Easter in Stockholm

For Easter this year, we decided to take a trip to Stockholm. Nate's grandfather is Swedish so it's a place we've been wanting to visit for a while. We have had some friends who have moved their recently so it seemed like good timing. Other than the cold, it was overall a wonderful weekend. Not pictured below is the large amount of Swedish food we tried and ate. Chase was particularly into these cinnamon bun-like pastries.

Our views around Stockholm included ice sheets and some beautiful sunsets:

We visited many museums including the Vasa, Nobel, Skansen, and ABBA museums. They were really cool and had quite a bit for Chase to do and explore. 

This castle flies the Swedish flag as long as the capital has not fallen to intruders. Of course, Nate and Chase schemed a way to take down the flag...

One of the cool experiences we had was riding the ferries as they broke the ice sheets. Chase, of course, super enjoyed that, too! While on the ferries, not only were we able to ride from island to island, we got some beautiful views of the city from the water.

As our first foray into Scandinavia, Stockholm did not disappoint. We hope to do more trips up north sometime soon!

Visit Back to Cambridge

In March, I took a work trip to Cambridge. I had not been back since we had left almost 4 years ago! It was crazy to see how much has been built up everywhere and how much the businesses around our apartment and around MIT have changed. But then the King Lab, which has not had anybody working for more than a year, was unchanged. Even some of our posters were still left up from 8 years ago! Thankfully, I was able to see everyone from the King Lab and also Olga (who came from RI), Nadia, Hallie, Christina, Monica, and others who I bumped into on the street. Overall, it was a very nostalgic but also really nice to see everyone. Maybe I'll be back again in the next year or so.

Our apartment building was just as I remember it. 

Literally across the street from our building...most of Cambridge was similarly under construction.

The gel running room in the King Lab looks the same as when I left 4 years ago.

A press release of us from 2010 still hanging up even though our lab is long gone.

Visit from Great Grandparents

In February, my grandparents, uncle, aunt, and aunt's mother all visited us in Switzerland. They spent a week skiing, visiting us the weekend before. We all reconvened in Geneva the weekend after. It was really nice to see them and show them around our corner of the world.

Taking a walk in the park. 

Sort of posing together. 

Visiting Lausanne on a particularly dreary day. 

In Ouchy, great grandson with great grandfather hand-in-hand. 

2017 in Review

[Previous years in review: 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013]

This has been another crazy year. The fall, especially, was busy, stressful, and just a bit overwhelming. With Nate writing his thesis the next few months, things will be a bit less intense. Nate lost his paternal grandmother in late November, which was quite sad for all of us.

In terms of traveling, we did make it out to a few places: 

- We went on a cruise to Mexico to start out the year. 

- I made it to San Diego twice (spring, fall) for some weddings and visiting friends/parents. 

- We went to Ukraine twice (spring, summer) with all three of us both times! And the second time was for two weeks, so we had a good long time to hang out with my grandparents. 

- We traveled to Barcelona and to Milan and Venice. 

- We did a few things around Switzerland: Lucern, 4th of July, and kid-friendly stuff. 

- We are ending our year as we started it - in the US. 

This time for our trip to the US, we ended up flying into and out of Chicago and driving a bit. This way, we spent a week and a half in Nebraska, followed by almost a week outside of Chicago where my brother now lives and my parents flew in for. We also got some time to visit three different sets of friends/families in Iowa and one in Chicago. It was nice to have this time with friends and family, and enjoy the conveniences of the US. We were especially excited to hang out with Chase's new cousin and our goddaughter, Tindra. Chase also spent time with all of his grandparents (and living great grandparents). On our way to the US, we missed a connection and ended up having something like 30 hours to explore Warsaw. We made the most of it, even in the bitter cold, exploring the city's old town and seeing the Christmas markets. For Chase's country/state count, we are at +3 for Mexico, Italy, and Poland, and +2 states for IA and IL, so he's currently at 3 continents (NA, Europe, Africa), 10 countries (USA, Switzerland, France, Spain, Morocco, Ukraine, Great Britain, Mexico, Italy, and Poland), and 9 states (MA, CT, RI, NY, NE, CA, NV, IA, and IL). We definitely plan to travel a bit more next year. 

In terms of crafts, I did two knitting projects (headband and dress), and put together a calendar. As always, I am planning many crafts for 2018 -- I just hope I find the time to get them done. I only did one post on Chase but he's growing up so fast! He will start school next year which is just crazy to think about. 

As in previous years, I will leave you with an Instagram collage. Follow me on Instagram, or on Twitter if you don't have an Instagram.

Picture-A-Day Calendar

For gifts this year, we decided to do a calendar of 2018 using our own pictures. I had heard about a company called Social Print Studio which prints calendars with 365 pictures on not-too-thin paper. I have to say that they were really good and their customer service is amazing. I decided I would make one of those "on this day"-calendars the same way Facebook shows you pictures of things that happened on that day some number of years ago. I thought it would be super quick but it ended up taking me lots of time to find all the pictures, edit them to the right size, and label them correctly. In the end, I used pictures from a few days before/after to make it so no two consecutive pictures/days had the same year. I cannot put all the pictures here because the post would be way too large, but I did end up doing statistics with the pictures I ended up choosing:

Things to do around the Lausanne/Morges area

As Chase gets older, we are finding more fun things in the area to do with him, so I am chronicling these things here to remember and to maybe help others who are in the area. This list is not exhaustive, but consists of activities for which we have pictures and which are more memorable. These are activities we've done in the last 6 months or so, during which Chase was 3-3.5 years old. 

1. Museums in Lausanne and Morges, including:

Cantonal Zoology Museum in Lausanne

This is the top floor of the Rumine Palace near the Riponne metro stop. It was started in 1818 and has such cool relics. Chase really enjoyed it when we went as there are multiple exhibits and lots of (old) animals.

Olympic Museum in Lausanne



2. Lake & parks in Morges

Obviously, we spend a lot of time in Morges, but even if we didn't live here, it still is a great place to visit as there are parks all along the lake. Chase loves watching the boats near the castle, going to the three main playgrounds around Morges, and riding his bike or trotinette all around.

3. Wine tasting

While this is not an activity for the kids specifically, we have found kids are more than welcome to be around. We have many wine tastings in the Morges/Lausanne region. Every May/June there is an event when the wineries open their doors and you can get a passport (for only 20 CHF) to visit 50+ of them over two-three days. We have gone with friends for the last few years (last year we went to Fechy which was particularly nice and quiet) and have been enjoyed it a lot. There are also other events set up in the area as the one below which was in a tent at the park near our apartment.

4. Short Day Trips

Thanks to friends who have a car, we've been able to do a few kid-friendly day trips. Even without a car, there are many places we can easily visit, but these are the ones we did recently:

Les Paccots
This is mostly a ski resort but has a fun "train" ride and short hikes, perfect for kids in the summer.

Fort de Pré-Giroud 

This was an awesome visit of a decommissioned Swiss Army fort. It was really cool to learn the history and check it out. 

Désalpe in St. Cergue
The Désalpe is an event when the cows come down from the mountains in the fall. They dress the cows up and parade them through the town while they have food and activities set up for kids.

(photo credit to Yordan)

5. Ouchy

Boat to Evian
From Ouchy (which is Lausanne's lake front), you take the boat across the lake to France - specifically to Evian. We went there with Bridget when she visited in March. We also went there previously with Nate's parents and possibly on our own.

(photo credit to Bridget)

(photo credit to Bridget)

Merry-Go-Round and Playground/Park
Ouchy itself actually has an amazing playground for kids to play on, along with a nice park and a merry-go-round.

Another Solo Trip to San Diego

This has been an odd year as I made solo trips to San Diego twice! This was mostly because Chase is older and can stand to be away from me for a few days, and Nate has a bit of flexibility in his schedule. In October, I took a few days to fly to LA to visit Sakina and meet Sophie! I then drove down to San Diego to go to Liz and Jack's wedding, which was super fun and felt like an awesome HMC reunion!

I spent the rest of the time with my parents. My mom and I had the chance to do a Wild Animal Park caravan tour and were able to feed the giraffes and feed (and pet!!) the rhinos! It was an awesome tour as we went at sunset and all the animals were super active after a hot day and were putting on an awesome show for us! My mom's birthday fell in the days I was visiting, so it was also nice to celebrate her. 

Other than seeing my parents, I also spent some time with my cousin (who was visibly absent from our Ukraine trip this summer as she was working in London this summer before returning back to San Diego to finish her senior year). However, when my parents and cousin were at work/school, I enjoyed a burrito and some beach time in the best place in the world.