Monday, May 30, 2011

Big stuff and little stuff.

1- I was playing with Ethne outside the other day and noticed that she had a bunch of crayons in her pocket.  So I said to her, “Hey, you have crayons in your pocket.”  And she said, “They’re for in case of emergency.”  (She later explained the emergency as feeling like coloring but being far away from home.)

2.  We finally, FINALLY got everything together and went to the embassy and turned in Orrin’s paperwork for his citizen born abroad stuff and passport stuff.  So, hopefully after filling out forms and paying money twice (soon to be thrice when we get him his permit for living here), we’ll be good to go and maybe Brett and I and Orrin can finally go on a trip I wanted to go on since April!

PassportPhotoSheet

3.  For most people, school is almost (if not already) out, but here the kids go until the middle of July.  Then they go back the middle of August.

4.  The month of June is going to be kindof crazy.  We have guests coming (which I could NOT be more excited for!!!!!!  YAYY for Alyse and Carlos!!), most likely a trip to Austria (if we can get the kids out of school),  Brett will be going to Brussels, Zurich, Austria (hence our trip there), and Berlin for almost a whole week.  Besides that, Hazel will be turning seven and Orrin will turn six months!!  I swear that’s impossible, but that’s what the calendar says.

5.   I was sick the beginning of last week, but got better after about three days.  Then Brett got it, and had a much worse case than I had (had to prove that he’s a man), and had to stay home from work on Friday and got worse Saturday and Sunday because he was really dehydrated because nothing that he tried to eat or drink stuck.  So after the kids were in bed that night, he was using the bathroom and passed out.  He konked his head REALLY hard on the tile floor, which left an awful-looking blood-blisterish bruise, with tile lines and everything (he’ll have fun explaining that when he goes in to work), in the middle of his forehead and the very top of his nose between his eyes, and made his nose bleed.  I was on the computer, and I heard a crash, but it was such a big crash that I was sure it came from outside the door to our apartment in the hall where there is a door in the ceiling that you can pull down the stairs and go up to the attic.  Anyway, when he came to he called me, I went in and saw him on the floor with blood everywhere and his forehead looking like someone had smashed it with a bat.  Quite the sight.  So we got him cleaned up and I called a great friend from church to come over and give him a blessing.  He also happens to be a doctor (very good trait in a friend), which I was glad of because in the middle of the blessing he passed out again.  So, our friend left us with some medicine to help keep something in his stomach and some instructions for me and told me to call him in the night if we should need him.  Brett woke up much better, and has improved a lot today.  So that was exciting.

6.  So, two different people told me recently that I should learn German.  One was the sample lady at the grocery store.  Yeah.  When she started her spiel, I stopped her and said, “English?” and she asked if I knew any German, and if I lived here, and I could tell for sure that she was about to say I should learn (with a bit of a condescending/irritating manner), but then she asked how long we were here for and I said maybe 6 months or a bit more, and she seemed to think it was okay then.  The other one was a neighbor who’s daughter will be in the same kindergarten class as Ethne this coming year, and we talked for awhile.  Her English was okay, though not super, and she asked if I knew German and I told her no, but my husband and kids do, and she basically said, “Oh you have to learn!”  I didn’t explain to her that we aren’t here permanently, so I don’t know if she would have reacted differently or not to that. 

Then today I asked Brett to call a doctor’s office for me (it seems nurses never know German), and we got in an argument because he thinks I should learn German and I … don’t.  It’s so dumb because we have had this argument so many times.  Over and over.  I was so mad and was like, why can’t you just graciously help me out for the few little errands that I can’t take care of? and he was like, why can’t you be bothered to learn enough German to be able to take care of these things yourself? and we go around and around and it makes me SOOO mad.

But then he apologized later on, and that made me feel so better. 

7.  I had the best afternoon the other day.  I took Talmage on a walk past the farm and up the hill a ways, then we came back to the backyard, and were lying on the grass feeding little clovers to our neighbor’s guinea pigs and just relaxing, then Hazel and Ethne came out and they were all playing so nicely and running around and the air was so nice and cool and the warm evening golden light was coming down on them and lighting up their heads and I couldn’t stop hugging them and I just felt so full of love for them and for my happy life.  It was just one of those precious moments that you want to bottle up. 

8.  Sometimes I worry about Jethro a little.  He doesn’t really seem to have friends here.  Although he would just read all day and probably not care, but I would like to see him have someone to chum around with.

9.  Hazel put holes in another pair of jeans today.  It’s to the point where she doesn’t have a single pair of jeans/capris to her name without a hole in the knees.  She is so hard on jeans!

10.  It’s so funny how Talmage “talks.”  For example, the other day when Orrin was crying, he started this little sing-song, “Uh-uh wahhh baby” meaning, “don’t cry baby.”  And as we were walking past the farm animals, he would say, “Bye-bye neigh!”  “Bye-bye moo!” as he went by the horses and cows.  He calls all colors boo (blue) because it’s the only color word he can say, and he calls his toy car his “vroom vroom” and his pajamas with dogs on them his “ruff ruff.”  He also counts a lot, it always goes, “eeh oh eeh oh eee!”

11.  That’s about it.  I have to get to bed.  But I have lots of pictures I want to post (including one of Tile-head, if he lets me post it.)  Goodnight.

Monday, May 23, 2011

The last days of Mom and Dad’s visit.

I’m squishing all the rest of the days with Mom and Dad into this one post, so hold on to your hats for this whirlwind tour.
First, I wanted to go to one place (called Piotta Ritom), but it ended up taking a lot longer to drive than google told us, and when we got to the very top of Susten Pass we found that the final bit of the pass was still closed for winter.  WHAT?! Ruff.   So, we got out at the top and walked around in the snow.
IMGP9055 IMGP9111
We had jackets, but not very warm jackets, and it was pretty chilly.  Doable when the sun was out, and it peeked out every little while.
IMGP9057  IMGP9063 IMGP9065 IMGP9069
Dad.
IMGP9070
Mom.
IMGP9071 IMGP9079 IMGP9080 IMGP9086
Glacier.
IMGP9088 IMGP9093 
Swiss family Bell.
IMGP9106 
Throughout all our travels the kids took turns riding with Grandpa and Grandma.  What a headache.  By the end of all the squabbling and crying every time we got in the cars, I wished we had said that we all drive in the van.  Oh well.  The kids had fun talking on the walkie-talkies.
IMGP9114
We drove back down the pass to Meiringen where we took a little cable car up to the Reichenbach Falls. 
IMGP9116 IMGP9117 IMGP9121 IMGP9130
So picturesque.
IMGP9140 IMGP9141 IMGP9146
IMGP9149
IMGP9152 IMGP9155
So, these falls are famous because it is where Sherlock Holmes died.  See the little white star (actually you can’t even tell it’s a star in this picture- but I circled it so you can see where it is)? 
red circle 
IMGP9158
So here is Jethro being Sherlock.
IMGP9159 IMGP9160 IMGP9163 IMGP9164 IMGP9169 IMGP9175 IMGP9179 IMGP9180
We only bought tickets UP on the cable car, so we could hike down.  Which was fine, except it started raining a little when we got up to the top (we had to go up before we started going down again), and it was making the rocks slippery, so we were in a rush to get down, for fear it would open up and start pouring on us.    Which is too bad, because the trail was really quite neat—it went down by some chateau’s, past their fruit trees, through the fields, then it would cross a road and go down through more fields.  I thought it was so so cool.  If we hadn’t been moving along fairly quickly I would have taken more pictures because it was a really beautiful little trail - different than most.  p.s. we never got poured on.
IMGP9186 IMGP9188
So.  Fast forward to the next day.  We drove down to the French part of Switzerland (which looks SURPISINGLY different than the German part—the houses and city have a completely different look) to go to the Chillon Castle, on Lake Geneva.  It was a bit rainy and overcast, so I’m taking this opportunity to post some of the internet’s pictures of the Castle, because it is lovely.
image
image
image
image imageimage 
And here is my little family in front of it.
IMGP9195
IMGP9200 IMGP9204 IMGP9207
IMGP9209 IMGP9211
I really wanted to buy this wooden sword and shield for Talmage.  You can see how much he loved them.
IMGP9213 IMGP9216 IMGP9220 IMGP9221 IMGP9223 IMGP9225 IMGP9228 IMGP9232  IMGP9238 IMGP9239 IMGP9240
Can you see Jethro and Grandma?
IMGP9253 IMGP9254 IMGP9264 IMGP9266 IMGP9269 IMGP9276
Cutest boy in the UNIVERSE.
IMGP9280 \
And then, all too soon, it was time for Grandma and Grandpa to go home.  When we told Talmage it was time to say goodbye, he started to cry.  You can see why—no one’s more fun than Grandpa and Grandma! 
IMGP9047 IMGP9048 IMGP9049 IMGP9050
The day before they left, there was a huge, complete, wonderful rainbow.  (My camera couldn’t even get the whole thing from end to end.)  My dad said something like he’d never seen such a big, perfect rainbow.  And I said, “Of course- it’s a Swiss rainbow.”  It was a bit of a joke by that time.  Everything’s better in Switzerland, you know.  :)
 IMGP9283
Fun fun fun times.  I wish they were coming back next month!!!!!!!

Related Posts with Thumbnails