Hoogeveen Vacation - June 8 & 9

Carsten, Mom, and I took a break from traveling on June 8 to do laundry and prepare for our weekend trip since Andy mentioned he may be able to take the day off on June 9 (Thursday) and travel with us. Ashley, Dad, and Luke went to the Swiss History Museum in Zurich for the afternoon, and I think they had fun :).

Andy was able to take Thursday off (thanks for getting all your work done Andy!), so we all went to Bern, which is the capitol of Switzerland. Once we got ourselves oriented (thanks Dad and Andy!), we started walking in the old town, which is characterized by cute old buildings, fountains (which you can drink out of), a famous clock, bears (Bern!), a beautiful old church, and a river which meanders around the town.

This is the famous clock. Also, Einstein lived around this street and I think this clock holds special significant to Einstein's work. We also got to see it go, although the glockenspiel in Munich is much better :).

This is the most famous fountain: 'The ogre eating a baby'. Don't really know why...

Most of us with the river. Luke had bridge envy.

 Bern means bear. So naturally, there must be bears in the city. When I was here in 2003, the bears were in a small pit, which seemed a pitiful... They made them new enclosures which overlook the river. We got to see twin cubs play fighting, which was fun :).

eating lunch by the bears :).

This is the beautiful church which would have been even better if they weren't working on the tower.

We decided that we needed some culture so we went to the Paul Klee museum. This turned out to be quite a dud, with the major attraction being the building it's housed in (which we could have seen for free :) ). Maybe art + us is just not a good combination.

Next we went to the rose garden, which overlooked the old town and had BEAUTIFUL roses. The only sad part was that it was slightly rainy and overcast, so the pictures don't quite show what we were seeing. We spent quite a bit of time here and took a lot of photos.... :)

Happy 30th Anniversary trip Mom and Dad!

notice my 'fizzle fountain'.

Andy is much better at this than the rest of us, especially me :).

Carsten got to ride in his new Kanga Kid (by Deuter) backpack. He did really well, and we think that the most useless thing to bring on this trip (at this stage in his life) is the stroller. He really doesn't sit well in it and for the most part, never naps in it, unlike most other children we see. So having other ways to carry him is essential. 

After the rose garden we walked back up through the rest of the old town, got some pastries, and then made our way to the main government building (pictured below). It's amazingly old (1291) and pretty. We were hoping to get to go in, but it wasn't open to the public on that day, so maybe next time we are there :).

We had a great day with everyone and it was a good start to our weekend vacation :). I just had to post a couple photos of Andy playing with Carsten on the train ride back home... :)

we may have had some fun with his hair... :)

Carsten's 9 month appointment

We had Carsten's 9 month appointment today. I think the highlight of this appointment for me was no shots. Our doctor seemed very impressed with what Carsten can do these days (sit-up, crawl, pull to standing, cruising along furniture, walk with some assistance from me, feed himself cheerios, and clap). Carsten weighs 9.93 kg (21.9 lbs), and is 74 cm (29 inches) tall. Both of these statistics put him in the 75th percentile, which means he's well-proportioned. So, great job Carsten!

I just realized two things, so I'm going to add them into the post. First, his teeth have had a strange pattern of coming in. The bottom left tooth (if your perspective is Carsten) came in first, then the top left, then the bottom right, and his top right tooth just made an appearance. So they didn't really come in pairs in the normal way for babies. Second, Carsten has reached the limit of his carseat that we've had for him since he was an infant (22 lbs, 30 inches). This is sad because we can no longer take him in our community car (not that we use it that much anyway). We're going to wait to buy another car seat until we can get one in the US this October. As far as I can tell, all children are forward facing here after 9 months of age, so if we bought a carseat here, it would not comply with US standards. Who would have thought buying a carseat would be so complicated? 

Hoogeveen Vacation - June 7

Once again, Andy needed to work, so unfortunately, he had to miss this day. The rest of us rode several trains (~2 hrs) to get to the Rhein Falls in Northeastern Switzerland. The Rhein Falls are the largest falls in Europe, and while it is smaller than Niagara, it was still quite impressive and the blue/green water was amazing :). Here's some photos of the Rhein Falls:

Just beautiful.

We got to walk right next to the falls from our viewing area. You could also pay to take a boat (we didn't!) to the rock with the flag on it to view the falls.

Us at the Rhein Falls! :)

Castle on top of the Rhein Falls (museum is not worth going in).

Carsten riding the carousel horse!

After we ate lunch by the castle, we headed out to Stein am Rhein (try saying that 5 times fast!), which was reported to be a picturesque old Swiss town. We were not disappointed by the reviews as it was quaint and beautiful. We loved the shops, and there was a cool museum which had a replica of an old household (servants quarters, barn, and all).

Stein am Rhein

Family with the frescos.

Dad found a chocolate shop. We discovered the Dad has a weakness for truffles.... :)

Carsten: 'That's hilarious!'

'Don't you think so too, Auntie Ashley?'

Mom working the old school plow.

Carsten loved the chickens in the museum (he's actually looking at them and not the camera).

A familiar sight on the train was part of the crew sleeping. I will say that I was the only one who did NOT fall asleep on the train, and in fact, at one point there were 4 out of the 6 of us sleeping, so it's a good thing I was navigating the train stops :).

Mom sleeping.

Luke sleeping. :)

After a successful day of traveling, we headed back to Egg, made dinner, and played cards with Andy. Overall, I think this was one of my favorite days as I loved the falls, town, and company :). What fun!

Hoogeveen Vacation - June 6

I should preface this vacation section by saying that my family takes our vacations very seriously in the sense that we see everything we possibly can and then spend family time together when traveling and/or 'resting' at home. So, there is a lot to describe about the last two weeks, in fact, more than I'll be able to blog about, but rest assured, we had fun and it was a great way to celebrate my parents' 30th anniversary.

The first day saw Andy off to work, and since it took everyone a while to get rolling thanks to jet-lag, we took it easy the first morning and made our way into Zurich for lunch with Andy at his building. It was a beautiful day and we got to eat on the roof terrace, which was on the 4th floor or so. After we ate we all went down and saw Andy's lab where he was trapping a particle. For the grand finally of Andy's building, we went up onto the roof (13 stories up) where we got an excellent view of the city. Here's some photos of everyone on the roof:

It wouldn't be a Hoogeveen vacation without Dad running the camcorder :).

The men.

The women.

We let Andy go back to work, and we went to downtown Zurich via the Polybahn:

Once in downtown, we wandered around and viewed the 3 downtown churches. Afterwards, we took a 1.5 hr ferry ride around the lake, which was a bit cool, but still fun! Here's some photos:

Mom and Carsten :)

Dad, Ashley, and Luke with the Grossmunster church in Zurich.

Dad and Luke on the lake cruise. 

My beautiful sister :).

We could make a large list of all the places we have photos of Carsten sleeping.

After the lake cruise we stopped at the iconic Zurich chocolate shop, Sprungli, where we got fresh truffles and Luxembergerli, which are apparently famous macaroons in Zurich. They are pretty good, which chocolate being my favorite of course :).

Luxembergerli

Well, that wraps up day 1 of the Hoogeveen adventures! I'll try to keep the posts coming :).

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to the fathers in my life: Andy, my dad, my two grandpas, and my father-in-law. They are all amazing men, and they deserve to be recognized for their positive influence in their children's lives. So, thank you! I wanted to post a picture of Carsten with each of these amazing men in honor of this special day:

Andy's first Father's Day!

Grandpa Hoogeveen!

Grandpa Huisman!

Great-Grandpa (and -Grandma) Hoogeveen!

Great-Grandpa (and -Grandma) Ranschau!

Thanks for all you've done in our lives and all that I know you will continue to do. We love you all!

Hoogeveens in Switzerland!

They're here! Ok, so my family has been here for quite some time and will actually be leaving far too soon for my taste, but we've been staying so busy that I haven't been able to post. Dad, Mom, Luke, and Ashley all arrived on the same plane (woot!) on Sunday, June 5. We got them Swiss passes (unlimited Swiss travel with some free museums), upgraded my train ticket to unlimited travel, and then headed back to Egg to move them into our flat for nearly 2 weeks. Everyone was understandably tired, so instead of letting them sleep we took everyone on a 3 mile hike around the countryside of Egg. We could see the mountains quite well, which was pretty fun. However, while Carsten started off doing well in his hiking backpack, he decided about halfway through that he was done. So we took turns carrying the empty backpack and the grumpy Carsten (he pretty much missed his morning nap and his afternoon nap was messed up too due to a late arrival of the plane - so it was understandable that he was cranky). Here's a photo of everyone minus Andy (thanks for taking the photo Andy!) with the Egg sign: