February 24 - Kid pictures, Birthday party, Valentine's Day

Some random pictures from some of the February outtings and events that we were involved in...

Two teddy bear babies.

Sun bathing girlies.
The ice castle or palace or something like that...Kacey enjoyed it...Dave and I were ready to leave... :-)

A frozen lake...Lake Noir or Schwarszee.

Kacey got to babysit Maggie...Maggie is Tom and Katie's friend's daughter and we kept her while they all went skiing.
Cambelle dressed up.

Here is Kacey coloring with her friend, Pierra. Pierra is a neighbor...her family is Swiss German ... her mom and dad speak English (and many other languages.) Pierra speaks German and French. When she's here without her mom, I get to practice my French, and we smile and point a lot.

At McDonald's with Charlie.

Yum, yum...I love to eat my toes.

A ski day with friends at Portes du Soleil.

Valentine's Day cake...fortunately Katie dropped by and helped or the cake may have never made it.

Kacey's friend Lucca turned 3 and she was there for the fun. Lucca's mom is from New York and his dad is Swiss German and runs his family's landscaping/flower business ... Lucca speaks three languages (1 language per year of age ...amazing) and goes to Kacey's school.

February 23, 2008 - A Song

February 2, 2008-Another snow, Charmey, a 1st for Kacey, kid pictures

It snowed this weekend. Here's a view from Kacey's bedroom.

We went to Charmey for some fun. Here's a video clip of one of our outtings there! Bode Miller ain't got nuthin' on this girlie.

So, Kacey was on skis for her first time this weekend...she loved it and wanted to 'go faster.'

Here's the gang on the ski lift.

Cambelle's first art lessons.

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.