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!

November 25, 2007 - Skiing

With the snow that came in a few days back, the mountain ski areas were active and calling our names. Scott motivated us to go skiing so he could test out his new skiis, so I agreed to help him out... Marti and Dave babysat while Scott and I skied. We all went to Verbier and the kids hung out and played in the snow while we skied...it worked out well (for me, at least... Dave and Marti might disagree.) It was rainy/snowy when we left our house and when we got to the base of the ski resort...but we took the Gondola to the top and it was clear and perfect out. Turned out to be perfect conditions.

November 24, 2007 - Thanksgiving Dinner in Switzerland

Dave had to work on Thanksgiving Day, so it felt like a normal day to us. But the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the Billington's had the American families over for a Thanksgiving meal. The Turkey's here are really small... more like an American chicken. So, we had two turkeys to feed the group. The kids decorated ... it was lots of fun. Here are pictures of the 'kid's table.'

November 15 - SNOW!

I just bought my first snow shovel ever!

It snowed here. None of us have ever lived in snow, so we were pretty excited about it.

After we realized that Dave still went to work, Kacey still goes to school, and everything still goes on like it does everyday, it lost a lot of its excitement. But it's still been entertaining...

November 12- Danny's Pizza, Halloween, Cambelle pictures, cows in our window

I'm now the proud owner of a Danny's pizza t-shirt. That had to make the blog. Danny is Marti's dad and it's worth the trip to Douglas, Georgia for some of his pizza.

I had to take my own picture since Cambelle refused to take it :-) (But, she did smile, so I wasn't too upset with her.)

Saturday, November 10, farmers put up a fence behind our house and moved 6 cows in...so we have cow bells ringing continually and lots of cows patties. It's great... they're very entertaining and the bells are soothing in a weird way...you have to hear them to understand what I mean, but there's something nice about the bells they put on the cows and sheep over here.
Here's a view of the cows from Kacey's room.

Halloween here isn't as big as it is at home, but apparently it's gaining momentum. Kacey's school had a party (the director there is Canadian and insisted on it) and our neighborhood had a party in the courtyard where kids brought and shared candy. Both parties served pumpkin soup, which was really good and nice on that cold night. We didn't do costumes though...her school made masks and she wore the halloween outfit Gram and Pop sent. We kept it simple which made me happy. She put on the the princess dress for the neighborhood party, refused to cover it with a coat (princesses don't wear coats), so she froze ...we didn't last long at it...

Cambelle is getting fat. She's got Dave's head and my body...poor child. But she's cute and she loves watching Dave and Kacey. Here's a few pictures of her doing what she does best...being cute.

And some pictures of Kacey, too...oh, and one of her and Dave on a hike we did from our house... the three river trail from our house to Marly and back... it was very nice.

Here's the cutest Cambelle picture ever... she'll occassionally do this and I never have my camera. But for this one, the stars lined up and I got it!

October 30 - Katie's b-day, kitty, Kacey's a bride

We thought we might have a cat...a black kitten showed up one day and wouldn't go away...but it's gone now. I'm glad...Kacey isn't...
Kacey got a package from Tristan, Megan, Aunt Sabrina and Scott... it had a dress-up bridal dress in it, so Kacey was a bride...

Katie had a birthday on October 30 and Kacey made her a cake.

October 28 - Moleson

We went to the Moleson, which is one of the mountains that we have the best view of from our house. The highlight was seeing a lot of paragliders take off. Definitely makes you want to do it...looks very peaceful and exhilirating. I thought they jumped off a cliff but they kind of just run down a steep grassy meadow and slowly lift off and sail away very gracefully... ...
We rode up and walked down with the kids. I was scared, but glad I did it once it was over... typical of me. The girls were very good... and we had fondue at the top which really is good in the cold weather.