, Bryce's boss began writing a new contract to extend our stay here and it sounded like they would like us to stay indefinitely.  Not even a month later, Bryce got an unexpected call from the boss of his old boss.  His old boss quit and Bryce was their first choice to replace her in the management role back in Oregon.  What?  Well, we were fairly certain it was a 'no' for us, but we gave it a few weeks to think about it.  It was such a difficult decision.  Literally every single day for almost a month, we were going back and forth.  We spent a couple hours staring at a spreadsheet of pros and cons for each place in all the different life categories (family, church, friends, environment, travel, finances, career,...).  Finally, it seemed that it just came down to career and family.  We believe it's a great opportunity for Bryce.  On top of that, we'll be only a 3 hour time difference instead of a 6 hour difference to family, which actually makes a big difference for phone calls and FaceTime calls.  The ticket price for visiting us or us visiting home will be about half the cost to come to Switzerland.  Even still, it was tough.  Would we ever have an opportunity like this again?  There's still so much we wanted to see and do!  Maddie and Carter, even though they didn't know it, were living in such an international place.  Maddie was slowly learning German and has friends literally from all around the globe speaking lots of different languages.  After living here, I just discovered how important their world view is to me.  Even things like her forest play group, her gym class, and our hiking adventures are such a big part of our life that we love.  I know, we can recreate some of these things or find different opportunities, which will be great I'm sure, but it won't be the same.  

At the same time, of course, we are really excited to get back to our church and fellowship there.  We also have a few good friends that we're very excited to catch up with, new babies to meet, and many play dates to look forward to.  

I don't think Maddie quite understands what is going on with moving.  She is very excited about having stairs in her new house.  And maybe even a swing set in the back yard.  She has requested that we paint the house pink, but we'll settle for maybe just her room.  She's also excited about having a fireplace in the new house.  Some days, she has randomly said things like, "I'm so excited to go to Oregon.  Can we go today?"  Other days, she has said, "Mommy, I'm really sad about leaving Switzerland" or "I'm worried about being sad about leaving my friends in Switzerland."  So who knows.  I wonder if she thinks it's a visit to Oregon like we visit Nana and Papa's house.

All I know is, I would love your prayers for me as I take the kids on the international 9 hour flight (plus the other small connecting flights) and travel all day Sunday, December 13th.  The kids have slight colds, but I'm hoping they fully recover before we travel.  However, our track record is pretty bad: the last 3 times we've traveled internationally, at least 2, even all 4 of us, have gotten sick.

September 2014 heading back to Switzerland from North Carolina

Uncle Aaron and Aunt Christin visit

I know what you're thinking.  Nearly 2 months without posts and now two posts in two days!  The mom life is crazy, ok?  One moment, I'm feeling overwhelmed with everything in life, the next moment, I get organized and semi-on top of things with the blog (just using one naptime break!).  And let me tell you, the nap time break is more valuable than gold.  Should I wash the dishes?  Do my second load of laundry since our washer and dryer can fit about one towel per load?  Should I meal and grocery plan?  Should I email a sweet friend back?  Dare I say, should I actually read a book?  Or shower?  Or or or...  I only get about one hour since Maddie's quiet time is one hour with her amazing traffic light alarm clock.  There's just never enough time with kids and it's still hard for me to accept even after more than 3 years experiencing it.  At the end of the day, everyone is healthy, fed, warm, sleeps in a bed, and I really love them.  Now back to the blog.

This Fall, we have had so many visitors!  I've been meaning to write all about each visit, but haven't had the chance with all that's going on right now.

To start off, back in September, Uncle Aaron and Aunt Christin stopped by for a long weekend while on an amazing European adventure.  We were so excited to have them here!  They were traveling with their good friends, Michelle and Tyler.  We had so much fun.

Waiting for them to arrive at the airport.

We took them into Zurich for an afternoon and dinner.  We just walked around, took pictures, and enjoyed a hearty dinner at our favorite place to take visitors.

Lots more (click below)!

Lately

Just had a couple funny pictures that I thought I'd share.  They are all from about a month or two ago.

Maddie, 3 years
Carter, 19 months

She hardly ever naps any more, but on this particular day, somehow they both took good naps.   Totally zoned out.

She has become such a girly girl in the last few months.  She loves anything pink and purple.  She loves the Disney show, Sophia the First.  She loves playing pretend with her little princess figurines.  During her 1 hour "quiet time" in her room every day, she pours out her bag of figurines (princesses, Doc McStuffins, Frozen characters, and Sophia characters).  We'll prop up books to create multi-level houses for these little people to live in.  They take the bus to school.  The get sick and the doctor has to give them a check up.  It's the funniest thing to secretly watch her play by herself with these little people.  She even makes them talk with a high pitched voice.

Also, any time I'm in the kitchen getting ready to make something, she immediately pushes a chair over, gets up on it, and says, "Can I make with you?"  She loves being in the kitchen with me.  Even more than that, she loves tasting what we're making and getting as many licks as she can.

 This guy and his hair!  I've trimmed the front part a couple times so it's not hanging in his eyes, but of course the back keeps growing (hello mullet!).  Although the back is pretty long, the curls/waves really keep it looking shorter.  He's got some good hair genes (thanks, Dad!).  I really think he's at the cutest age right now.  He's starting to have some minor tantrums, but mostly, he's sweet.  He is so curious and tries imitating everything that Maddie does.  He's really trying to talk more and even play pretend with Maddie.

I saaay-d that

"I can't because I don't."  She says this all the time when I ask her to do something.  AKA, Mommy, I don't want to.

As I am starting to prepare dinner, "Mommy, Mommy, can I help do the meat box? Open the door! I want to help with the meat box!"  (she wanted to help Daddy grill the meat out on the patio...grill=meat box)

Watermelon= "melon aiden"
Love= "lub"
Where? = "Vayer?"
Girl="gale"
Privacy="privasty"
yellow=lellow
Sparkles/Sparkly=sprinkles/sprinkly

We're really working on counting to 20 with Maddie....we can get up to 12, then it's 13, 13, 15, 18, 19, 20.  It used to be 12, 18, 20.  Progress...

After the woman leaves, "Mommy, I saw stamps on her arm, did you see them?"  Yes, I did, honey, and they are called tattoos.

Driving in the car talking about who-knows-what, "You are one smart cookie, Maddie."  "No I'm not! I'm not a cookie, I'm Maddie."

After passing a teenage girl.  "One day, you will be a big girl just like her.  What are you going to do when you are that big?" She replied, "I'm going to be weely tall.  And I'm going to tell Carter "no" and give him a spanking.  And I'm going to be a mommy just like you, Mommy."

I hadn't made our bed yet and Maddie came out of our room.  "Mommy, your bed is a mess.  That's not my job.  That's not Carter's job."  Well, okay, thank you, dear, let me just drink my coffee first :-)

On another note, Maddie understands in which contexts she is supposed to say "Danke schön" versus "Thank you."

Carter's favorite words:

Bug/Bus="buuuh!"
Tractor/Cracker="kacker"
Dog="dah"
Cat="ee-ow"
Mama
Dada
color=gago
baby=baybah
carrot=kahkah
door=doh
down=dow

When he gets a booboo, he says "bohboh" and rubs where it hurts.  When Maddie hits, pushes, or hurts him, he cries and accusingly grunts "Nahnah!!!!!" pointing at her.

These kids are cracking me up lately.  My birthday is coming up and Maddie keeps holding up 4 fingers (one more than her) telling me that I'm that old.

They are also both very into dancing and singing to "Let it go" (Frozen fever came around our house a little later than everyone else...we were introduced last Christmas, so it's still fun for us, but maybe, just maybe, on it's way out).

Fall 2015

Here are a few photos from last week when the kids and I went for a long walk just before the sun went down.

The leaves and the weather have been beautiful these last couple weeks.  This season is definitely my favorite.  I find myself wanting to take pictures of nearly every bush or tree that's changing.

And can I just say, taking good pictures of two toddlers is almost impossible.  I had .2 seconds to snap a couple when they were both laughing because Maddie started throwing leaves on Carter's head.  Then when I tried to recreate the smiles, the moment was over and they were ready to move on.

We walk about .5 a mile to the edge of town and the start of farmland and forest.  Then there are miles of trails that go all over.  Our town is just behind those yellow trees.

There are fields and fields of these beautiful purple flowers all over our area right now.

Then we walk by the military base into the forest.  There are tons and tons of trails that go through the forest and along the edge of it by farm fields.  PERFECT for running.  Too bad that half marathon I was training for didn't work out at the end of October.  But in the next 6 months, it WILL happen.  Training and running a race feels like it's a minor miracle since time isn't on my side lately and coordinating the training runs is even harder now with less sunlight.  Anyways, enough of my whining, other moms make marathons happen with multiple kids, which really is a miracle in my eyes!

"Guys, go over there and just stand there.  Now look at me."
Kids: ???

"Now hold hands, smile, and look at me."

....

It's obvious that I just have to keep the camera handy and let natural moments happen like this.  Even if the pictures end up blurry.  I'm working on it.

Holland: Part 3, Castricum, Alkmaar

Then we drove 30 minutes from Zaanse Schans to Castricum, where our next Airbnb was located.  If you ever go to Amsterdam, definitely drive out of the city!  I was impressed that we got to see so much in just a day.  But of course, our kids wake up about 6am, so we always get an early start.

We arrived at our next Airbnb rental in the late afternoon and just hung out there for the rest of the day.  It was so fun!  These people built there house on an old chicken farm and renovated the old barn behind their new house into a rental.  They also had a trampoline, chickens, and a pond full of koi fish.  She let Maddie feed the fish and the chickens each day.  We all enjoyed the trampoline.  It was a beautiful setting.  And lucky for us (no sarcasm there), their internet didn't quite reach the rental, so it was actually very relaxing and felt like a real vacation.

Holland: Part 2, Amsterdam, Volendam, Zaanse Schans

While we were in Amsterdam, we also did a typical canal tour in one of those glass top boats.  It was about an hour long with some interesting facts and a great way to get a different view of the city while staying warm and dry.  We left near the Anne Frank House and ended up right by the train station so we could hop on our bus back to the rental.  We enjoyed some typical stroopwafels which may have saved us our sanity while we floated around trying to keep them occupied.

Holland: Part 1, Amsterdam

I am finally getting around to writing about our trip to Holland near the end of August.

We had such a nice time.  We were mostly disconnected from social media for the week (thanks to bad connection at both of our airbnb places), which ended up being quite nice.  I think it feels much more like a vacation when you are forced to disconnect.

We drove there (about 9 hours) and it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated.  We spent the first half of the week in Amsterdam.  We stayed in Amsterdam Noord (north) and took the bus into the center each of the three days that we were there.

As usual, we (I) had to adjust our expectations for the trip on how much we would see, how many cool restaurants we could check out, and what sights we could experience.  Usually, it's about one or two things a day, generally not museums, mainly just staying outside and "experiencing" the place by walking around.

It wasn't nice weather when we were in Amsterdam for those first 3 days-rainy, cool (50s/60s), and overcast when it wasn't raining.  The second half of the week was beautiful.

[Get ready for LOTS of pictures!]

The first day, we got there in the evening, so we got take away pizza down the street from our rental and went to bed early.

This was the front of our Airbnb rental in Amsterdam Noord.  It was a historical area and all the homes looked the same-little townhomes with a small fence backyard with little side alley ways, clay roof, and very steep stairs.  It was small but functional and cute.

We went shopping for his first pair of real shoes while there.  Here he is looking all big boy-ish in his new Adidas.

The second day, we took the bus into the city and rented bikes at the main train station.  We rode bikes around the city from about 10am-3pm.  It was exciting, fun, scary, and tense all at the same time.  Motor bikes and mopeds share the bike lanes.  Plus, not knowing all the one ways or rules of the road for bikers was difficult.  I think I may have enjoyed it more than Bryce.  He was tense the entire day and concluded that you "take in" more of the city when you're not on a bike.  Both kids were incredible in the bikes, switching seats, singing songs, eating snacks, and BOTH fell asleep sitting up (with bobbing helmet heads!) in the bikes.  We quickly stopped at a park and sat next to a fountain each holding a kid while they slept for about an hour.  We ate a late lunch at an American style BBQ place called Graceland.  You know, very Dutch (not).

Swiss parks and play grounds

You know, before we moved here, I was scouring blogs on the internet of American moms living in Switzerland.  I ate up every bit of information I could find on anything about kids and the Swiss culture.  I remember reading one sarcastic blog post about being a parent in Switzerland, and regarding playgrounds, she made the point that there's not much at most said "playgrounds" and usually there quite dangerous for U.S. standards.   (From here-"You realize the one and only swing at the park is always taken...You realize no matter what park you go to, it’s designed for 7-year-olds and the one and only swing is still taken)

I can confirm that in part, those things are true.  Many play grounds are really meant for older kids and scare the heck out of toddler moms since the toddlers are of course wanting to do everything the older kids are doing (zip lines at some play grounds?! tall metal slides with maybe 4 inches of lip on the sides?! No baby swings?!).   When we first got here, I went to a couple parks and felt slightly disappointed compared to some of the parks we regularly visited in the States (or really, just Cook Park which was a half mile walk from our house).

BUT now that I've been here for over a year, I've explored more and I've found that there are many amazing Swiss parks for kids.  Some are similar to the parks in the States, I'm sure, but others are quite different.

First, you've seen plenty of play areas up in the mountains.  I think in general (except for most indoor sit-down restaurants-which we avoid-), Switzerland is quite family friendly.

[This may be a completely odd post to you, but for a mother with two toddlers, this is my life...visiting and finding new parks, the closer to home, the better.]

They have tons of these big swings which the kids love.  The below photos are from the town pool here which also happens to have a fun trampoline thing.

Blackberry picking 2015

A summer just isn't complete without some berry picking.  Bryce would say that a summer isn't complete without blackberry pies.  We had at least a berry pie each week for a month once the berries were ready.  We rode our bikes to the woods about a mile away and picked (for free!) as many berries as we could carry (as long as the kids were content).  Anyways, just wanted to share some photos since I couldn't believe how much bigger Maddie looks since last year when we first moved here and found the berry patches.

Day trip: Golzernsee

A couple weeks ago, we went on another beautiful hike not too far away.  We're squeezing in as many hikes as we can before the cold creeps in!

We didn't think much of this hike when we looked it up on our favorite website for hiking.  But once we were there, it was just perfectly Switzerland.  It had a steep ascent in a teeny gondola, striking views of the Alps, the path cutting through alpine meadows, passing cute houses with people drinking coffee out on their porches, a small church, a couple restaurants, and eventually, the alpine lake, Golzernsee.  

We stopped for lunch and the restaurant had a nice kids play area so we weren't stuck trying to entertain in a small space.

The lake was in a gorgeous setting and was actually quite warm!  We brought our swimsuits and swam while Carter snoozed.

Can you spy Carter?  He's nestled in the shade of our backpack and miraculously slept for almost an hour!

You can see the little red cable car coming up.  The town up here was so small and remote that the cable car stop here had all the post office boxes for these people who lived here.  I don't think there were any cars up here either!  Can you imagine taking a cable car down to get to your car to go to a big (bigger than a gas station size) grocery store?! Amazing.

This may be one of my all time favorite pictures of her.

She amazes me.  It wasn't a very long walk to the lake, but she walked almost the whole way (and with ice cream in hand on the way back)!  She is in her element when we're outside in the forest or hiking in the mountains.