What we did today.

Or, why I haven't finished part two of our cruise series yet.

I am in Provence, France with the girls and my mom having a wonderful time.



But I haven't forgotten about my blog to do list. It's on my mind while I smell lavender, take pictures of Marion posing throughout Provence,

shop, eat baguettes and sample fresh goat cheese, I promise. :)

Vive la France!

The permit renewal situation

Before we get to part two of our trip, I'd like to discuss Swiss working permits. We are here under a B permit and it is sponsored by Brian's company. It is good for a year and the Swiss government sends you the renewal paperwork every year in order to renew and have your new permit before your old one expires.

Hahahahaha.

It sounds good in theory but it never happens like that, at least not in our experience. This year was especially painful.

We received the paperwork, took our new passport pictures for them, and took everything we needed to our Gemeinde house to be processed. And then we waited. And waited. And waited some more.

Turns out our permits ended up on someone's desk waiting for approval. Problem was, that person was out on burnout.

What is burnout you ask? Burnout is something that is diagnosed in Switzerland for people who have worked too much. A doctor will write out the diagnosis and then person gets a long vacation from work to rest up and recover.

Can you imagine something like this in the US? Nope, me neither.

Anyway, we didn't have the new permits by the time they expired on June 1. Brian didn't have them for his multiple business trips outside the country and we didn't have them when we left for our family trip on June 28. However, we did know that we had been approved when we left so at least we left with the knowledge that we should be receiving the new permits soon.

Fast forward to our arrival back into Switzerland last weekend. We hand over our passports to border control when the officer asks, "Do you live here?" and we know what is coming.

"Yes", we replied, "but we don't have our new residence permits yet."

"When did you apply for them?" he asked.

"Months ago" was our answer.

"Hpmh" grunted the officer, "That tells me that something is wrong."

"No, we know it has been approved, we just haven't received the new ones yet since we were on vacation" I replied, trying to be as polite. Meanwhile, Brian was muttering under his breath behind me, "WE didn't do anything wrong! The person was on burnout! YOU guys are the ones that took forever!"

The officer swiped our passports, confirmed that we were legal, and then we were sent on our way. Interesting to say the least- we did everything right and still got a scolding!

Turns out the timing was beyond comical. We picked up our permits at the post office the very next day and then Brian went directly to the Gemeinde to deregister.

Go figure.

The big family trip, part one.

We returned from our vacation last weekend and are busier than ever. There are more pieces to this move than I ever imagined. Every time I think of one thing to add to the list it ends up leading to three more items being added.

But screw all of that, I don't want to talk about it right now. Right now I want to tell you all about our trip! We spent almost two weeks on a cruise ship visiting the Baltic capitals. It was a great trip and this post is part one about it all!

Brian and I had never been on a cruise before but had heard great things about this one. So when friends of ours who are experienced cruisers mentioned that they were taking this cruise, we jumped at the opportunity to go too.

Since we didn't really know what to expect, we hedged our bets against all four of us sleeping in the same room and my tendency to get motion sickness and booked a mini suite with balcony. The room ended up being bigger than some hotel rooms I've had in Europe. Very nice.

Betti enjoyed playing behind the curtains and on the balcony.

We left from Dover, England. We could see the white cliffs and Dover Castle from the ship.

After finding our room on the ship, we explored and ended up in the main dining room for dinner.

Here's beautiful Betti.

And Marion. I was able to get this picture of her eyes, which I am forever trying to explain to people. Usually her eyes look brown but actually they are a bluish-greenish-gray with a brown sunburst in the middle. When her eyes dilate all you see is the brown. Other times, they look blue, or gray, or green. Very interesting. I've been debating for awhile what to call them for her new passport when it needs to get renewed. I think I will call them hazel.

During dinner, the exhaustion began to get to my three traveling partners.



We quickly bolted from dinner before making a scene and crashed back in our room.

The next day was an at sea day. We spent the day exploring the ship some more and shivering on the pool deck.

Betti enjoyed pushing the tables around.

Marion enjoyed dancing after they cleared the pool chairs off the deck later in the day.

Mommy enjoyed getting her nails done with Marion and watching Marion fall asleep because she was so tired.

Priceless.

Stay tuned for part two- Copenhagen!

Drama, sob stories, and excuses oh my!

So I feel like a broken record around here... we are busy, very busy. But this week we got a special surprise: corrupted picture files (on both primary and back up drives) from over a span of 15 months.

To say I was upset would be an understatement. I was a wreck. Thinking we had lost pictures from half of our time here and Betti's first year of life felt like someone had ripped my heart out, stomped on it a few times, played some football with it while blowing at it with some vuvuzelas, then put it back all bruised and beaten.

It sucked.

A very talented friend has our files and we are hoping that he can recover the pictures.

However, I had planned to do some posts for you all about our travels I never got to around here. As luck would have it, those are the pictures that were lost.

I know, it's amazingly horrible luck, no?

Anyway, the purpose of that was to give you something to read while we are traveling for a little bit. Sadly, I've got nothing. So I hope you enjoy your time wherever you are for a bit, Swiss Family Mac is officially on a short hiatus.

However, I'm sure I will have an abundance to say when we get back. So, faithful readers, stay tuned and we will see you in July!

15 months.

My little swiss miss is 15 months today.

Betti has grown in to herself and has such a little personality. She is still a little timid and hesitant to jump into situations. But that's okay, she doesn't have to be outgoing; Marion will jump in to any situation and show her how it is done!

She is a cuddler and is extremely physical. Betti walks, runs, and climbs. She gets pulled on, pushed, carried, and jumped on by Marion. And she loves every single minute of it.

But the thing she loves the most is carrying her blanket and bear around.

Usually she'll find a spot, lay down, and get comfortable.

I'm so jealous of her. Wouldn't it be nice to have a huge, soft stuffed animal to snuggle up to?

Sometimes she'll change it up. She'll crash into a pillow on the floor, find a corner on the couch to snuggle in to, or (if you are really lucky) decide your lap is the place to be.

And when she snuggles, you can really tell how huge she is.

My baby girl is massive! She is wearing clothes that Marion was wearing at two. Here are some pictures of Marion right before her second birthday.


And yes, that is a chip clip in her hair. Eh, it worked. But now you can see why we marvel at Betti's size! At least until she can understand what we are saying, don't want to give her a complex...

Anyway, Bettina. Yes, she is my physical child but she is making progress with talking. I can understand why it is slow and steady in the speech department; Marion never stops to let her talk! She now says Mama, ball, and baba (bottle). But while she is lacking in the actual word department, she definitely communicates. Lots of grunting and whining, oh joy! She also points a lot and follows simple directions, that won't last long I'm sure. ;)

While she may not talk yet, I'm okay with that. Because I know what it is like to have an extremely vocal child and I don't want to find out what it would be like to have two just yet!

Happy arbitrary month birthday Betti!

My two monkeys

Brian's been away for work but that doesn't mean life is boring here.

Marion's discovered the joy of playing with Betti in her crib. Yea, I don't get it either but it keeps them happy for a solid amount of time.


Unfortunately, I waited to long to grab my camera to capture this moment. Marion was getting antsy.


Can you hear her frustration in these pictures?


"Mooooooooooooooom, I WANT to GET OUT of HERE!"



Yep, she's full of drama and energy and she doesn't stop at any point in the day. That's probably why she crashes so hard at night.

She doesn't look like she is going to move at all, so snuggly in her bed with her headlamp. But this girl doesn't stop for sleep. I've seen her sit up and then put her head on her knees and sleep in that position for awhile. And then she'll decide to sneak up on Brian and I in the middle of the night and sleep (kick, snuggle, elbow) in our bed.

What am I going to do with these two?!

Six years, woot!

Today Brian and I celebrate six years of marriage. But really, we celebrate the six years and then usually marvel at how we've been putting up with each other for much longer than that.

We met the second semester of my freshmen year in college and started dating in summer 1999 after being friends for awhile.

This shot was taken after one of Brian's football games. He was an All American football player in college; he hates when I tell that to people. :)

We got engaged on June 5, 2003. Despite having been together for four years, Brian managed to surprise me with his proposal. Sneaky! One of my aunts took some engagement photos for us, this is one of them.

We made it official on June 12, 2004. It was a beautiful day in Baltimore after a week of pouring rain. We were very lucky!


Then we welcomed Marion and became a family of three.

And then, as you all know, we became a family a four when Betti was born.

And now, eleven years after we started dating, life couldn't be better.

I love you Brian!