Egg

Egg is located on a hill, and means 'edge' in the local dialect. We took a walk on Sunday and learned that we're on the outskirts of Egg (about 2 blocks and you're in the country!), so we live in the Egg of Egg or the Shell of Egg if you will :). It's a pretty town with lots of residential areas, which is a nice way of saying there's not a whole lot going on, and this is fine with us for the most part. We have easy access to several grocery stores and it has a general store (houseware items), which is most of what we need. However, we have not found any clothing or children stores, so we'll likely have to shop outside of Egg for those items. The train runs right through the center of town, which is where all the grocery and other stores are located as well (about 4 blocks away). There's also a couple of restaurants, one downtown (it's good!) and one at the end of our street (less than 1 block away!), which we're looking forward to trying. I don't have any pictures of the downtown area yet, so these are just from the pictures of our walk out of town.

Egg! This is the pretty downtown church, which we can see from our house as well.

View of Egg from the hill we were on. You can also see the valley below.

Our street! Quaint, right? :)

Restaurant at the end of our street.

Except for the style of the buildings, the farms look similar to home :) 

The farmhouses were mostly HUGE, and a lot of them had the barns attached, like this one.

The Alps! We're going to get our camera fixed sometime soon - sorry about the spot!

Carsten slept the whole walk. Don't worry, he was toasty ;).

New things we've learned:

- toilet paper has rectangular sections, not square

- microwaves are also tiny

- all appliances are terribly expensive (a cordless phone was ~60 franks and that was the absolute cheapest phone)

- our laundry area downstairs has clothesline all through the room (installed), which is really nice

- our phonejacks are old by even Swiss standards and almost no one sells adapters anymore:

Phone jack is the top 4 holes, then 2 cable outlets, and then three Swiss outlets on the bottom.

- train passes of any kind are expensive. Just to get into Zurich (45 min ride) is 10 franks each way. Fortunately, Andy gets a 1/2 off pass from the university, but even a monthly pass is still expensive. But hey, at least we don't have to drive the roundabouts :).
- Milk comes in a box (2 L max) and the lowest milk fat we can find is 1.5 %. They call it 'milk drink' once the fat has been reduced. Also, the boxes don't need to be refrigerated until opened because they are ultra-pasteurized, which is weird! 
- Orange juice that isn't from concentrate is only 50% juice; I find this strange and not at all tasty.
- You have to label your produce at the market (i.e., weigh them out and put a correct price sticker on them). This is difficult to remember and if you have a fussy baby, not at all fun.

Our Flat

We're finally starting to get our flat in order, so it's time to post pictures of where we live!

We took over our flat from one of Andy's co-workers, who also very generously sold us most of his furniture (couch, dining room table & chairs, dresser, wardrobe, and tv stand). This meant that we walked into a mostly furnished place and all we needed was a bed, shelves, dishes, and furniture for Carsten. And it also meant that we could sleep on the couches instead of the floor when we arrived :).

Ok, here we go!

-We live on the third floor of a four-story building, so when you open our door, to the left is our living area and to our right is a little nook where we're putting some shelves and the hallway to the bedrooms and bathroom is there as well. We should note that if you like anything in our flat, you can most likely find it at Ikea :). Oh, I should mention that we aren't done putting Carsten's bedroom together, so once we get there (by the end of the week), we'll post pictures of his room.

Living room (you can see the dining room off to the right and the patio as well)

Carsten's play area

Living Room

Dining Room

Kitchen

The other side of the kitchen has some nice cabinets and a broom closet. Also, the door at the end goes to the hallway with the bathroom and bedrooms, which is nice.

Hey, we found the fridge! (freezer is tiny cabinet below)

Our new bed! We were sooo excited when this came :)

Our wardrobe! Now all we need is a lion and a witch...

Bathroom!

The only closet.

Our light fixtures will eventually be here...

Carsten 4.5 months :)

Well, here's the update I know everyone has REALLY been waiting for: Carsten!

Playing: He's been changing a lot lately, not in looks, but in what he's able to do. Around New Year's (4 months) he started intentionally grabbing toys when you held them in front of him, and then actually played with them! Before then, he mostly just grabbed them and whacked himself in the face (poor guy!). So it's becoming more and more fun to play with him, which is nice. About 2 days ago, he also started grabbing his foot, which is pretty cute, and he also started chewing on his lips, which is not so cute (hopefully he grows out of that!).

Carsten chewing his lips

Physical Prowess: This kid is strong! He's been standing in our laps (with little assistance) since about 2 months of age, and this skill only gets better and better. When he's standing he also likes to lift his feet up, one at a time, which is a skill that was practiced a lot at my parents house - thanks Mom! He also seems to really enjoy standing and being upright, which could mean that we will have an early walker on our hands, so we probably better babyproof soon :). Carsten has rolled a couple of times from front to back (both directions), but in general, he doesn't seem very interested in rolling. Sitting up on the other hand, is something he's trying VERY hard to master. He spends a lot of time on his playmat grunting while he tried very hard to sit up (he ends up in a V position that most yoga folks would be proud of!). This means that he hasn't been as happy in the playmat because inevitably, he ends up tired and frustrated that he can't sit up. So usually we give in after a while and prop him up on pillows on the couch or the bed while we do other things (nearby things of course).

Carsten sitting up with Daddy

Carsten falling over... :)

Carsten in his 'V' position

Smiles and Laughter: Carsten is generally a happy baby, which is so nice! He likes to smile and over New Years (4 months) he started laughing at us, so we usually spend a lot of time trying to get him to laugh because it's just so cute :). One of our favorite moments with him is getting him up from a nap or a good night's sleep because (generally) he's so happy to see us he just sits there and smiles at us. It's also fun that he really seems to be recognizing us.

smiles :)

Carsten sleeping :)

Sleeping: Carsten is generally a fantastic sleeper, and we are very grateful for this :). Since about 2 months of age, he's been sleeping 8-10 hour stretches during the nights and generally goes to bed between 9-10 pm. We have bathtime every night as part of his routine (he LOVES bathtime - he just sits there and kicks!), and this really seems to help signal bedtime for him. We had a couple of rough nights over New Years when we went to my parents, but I think this can be mostly attributed to congestion. And after a week of being in Switzerland (with a few really late nights), I think we've slowly moved him onto a good schedule. He actually went to bed before 10 pm last night, which was SOOO nice :). He also typically sleeps until about 9 am, which is nice because then I get to sleep in :). Once he's up for the day, he usually plays and eats and then takes a 30-60 minute nap around 11 am. I used to try really hard to keep him sleeping (i.e., rock him or hold him), but now I just plunk him down in his bed around this time. He's not always very happy about it, but if given about 15-20 minutes, he usually settles down and sleeps, which is nice. We're still working on figuring out the other times during the day when he likes to nap, mostly because I think he takes short naps. He seems to take about 30 minute naps 2-3 times during the day after his morning nap, and these dont' have much of a pattern after that. I will say that when we're on the move, like traveling by car, plane, stroller, or the baby bjorn, that he seems to take those opportunities to nap (he likes motion!), so that's really quite nice. Sometimes he'll even fall asleep on his playmat, which I don't usually intend to happen. All in all, we feel very lucky to have him do such a great job of sleeping, and we definitely hope this continues :).

splash splash splash! 

"Hey!!"

Yep, that's water :)

I'll figure out how to post video soon :) He's also very vocal, but it's hard to post pictures of that...

We've arrived!

Greetings to all our friends and family from Switzerland! We arrived last Friday morning (Jan 14). Just to warn you, this is going to be a long one and to help us keep track of the days, I'll post dates.

Jan 12: day before we get on the plane!
We had a great 2 weeks in Orange City with my side of the family and we got to see a few friends and extended relatives, which was great! We found it more and more difficult to say our good byes to grandparents and immediate family as our moving day was more imminent. But we also were grateful to have time to say goodbyes, which is not always a guarantee when moving. Also, we planned in a few extra days to pack, which we were very grateful for since it took us all of those days to get ready. We were also blessed by having two extra days with my mom since she had snow days at school :).

Here's a picture of my parents' living room as we were packing - can you find us? :)

Jan 13-14: Flying out!
My parents generously took off Thursday to take us to the airport, which was very helpful because we needed their van and new car (a shiny Pontiac Vibe :) ) to transport us and all our belongings to the airport. We got to fly out of Sioux Falls, which was nice and close to their house. We ended up having 15 checked bags (I know, it's a lot, but considering that's all we took, not that much for a family of 3). We had our most difficult goodbye with my parents because it was REALLY the final goodbye and the last time we'd see family for a while. My mom held on to Carsten until the security guy cleared our passport and tickets, and I was a little worried we wouldn't get him back... :). We definitely miss our families and our friends already :(.

Carsten did amazingly well with the flights, and for the record, if you really want  babies to be quiet, perhaps you shouldn't be so loud as to wake them up from their nap (i.e. talking LOUD, slamming lavatory doors, etc.)... Additionally, we never realized how loud flight announcements were, but they are SO loud! We actually asked the flight attendant to turn them down, but apparently there are only a few announcements they are allowed to adjust the volume for. From Sioux Falls to Chicago, Carsten slept the entire way & we got a seat for him, which was an amazing way to start off our travels! Then from Chicago to Philly, he slept part of the way, and would have slept more, but the girl behind us was obnoxiously loud and kept waking him up :(. In the Philly airport, we had to almost run to make our connection, which, in retrospect we probably looked pretty funny. I had Carsten in our Baby Bjorn, our stroller/carseat was full of stuff and Andy was pulling our two carryon suitcases. They were boarding, so we didn't get a chance to see if we could have an extra seat for Carsten, but the lady who took our tickets was super nice and told us which seats to sit in to have bulkhead seats and a seat for Carsten (SO NICE!). Carsten was awake for the first part of this flight, which was fine since it was evening, and then he fell asleep during turbulence (gotta love it!) for the last 3-4 hrs of the flight, which was amazing. Andy and I had some trouble sleeping due to the giant screen about 3 feet in front of us, but we did manage to get some sleep as well. When we got to Zurich, our bags/boxes were the first ones off the plane! We were afraid that they wouldn't have made it since our connection was so short in Philly, but all 15 made it! The arrival of all our bags was such a blessing for us. I felt very conspicuous taking bag after bag off of the baggage carousel, especially since we had all our bags before 75% of the plane :). Andy managed to hire a porter, and we were waved through customs, which was very nice. Two of Andy's new coworkers, Beiping and Uli, met us with their vehicles, and small SUV and a station wagon. The porters we hired were amazing - they fit all our luggage in the cars and we were still able to ride! It was about a 25 minute ride to our flat, and they helped us move the boxes up to our place on the third floor :). Beiping (we took over the partially furnished flat from him) then stayed with us in town and pointed out the various grocery stores, and then helped us register and get a bank account (this was a life saver since he spoke German!). And to top all these blessings off, Carsten, our amazing child, slept through all of it (landing, getting bags, getting in and out of the car for errands, and lunch). After Beiping left, we started unpacking and Andy got a few groceries so we could have supper. Our evening was a bit rough because Carsten didn't go to bed until 3 am, which was to be expected since he slept until 1 pm that day. All in all though, a smooth move and Carsten is a trooper.

Jan 15: Ikea!
Andy's coworker, Uli, lent us his station wagon so we could set up our house more easily; this has been such a blessing! However, his car is a stick (I've never drove one and Andy has only done it a couple of times), so between not really knowing how to drive a stick and not knowing the area, our trip to Ikea was fairly stressful. There are MANY roundabouts, which are terrifying because most of them you can't see across the way, so all you see is a car coming at amazing speeds AND since we're driving a stick, stopping is not our favorite option :). Additionally, I was the navigator and couldn't seem to find our way back to the highway, which would have made it much easier and faster to get to Ikea. However, we did finally make it :). Once there we found out that it was the last day of a sale and a Saturday, which meant TONS and TONS of people were at Ikea. This made it a little difficult to get things done (we don't read German, so we picked things out by how they looked), but we did manage to get a bed ordered (we had been sleeping on couches in our flat) and we got dishes, which were both crucial to making our flat a home. Carsten was amazing throughout the store and even took some naps. I felt a little bad for him since at the end we were rushing to try to get out of the store and he started falling asleep facing out in the baby bjorn. I did manage to get him turned around so he could nap though :). Carsten only took until 2 am to fall alseep, which was still waaay too late in our minds :).

Jan 16: Be careful what you eat...
Andy made a very quick visit to the grocery store on Saturday where he picked up some apple juice (nothing is open on Sundays here). I poured a glass of the apple juice for breakfast on Sunday morning, and proceeded to drink a few swallows. Much to my surprise, it was NOT apple juice. In fact, it was apple cider vinegar. Note to self: make sure what you think you are drinking is ACTUALLY what you are drinking. Needless to say, I was ill for a while... but no worries, I felt better in the afternoon. We went over to Andy's coworker's (Uli) house for brunch with his family. The food & company were great, but I definitely did not drink the apple juice... Also, they carbonate apple juice here.

Jan 17: We got our bed!
We slept in this morning, and then made our way over to Ikea to get a few more items that we were not able to get on Saturday (some book cases and a diaper changing station/dresser for Carsten). Carsten again was great - he really seems to love watching people and therefore couldn't be happier than when facing out in the Baby Bjorn. The Ikea people were delivering the bed we bought on Saturday at 3 pm, and we barely made it back in time to meet them. We spent the evening putting together our Ikea bed, which let's just say it took 5+ hrs to assemble. Andy was so great putting everything together (I helped some) and I think we were both motivated to finish so we didn't have to sleep on the couches again :). We finished the bed around 11:30 pm and celebrated by having some Italian wine and Swiss chocolate!  I would like to note that both of us are impressed with the Ikea packaging (so amazing!) and the pictoral directions are surprisingly great. And, the bed was comfy :). Carsten finally starting going to bed earlier, well, earlier meaning 12 am. His timing is still somewhere in the mid-Atlantic, but we'll keep working on it slowly. Each day we run errands, we can't believe how great Carsten is. He's so happy and adjusts to our lifestyle very well, which is such a blessing.

Here's a photo of us putting together our bed - we did have to assemble EACH of those slats...

Jan 18: Grocery stock up!
This was the last day that Andy was scheduled to be home to help set up the house, so we took the opportunity to take Uli's car to the grocery store to try to stock up on basics like flour, sugar, olive oil, etc. The store was small, but surprisingly nice. We were able to figure out where (& what!) most things were. We think we were careful to avoid another apple cider episode. Again, Carsten was fantastic in his Baby Bjorn - I think we'll be using this a lot in the next few months! We were so focused on getting groceries and he was so good, that we forgot he was there :). When we got home I put away groceries and made a pasta bake (btw, a 9x13 inch pan barely fits in our small oven!), and Andy put together the changing station/dresser from Ikea. It took him about 3 hrs to assemble it, and I think we'll both be happy to be done assembling Ikea furniture (we have 2 shelves left). We're very happy to be done changing him on the floor, and we're also excited to get his clothes moved out of a suitcase. We were able to talk to a few family members on Skype tonight, which was very nice. We've been feeling a little isolated (no one from Andy's work lives nearby and very few people seem to speak English in Egg), so it was nice to see familiar faces :). Hopefully, once we get our internet hooked up, which is soon, hopefully, we'll be able to talk more. Carsten went to bed at 11:30 pm, so his bed-time is improving! :)

Jan 19: Andy's off to work!
Andy headed off to work this morning, which was sad because I've enjoyed having him at home. He'll get to work using the train system, so hopefully he made it! It's a little strange to have him gone and in addition, we only have one cell phone, which he took, so the only way I can reach him is via skype. This is a weird adjustment because ever since we started dating, we've both had cell phones, so reaching each other has always been easy. I think we're both going to get phones eventually, but that is not a high priority right now. I'll let you know how things go for Andy sometime soon! Also, we got to see our first snow in Switzerland!

Here's pictures of the snow, Carsten sleeping on his playmat, and Carsten helping me with laundry!

So, here's a list of things we have learned about Switzerland:
- the doors don't have deadbolts (the doors actually seal differently, so I don't think you need them), and you have to lock the lock from the inside to lock your door when you're in the house.
- the windows have no screens and actually have two ways of opening (swing out fully or just pop the top out 4 inches)
- the winter seems much milder than IA, WI, or MI - we came to 50 degrees F and sunshine :)
- Egg, the city of 5,000 we live in, means 'Edge' in the local dialect and is located on the top of a hill. We can see the Alps if we walk down the street and in addition, the weather is clearer here than in Zurich. Zurich gets a lot of fog in the winter because of the lake, and since we're on a hill, we see sunshine :). However, since we are living in a smaller town, it seems that less people speak English, which is a definite downside right now, but I think it will motivate us to work on our German. :)
- The bathtubs are taller, don't trip!
- Also, the door handles are taller. I can't believe how many times I've hit my hands on them because they are at a different height
- There are no closets in the bedrooms. Our place only has one closet in the hallway, so in the bedrooms we have to put 'wardrobes'. I always wondered why C.S. Lewis was talking about wardrobes... :)
- Almost all houses have shutters, and people use them. Our place has a metal grate that goes over the outside. I think it's used to help regulate temperatures in the houses, so in the summer, it will be a good thing.
- Light fixtures don't belong to the house. We currently don't have a lot of lights because apparently people own their fixtures, so we have to buy and install them ourselves.
- kitchen appliances are MUCH smaller. We joke that we now have an 'easy bake oven' and a 'dorm fridge' and we're not actually too far off...
- you have to label your trash and pay by the bag, which actually makes sense, you pay for what you actually make
- roundabouts are terrifying and hard to give directions (i.e., take a left?!).
- apparently the Swiss are very strict about speed limits - they have lasers everywhere
- groceries, with the exception of meat, dont' seem to be as expensive as we were led to believe, which is nice. Actually, cheese, bread, wine, and chocolate are frequently cheaper than the states :)
- Kellogs cereals make an appearance in our grocery store, but have different names and are usually chocolate
- get the Europe GPS maps before you go to Europe, you'll appreciate it :)
- washing machines are free, but once again, they are tiny! One load in the states is 2-3 loads here. Note to self: do laundry more often :) You also have to use a 'key' to use the washers to indicate that they are being used.
- there was a cat hanging out in our stairwell. We've seen it outside before - don't know how it got in!

I know there's more to add to the list, but that's all I can think of now! We miss all of you and hope you're all doing well.

Christmas and New Years!

Andy, Carsten, and I have had a whirlwind Christmas/New Years vacation which is still on going. We got to spend a week and a half in Michigan, which was filled with seeing family and friends. The Huisman family household has changed dramatically with the sudden influx of grandchildren; having 2 5 months olds and 1 3 month old makes things a bit crazy! We are wondering what next Christmas will be like when these three are all mobile! Our whole family made it to Frederik Meijer Gardens, where we got to see many Christmas trees. They had a Switzerland tree, so we got our picture taken by it :). I've posted a picture of the Huisman grandchildren: Linnea, Eliana, Zachary, Vivienne, and Carsten.

We left Michigan on Thursday and had a great drive through Chicago. I can't tell you how excited we are not to be driving through Chicago on a regular basis on anymore :). We stopped very briefly in Madison so Carsten could get his 4 month vaccinations, and then we continued on to Iowa in order to beat the weather that was rolling in on Friday morning. I will have to say that we do not enjoy our long drives over the holidays, which is mostly due to weather. We seem to have horrible weather somewhere along the way. This time we had 'blizzard fog' in Minnesota and watched the temperature drop 20+ degrees over a couple of hours, which always makes for an interesting drive. The one fortunate thing is that Carsten is a relatively good traveler and he typically does an excellent job of sleeping during the trip. We're feeling a little bad for him the last two days because he caught a cold on Wednesday, got shots on Thursday, and I think he's starting to get a top tooth coming in. The poor guy was very cranky today, which is unusual and it makes us thankful that he's pretty happy most of the time. Needless to say, I'm glad that I managed to keep a couple of teethers and the baby tylenol out of our Switzerland boxes.

It's been a busy year, with both of us getting our doctorates, Carsten arriving, and preparing for Switzerland. We've loved 2010, and are looking forward to 2011 when we do things like: move to Switzerland, travel Europe, feed Carsten his first solid food, and seeing Carsten walk!

Happy New Year everyone!

The Huismans leave Madison

Greetings from Michigan! We have moved out of Madison and are starting the nomadic life for a few weeks. Here's a quick recap of our last week in Madison:

Andy and I spent pretty much every moment packing up our condo, which was complicated by the fact that we were packing things for three different locations: Michigan for Christmas (which includes all the items we didn't want to freeze in the moving truck), Iowa for long-term storage at my parents house, and Switzerland boxes which are going to Iowa because it doesn't fit in our car. Needless to say, this has been a very complicated moving experience and we've done our best to purge and rehouse our possessions & furniture. Any moments we weren't spending packing, we were trying to make sure that our condo was ready for our new tenants. We feel very blessed that we have found a lovely family to care for our house while we are in Zurich. We are very blessed with our friends in Madison who helped us pack & clean our house. We cannot express enough thank yous to those of you who helped (Kayt, Kurt, Nicky, Tom, and Donald). We were able to get out of Madison on Monday, which is when we were hoping to leave for Michigan. To those of you we left behind in Madison: we will miss you!

Carsten has been an amazing baby during this last week. He's been sleeping very well at night, which is a huge blessing for us since we've been exhausted between moving and figuring out kinds of logistics with moving. He's been ok with being in his swing and playmat for long periods of time and has even transitioned into napping other places, like his playmat (whoops!) and his pack n play. We are looking forward to the chance to hang out and relax with him over the holidays. We are also looking forward to seeing lots of family and friends over the Holidays. We will be spending Christmas with the Huismans in Michigan and New Years in Iowa with the Hoogeveens.

Merry Christmas everyone!