January 27, 2008 - Walking around the Abby, kid pictures

There's a nice hike/walk around an Abby here near our house, so we did that recently to take advantage of this great weather.











































And, here's a Cambelle picture. She can play dressup with Kacey now... she was recently a ballerina :-)









And, here you can see Snow White has an audience for her dance show (and you can see my housekeeping skills need some work.)

January 20, 2008 - Balloon Festival in Chateau D'Oex

There's a very famous international balloon festival held here in January of every year and we were able to make it to that this year. It's in the mountains in January and I didn't expect the conditions that we had...it was very warm for wintertime in the Alps. It was a great day... nice weather, sledding for Kacey, balloons of all shapes and sizes, parachuting, helecopters, hang gliding... all around fun.

I liked the turtle.

The birthday cake was Kacey's favorite balloon.

Dave made me do this. I don't know what made me even start to agree to it... but, my jumping wasn't good enough for him so he had to throw me in the air. And, Jumping Kacey put on a great show for the camera.

January 6, 2008 - Snow in the mountains

We went to Schwartzee the weekend after we returned...it's a small mountain town 30 minutes outside of Fribourg. It offers skiing and a frozen lake for skating, and lots of sledding. Kacey tried out the sleds that Santa brought to her. And it kept us all awake as we tried to recover from jet lag. Unfortunately, both girls were still wide awake at 3am even after we did this.

December 2, 2007 - We go home!

The day finally arrived...I get to take Cambelle (and Kacey) home! I can't believe I didn't get an airport picture of us departing, but I didn't. It was a stressful airport visit because I was pretty worried about flying alone with and 3 year old and a 3 month old (Dave gave me a bonus week at home while he worked). But my worries were wasted...both girls were great.

I didn't tell my family we were coming home.... I'd had to delay so many times that I couldn't bare to send more bad news about not having the passport, so we booked our flight after the Embassy gave us a decent estimate for when the passport should arrive and I didn't let anyone know. Cause I still wasn't sure we'd make the flight... but the passport arrived 3 days before we left...I almost tackled the postman who delivered it!
Our neighbors, Anne Duma and Ben, graciously picked us up in Atlanta and took us to Mema and Papa's house...the Mema and Papa who just 'never get out to do anything.' Well, when I finally get to their house, they're out doing something. Couldn't believe it...I'd been waiting to surprise them and they weren't home!!! How dare they. So, Anne took us to Mom and Dad's church and we waited there for the service to end ( I knew our entering the service would be a COMPLETE disruption, so we waited near their car for them.) They were very shocked and happy to see us (I need Anne's pictures...she had the camera for much of this.) From there, we piled into my parents car and went to Mema and Papa's house. They were home this time. My parents went in while me and the girls waited in the car. Then we sneaked in. Mema had her back to us, but she heard the door, peaked over, saw us and instantaneously tackled us after running over Papa...she's always moved fast, but I'd never seen her move that fast. She was a little teary eyed from the shock of it all... so from that point on, Kacey wouldn't surprise Mema. We always had to let her know when we were coming around.

So we spent a week with my family and saw Henry...Kacey's old boyfriend. We also spent time with Stephanie, Matthew and Nicholas. And, Sienna, Mike and Ash. Dave arrived 10 or so days later and we started visiting other friends, neighbors, etc. We then spent a week in Florida with Dave's family... saw Mermaids, Manatees. Then one last week in Atlanta to see family, shop, visit/work on our old house, etc. We still missed seeing many people we had hoped to see... I forgot that other people might be travelling and not just sitting around waiting for us to be in town :-)

It was hard to return to Switzerland for us all... we live in a great place with nice people here on the edge of the Alps, but we miss all our Atlanta friends and family. Being placed in a foreign country has definitely given us a new appreciation for Atlanta. These pictures are just a tiny drop in the bucket of the fun we had in December.

December 1, 2007 - Christmas Markets, Passport, Cookies and St. Nick

Formatting is all messed up...sorry...just trying to get stuff in here, so hopefully you can figure it out.

Christmas Markets are everywhere over here... I'm no Christmas Market expert, but the one I went to in Montreau was really nice. Marti and I went with the kids, so we didn't get to actually look and buy, but from a distance it looked like things were really nice. We spent most of our time playing... carousels, Merry-go-Rounds, etc are where we spent most of our time.

We went on a cooking baking frenzie. Dave took some to work for the lady who made arrangments for our move... they were spotted by someone and cameras came out for pictures. Apparently, American cookies are an exciting thing to see over here. Dave had me bring extras up for the rest of his office areas ... as you can see, there were plenty to share.

The passport arrived!!! I should have taken a picture of the La Poste guy who brought it to me... in case you didn't know this story, we had planned to go back to the U.S. in October to show Cambelle to our family and go to Dave's Mom's b-day party, but we couldn't get her passport. It had me really down. Before she was born, I had called and investigated all that was needed for the passport paperwork to make sure we could get it processed asap, so everything was in a folder and ready to go as soon as the baby arrived. Then the delays started.... translations, info missing on Dave's N.J. birth certificate, etc... so October fell off the radar really quick when N.J. says it will be a minimum of 5 weeks to get Dave's Birth Certificate replaced. Anyway, we finally got everything we needed to get Cambelle's Birth Certificate in early November. It took just over a week for it to finally arrived. So, we went asap to the Embassy for the passport (Dave takes vacation time for this...). It's Veteran's Day and they're closed... so we go back the next day. They say it should be to us by the end of the month, so we go ahead and book flights home based on that. But I didn't tell anyone for fear of just dissappointing everybody again. The girls and I would fly home on December 2 and Dave would come in a week later. And the passport arrived on Thursday, November 28...3 days before we leave.

December 1, we go to Neyruz, where April and John Geisheimer live... St. Nick was coming there that morning to see the kids. Apparently, St. Nick and Papa Noel are two different figures here. It was an interesting experience... Kacey and Benji were troopers cause we had to stand out in the rain and there were some scary figures with St. Nick but they filled him in on their requests and received a bag of peanuts and oranges. It was different from home... way different. But fun to see a different kind of Christmas figure that I would have never known about if I weren't living in Switzerland.

And tomorrow, December 2, with our passports in hand, we fly home. Can't wait to get Cambelle to her homeland to meet her great grandparents and the rest of our family and friends!