Daddy granola

Andy and I have been occasionally having Carsten repeat our mealtime prayer instead of simply praying aloud like we typically have been doing up until this point. After the first few times of repeating us, he has now felt free to improvise things that he's thankful for during the prayer as well, and prayer usually it goes something like this as of late:

A/N: Dear God,
Carsten: Dear God,
A/N: Thank you for this food.
Carsten: Thank you for this food.
A/N: Thank you for our family.
Carsten: Thank you for our family and Daddy granola.
A/N: Amen
Carsten: Amen

If you are wondering what 'Daddy granola' is, it is the Oatmeal Squares breakfast cereal that is one of Andy's favorites and somehow became to be known to Carsten as Daddy granola (to make a distinction between that cereal and actual granola cereal which was our typical breakfast fare in Switzerland).

Moving - Stage 5

This stage of our moving process involved 1) driving to Schenectady, 2) then getting all of our stuff from our Iowa moving truck moved in and unpacked, and 3) recover from jet-lag. 

1) Our drive to Schenectady went pretty well. Turns out there isn't too much traffic at 5 am on Jan 2 :). With our early departure from NYC, we arrived in Schenectady pretty early (8:30 am) even though we took time at a oasis for a leisurely breakfast. We picked up our new minivan which had been sitting at one of Andy's coworkers house for the last two months, and then went to see our new home. We were a little nervous about the house because we had never seen it (this makes the 2nd time we've moved internationally without seeing our housing and the 1st time wasn't too great). The house itself had just been remodeled (new kitchen, updated baths, and entirely new and lovely paint scheme), so it was lovely and it has quite a bit of charm. The neighborhood seems pretty good, and our neighbors are very nice - we actually met one set of our next door neighbors within about 30 seconds of arriving and they even brought over cinnamon rolls as a welcome gift :). Having friendly neighbors was something that I found lacking in Switzerland, and I've been very happy to be back in America where friendly and nice neighbors tend to be much more common. After seeing the house, we got our stored items that we had left in October in Andy's lab (air mattress, paper plates, cleaning supplies, etc.) and made our 'home' livable for the couple of days where we wouldn't have anything in it except what we brought and had stockpiled before our arrival. Here's a few photos of our new house:

New kitchen!

New living room!

2) Andy's parents arrived in the afternoon on the 2nd and they brought the only furniture we'd have for two days: two recliners :). We felt so fortunate that they took the time to drive out to be with us for our first week in Schenectady, and they were such a HUGE help in getting the house set up as well as caring for Carsten. Thanks Mom and Dad!!! Our moving truck arrived on Jan 3, and then we had movers unpack it for us on Jan 4 in the morning. Which meant that the next 4-5 days were spent unpacking box after box after box. My sister, Ashley, was able to come up for the first two weekends (yay for being close!) to help us unpack and help with Carsten as well (thanks Sis!). Ashley, Tom, and Bonnie were all SO helpful with unpacking, caring for Carsten, and setting up the house. I would probably still be unpacking boxes if they hadn't helped us with settling in (Andy started teaching Jan 7). It was fun to see all of our 'old' stuff again and since we packed all these boxes 2+ years ago, it was kind of fun to see what was in the boxes because we really had no memory of what was in each box. I should also mention that my family had packed up our moving truck from Iowa where we had stored our stuff for two years in my parents' basement, and the movers thought that it was a professional packing job. Thanks family for packing up our truck! From my perspective, Andy and I are so very lucky to have such amazing families who really go above and beyond to help us out even with unpleasant things such as moving. I am so grateful that we had so much help. I always compare it to our move to Switzerland which was awful because we didn't know anyone, we had no help beyond the first morning we were there, we had to buy a whole household of furniture at IKEA the 2nd day we were there, we had an infant, and we didn't speak a lick of German (makes navigating even the simple task of getting groceries difficult). This move went SO much better even though there were so many details to coordinate. Here's a few photos of a lot of boxes:

Carsten enjoyed unpacking boxes - he liked finding toys we had squirreled away - like this scooter from my Grandma and Grandpa Hoogeveen from last Christmas.

We ate lunch on chairs. It was SO exciting :).

Our living room. Thanks Mom and Dad for the recliners!

So many boxes!!

Carsten's bedroom.

Our bedroom.

Carsten enjoyed being creative - he made his scooter into a 'digger' using cardboard. In fact, he still plays with it that way and it's been almost a month :).

Mom reading Carsten a digger book :).

Dad reading Carsten a digger book. Please note the digger, digger pjs, and digger shirt (Carsten picked his own outfit!).

Aunt Ashley reading to Carsten :).

Carsten has been a great helper throughout the process! He especially loves to help Daddy build things.

Our new couch! It's the first one we've ever purchased :).

3) In amongst all of this, Andy, Carsten, and I had to recover from jet-lag which wasn't easy. Carsten hadn't been sleeping well through most of December because he liked to bounce in his travel crib (it has bouncy sides) at all hours of the night. We had arranged to have a crib delivered Jan 3 which we would then assemble. Much to our dismay, the crib arrived damaged and we had to send it back. We then went to Babies 'R Us, bought a crib that they stocked in the store (there are very few of these), and then hurriedly assembled it at 7 pm at night (Carsten's bedtime). The crib helped Carsten's sleeping a lot, but since it had a spring underneath the mattress, he could (and still does) bounce very loudly. It took about 2 weeks for Carsten to get back on a normal schedule, and I'm hoping that he will recover some lost sleep even though that's not typical for him. Needless to say the road to recovering sleep has been a long one, and we're still not really there because most nights we still go to bed around 9:30 pm because we're exhausted and we all still wake up to Carsten's bouncing several times a night (we've even added plywood underneath his mattress to reduce the bounciness!). He's always been a noisy and fairly restless sleeper, and we've been waiting for him to outgrow this phase for a long time. We're looking forward to his European kinderbed arriving in a couple of weeks because that bed has wooden slats which are NOT conducive to his bouncing habits.

We've been fortunate to have so much help with moving and although we're still gradually settling in (we need pictures on the walls, a bit of organization in the closets, and there's still a few rogue boxes to unpack), our first month here has been so amazing because the house has been pretty well set up for most of our time here. Once we get some pictures on the walls I'll post photos of the rooms that are done (we don't have our shipment from Switzerland yet!).

Moving - Stage 4

This stage of our moving process involved (1) cleaning our temporary ETH residence in Zurich, (2) packing, (3) staying New Year's Eve night with our friends Kai and Vanessa, and (4) then flying off to New York on Jan 1.

(1) We learned a couple of things from our cleaning ordeal in Egg and had decided that we would clean the best we could but would not try to stress excessively and spend a lot of time on it since it seemed like no matter what we did if they wanted to say it wasn't clean, they would. We pre-cleaned everything we could before New Year's Eve, and we also ironed all sheets which was required of us. Have you ever ironed and folded a fitted sheet before? We have. And we had to watch a youtube video to learn how to do it :). Our friends Kai and Vanessa took Carsten for the morning of the 31st so we could finish cleaning the flat and this was a HUGE help (thanks Kai and Vanessa!). Andy and I even managed to get everything done earlier than we had planned out which was a nice way to reduce our stress levels. I went over to Kai and Vanessa's after we finished cleaning in the morning to put Carsten down for a nap at their home since we'd be spending the night with them. Andy then spent the majority of the afternoon dropping off items that we had borrowed and ferrying our luggage to Kai and Vanessa's. This was a much better approach to cleaning, and in the end our landlords said that we did a great job - phew! :)

Ironed and folded fitted sheets. Hopefully won't have to do this again :).

Bye bye December housing!

2) Packing is always a long process, especially when you have to follow airline weight and size requirements. Our airline, Air Berlin, required very light (13 lbs) carryons; even though we have really light luggage this basically meant the only thing in our luggage was a change of clothes for everyone. We ended up checking an extra bag than we had planned, but luckily since we had booked before they upped their fees (and our friend Kai convinced them they should honor that when we checked in) we didn't end up paying too much for it. Once again, I tried to pack as much in advance as what I could (it's a trick when you still need to live out of stuff for another two nights) before New Year's Eve when we moved out of our temporary housing. We ended up with 5 checked bags, 1 carryon (plus a bag for each of us), 1 car seat, 1 travel crib that we got to check for free, and 1 stroller. Yes it sounds like a lot of stuff, but we had needed to keep that much to live with for December & for when we arrived in New York in January. Anyway, I'm relieved that I don't have to pack for anything like that any time in the future because it was NOT fun.

It's all packed!

For some reason Carsten really wanted to be buckled into his car seat to play. We were fine with that :).

(3) Our friends Kai and Vanessa graciously hosted us yet again for another evening while we were homeless, and while we didn't stay up to greet New Year's Day, we enjoyed spending time with our friends on New Year's Eve. We will miss all of them very much, and hope to see them again down the road in the US or in Switzerland. Carsten had a blast playing with Eleanor and I know I will miss getting to see them play together. Carsten actually asked to see Eleanor several times during our first week here in New York, and he was quite sad when we told him he was too far away to see her. We will miss you friends!

Eleanor and Carsten playing the piano.

(4) Kai took us to the airport and amazingly, all of our luggage fit in his car along with us! Truly an amazing pack job. We are so grateful that Kai was willing to drive us and to help us get all of our bags checked. Thanks Kai!

We're all packed in!

We went through security without a hitch and spent the few remaining minutes playing with Carsten by our gate. We had two legs of our journey, the first which took us to Dusseldorf (DE) and was a short flight. I should mention at this point that Carsten (as well as Andy and I) was up from about 3:30 am  that morning for whatever reason and really didn't go back to bed despite our attempts to do so. So, an already long day got even longer. Carsten took a 45 min on our first 1 hr flight, which was nice at the time, but it did mean that he didn't take a nap on the 9 hr flight until the very last 30 minutes despite our best efforts (sigh.). The trans-Atlantic flight seemed never ending and even though we had two of us on Carsten, we were all pretty frazzled by the time we arrived in JFK. Note to self: the TVs in the seatbacks are too exciting for my son and keep him awake when he should be sleeping. Luckily, we were able to walk right through immigration which is the FIRST time that has ever happened. It normally takes us 1-2 hrs of standing in line to make it through so we were so grateful that we didn't have to do that at the end of an already seemingly endless day. And with another bit of good luck, all our bags arrived and we got to go get our rental car without too much of a hassle. We ended up opting to upgrade to a bigger rental car than we had previously planned, but we're grateful that we did so we could have a comfortable ride up to Schenectady the next day. We then drove to our hotel where we got some food and then proceeded to pass out from 7 pm until midnight (6 am Swiss time) when Carsten woke us up. We got Carsten to sleep off an on until about 4 am, and then since we were all awake, we packed up our car and drove out of NYC while traffic was low. So, we started the new year of 2013 in Switzerland and then promptly left to go to the good old USA :).

Moving to NY!

All of our stuff fit on two luggage carts - barely :).

Swiss Christmas

We spent our Christmas in Zurich and it will probably be the only Christmastime in our lives where we don't travel to see our wonderful families. We did enjoy the relative calm of not traveling, but we did miss gathering with all of our families. Our Christmas as a family was pretty small since we elected to spend most of our gift budget on traveling experiences this year instead of gifts. Carsten received 10 new matchbox trucks from us (since they are small and travel well!) and a he got to open a few other gifts that were sent back from the US in October. We even got to skype with family while we opened our gifts - thank goodness for technology! We borrowed a tree from our friends Kai and Vanessa, so it did feel like Christmas even though we weren't doing any of our usual Christmas activities. We also were invited to a couple of Andy's coworkers for brunch on two separate days, and it was so nice to see and spend time with all of them. Here's a few photos from our Swiss Christmas:

Our Swiss tree

Carsten got to open a few trucks early on Christmas Eve.

Lovely Lake Zurich on Christmas Eve. No snow, but quite gorgeous :).

Christmas Eve outing to the lake.

Skyping with family while we opened gifts!

A couple of days after Christmas we also got to celebrate Eleanor's 2nd birthday a little early which was super fun :). Vanessa made wonderful cupcakes (from scratch!) that we all really enjoyed. We will miss our friends in Zurich!

Eleanor's 2nd birthday!

As part of our own family Christmas celebration we treated ourselves to a dinner out at the Zeughauskellar, which is a touristy but very tasty Swiss restaurant in downtown Zurich. We had been there once in the summer and wanted to go back there since we knew we liked it and it was very kid friendly. Even though we didn't have reservations, we were able to get in (so lucky!) and have a lovely meal together.

Getting ready to eat!

My boys :).

We had a lovely and relaxing Christmas in Zurich and although we missed family, we made the most of it!

Moving - Stage 3

We have quite a bit of catching up to do, so here we go :). 

Our 3rd stage of moving was to move into a furnished flat offered by the ETH in Zurich. We were thrilled to be moving to Zurich and even though we had planned on vacationing elsewhere for Christmas, we decided to stay because we were having so much fun in Zurich. We really used this month to focus on spending time with our immediate family and our friends in Zurich since we couldn't be with our family and friends in the US. Andy also used this time to prep for teaching and I used to it to shop online for items for our new home (thanks Mom Hoogeveen, Mom Huisman, and Ashley for letting me send things to you!). This month-long housing was just what we needed to end our time in Switzerland because it allowed us to try to tie up loose ends with our belongings and housing issues in Egg, send our international shipment early, live close to the ETH so we got back ~9 hrs per week with Andy (yay!), and to experience Zurich since we really never got to do that on a regular basis. Here's a brief snapshot of how we spent our last month in Zurich:

Enjoying walks around Zurich:

Look at all that snow!

Sometimes Andy had to carry Carsten. Thanks Andy!

Riding the 'railroad train', which was the steep cable car train next to our grocery store that Carsten LOVED to ride. He still asks to go ride the railroad train and is sad when we tell him it's in Switzerland.

Railroad train going up!

At the top of the railroad train.

We renewed our 1 year zoo membership for our remaining month, and I'm happy to report that we went enough times to make it worth it :). We may have even gone before church on a couple of occasions because church didn't start until 11:30 am.

The tigers seemed to love the snow!

Carsten also gained a new interested in reading books (he goes through phases), so we all spent a lot of time reading 'the airplane book' which meant 1 of 2 books that we had. I should also mention at this point that the 2nd half of the month was characterized by little sleep for all of us. Carsten would typically wake up around 5 am and had difficulty sleeping through the night and for naps because he found out he could bounce while sitting up in his soft-sided travel crib. We are still dealing with the ramifications of those habits now, but hopefully sleep will become better for all of us very soon (jet-lag plus bouncing is not a great combo but he has a regular crib now). Andy was a champ because most mornings he would let me sleep in while he got up and read books with Carsten. Admittedly, Carsten was a good snuggler during this time (which is not typical for him) because he was so tired and exhausted.

1 of the airplane books.

Before bath snuggles are the best. Turns out that Carsten doesn't like to be cold so he'll snuggle :).

We spent a lot of time at the Christmas markets in downtown Zurich which we found to be fun and Carsten tolerated pretty well. What was so nice was that we were only 10 min from downtown so we could go and leave at any time which was not something that we could do when we lived in Egg (50 min each way).

Downtown Zurich for Christmas markets!

Swarovski tree in the HB Christmas market. So pretty!

Carsten thought the carousel was pretty fun at the market.

We also had to take him to see the trains when we were at the HB. :)

So pretty at night when everything is all lit up!

We also spent quite a bit of time at our temporary housing and we had to be pretty creative for our activities since we hadn't kept many toys for Carsten. Luckily, we got to borrow several things including a 'tractor digger'. Thank goodness for kind friends!

Daddy's shoes are great for playing!

Tractor digger borrowed from our friends. Thanks so much!

Coloring with diggers is a must.

When you're moving sometimes boxes are really the easiest and best toys :).

love this kid :).

We made cookies and of course, as we packed up, Carsten enjoyed playing in our suitcases. He even made a 'bed' in one of them. Too bad we can't have him travel like that :). He also managed to go through our stuff while we were packing and find some fun finds: like safety glasses. Safety first!

making chocolate chip cookies!

buckled in and ready to go!

The ultimate travel bed :).

Safety first!

All in all we loved our month living in Zurich. Travel and commute times were so short and there was plenty of activities to keep ourselves busy with. We also discovered that Carsten loves gipfeli (croissants), and we enjoyed walking and taking the trams all the time. What a wonderful pre-international move time for us a family. The only thing missing was getting to see all our families and friends at Christmas.