Easter

April 24th, 2011

Each year we take turns being in charge of Easter baskets. This year it was Curt's turn. He did a great job. Probably one of his best discoveries were Toffifees. They're incredibly addictive.

I don't really have many photos of Easter, but the chocolate bunny he got merited a place on the blog.

It is a dark chocolate bunny. When we showed it to Grandma Maw on Skype, her first words were, "Make sure you start at the ears!" I thought it was hilarious.

Over Easter weekend, we enjoyed excellent weather. We went to the park a few times to read. The parks here are gorgeous. This is Parc la Grange. It lies on the street by the lake and is 400m from our door.

Hiking The Saleve

April 9th, 2011

Le Saleve

Our ward had a Saturday morning Elders' Quorum activity. We rode the bus to the end of the line and walked across the French border to the trail head. Only three of us made the hike (everyone else drove or rode the tram). John Richardson was our guide. John was interning for a few months here in Geneva. Coincidentally enough, Curt served with him in the Elders' Quorum back when we lived in Provo. It was fun to have him here--what a small world.

A view from the top. Note Geneva in the background--you can see the Jet d'Eau (fountain).

Following John

The Grand Gorge

I'm 12 weeks pregnant here. I think I ate 2 sandwiches on the way up. Later when John found out we were expecting he said, "No wonder..."

They had an amazing gizmo at the top. I don't know exactly what to call it. It had about 30(?) knobs. Each one served a specific function to get the balls to travel around the track.

Ketchup Time

I was looking at our blog...the last time I regularly posted was March. It's August now (in case you didn't know either). I've vowed to catch up! Here go some posts!!!!

Happy 4th of July!

Nothing like spending the 4th of July in the good ol' USA.
We had a wonderful time at my mom's with ALL of my family. There are 13 adults and 13 grandkids. It makes for quite the party. Our baby will be grandchild #14 - making 7 girls and 7 boys.

We ate (too much) great food and played fun games. Greg was our pyro for the firework show.

Thanks for the great photos, Kristin!

Good Morning!!!

Today has been AWESOME - and it's not even 7:30am (CET) yet. I am so happy right now that I don't know what to do. I wanted to tell the whole world how great this morning was. I think it is a culmination of a lot of things. Lately I have just been tired and over stressed with work and other things in life. I feel like I haven't had a minute to sit down, like I was at a breaking point. This morning was, I think, just what I needed.

It sort of started last night. I got home from Milan (work trip) just before midnight. Before going to bed we talked to Curt's cousin Justin. We love that kid so much! He is leaving today to the MTC and will be a missionary in the San Fernando, CA mission. To add to the evening's excitement, Curt was amazing and worked so hard while I was gone. He cleaned the entire apartment--and not just that--he also went downstairs and completely organized our cave (that is the storage unit we have in the basement of our apartment building). I don't know how he did so much after a full day of work and a bike ride. What an amazing husband. I always knew I was lucky.

I woke up at 6:30. This may seem normal...but it has become extremely unusual for me. I used to be an early bird, that is, before I was pregnant. Now I try to sleep in as late as I can. I generally sleep in until at least 7:30 on work days, and whenever my body wakes up on weekends. Pregnancy has made me love (and need) my beauty rest.

I woke up so early so I could FaceTime with my mom and sister (Kristin). They have been traveling around Europe since the first week in June and we haven't been able to talk. This morning they are in Switzerland! They are in Lugano and are heading to Lucerne. Next they go to Paris and on Saturday--they will be HERE! I can't wait to have a few days with them. I love my family so much and have been away far too long. It's been 50 weeks since I was 'home' in Utah. Mom and Kristin are doing well and seeing the world. It was so great to talk to them. I love technology!

After I talked with them I tried to go back to bed, with no success. I decided to just check my email. More good news was on the way. First I saw we got our Olympic Tickets! We are going to the Men's Soccer: Men's Gold Medal Match, Men's Victory Ceremony and men's volleyball: Men's Bronze Medal Match, Men's Gold Medal Match, Men's Victory Ceremony. Wow we sure lucked out! Something that was SO relieving was the timing. I had requested tickets in 2 separate blocks of days so we could make a trip out of it. Some were the 1st week of the olympics and the others were in the later week of the olympics. Fortunately the lottery worked out in our favor and we're seeing events 1 day apart. We'll have a fabulous time in London (with the rest of the world).

The next email I read was from a woman I love and respect. Her name is Janaina and she lives in Novo Friburgo, Brasil. I had the great privilege of teaching her when I was a missionary in the Rio de Janeiro North mission. She is a kind, loving and incredible woman. I had two email addresses for her, but despite my efforts had lost contact with her. The last time I saw her was when my mom and I visited Brasil in July 2008, right before Curt and I got married. We visited Janaina at her home and it was awesome. I can't describe the joy her email brought me. I am excited to continue to communicate with her. It gives me hope that I'll be able to speak with more of the people in Brasil I met and love. I've been able to stay in contact with Edmar and her family from Terra Vermelha, Espirito Santo and that has likewise been a great blessing.

So this morning was a tender mercy. I think I needed something to keep the sun in my sky and help me get through a week of work before vacation. Then I can see my family in Utah and recharge my batteries. Happy Wednesday! This is why Wednesday is my favorite day of the work week. It never fails me.

Little Swiss Miss

This post is dedicated to Grandma Maw :) We love her to pieces. She is celebrating her 90th birthday this summer and we are SO happy we'll be in Utah to celebrate with her and the rest of the family.

She wrote me a quick email about our new "Swiss Miss" after she learned we were having a little girl. Too bad I wasn't creative and failed to think of that before. It is especially fitting because I LOVE Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate. It makes me think of family vacations growing up--like camping and going to Snowbird. Sometimes we even got Swiss Miss with marshmallows.

London 2012!!

Back in March I submitted our London 2012 ticket application. Since we are residents of one of the 'selected European countries,' we were able to apply directly for tickets online.

It felt like a gamble because you select which session (not just sport, but the exact session) you'd like to attend and which price range(s) you'd be willing to buy. I didn't want to choose too few because then we'd have a lower chance...but I didn't want to choose too many because then we could end up spending thousands of pounds on tickets. I was pretty sure we could sell them easily if we got too many...but you never know, and selling can be a headache. Well, with the events I chose, the most we would have paid was just over 2000GBP.

I got an email at the beginning of May saying sometime between then and June 24th 'money will be deducted from your account if you were awarded tickets.' So the good news? They deducted 282 GBP out of our account! YAY! I was glad it wasn't just 100GBP...and a little happy in some senses it wasn't 2000GBP.

We haven't received the letter confirmation notifying us to which sessions the tickets were awarded, but I would be happy to go to ANY I chose. Here are the ones I applied for. You can try to guess which we'll get:

Opening Ceremonies - only one session :)
Swimming - session with medley and I think 4x100 relay medal rounds and men's/women's sprint medal rounds
Gymnastics - session with some men's and women's medal rounds, can't remember which
Basketball - men's, either the gold or bronze medal session
Soccer - men's, either the gold or bronze medal session
Beach Volleyball - men's, either the gold or bronze medal session

Let the games begin!!!!