Family, friends, vacas, and a boy!

Just a quick update before Im off to the airport!

Life has been crazy and fun for the past month and it's still going!  Paul's family came to visit and while I had to work half of the time Paul was their tour guide and took them around Switzerland.  We took a long weekend and rented a car for a road trip to Paris.  We had a blast and saw a lot of things but we might have to go back and try some French cuisine.  I never got around to trying a pastry although we did eat some yummy bagettes!  The city was a lot more dirty that we had expected but we had to remind ourselves that Switzerland is somewhat unusual in their cleanliness.  It was so nice to be around family though and we miss everyone lots!

The day they left Billy and his gf arrived and we rented another car for an even bigger road trip starting the next day.  We tried to get to a castle in Germany that was the inspiration for Sleeping Beauty's castle but the traffic was too bad and wasted too much of our time.  So we made our way to Austria for a few days.  Austria was beautiful- green fields, big mountains, and turquoise lakes.  We visited a glacier and walked on the outskirts of it, hiked around, and camped.  Driving up the mountain was crazy but Paul was awesome in our manual car.  The roads had tight turns and somehow motorcycles still passed you and bikers were all over.  The skinny roads were somehow 2 lane roads and we drove these for at least a couple hours but the view was gorgeous.  Practice for Italy!  Then we drove to Innsbruck and walked around the town and stayed in a hostel.  Paul was loving the fact that everyone spoke clear high German so when we made our way to Cinque Terre in Italy it was definitely a different feel with Italian everywhere.  But it was soooooo much fun.  We found our hostel through some extremely curvy skinny roads up on the top of a mountain (basically in the middle of a really small town which was fun!).  From then on we decided to use the buses even though there were sometimes 4 hour breaks inbetween pick up times.  One day we hiked the 5 cities- this took all day and gelato in every city was my motivation!  I definitely slowed down the group but I did it and was not too exhausted.  There were tons of stairs and a lot of it was along the mountainous coast line which gave me some pretty pictures!  The next day Billy and Jess booked a surprise snorkeling adventure and the boat took us around to a few different spots to swim and snorkel and fed us some amazing homemade food.  It was awesome!  Then we made our way to stay in a different town and had a relaxing beach day with an authentic Italian dinner (5 courses at least and a 2 hour long stay) in a very small town.

This ended our road trip and on the way home we dropped Billy and Jess off in Lugano before we finished the drive back to Zurich.  They'll be here until next week and Paul will go back to work for a few days before he meets back up with them for some camping and climbing.  Im leaving in about 20 min to catch a train to the airport for my flight to the states for Labor Day Reunion Weekend!!!  Im soooo freakin excited to see my friends!  Im doing tons of shopping and eating while Im there too!  Pictures of all these adventures and ones soon to come will be posted maybe next week.

Oh, and we had our 22 week checkup yesterday- It's a BOY!!!  My gut feeling was that it was a boy so it was pretty funny/exciting for it to be confirmed.  Everything is normal and looking good and Im feeling great!  Paul even felt him kicking around last week.  He is an extremely strong kicker already and sometimes it keeps me from sleeping but I love it.  Anyway, more to come soon but I have to go!

Happy birthday, Switzerland

My parents sent a couple of packages which we are sooo thankful for.  Tons of Luna bars, gatorade mix, books, hiking pants for Paul, nursing bras for me, brownie mix, oatmeal, and probably more that Im forgetting.  So amazing!  I already finished the book Belly Laughs (by Jenny McCarthy) and Im not a fan.  Some parts were definitely funny but I just started her Living Laughs book and am realizing her negativity and warped view on some things.  Oh, well.  It's at least giving me something 'fun' to read.  When I go to the states I'll probably pick up Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close and Say You're One of Them- 2 books I've been wanting to read for a very long time.

Oh!  We had a doctors appointment last Monday and everything seems to be ok.  We made our next appointment for Aug 30 (our only free day in a 3 week span).  So I'll know whether to look for pink or blue when I leave for the states the next day!  We are sooooo excited to know!  And speaking of baby stuff, I FINALLY placed orders for (hopefully) all the cloth diapering things we'll need.  It just environmentally and economically makes sense for us and Im actually really excited to try out everything!  Things have really improved and I got some advice from friends and am pretty confident in my system!  I ordered from Cotton Babies and Green Mountain Diapers.  I can't speak for the products yet but most of my stash came from Cotton Babies and I like their system A LOT.

Anway, Friday Paul and I went searching for some sleeping pads for our camping trips.  We found some but werent sold on them.  So we'll continue our quest.  We picked up TONS of groceries and came home for a relaxing early to bed evening.  We got up early the next day to take the train over to Davos where Paul ran an 11k- with NO training.  Talk about a sore body today!  It was beautiful weather though and I got some nice sun and got to know Paul's new friend Harold from Austria.  Davos is a huge skiing place in the winter.  OH!  And on the way I found an outlet mall!  How cool?!  The prices are significantly cheaper than in the city but not as cheap as outlets in the states.  And a train ticket there still costs about 40 francs.  Paul ran in and tried on some Nikes though so now I know what size to buy him!

Even I tried some of the beer!!!................... Alcohol free of course!  ;)

Today is Switzerland's birthday- when some of the cantons came together and decided to join during the medieval days (says Paul).  :)  So hopefully we'll be able to sleep tonight because there will be little fireworks everywhere.

Well, that's all folks!  Paul's parents come next Sunday and his brother and gf come Monday and then we're off to Paris a few days after that.  Maybe I'll be able to update before then but we're SO excited!  I only have 15 days of work left until I find out what my fate will be.  Woohooo!