Just like home...

C.J. had a soccer tournament on Saturday, so we felt right at home!

He plays on the "B" team for the middle school. His team is made up almost entirely of 6th graders. (The "A" team has 7th and 8th graders.) C.J. might be a bit shorter than some of the other players on his team, but not obviously so. His team lost all their games in the tournament. (See, we did feel right at home!) Call us crazy, but we have a suspicion that (a) the other teams were not made up of almost entirely 6th graders and (b) we're in for a growth spurt or two over the next couple years.

The good thing is that C.J. had a great time playing. His coach also moved him around, so he didn't play his normal defensive positions -- he played mid-field.

Veloplausch

Saturday, our doorbell rang. My heart did a little leap thinking it was our neighbor to complain about driveway infringement again, but instead it was other neighbors who enthusiastically said, "Hello, neighbors!!!" when we answered the door. What a smile-inducing greeting! Turns out they wanted to let us know the city was sponsoring a bike race/event for the family on Sunday and they thought we might be interested in joining them. We were!

Sunday morning, we gathered up the bikes and Lucky; then we headed UP to the fire station for the start of the event. Up is a bit of theme in this town. Everything is either up or down; there isn't a lot of flat terrain. I'm sure you've heard (read?) me complain about it before, but I'll keep complaining until I get into better shape!

The bike event was a route around the perimeter of the city on bike/walking trails. There were 6 stations where you had to stop and complete activities to earn points. At the end, you submitted your points for tallying and got coupons for food and drink at the local carnival in the town center. There was even an awards ceremony where each team got to pick a prize. We think we got 27th place or something very near the end, but the kids were thrilled to have our team name, Golden State Riders, called for a prize!

Our 6 stations were:

Station 1: Elementary school for our neighborhood. We had to search the grounds for 5 flags with questions about the school and answer multiple choice trivia questions. Some of the questions were:

• How many children attend this school?
• Are there more boys or girls?
• How many kids participate in child care?
• How many teachers are there?

Our neighbors were still with us at this point, so they translated the questions for us. Turns out they are a bit competitive, so they ran off to the next station. We think half the fun is reading the map and finding the various spots, so we were absolutely fine being left on our own. (Well, there was one area we took a little detour, but otherwise, we were absolutely fine!) Considering our limited knowledge of local Swiss schools, we were quite happy to get 8 out of 10 points. (1 point for finding each station, 1 point for each correct answer)

Station 2: The tennis club down the street from our house. First, we had to answer 5 trivia questions about tennis. Questions were: how tall (in cm) a certain player was, who the Swiss played in a big match last week, what were a players' twin sisters named, and others we don't remember. We need to brush up on our tennis trivia. We only got 1 or 2 questions correct. The scorekeeper translated the questions for us. Next up, we headed onto the clay tennis courts where the kids each had to hit a tennis over the net. Points were awarded for where the tennis ball landed -- in a hoola-hoop sized ring (3 points), in the inner square (2 points), in the larger square (1 point) or anywhere else (0 points). C.J. scored 2 points for our team.

Station 3: Somewhere in the hills. First up at this station was an obstacle course. The kids had to crawl through a long tube, then run towards a pole, going under a rope, over a tarp, and under another rope. Once they reached the pole, they had to run around it 15 times and return to the start. In 2 minutes, C.J. and Brendan completed the course and we got Abbie halfway through. From there, we went to a memory game where a bunch of objects were laid out on a tarp, and the boys were given a minute to study them and then had to say what was there. Fortunately, the memory recorder was a boy who spoke English, so he wasn't put off by the boys saying "flashlight, glow stick, compass" instead of the German equivalents.

Station 4: Still in the woods. We got a bit lost on the way to this stop, but we made it. We stopped to ask someone for directions. She said she didn't know the spot, but there were a bunch of bikers "up yonder", so we headed in the direction she pointed. We saw some other people studying a map, and found it together. First, we had to answer trivia about energy facts. Questions ranged from the optimal basement temperature to how you can save fuel driving to whether shutters make the house more efficient. The test giver helped translate the questions, and John and I scored a maximum 5 out of 5 points. Yeah! Next up, everyone but Abbie had to cut logs using a bike operated chain saw. It was harder than it looks! Abbie wanted to do it, but they deemed her too smal since she couldn't reach the petals. We did get a bit frustrated at this point, because we waited in line to complete the challenge and they kept taking everyone in front of us! We're pretty sure it had to do with our lack of German since no one spoke English. Sigh.

Station 5: Near the kids' school. This station was sponsored by the library. First event was a crossword puzzle. No amount of translating would help us come up with German words to complete the puzzle. The station owner took pity on us and just gave us 3 points. Next, 4 members of the team had to take books across a plank walk without stepping off the plank or dropping a book. The catch was that you had to take the planks with you as you went. We got 5 points here.

Station 6: School by the town center. This station was sponsored by the local preschool. First, we had trivia questions about the preschool. Fortunately, the boy running the station could once again translate for us. We got about 75% correct, which wasn't bad since we'd never been to the school! I got points for knowing where it was located, though! Then, we had to build a lego car. The trick was that John had the "model" car on one side of a curtain. The rest of us had a pile of legos on the other side of the curtain and we had to follow his commands to build the car to spec. We might need to work on our communication skills a bit, but the station leader said we did average, maybe a bit better.

The carnival at the end of the race was great. John and Abbie got some great sausages, while the boys and I had raclette that was made by the fire department. Basically, you melt cheese by an open flame or heat source and then eat the cheese with potatoes, onions, and pickles. The boys love this meal. We let the kids run around a bit by themselves, while John got an Octoberfest beer and we shared a table with a family from Canada. They were quite friendly and it was fun to get to know them! The kids are a bit bummed because the local kids get today off school, but we headed home early. No holiday for the international school kids!

We probably biked less than 10 miles total, but with all the hill work, we were wiped. Lucky tagged along with us and she is a tired puppy today. The course took about 3 hours to complete with all the stations and some wait time to start the activity. The big log jam was at the bike operated chainsaw. They really needed another chainsaw or two.

Veloplausch Slide Show

Main Floor!

Yesterday, I hosted the class coffee for Abbie's class. 10 parents came to socialize. It was a really nice way to meet some of the other mothers (and dad). As class parent, I'm expected to host two of these social events a year, either at my house or at a restaurant. I'm also encouraged to host one whenever a new family comes so that they have a chance to get connected and meet some parents. I think it's a great idea!

Abbie also had a second playdate -- a girl from Argentina. She was born in Switzerland and has lived here except for a 2 year stint to New York, which appears to be the most popular expat city. Everyone seems to have lived in New York at some point in their career. Geez. I hope I didn't just jinx myself!

I figured as long as I was having random strangers into my house, I might as well invite all my blog readers in as well. So without further delay... pictures of my main living floor.

Swiss Chalet Cassidy - Ground Floor

Two steps forward, one step back

A new electrician came this morning. He figured out the problem with the phone jack in about 5 minutes (a cut cord during the hardwood floor installation). By the time he left, we had all phone jacks working and a solution to our internet access in the attic (a device using the electrical lines). Now, our big question is whether we have to pay the electrician who spent 2+ hours doing absolutely nothing other than exposing wires throughout the house.

After the electrician left, I ventured out to the grocery store. I hit the smaller, local store as I wanted some cheddar cheese from the cheese counter. Unfortunately, I didn't get to finish my shopping. They kicked me out, as it was time for the store to close for its hour and a half lunch break. And to think I used to complain that Safeway closed it registers for 15 minutes around 11pm.

Then, I came home to find that our police clearance was rejected. I'm still not sure why we get these notices days and weeks apart. Do different departments access our file and send requests separtely? Don't they think it would be easier to identify all issues at the same time? Oh well. So, now we have to send an application into the FBI in the States. Their turnaround time is 3-4 weeks, so it could be 6-8 weeks for us with mailing time, etc. Fortunately, we can mail off authorization to use our credit card (which I hate putting in the mail!), as there is no way to get a certified check here. Checks don't exist in Switzerland. The whole thing is a bit frustrating as I knew that we might need an FBI clearance before we left, but E&Y told us if we couldn't get it done before we left (they gave us a week's notice, so it wasn't possible), then we should wait until we got here as the U.S. Embassy could do it. Guess what? The embassy just refers you back to the FBI website. Of course, of all the people surveyed, everyone else's local police department clearance was sufficient. And, not to name names, but I wanted to start the FBI process 2 weeks ago when our police report was requested, but someone told me that I should just wait and see what happened with our police report as he really thought it would be sufficient.

Still no iPhone...

Today was an exciting mail day. We got a letter from the Gemeinde, which is the city office where you register. This envelope contained 5 letters -- one for each of us -- with just a short message. I didn't even bother to type the contents into an online translator. I just knew that this was THE letter. The one that said our registration/identity cards were ready. I hopped in the car and drove the Gemeinde to pick up the cards. I drove, because I figured I could then proceed directly to the Apple store and pick up some jeans for Brendan, who grew between the time we packed our clothes and the clothes arrived. Darn kid. Must stop feeding him!

So, my smile turned a bit upside down when the nice lady at the Gemeinde office told me that it was not a message to come pick up our cards. Instead, it was a request for proof of medical insurance. What?!?! I normally wouldn't be upset by such a simple request, but besides ruining my Apple Store plans, I am amazed at how inefficient this registration process is. Here's a timeline for you:

Months ago, right after our look-see trip, we applied for our visas to live here. The firm asked a lot of questions, which we answered, and then they submitted the paperwork.

We then waited. And waited.

The week before our flight to Switzerland, we received notice that our visas were ready, so we rushed to San Francisco to pick them up at the Embassy. We were told we needed to fill out an application. Hmm. Seems a bit strange considering the letter we received told us the visas were approved and waiting for us, but being good little rule followers, we filled out the applications and signed them (while the children went wild in the waiting room). We were then told to go away and come back in a couple days to pick up the visas.

We picked up the visas. John got a nice multi-entry visa. The rest of us? Single entry.

We then arrived in Switzerland and immediately went to register so that we could get our permanent visa and our registration card. We took all the paperwork they said we needed. The nice lady at the office checked all of our paperwork. Everyone signed the forms. We were told that it could be two weeks to three months before we got registered.

We waited. We checked mail regularly. We waited some more.

We got a notice that they needed police clearance for John and I. We sent in the clearance we brought with us that they didn't want went we went to register the first time.

We waited. We checked mail regularly. We waited some more.

We got a promising looking letter today. I rushed to the Gemeinde office. We were told to provide proof of medical coverage.

Now I ask you, why couldn't they make this request when we first submitted all the paperwork? If not then, why not when they asked for police clearance?

So, now we wait some more. Hopefully, our next piece of mail will be "THE" letter. Or, it could be a request for the next missing item. We wouldn't want to ask for TWO things in the same letter, afterall. In the meantime, I can't sign a cell phone contract nor can I leave the country. Well, I can leave... I just can't legally return. Sigh.

Hiking

Brendan has his overnight field trip this Wednesday, so we figured we should break in the hiking shoes this weekend. On Saturday, we took a short 30 minute hike. Here, the gang is at the entrance to the forest, directly across from our house. This part of the passageway has a lot of loose rocks. Combined with the downhill slope, it isn't the best footing. Fortunately, the main walking trails are compacted and provide excellent stability for walking or running. (Just in case we have any runners visit.)

A few meters into the forest, we have this meadow. We're hoping that we can build some sled runs into it during the winter since our yard is flat.

A great thing about hiking in Switzerland, is that all the trails are really well marked. This sign says that it would be a 50 minute walk to Kusnaucht. It also says that it is either 15 or 20 minutes to Zumikon, which is our town. It's a 10 minute walk for us to get to the town center from our house, but we go a direct route that isn't in the trails -- it's a combination of streets and pedestrian passageways.

The kids loved running into these horses. There doesn't seem to be a farm house in sight, but there is a great barn with 3 horses living inside. You can tell someone regularly cares for the horses, because there are pots with beautiful flowers surrounding the barn.


It was at this point that we turned around the first day. We didn't want anyone to get blisters in their new shoes! On the way home, we stopped to consider these piles of wood. We had thoughts of bringing our wagon into the woods with us and loading up on firewood. (John thought a chainsaw might be in order as well.) I did some online research, and it doesn't look like you can legally haul firewood out of the forest for personal use. Whoever owns the forest, sells the wood.
On Sunday, we decided to walk to Kusnaucht, which is about an hour away and mostly downhill. Kusnaucht borders Lake Zurich. There is a local bus that runs between Kusnaucht and the center of Zumikon, so we wouldn't have to walk uphill the entire way home. You can see that this path is much more compacted and easier for hiking, walking, or running.

We love that there are even stairs carved into the trails so that you have sure footing when you get to steeper hills. And, if there are sharp drops, then they add handrails!


There are streams/rivers running along some of the trails. C.J. pointed out that if we were on the show "Man vs. Wild", we'd know how to find Lake Zurich by following the flow of the rivers. Smart kid!

Just before the end of the trail... proof that I went on the hike too!

Right after this quick photo stop, we entered the town of Kusnaucht -- exactly 50 minutes after we looked at the guidepost that said "Kusnaucht, 50 min." Actually, now that I'm typing it, I doubt the sign had the abbreviation for minutes, but we knew that it was minutes!

In Kusnaucht, we stopped for a drink at a small cafe. We ran into Brendan's friend Nicola. Then, we ran into another family from ICS. Turns out he works with John; although, John hadn't met him. I had previously met the wife, who showed up at the end of our conversation. She is from the States and he is from the UK. Abbie recognized that the daughter attended ICS. We knew they were new to the school when the daughter turned to the dad and said, " What is ICS? Is that my school?"

From there, we wandered down to the train station and checked out the bus schedule. Hmmm. Looks like we still have a bit of learning to do about Sunday operations in Switzerland. The local bus from Kusnaucht to Zumikon doesn't run on Sundays! It was time for a new game plan. Fortunately, the trains do run on Sundays, so we took the train into Zurich and went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner in Old Town. The food was quite good, but it didn't satisfy any cravings for Mexican food. Well, John did point out the tortillas and the guacamole were both fresh and tasty. The fajitas lacked any Mexican flavor, but they were delicious with lots of green onions and mushrooms. The service was horrendously slow. 30 minutes elapsed between the time the kids were served and John and I were served. The server did put together a special platter for the kids with quesadillas, mozzarella sticks, and chicken wings which were basically just fried chicken wings -- they didn't have any sauce like you'd get at home (but that was a plus for the kids!).

On the way home, we made a HUGE discovery (at least in C.J.'s mind). Globus offers mint chocolate chip ice cream! C.J. said it was even better than the ice cream at home. The Swiss love ice cream, and there is a cart/stand on every corner, but until yesterday, I hadn't found any mint chocolate chip. I'd even checked every grocery store I'd entered. C.J. had branched out a bit and tried Swiss Chocolate ice cream which he said was like a frozen, really good hot chocolate, but he missed his first love. (He only tried the Swiss Chocolate after the rest of us kept getting ice cream and he was left with nothing because he refused to get any flavor other than Mint Chip. He is slowly learning that sometimes it is good to try something new!)

John and I had actually visited Kusnaucht by car on Saturday. His bike suffered some damage during the move -- the light broke off and the gears aren't shifting. In addition, the chain snapped on our last ride. We found a great bike shop. The owner didn't speak any English but we are reasonably confident that John is getting a new chain, light, kickstand, bell, and the gears fixed. I'm sure some of you are laughing about the addition of a bell to his bike -- the owner assured us that we needed one, as it is the law in Switzlerland and John would get a ticket without one. And, we did have someone use their bell to signal us to move to the side of the trail while hiking yesterday.

The big question now is just how efficient are the Swiss? Will these trails be plowed for us in the winter?

The Good and the Bad

Unexpectedly, Abbie has had the hardest transition to Switzerland. Every other day she cries hysterically and says she misses home. She wants her teacher back. She doesn't understand why her Dad's job made him move. She misses her friends. She wants to stay when we go home for Christmas. The list goes on and on. Now, those of you who know Abbie probably realize that she can be just a bit emotional. Just because she cries about living here doesn't mean that she isn't enjoying being here. She likes her new teacher. She loves being able to dance at school. She has fun on the school bus every day. She has lots of friends. In fact, one is coming for a sleepover tomorrow night. We speculate that part of the reason Abbie is having a hard adjustment is that she wasn't given the opportunity to prepare mentally for the move. Unlike some families we've heard about over here who simply told their children they were taking a very long vacation to Switzerland (and kept that up for 2 years!), we told Abbie (and the boys) about the move. She could quote that we were moving to Switzerland and we would be here for 3 years. But, she didn't really get. Deep down, she thought we were going on vacation – we had just "seen the light" and decided to pack a bit more this time – allowing her to bring all of her toys and clothes for instance.

When Abbie gets upset, I make her play "The Good and the Bad" with me. She tells me her current complaints. Then she has to give me a list that is just as long, preferably longer, of the things she likes about living here. As an aside, the boys just roll their eyes when Abbie starts crying. I figure they either think she's crazy because they like living here, or they realize that no amount of complaining is going to make me immediately repack the house and head back to the States. Or, there's always the third option – they are so used to her whining about something that they don't pay attention to the current issue!

Today *I* had a lot of complaints about my house.

First, the kitchen sink is driving me crazy. It's the size of a large lobster pot. There isn't a lot of counter space either, so there is basically nowhere to put dirty dishes. Even though I have the counters pretty clean (by Marci Standards), they get completely covered by dishes several times a day. There is no disposal. It wouldn't be bad, but the "strainer" at the bottom of the sink (the thing that it supposed to catch the food) has big holes and allows just enough food to pass to clog up the next part of the drain. The drain isn't clogged to the point where you would need Draino, a plunger, or a plumber, but it does require digging out food with your fingers to allow the water to drain. It happens a few times a day. I'm tired of digging through gross water to unstop the sink. I'm now on the search for a better food catcher system. Of course, I need to find a hardware store first. The grocery store wouldn't possibly be big enough to carry something like that. In other kitchen complaints, the electric stovetop has two temperatures – hot and almost off. Sure, there are 10 digits on the dials, but there doesn't seem to be any differentiation between them other than having it hot enough to do a quick stir fry, or cold enough to wonder if the burner is even on. Oh, and all of our kitchen appliances came with great instruction manuals – in German, French, or Italian. I know, I know. English isn't a national language here, but I'm having a hard time even finding English versions on the internet. Now, I wouldn't normally need manuals for basic appliances like an oven, but the oven has – I kid you not – 8 different settings. And, no, they are not temperature settings – that's another dial. Best as I can figure, I can have the top heating element on, or the bottom, or both, or a convection feature, or a pizza feature… you get the picture. The only setting I can figure out is the convection oven, because in addition to the 8 setting knob and the temperature knob there's a random third knob that looks like gas oven settings. Now I need to learn to adjust all my cooking to Celsius and convection.

Then, there are the issues with the phone and internet. Our relocation consultant hired an electrician for us when we moved into the house. His job was to set up the phone, internet, and cable for us. I didn't really get why an electrician was needed. When he came, I just pointed him to the closest outlets and told him to set up the DSL there. I wrongly assumed that we would then be able to plug into any of the other phone plugs and get internet and phone service. John was not happy that internet was so far away from the TV. And, I forgot about needing internet in the attic. You see, we are using a Slingbox to get U.S. TV in Switzerland, so we do need internet access to watch TV. And the kids' TV (all 4 of them!) is in the attic playroom. So, I had the electrician come back today after we spoke to the relocation person about our needs and visited the Swisscom (think Comcast) office to get a second DSL router. The electrician arrived, and I explained that my big issue was that I needed internet and phone in the attic and I showed him the existing plugs that we couldn't get to work. He told me to use wireless. I should have known better, but I told him that I needed a wired internet connection for the TV. We didn't want the wireless to impact download speed. He explained that the TV worked from cable and it was working. Then, he gave me that big "Duh" look that all you females will recognize from whenever we dare try to discuss technical or automobile issues. All this occurred with his very limited English knowledge. For the record, the Swiss have never heard of a Slingbox, nor do they understand the concept. Anyway, we called the relocation person (my German translator) and she seemed to get him to understand. He told us we could only have one internet connection in the house and the rest needed to be wireless, unless we wanted to re-wire the house, but he thought he might be able to rig something through the electrical plugs. I'm still unsure why we have all these outlets throughout the house, but I got the strong message that I was being a demanding American. Go figure. So we moved on to the phones. Again, lots of nice outlets all over the house. Again, he suggested that I just use wireless headsets. Again, I was the demanding American who said that I wanted two wired phones – one that was a dual landline/Skype phone to be in the attic near the computer we would always leave on and the second landline/answering machine that would remain where he last installed it. Actually, I wanted the answering machine moved to the kitchen, but I was told that phones in the kitchen are not Swiss. He tried to get the outlet to work for an hour or so, but gave up and said that he'd need to come back next week. I'm still unsure why we have phone outlets all over the house and the owner left us several phones – which would lead me to believe that she had multiple phones installed at her house – but I gave up for today.

So, I figure I need to play "The Good and the Bad."

Here are some things I love about my house:

• I love all the windows. We have great views of our yard and the forest across the street. It's gorgeous. And quiet.
  
• Having four floors is great. And a playroom. Wow! The toys are in one central location and I can have a "quiet" living room to surf the web or read.
  
• We have an entrance to the kitchen which is great to reduce water and mud tracks throughout the house. The kids enter and remove their shoes.
  
• There is a passageway behind our house with a great shed for the bikes to reduce the walking/biking distance to town. There are even pedestrian/bike paths most of the walk (like greenbelts at home).
  
• The forest has walking trails. We can access them from right across the street.
  
• The laundry room is right off the kitchen. It's really convenient. Toss dinner in and switch a load of laundry, all within a few steps.
  
• The dryer vents outside and seems to run at normal temperatures – something we were told didn't exist in Switzerland. I thought I'd have to be drying all my laundry on drying racks.
  
• For the size of the kitchen, the cabinets are really well organized. I have a great cabinet just for spices. That space at home was lost with a vent. Here, the vent is still there but they put a tiny cabinet in front of it that is the depth of a spice bottle.
  
• The showerheads are all tall. John doesn't have to duck. He loves it.
  
• We have a covered section of the patio and another section that is covered with grape leaves. Gorgeous, and a great sitting/eating area.
  
• I get random gifts from garden – like the current mini baseball bat sized zucchini. Guess I should have gone looking for buried treasure earlier!
  
• We have a nuclear bomb shelter. The foot deep, concrete walls make the room perfect for wine storage.
  
• There is tons of storage in the attic, bomb shelter, piano/furnace room, and 2 car garage. I have no right to complain about the lack of closets in the master bedroom. Oops. This was supposed to be "Good" section!
  
• There's a school bus that comes to my driveway. They even have a late bus for after school sports! Oops. This was supposed to my house list… but I have to mention that school bus at every opportunity!
  
• We have flower beds between the floors on the house. I can make the house look Swiss with great geraniums or other flowers growing there. Mom, when are you visiting in the Spring???
  
• There are hardwood floors throughout the house.
  

I really do love the house and living in Switzerland, but I can see that as with any new living situation, there are going to be some differences and some frustrations.

 

 

Moving Day!

Last Wednesday, our sea shipment of 350 items arrived. I think it will take some time to finish unpacking! The movers worked for two days. On the first day, they unloaded the truck and got everything mostly into the right rooms. Before leaving, they located the beds and set them up. Then, I got to go hunting for linens. If you're thinking about moving in the future, I highly recommend that you watch where the movers pack your linens and then label the box appropriately! I had the hardest time locating mattress pads for all the beds. It would have been really nice to have all the bedding for each bed (pad, sheets, comforter, cover, pillows) in one box. Now to remember that handy tip for 3 years from now...

That pretty much completed day 1. On day 2, two movers returned to help with unpacking. They even assembled the trampoline! John assisted so it was done in no time -- thanks in part to the handy youtube video the manufacturer produced to show the assembly process. At the end of Day 2, all the furniture was in the right places, but we still have a lot of boxes to go. Some boxes, the movers emptied onto the ground. Others, they unwrapped the paper and I put the items away (china cabinet). Some I asked them not to unpack. For instance, we are still waiting for our closets from IKEA to be delivered. I didn't really want an entire walk in closet's worth of clothes tossed on our bedroom floor, so the movers left those boxes. Final assessment? The move went great. Nothing was broken. No major damage to claim. And, it'll be at least a week before I finish unpacking and finding homes for all our belongings.

Here's a slide show of pictures from the day. There aren't too many as I was madly trying to do some unpacking in the kitchen in between directing where boxes and furniture should be placed. There isn't a one-to-one room ration from our old house to this house, so I watched items come out of the crate to designate where they should go. For instance, our attic in Pleasanton was a storage area. Our attic in this house is the family room. For the most part, everything fits great in this house. The kitchen is the one problem area. As much as I tried to weed through my stuff and store some of the bigger items, it is still a challenge to fit everything into this kitchen. I still have picnic table of kitchen items outside that are seeking a home inside...

Moving Day Photo Slideshow

In between unpacking, John and I are entertaining ourselves by assembling furniture from IKEA. So far, we've done a computer desk for the desktop, two tv stands, and an armoire for Abbie. I'm also having fun hanging pictures. The walls here are a combination of plaster and concrete, so every nail is actually a screw and it needs to have a molly inserted into the wall first. There are a couple items that are a bit higher than I would have liked (need to learn that measure twice rule!) but I'm not about to move them as it would require new mollies and another round at the drill. Then, there are two holes that I couldn't drill deep enough. Turns out there is a metal plate in that wall. Who knew. Now I need to find a hardware store to patch the holes I made.

Happy 6th Birthday Abbie!

Okay, it was a week ago... but we thought Abbie should get honorable mention for her birthday last weekend! My baby turned 6. Time flies! What do I love about Abbie? She can be the most loving girl. She gives great hugs and kisses. She has an amazing smile. When she's excited about something, it just lights up the entire room. She has a great laugh. Abbie can hold her own with brothers who are 3 and 5.5 years older than her. She loves to pose for pictures. She is a social butterfly. She is very persistent, which will serve her great later in life.

In the afternoon, we checked out our local pool club. It has some great children's play areas including a big water slide. C.J. thought it would be too cold to swim, so he refused to bring a suit. Needless to say, after a few minutes of watching his brother and sister go down the slide, he decided to swim in his gym shorts. In addition to the kids' areas, there are diving boards (10M, 30M, 3M) and areas for swimming laps (50M, 100M). The pool is about a 5 minute walk from our house, so I'm sure we'll be there quite a bit in the summer. There is an indoor pool as well, but it looked like it was mostly for lap training, so we didn't drag the kids there. Oh and there is lots of grass area.

For dinner, Abbie chose our dinner location -- McDonalds. The boys were less than thrilled, but they all seemed to enjoy the french fries -- or at least I did. McDonalds fries are a definite weakness of mine. John enjoyed a beer with his meal. The McDonalds is 3 stories high; you order on the first floor and have table seating on floors 2 and 3. The kids found us a fun table on the 3rd floor.
We left McDonalds to grab some ice cream, catch the train home, and start making video calls for opening presents and birthday wishes. It was fun for Abbie to open her gifts "live" but it was hard for her to wait until people in the States woke up!

Vroom! Vroom!

We believe we are the proud owners of a new Volvo XC90 - Diesel. We have a car in our possession; however, we haven't actually given Volvo any money nor did we do anything more than hand over a copy of John's passport, our registration paperwork, and a very short leasing application (name, address, company, income, monthly rent). The car we have is a "loaner" car, but John has an appointment to pick up our car on Wednesday morning! Wow! It sure is different from BMW where we would have realistically waited another month to have a car in our possession.

So, I gave John a ride back to work from the dealership and then drove home. In the process, I managed to drive down a one-way street the wrong way, drive on the tram tracks instead of the street, and get more beeps than I've had in the history of my driving career. Okay, that last part might be an exaggeration, but clearly I have a bit of work to do on my Swiss driving skills. Oh, I did drive through a construction zone at the end of our street that is closed by day, so it was probably questionable as to whether I was supposed to be weaving past the construction vehicles.

We were debating between the BMW X5 and the Volvo XC90. I convinced John to do a "parking lot" analysis at the school's Welcome (Back) Picnic yesterday. Sure enough, the majority of cars were these two models. It gave us a great opportunity to view the cars side by side. Our walking around with glasses in hand, surveying the cars, did prompt one family to ask if everything was okay. When we explained that we were "car shopping", they laughed, gave us a tour of their XC90, and explained why they preferred it. The BMW clearly has a sleeker profile and would probably be more fun to drive, but the Volvo was substantially cheaper and has a bit more room. An adult could actually sit in the third row seats and not need chiropractic help at the end of the trip. We ended up with a "decked" out car that had been on the lot for quite awhile so they gave it to us at a big discount. It ended up being $30 a month more than the car we were leaning towards, but we got a sunroof, nicer leather, parking assist, a rear camera, a blind spot alarm, and don't tell the kids... a DVD system. We have always sworn that we would never have a car with a DVD system, but it was too hard to refuse. Maybe the kids won't notice. We'll hide the headphones!

As we were hopping into our loaner car, we did ask the question, "So, how do we pay you?" The cheerful sales assistant told us not to worry about it -- she'd give us an invoice when we picked up the car and we could just pay it when we had a chance.

Interesting that I'm still not allowed to get an iPhone and a mobile phone contract, but we can drive away with a car without having paid a cent or signed a contract. Maybe that's the key -- we didn't have to sign a contract yet!

5 Bikes and a Dog

Last weekend, we ventured out to our "permanent" house to collect accumulated mail. We figured the kids would enjoy biking around the neighborhood, so 5 Cassidys, 1 dog, and 5 bikes hopped onto the train. It was a bit crowded, but we made it. There are special train cars with open areas designed just for bikes and strollers. Lesson learned: Abbie can't pedal uphill, and she doesn't brake well on the downhill parts -- unless you consider slamming on the brakes, skidding to a sudden halt, and flying off the bike to be effective braking. She didn't seem to think it was a fun experience. Since there are only two elevations in and around Zurich -- going up or going down, we spent a lot of the bike ride actually walking. Everyone did enjoy hanging out in the yard of the new house. We had a picnic in the backyard and then wandered around town for a bit -- nothing was open since it was Sunday. We found a fun playground with a stream running through it and realized that if you keep walking uphill, you get a view of Lake Zurich.



The day before, we had tried to go car shopping. Funny thing about shopping for cars in Switzerland, both the BMW and the Volvo dealership were closed. Who knew that you could only buy a car during the work week? Actually, the Ford dealership was open, but John refuses to buy an American car in Europe. I can actually agree with his logic on that one. Jumping ahead, we did manage to make it to the BMW dealership today. We got to see the model we were interested in purchasing, and we were given a price sheet for it -- no negotiations on prices here, which is actually quite nice. We do get a corporate discount from John's company. We asked to test drive the vehicle, but we need to make a separate appointment for that. It's much different than the "What can we do to get you to drive this vehicle home today?" attitude that you get at car dealerships in the States. We can't actually talk about buying the car until we submit a leasing application. Chances are they won't approve it, because we don't have our final permit yet, but we figure it is worth a shot -- as does the dealership owner. Yes, we met with the owner of the dealership himself. After BMW, we ventured up the road to Volvo. Guess what? It isn't actually a dealership. They tried to tell us how to get to a real dealership, but we followed their directions and didn't see anything resembling a car dealership. By that time, it was almost 12, and we were told that the dealership would close for lunch from 12-2, so we just got lunch and called it a day. We're trying to talk Abbie into visiting a dealership we've heard is open tomorrow, but for some reason she doesn't want to shop for cars on her 6th birthday.

Other highlights from the week:

• Moving into our "permanent" housing
• Having the landlord bring champagne, sparkling cider, and crackers to celebrate the move
• Seeing Abbie hug the landlord and watching the landlord's face light up when she was previously very nervous about handing over the keys to the home she had lived in for 35 years
  
• Watching from the window while the school bus picked up and later dropped off the kids in the driveway
• Starting soccer practice with the school teams (C.J. and Brendan)
  
• Going to Germany for a field trip (C.J.)
• Having 2 days of team building activities -- hiking, making metals, building fires, foraging for food, etc. -- instead of regular classroom time (C.J.)
  
• Ordering groceries online -- and not having to carry liters of milk, Pepsi, apple juice, etc. home from the store
• Letting Lucky out in the yard at 11pm instead of having to take her for a walk around the block -- in the rain
  
• Unpacking, knowing the stuff wouldn't have to be moved again for a long time
  
• Walking around the house, planning where the furniture would go, making a list of immediate purchase needs -- like a "closet" (a.k.a. wardrobes) for the master bedroom
  
• Getting phone service
• Giving the kids Nutello on fresh baked breads and having them declare it far superior to peanut butter
• Getting a birthday party invitation for Brendan, knowing that he was most worried about meeting friends
• Seeing Brendan and C.J.'s look of disbelief when Abbie stated, "The worst thing about school is that there are too many recesses."
• Getting THE call that our sea shipment will be delivered next Wed-Fri!
  

The kids still seem to be adjusting well. C.J. is worried that he won't get to attend as many birthday parties as he did at home. Brendan is worried that his school soccer team is too small, they'll play the same kids every week, and he'll never get to travel. Abbie can't decide which present she'll open first tomorrow morning -- they're all just "too beautiful" and look "soooo special!" Oh, and she's a little worried that her mom won't figure out how to bring a birthday treat to the class on Monday. Apparently, she's had a few conversations with her teacher about it.

Not enough pictures in this post? Here's link to some photos from the outing: 5 bikes and a dog pictures