All Aboard!!

May 31 - Well the time has finally come for us to head to the airport with all our luggage, 10 bags in total!  We were all allowed 2 bags each up to 70lbs each and I used every bag and filled it to the max as I was packing.  We just hope it fits in the rental car when we get to Europe!  We had to take 2 cars just to get everyone and there luggage to the airport.  The kids are very excited, especially Aaron who has been asking and waiting for the plane to go to Switzerland.  Nicki Johnson was going to France for the last 2 weeks in June and we finally found a way for her to come visit us by flying over with us.  She was a huge help with translating and furniture building : )

Nicki and the girls pose for a pic with all our luggage!

June 1 - Flying through Amsterdam was uneventful and we made it to Geneva and waited for over an hour for Randy to pick up the rental car and make his way to load up all the luggage.  Nicki and I took the kids and headed for the train while Randy drove all our luggage to the apartment.  Yes, all the luggage fit in the rental car!!  Kids slept between 3-4 hours on the flight over and the excitement kept them going, but that was short lived.  Aaron gave in and fell asleep during our 2 block walk to our hotel from the metro and there was no waking him up!  He eventually woke up at what I thought was 4am only to realize later that was 4pm back home so 11pm in Lausanne.  For the next 4-5 hours all we heard was, I'm hungry every 15 minutes.  It was a long night, but finally everyone fell back to sleep until 10ish : )

June 2 - The next day was a holiday in Switzerland so we spent the day at the apartment unpacking our luggage in preparation for the movers and headed to the park.  That night went much better and we were pretty much all adjusted to the new time, thank goodness!

Sydney and Aaron on the bus on the way to the apartment

June 3-4 - It is moving day and we are all curious how they are going to get our stuff to our apartment.  There is quite the incline to our apartment not to mention the steps to get to our front door and to the main level of our apartment.  Nicki came with to translate in case none of them knew English.  Well, that didn't work out so well initially as the driver and first to arrive only knew German!!  Fortunately when the rest of the crew arrived they all spoke French and one of them spoke English, whew!  They used a small truck to take stuff from our sea container parked at the street up to the house and then they carried it up from there.  Fortunately it was a beautiful, cool day since they had their work cut out for them.  The movers dreaded when Nicki would tell them a number above 5 since that meant they had to go to the top level for the storage and girls' room, which was another set of stairs after the main floor of the apartment. I will post pictures from inside when we get settled.

Here is the view from our street.  Our house is the pink one at top of hill.

Another picture from the white gate seen in previous picture.   Our family room is the second window above the white doors.

This was our view in the morning after spending our first night in the apartment!

June 5 - Enough unpacking, time to get out and see the place a little!  We decided to head east along the lake towards Vevey.  This is where Nestle is headquartered right along the lake, but Randy will be working in the CPW (Cereal Partners Worldwide) office in Prilly/Malley, which is less than 1/2 mile from our apartment.    CPW is a partnership between General Mills and Nestle.  Vevey was absolutely beautiful and there were a lot of people out and about.  There were even people taking a swim in a little wading pool, which started the kids first lesson of living in Europe - swim tops are optional for small girls!  Sydney could not believe it and that is usually the first thing she shares when she talks to someone back home.  Kids enjoyed some ice cream and then it was time to head back home.  We ended up taking the motorway home since Sydney was getting car sick on the drive over.  I think I will need to have a stash of bags and motion sickness pills in the car!  The kids got the biggest kick out of all the tunnels and everytime Aaron would see one his face would like up and he would yell tunnel!

Quick stop for a family picture.

Nicki, Sydney, and Aaron walking along the lake.

Looking back up the hillside at all the vineyards.

Kids enjoying some ice cream before heading back home.

Week of June 6...

• Randy and I made a trip to IKEA to get wardrobes so we could actually start putting our stuff away.  There are no closets here and we are fortunate that we even have a couple, but not enough for all of us.  Nicki became the IKEA queen putting all the wardrobes together, she was a life saver!!
• While Randy and I went to get registered and permanent visas going, Nicki headed to the grocery store from a few items so we could make meals until I went a couple days later.  There is a story here...  I was going to make spaghetti and since meat is expensive I had her see if Italian sausage would be more reasonable, I won't say cheap because nothing is cheap here.  She was successful, or so we thought!  As I was cooking this, it had a very interesting smell so I asked her if it was horse meat and she said no, it is cow.  So we tasted added a lot of salt and pepper to hopefully improve the taste.  That was not a success and so she looked a little more closely at the ingredients and asked me if I really wanted to know what it was.  I was thinking horse all along since the interesting smell was that of a BARN and they eat a lot horse here.  Of course I did, so she informed me it was cow stomach, YUCK!!!  I ended up straining out the sauce to try to save some of the meal and fortunately the kids ate it without any fuss.  Nicki and I had a harder time eating it and we are chalking it up to the smell!!
• Our mission of one day was to get internet up and running, it had been over a week since we had internet and Nicki and I were both desperate!  We finally got everything hooked up and were crossing our fingers that we had the right transformer and plugs because I didn't want to be responsible for frying our Mac.  One step down, computer is up and running, now on to getting our wireless modem connected to internet modem.  Well that step didn't take to long as we learned our wireless modem from the US wouldn't work and we would need to swap our internet modem for a wireless internet modem.  I give Swisscom a call to see how we do that and if the store down the streets carries them.  We are in luck, they have one left so we pack up the kids and walk a good 2 blocks down the hill in the rain to get a wireless modem.  We anxiously await our number while trying to keep the noise level of the kids to a minimum, yes we are the obnoxious americans!!  It is finally our turn and he does not know any english so Nicki does her best.  We get the modem, but all my credit and debit cards are rejected, ?@#@?%!!  We thought he said 249 and all I had was 220, so we tried getting cash, which didn't work either.  I give Randy a call and he said American Express should work, so we head back and give it a shot.  Good old American Express came to the rescue : )  So I look at the receipt on the way out and realize we were only charged 149, there was obviously a communication gap here!!!  Two hours later and with wireless internet modem in hand we walk back up the hill with all 3 kids in the rain, but mission accomplished and we have internet!!!!
• Headed to grocery store for the first time with another very kind expat, Sarah.  She took me to Alligro which is similar to Sam's back home.  You have to insert a 2Fr coin to use a cart and get it back when it is returned and hooked back up with the rest of the carts, saves on overhead I am sure!  Another interesting fact is you have to weigh all fruits and vegetables yourself and place a sticker with the price on it, which makes check out more efficient.  Walked out of there with a lot of goodies and snacks for the kids and some ground beef that happened to be on sale!  I made tacos that week, which was a hit!!
• With permanent visa papers in hand, it is off to the bank.  The bank was a massive lobby made of granite and only a reception desk.  From there, we were taken into a conference room and offered water while we waited for our banker, it was very formal.  When she entered she informed me that the account would be in Randy's name only since I am not working, but I would have power of attorney.  Outside of a couple signatures, I am not sure I was even there since the conversation was pretty much between Randy and the banker!  Fun fact - Switzerland did not allow women to vote until 1971.
• Our neighbors that live below us are very nice and have 4 children.  The two older boys are teenagers and then a 9 year old girl and 2 year old boy.  We hope to get to know them more once we learn a little more French.
• I finally drove later in the week after we swapped out our manual for an automatic.  I has been over 20 years since I have driven a manual and I wasn't going to start now since I haven't driven in Switzerland and not to mention we live in a mountain so it is quite hilly!  Nicki, the kids, and I headed out for an iron and a trip to IKEA.  I was on a mission to get a top notch iron so we didn't have to dry clean here since a pair of pants can cost 16Fr to clean.  Randy was second guessing my decision to buy an iron for at least 200Fr when an iron less than 100Fr would work just as well.  Well,  I (or should I say the iron) showed him!!  He was amazed at how well it ironed and was like a kid in a candy store ironing his clothes!!  At IKEA we ended up grabbing lunch at their restaurant and my little monkey Aaron was hanging on everything, even the cart that was holding our trays of food!  Those darn Americans can't take their kids anywhere!!!  Fortunately we only lost the silverware and a few fries sine the food was on the other side.  The cashier spoke little english and with all the chaos I not only purchased water with gas (carbonated), but apple juice too, sorry kids : )
• That Friday Aaron got sick with a stomach bug, which he is still fighting a little.  I am sure it has to do with all the new food.  Between this and another IKEA delivery, Nicki and I weren't able to get to France on Saturday to go skating with Sydney, bummer!!
• Nicki took the girls to the Olympic Museum on Friday while I stayed home with Aaron.  They seemed to enjoyed themselves and informed me there were inappropriate statues.  They were very impressed by the medal room, which housed all the medals since the Olympics began.

June 11 - Another IKEA delivery for remaining wardrobes, couch, chair, and kitchen table!!  After lunch we headed to the market, or what we thought was the market.  We were only at a small part and saw the larger market riding the bus on the way home, we will try again next time.  Time to load everyone up and head to Beaune, France so Nicki can join her class for the rest of her stay in Europe.  We took small roads through the mountains, which didn't agree with Sydney so she spent most of the drive with a bag : (  After a few missed turns, we finally made it to the hotel where Nicki would be staying.  We said our goodbyes and walked around the city before heading back home with plans of getting McDonalds for dinner.  We saw one as we were exiting the toll road and thought it might be a good time for a little "American" food.  Well we took the wrong turn and drove by it and there are not a lot of exits along the motorway, the next one was over 20 miles, which happened to have a McDonalds, but not conveniently located of the exit.  We had to drive into town and manage our way knowing little French.  We finally got our food, but were missing part of it and didn't even want to try to get it fixed!!

June 13 - Another Switzerland holiday so spent a few hours unpacking before heading over to Randy's bosses house for a BBQ.  We also walked down to the Pully park where Aaron loved riding on the train and playing at the playground.  Hailey met a little girl who only knew French and it was fun to watch them communicate with the language barrier.  When things were too difficult, they would go over to her Grandpa who knew some English.

Kids riding the train at the Pully park

June 14 - The girls' went to the new school for the day so it wouldn't be so new when they start in the fall.  They are going to College Champittet, which is a private Swiss school where the primary language is French and they teach English everyday.  Sydney informed me that at least there is one class where she will know everything!  They both seemed to enjoy the day and Sydney wanted to go back the next day.  There were several kids saying good bye to her when I picked her up so I would say it was a success for her.  Hailey had to go with her teacher to drop kids off at the bus so I didn't see her coming out, but I am sure she made friends as well since she makes friends whenever we go to a park.  Randy and I were both so excited to hear about there day and all they would say is it was good!!  Sydney did say they use a fork and knife at lunch and they are served, so I did get a little more out of her.  CPW also arranged a free viewing of Kung Fu Panda 2 in English, so we all enjoyed a night at the movie theater!!  It was a busy Tuesday and everyone was very tired when we got home : )