Slackers R Us

We have been slacking off here. Kim has been doing the Facebook thing for most of the updates and I have just been a big slacker. My New Years resolution is to do at least one post a week.

We are preparing for the holidays and getting ready for our ski trip. Izzi and Xavier have their equipment and Kim and I are just going to rent when we get there. I will try snowboarding and Kim is going with skis at this point.

I figure our next update will probably include a run down of how Swiss medical system works. I'll be amazed if we come out of this trip without at least one injury.

Winter Is Here

Isabella and Xavier returned to school after their 3-week fall break. Along with school also came winter weather...the temperatures have been hovering around 30 degrees for more than a week. (These are the temperatures we experienced when we arrive in February!)

A couple quotes from the children:

Isabella to Xavier, "I'll stop tickling you if you let me kiss your foot!"

Xavier to all of us, "If winter is here, then my birthday must be coming really soon!"

Back to Kandersteg

todd+xavier on a huge rock

me on the same big rock

xavier on a small rock

resting on a bench

The road to the lake

kim in front of the lake

a lot of fog

Izzi

August and September: Photos

Life as actually seemed busy here the last 6 weeks or so, thus the lack of posts from me. I thought I'd share some photos, and hopefully get back to more regular updates.

Photos below are from rasberry picking at a small farm near our place, a picnic led by Isabella, and finally our first Young Boys game (Bern's beloved soccer team).

Day Trip

Izzi and I did a hike last weekend. We went to Oeschinensee, mountain lake about a hour train ride from here. We hiked from the town of Kandersteg up the mountain (about 1500 vertical feet from the town). the place really was beautiful, the lake is COLD, filled mostly by glacial run off, and up to 180 ft deep. It is probably just a little smaller than Lake Calhoun.




Izzi under one of the waterfalls that feed the lake. We had to do some mountaineering to get here. It was good that Kim wasn't with us, she would have freaked. We had to walk along a ledge maybe 18 inches wide with a cable strung up to hang on to. Izzi couldn't reach the cable all the time. If we would have fallen, it would have been a 25 foot drop into the ice cold water.




On the way down we took the gondola, but first we discovered the Alpine Slide. You can tell from Izzi's face what she thought of it.

The Elusive Swiss Octopus

We had a plumbing fiasco in our apartment. Actually it was the apartment above us, but we were heavily impacted by it. About three weeks ago, it was discovered the pipe above us was leaking. Two holes were ripped in our bathroom to find and repair the leak. After that, the wall or our bedroom was ripped out and these dryers were brought in to dry out all the water in the floor and walls. We have had no use of our bedroom for about three weeks (a few more to go). we now get the joy of dickering with our landlord about getting compensation for the limited use of the apartment and general pain in the butt it caused.

The broken arm

The magoo is still on recovery. The docs didn't put him in a cast. The break is right on the ball of the big bone of the upper arm. I guess that a cast doesn't really help that much and the big thing is to keep the arm from going straight.

He had several rough nights since he typically sleeps on his left side or stomach. Since the phot he has been back to the doc and had the sling readjusted so it is bent up even more. He wears his shirts with his arm tucked under. For the most part he is doing pretty well. He goes back to the doc October 6, hopefulkly everything goes fine.

the below picture doesn't show the bruise as bad as it really was.