Budapest Trip

In early March, my girl lab mates and I traveled to Budapest for a girls' weekend! I was very excited because I have wanted to go to Budapest for a while and this seemed like the perfect chance. We caught a flight at around Friday lunch time and came back Sunday evening so we had three days there, which felt short but sufficient to get all of the highlights (also, interestingly, we did not have our passports checked going there nor coming back). We walked A LOT -- our phones told us it was around 45 km so more than a marathon!! We saw some beautiful sights, learned about some of the history by taking a walking tour, ate some great food, went to a bath (Gellert), saw a Hungarian folk band performance, and enjoyed getting to know a new city. It was particularly interesting to see the juxtaposition of old and new, such as the city with a well-preserved 1st underground metro in Europe and a super modern huge American-style shopping mall. Unfortunately, the weather was not very cooperative and it was colder than we had hoped for with some slight drizzle here and there.

Here are some pictures of our adventures (thanks to Elsa for some of the selfie ones):

Overview from a lookout below the Mattias Church (from Buda side on Pest), St. Stephen's Basilica (Pest), Matthias Church (Buda)

Us posing for selfie on Heroes Square (Pest), Parliament (from Buda side on Pest)

Gellert Bath House (Buda), Historic metro station -- not the best picture but it was beautiful and surreal (forgot which station this was but somewhere on the Pest side)

After the baths, we climbed up to Liberty Statue and saw the city at night, which was super cool!

2015 in Review

Another crazy, full year for us!

We had a smaller number of trips than usual, and only a few with all three of us:
Short trips around Switzerland (N, O, C)
Paris (N, O, C)
Sardinia (O; lab trip)
Kiev (O, C; N had to work)
Nebraska (N; for Melissa's wedding)
Japan (O; girls trip)
US: Omaha, Las Vegas, San Diego (N, O, C)

Chase hasn't significantly added to his state/country/continent count (+1 country: Ukraine, +1 state: Nevada) but he is getting much better at traveling so we hope to increase our count in 2016. Chase did spend time with all of his grandparents and (living) great grandparents this year. His maternal paternal great grandfather visited in January for his daycare transition, his maternal grandparents (and uncle) visited for his 1st birthday, and his paternal grandmother visited for two weeks during the summer for his daycare holiday. He went to Kiev to see his maternal paternal great grandparents and then to Nebraska to see three of his paternal great grandparents. He also saw/met every single one of his aunts and uncles, and saw all his grandparents again during out trip to the US. Wow! Such a big accomplishment!

Speaking of Chase, I updated on his first year (to 15 months) and his 15-20 months milestones.

Very few crafts this year, but I was able to make Chase some shorts and a quiet book. I already have material and patterns for many more Chase-related crafts next year! We also took some family pictures and made a holiday card out of them. In terms of home improvements, we have been battling a leak in the roof in our Cambridge apartment and waited for 3 months for a new dishwasher in Switzerland.

I will leave you with a Instagram picture collage of the year. As always, you can follow me on Instagram and Twitter. Have a happy 2016!!

Trip to the US

This year, we decided to go back to the US for the holidays. I was to attend a mid-December conference in San Diego and Nate needed to be at Harvard in early January for an exam. Chase and I had not been in the US since August 2014 (almost 1.5 years!), whereas Nate had returned October 2014 and October 2015 for the weddings of his siblings.

It has been a fun but intense trip. We have spent a good amount of time with every member of our immediate families and have seen many members of our extended family and friends. I started the trip by flying to San Diego for the conference. Nate and Chase flew to Omaha (and got stuck in London for the night, then missed another flight in Dallas, delaying their arrival by more than 24 hours!). After my conference, I flew to meet them in Nebraska where we spent lots of time hanging out with family and friends. Chase finally met Nate's father's mother, the fifth of his five living great-grandparents. We also took some nice 4 generation photos with all grandparents on Nate's side.

We visited various child-friendly spots including the Children's Museum and the Henry-Doorley Zoo. We were able to watch a football game with our Nebraska-based fantasy football team (and sign a very interesting trophy...), and we were able to see Brett and Amber the day before they had their third baby (so glad that worked out timing-wise!). Last but not least, Chase and I were able to meet Melissa's new husband (whom Nate had obviously met at the wedding) and had fun hanging out with them. We also got some nice snow for a real white Christmas and built a snowman!

On Christmas day, the family dispersed from Nebraska (Nate's parents going on a cruise) and we hopped on a short flight to Vegas. There, we met up with both of our brothers, Ivan and David, and David's wife Colleen. David met Chase for the first time, and both Chase and I met Colleen for the first time. The next day, my parents arrived from Greece (where they were the week before) and we all hung out for about 4 days there. Finally, we took a rental car, and made our way back to San Diego for the new year. Here, we have been hanging out with family and friends and will be exploring the zoo, beach, and other fun spots. We also have lots of appointments (dental, doctor, dmv, eye, lawyers, etc.) so it hasn't all been just relaxing.

Chase experienced his first Christmas (last year, we did nothing for Christmas since we were in Spain) although he really didn't understand it and we urged all relatives to keep down the number of presents (due to travel and the fact that he already has too many toys!!). He still enjoyed the atmosphere of our Yankee Swap in Omaha and a visit from Ded Moroz (Father Christmas) in San Diego. In San Diego, we got a Happy New Year balloon for our party, which Chase just loved and wouldn't let go of... and still hasn't given up!

Although our trip isn't done yet, we're really glad we had this chance to come back home and see everyone!

Quiet book for Chase

My crafting has been limited this year, but something I did make was a quiet book for Chase. If you google "toddler quiet book," you can find many variations of these quiet books, some very very intricate. I just wanted something simple for him so he can be entertained on the long plane trip to the US this Christmas. He also is loving letters and numbers right now so I wanted to include those.

I used felt and did a combination of sewing and hot gluing to attach all the parts. I then sewed all the pages back to back for a nice finished look. I really like the way it turned out and Chase has liked playing with it.

Front: Chase's name on it and buttons keeping it closed. 

Right side: buttons can be nicely seen; Spine: you can see 4 pages. 

First page: zippered pouch with cut out felt letters that can be played with on the blue felt. 

Second page: colorful traffic signs that are attached with velcro and can be moved around. 

Third page: practice in braiding and tying a bow; numbers 1-5 with beads corresponding to each number. 

Fourth page: logic test with snaps -- there are 4 colors (yellow, blue, green, and red) and 5 images (bunny, bird, apple, butterfly, and bear) and all of the butterflies, apples, and birds snap off so using the colors and images, they need to be put back in place. 

Back cover: just white with elastics sewn in for the buttons on the front. 

Chase really enjoyed playing with it on the plane:

Overall, it's been really nice, but the letters can get lost pretty easily since they are not attached. The snaps are too hard to snap for Chase, but that page is also a bit too complicated for him so it's probably ok.

Chase months 15-20

Since my last Chase post, Chase has grown quite a bit. He now talks much more -- both in English and French, but predominantly in English around us. He knows a few phrases: "pas d'accord" (not okay, in French), "I did this!", "all done." He loves signing songs including "twinkle twinkle, little star," "itsy bitsy spider," still "wheels on the bus," and now the ABC song. He surprisingly can sing all the letters in the ABC song on his own. He can count to somewhere between 5 and 10 depending on his attention span. He knows most of his colors, but still prefers yellow and black over the others.

He loves loves loves airplanes, especially pointing them out to us when they're flying. He also likes balls: ping-pong balls, playground balls, balloons, etc. And, as a good Swiss child, he loves clocks! He is doing a better job of playing on his own, but still loves using the iPad to look up YouTube videos, especially those that involved balloons, colors, shapes, and letters. He still loves his stuffed animals -- Bagel (the dog) and Bear. He eats pretty well (although not 100% of the time) and uses silverware very well. He still loves cleaning and now has an odd obsession with his socks, especially certain pairs. He is very resistant to some clothing, especially his Halloween costume, as seen below. He loves playgrounds, especially slides and swings, and riding on his bike.

Here are some photos of Chase from the last few months:

Left: Pointing out an airplane on the way to daycare one morning.

Right: When he first got his bike, he was so obsessed that he didn't want to get off of it, even in the house.

   

Loved using the umbrella during on a rainy day.

Using two computers at the same time, as a good child of the 2010s. 

Making friends with some goats and chickens at Signal de Bougy -- a local park and playground for children. 

Hanging out with mommy at the lakeshore; waiting with daddy at the bus stop. 

Left: Having his first boba. 

Right: Hating his Halloween costume. We thought that with his love for itsy bisty spider, he would love it, but no. 

Left: Swinging at his favorite playground. 

Right: On the ferris wheel at the Montreaux Christmas Market.

Looking out at the lake with daddy from the Morges Beach. 

Overall, we are very much enjoying watching Chase grow and change!

Family photos

Since Chase is getting to be a real child, we decided to get some professional family photos done this year. These were taken a little south of where we live in Switzerland, but still close to the water front. Chase was around 17.5 months here and we're really happy how they turned out and captured our family at this point in time.

Here are our favorites:

We also used them on the Christmas card that we're sending out this year:

Trip to Japan!

My first solo trip after Chase was born was to Japan. I went when he was 19 months old and finally weaned. It was amazing.

I went with Sakina, Mika, and Olga, and stayed with Katie for a few days. We also saw Kiyo while there. It kind of turned into our 10 (and a half) year high school graduation reunion. Crazy to think that we've all known each other close to 16-17 years!!

This post will be a bit different since I documented this on instagram pretty thoroughly and will reuse some of the pictures and captions here.

Comparison between the day before we left for college (August 2005) and us in Tokyo (November 2015). We really didn't change much -- it's actually quite uncanny.

This is us visiting the Tokyo Skytree, tallest tower in the world. We got lucky with amazing visibility, including Mt. Fuji next to the setting sun. We also got lucky to see Tokyo in both the (dimming) daylight and at night once all the lights went on!

 

Some more Tokyo sights: a sales robot which humored us with funny jokes, Harajuku area which was incredibly busy, Christmas lights in Rappongi, and a machine that takes your ramen order.

We took the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto. It only took 2.5 hours, during which I learned how to read in Japanese and made myself a cheat sheet that I used nonstop since to read the things around me. We also went to a Japanese tea ceremony and learned how to make green tea.

In Kyoto, we went to the Kiyomizu-dura temple, which was open at night to highlight the beautiful fall colors. Although some nice orange/red branches could be seen, most were still green due to the unseasonably warm weather this year. We drank from the Otawa waterfall, which is supposed to have wish-granting powers. The temple, which has a stage held up with no nails at all, seen on bottom right here, gave a beautiful view of Kyoto at night.

Also in Kyoto, we visited the Fushimi Inari Taishi shrine which has hundreds of gates all going up a nearby mountain. We almost walked to the top (takes about 2 hours) to see many of these gates. We then went out to the Tenryu-ji temple which had extensive gardens, a large pond with tons of koi, and was situated next to a bamboo forest.

Tokyo tower as seen from our hotel room back in Tokyo where we finished exploring another day before heading back to our respective home countries. 

The food in Japan was amazing!! Only a few things pictured here: Japanese pancakes (okonomiyaki), sushi (first thing in the morning, right next to the fish market so super fresh), ramen, shabu shabu appetizers and the shabu shabu hot pot! In general, everything was so tasty and budget friendly! Such a major change from Switzerland.

Overall, we had such a wonderful time visiting Japan. It was my first time in Asia and I really enjoyed exploring everything! To me, it felt closer to America than Switzerland, so that was an interesting experience. Can't wait to go back to Japan or other Asian countries!