We made it!

We made it back to American soil!  Woohoo!

But first, we had a few last walks on beautiful Swiss soil.  The weather was very lovely for us our last little bit.

 

 We had lots of stuff to do, but it didn't get really stressful until the last few days, particularly the last day, when the workers were in our house whacking out walls and stuff while we were trying to carry all the last bits of our stuff out.  Before that we gradually did little things, signing papers and getting them notarized, taking loads of furniture and things to different people, packing up our suitcases and last things, etc.  Brett took a lot of boxes to Germany and mailed them on the second to last day, and like I said, the last few things we carried out was in a total stressed-out state, but we got it all out in the exact nick of time to sign papers and hand in the keys to our apartment, and I was very happy when that was finally done.  Luckily our neighbors, Renate and Lamin helped watch kids and took some things for us.

 Our second to last night, our friends Kathi and Rolf had us over for dinner.  Kathi got tears in her eyes when she hugged us goodbye, and I felt sad to leave.  Kathi actually looked at our apartment for us before we even got to Switzerland, and welcomed us in and took good care of us--getting the kids and I presents on all our birthdays, etc..

We had lots of goodbyes at church on Sunday too, but I didn't have my camera then.  Josh and Karin Wilson came to our ward instead of the Burgdorf ward to see us a last time.  Some nice friends thought ahead and gave Ethne birthday presents for her big 8th birthday.

 Then on the night before our flight, we stayed at a couple's house in our ward, Doro and Michi, who fed us dinner and were so kind.  Michi actually was going to New York the same day as we were flying, so he got up and went super early with us --4:30 am --to help us get luggage and kids through the airport.  They are amazingly nice like that.

This is how we found Wyatt and Orrin that morning when we went in to wake them up:

So we got up at 4:30 and drove to the Zurich airport.  Then we flew to Frankfurt.  Then we flew across the ocean and across the United States to Las Vegas.  That is a really really really long flight.  Luckily Wyatt did take a pretty good nap on the floor in front of me.  It was really sad though when we flew almost RIGHT over Salt Lake City and know we would just have to go back.  I thought about inventing an emergency so we'd have to stop, but decided against it.  It was just how crazy one-way tickets worked out as being the least expensive.

When we got to Las Vegas, it was about 11:00 pm our time, and we still had a 4-hour layover until our Southwest flight to SLC.  The poor kids (and me).

We thought it was awful that we had a 4-hour layover but it was actually a good thing it ended up being so long because it took almost that whole time to go through customs, get on the shuttle and get to the other terminal that was way a town away, then get all our luggage checked in (we were thanking our lucky stars we had decided to mail half our stuff because there was no way we could have handled twice the amount of luggage we had).  We had enough time to drink a jamba juice before we had to board the plane again.  And we forgot that on Southwest they don't do assigned seats, so we didn't preboard, and just came on last, which meant of course there were no seats together.  It didn't end up being too big of a deal - we just stuck the older kids in random places between two strangers, Talmage promptly fell asleep against the person next to him- and I think they moved one person so that Orrin could sit next to Brett, and I held Wyatt and he was so exhausted he fell asleep before the plane even took off.  I was saying prayers of gratitude that his exhaustion produced sleep instead of hysteria, which sometimes happens to babies.  Then it was just a short flight to SLC where we got in around 8:30, making it a good 24 hours since we'd gotten up.  This is how 24 hours of traveling looks (this is the floor of the SLC airport):

We did lose our stroller, but I figure that is an easy sacrifice to the Flying gods and we didn't have any poop or vomit, so all in all, it was a pretty good flight.

Then my wonderful wonderful in-laws, Kris and Mason, picked us up and took us to their home where we crashed into bed ever so grateful that that was over and there are no plans in the foreseeable future to ever cross oceans and continents with six young kids again.

Now all we have to do is get a job somewhere, pack up, find a place to live and move there! :)

Real-time Update

So we're down to five days left in Switzerland.  Crazy crazy crazy- lots of things left to do still.  Including go through and repack all our stuff yet again because we decided to mail it from Germany instead of pay for extra bags on the airplane, which will save us a little money as well as make it so the bags will be delivered right to our doorstep.  Almost all of our furniture will be picked up by people tomorrow, so we'll be camping (on the floor) from here on out.  Also, the renovations on our small bathroom start on Monday, so we're kicked out for that day.

From last Saturday:

-Packing up and moving across an ocean is awesome. Especially when you have six kids. Everyone should try it.
-Brett is really good at packing. He feels all macho when he fills a bag up to the brim and lifts it onto the scale and gets it exactly to 23 kg.
-Books are heavy. ‪#‎ratherhavebooksthanshoes‬ ‪#‎orbedding‬ ‪#‎oranythingreally‬
-Reminds me of when my dad and brother were preparing for their packhorse trip and had to get the panniers the correct and equal weight. But they didn't have to pay 150 bucks if they were a kilogram over the weight limit.
-Their horse could go lame though. Whatev.
-I'm so bad at this. I start one thing in one room and go to get something from somewhere else and get doing something in that room and forget all about the first job and get distracted again and end up never finishing anything.
-Very glad to make dinner so I knew just how to do my job.
-We had leek and potato soup. Because it's delicious. But more so because Brett brought leeks home from the store the other day and leek and potato soup is the only thing I make with leeks.
-Brett always brings home the most random things ever from the grocery store.
-I also managed to carve out some time today to make pumpkin chocolate chip brownies, heavy on the chocolate chips, because priorities.
-The last week or two is so awkward... kids need to be able to wear coats to school, but we really want to pack coats. And other stuff.

 Kids-

Jethro- He is such a helpful kid.  I can go do errands by myself all the time now, and just leave him or Hazel in charge.  He started reading 'The Count of Monte Cristo' on Brett's phone on the way home from Croatia, and then we found our actual book while we were going through the boxes and re-packing, so he started reading it again and we told him he had to stop and save it for the airplane.  He protested, but we told him it would be good if he had a book that might take him longer than 1 hour to read.  But he's already half-way through.

Jethro and Lamin, best friends and upstairs/downstairs neighbors

He had quite a few jobs in the past while, babysitting our downstairs neighbors and mucking out stalls and being a pooper-scooper at the neighbor's farm.  He's rich now. 

He's getting so grown up.  It's crazy.

Hazel- She's so funny.  So she had a blitz test, which means a timed memorization test, in math on the Monday following the three-week fall break.  Now, she knew about this, but didn't study at all, and then she remembered about the test on Sunday and started crying and whining because she hadn't studied.  So we told her to study as much as she could right then, which made her whine because the other kids were watching a movie.  So I was in my room with her reading a book while she was supposedly studying, but really just whining and moaning.  So finally I couldn't take the whining anymore and I said, "Hazel it really doesn't matter--you can just not study at all because it won't matter!  You have less than a week of school left and no one will ever know or care what you got on this test!"  And she looked at me, started crying, and said, "But I hate getting bad grades!"  Oh, Hazel.  :)  And Brett told me I was a bad mother for saying that, and that she should have to face the consequences of her not studying.

  Today we took her to the audiologist because when she had the screening at school, they said she needed further testing.  So Brett asked one of his colleagues if he would do a test, and he kindly did.  She did not so well, but then he decided the headphones weren't fitting very well and put in earbuds instead, and then re-did the test and she did great.  I totally forgot I could have just taken her to Uncle Wyatt--silly me!

Ethne- I got to watch her do her little Swiss dance in her adorable little Swiss tracht.  It was the cutest thing.  I thought it was very very nice of all the others to bring their dresses and wear them essentially just for my benefit.  I wanted a picture.  It's too bad the recitals weren't until after we will be gone.

Lea, the farmer's daughter, and Ethne

 
Talmage- I hardly ever see that kid because as soon as he comes home from school he's off to one of his friends' houses (Amir, Jacka, Loic) to play with them all afternoon.   

Talmage, Jacka, Orrin, and Ardi

 The other day he went to the doctor for a checkup and vaccination and he was ALL ABOUT being tough for the shot.  Before the doctor came back in with the shot he told me, "I'm just going to do this, 'ouch.'" (a very mild, quiet ouch).  Then when he got his shot, he stared stonily ahead and didn't even flinch or make a sound.  It was pretty funny although you probably had to be there.   Also, the doctor gave him an eye test where he pointed to the different pictures and Talmage would say the word in German.  One of the pictures (they were silhouettes) near the bottom was a dog, and when the doctor pointed to it, Talmage said, "Wolf" (which is the same word in German, but you say it "vulf").  I had to laugh.

Orrin- Also had a checkup, although luckily no shot, as he was already being super ornery just for the checkup.  The doctor was checking a few benchmark things, and he asked him questions to see if he knows colors.  He held up something green and Orrin said 'red.'  Then he held up something red and Orrin said, "Fire."  I count that as correct and bonus points.  :)

Goodness he is a funnnny kid.  And looking so much more grown-up in these pictures suddenly!

 

Today we went to the grocery store, and on the way out an old man was in the elevator with us and he started jabbering away to Orrin in Swiss German and then asked him something, and Orrin said, "Ja."  And then the guy asked him something else and he said, "Ja."  I was super proud--he's following right in my footsteps--nodding and giving an affirmative without having a clue what's being said.  :)

Wyatt- is my baby and everybody's favorite.  Recently we got a bag of Schliech horses from the second-hand store, and he loves carrying them around and making his horse sound, which is more like 'Aaaaaaaah' than Neigh.  It's like what you would say a sheep says but without a B at the beginning.  It's adorable.  He also says a lot of words, and has for a long time even though I don't think I've mentioned it.  My favorites are honey, cheese, and kitty.

He's also really strong and can hang on a bar for about 15 seconds!  And as soon as he would fall off he would ask to get up again.

 

The end.

Croatia Day 3 and 4 and 5?

I've got to get cracking on these Croatia posts if they're ever going to get done.  Here's Day 3 and 4, I think.  Maybe 5?

I love waking up to the sound (and sight) of the ocean.

Lots of pictures of this exact spot because it's the back of our house, on the far left, and we often walked down this street.

Here's the front of our house.  See Hazel reading her book?

And here we are eating lunch.

In the afternoons we could just drive a little ways until we spotted a pretty beach and then we'd go swim there.

 

 

 

Wyatt is so cute.

Isn't it the cutest thing when toddlers squat down to see or do something?

The next two pictures are to remind me of the night we walked directly across the street (street meaning barely wide enough for one car to go through) to the restaurant/home and ate some delicious swordfish and exceptional lamb.  I felt like I had to eat super fast, because all the kids were gobbling up their pieces and asking for more.

 I think this was the next day.  We drove over some really terrible/awesome (depending on your point of view) roads to get to a trailhead.

The trail goes to this monastery museum.  It was pretty interesting.  Our tour guide was pretty funny, but I can't remember the specifics anymore.  You can read more about it here if you want.  I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside, so no pictures.

We didn't bring the baby backpack, so Wyatt rode in a regular backpack.

This is the outside of the monastery.

Our tour guide offered to take a picture for us; he called us 'biggest family.'

 

Then we hiked back and drove the scenic (nauseating) way back to Zlatni Rat beach.  But it really was beautiful.

  

  

I want that little white house right there-

 

Have I mentioned I love the ocean?

Wyatt sprayed himself with sunscreen

We buried all the kids in the pebbles, even their faces, and the group of young adults next to us were watching and laughing that we would cover their heads (Brett did it first, and then I did when the first child didn't die).  Then they would jump out, and Talmage did a pretty good zombie-coming-out-of-the-ground impression. 

You had to be careful looking over this direction because there were lots of nudies.  Even though the sign said that wasn't allowed.

There's the tell-tale shape of Zlatni Rat.

And we drove home as the sun slipped down and turned everything golden and beautiful.