US Travels

I’m way behind in writing this post but life has been busy is all I can say. So Christmas. We seem to have started this tradition where we go back to the US every other year for Christmas. And Christmas 2016 was a year to go home. It worked out well because then we could introduce Elaine to family and friends that hadn’t met her yet.

We started our adventure by heading to Dundee, OR a few days before Christmas. We met Nate’s parents there and spent the week of Christmas with them. Dundee is also where our friends Ron and Lindsay live and so it gave us the opportunity to spend time with them as well and their newborn baby girl. We had a wonderful Christmas together, we got to spend some quality time with Nate’s parents (and they got to spend some quality time with the girls), we relaxed, saw friends (thanks Chad and Tasha for coming out to us!) and even got out to enjoy a bit of the Oregon wine country where we were staying. Nate’s parents were nice enough to babysit Josephine so we could get out for a bit and do some wine tasting with Ron and Lindsay.

The week flew by and before we knew it it was time to say goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa Ross and head to the Bay Area. Kristine and Aaron were kind enough to host us once again. The kids had a blast playing together. We did the train of lights in Fremont, which was fun and Christmasy. The guys got out for a night in the city and Kristine and I got our own time out. Nate and I took the girls into the city for the day to meet up with friends for lunch on the Embarcadero. We then headed over to Pac Bell Park as Nate had to show Josephine exactly where the Giants play.

This year was yet another mellow New Year’s Eve and we rang it in with Kristine, Aaron, Louis and Keelin and the kiddos. It was all perfect and everyone was pretty much in bed shortly after midnight. Life with young kids!

It was of course a quick week and before we knew it we were saying goodbye. Nate headed back to London and the girls and I headed to my parents’ in San Miguel. Since I was on maternity leave it provided a good opportunity for us to spend some extra time in the US.

We spent 3 weeks with my parents and did lots of fun stuff. We went to the Children’s Museum, which Josephine loved. We walked around Cal Poly. This was fun as I hadn’t been on campus since I graduated and another bonus was showing Josephine where Mommy went to school. Her comment “Wow, it’s big!”. We had two separate visits to Firestone (a must visit, of course). We celebrated my birthday. Catherine came and we were able to celebrate for the day together. Mom and Dad were kind enough to watch Josephine so we could get out for lunch and do some wine tasting. As a bonus, Lisa was there too! I got to visit with other friends too….lunch with Jess, dinner with Dave and Angie. It was nice having so much time to be able to do these things.

Josephine got to have some fun in the country. She rode her John Deere tractor, hiked around the hills and a favorite was riding in the truck with Grandpa to take the garbage cans down to the end of the driveway for pickup. No carseat or anything! Needless to say, it was always hard to get her out of the truck.

We ended our 3 weeks with a baptism for Elaine. Nate came back for a long weekend (planned accordingly so that I didn’t have to travel back to London alone with the girls). It was a great opportunity to baptize Elaine with many of our friends and family present. Josephine got to play with her cousins….and had a blast of course.

Overall it was a great 3 weeks filled with so many experiences and memories. After 5 weeks in total back in the US, it was a bit rough getting back settled again in London. But after 10 days, all was back to normal.

Hello London and Welcome Elaine

Wow, a lot has happened since our last post. And because so much has happened, it explains why it’s been months before I’ve been able to post anything here. Let’s start with our move to London. We said goodbye to Paris and arrived in London at the very end of May, just in time to move into our new place on June 1. The move itself was a complete whirlwind and I think we got in over our heads. Without Nate or I really taking any time off of work, we moved in, bought all new furniture (as we were coming from a furnished place in Paris), found a nursery for Josephine and then went through a settling in process over a 3 week period.

And then of course the unexpected things popped up that you just don’t have time for. I was 7 months pregnant at the time and came down with a horrible sinus cold which knocked me out for a week and a half. This meant Nate had to do a lot of the furniture buying, unpacking and other household chores. Oh and we started getting these mysterious bug bites which turned out to be bird mites. A few visits from pest control and 2 months later, that finally got resolved. We didn’t have internet for 10 days which doesn’t sound awful but it’s crazy how much we really do depend on it. And through all of this I was making sure we were all set up with a GP and registered at a hospital for when Elaine arrived. It was a very busy, very stressful time indeed and I’m so glad that’s behind us.

Oh but Nate and I were able to get away for a day of London sightseeing and lunch to celebrate our anniversary. Happy 10th anniversary to us!

Sightseeing with Mom and Dad

And just as we were starting to finally feel remotely settled, well that’s when Elaine made her arrival. She came on her due date of August 22. Thankfully this was after my parents arrived so we had someone to watch Josephine while we were at the hospital. I had started my maternity leave in early August which gave me a week to rest before my parents arrived. Then I had a few days to do some fun stuff in London with them before Elaine came. Timing-wise it all worked out perfectly.

Hello Elaine!

Now we are adjusting to being a family of four. Josephine absolutely adores Elaine and loves being a big sister. She is our little helper for sure. She loves helping with diaper changes and always makes sure to tell us when Elaine is crying or has spit up. It’s really sweet although she does have her moments and we need to remind her to be gentle with her. But she always wants to know where Elaine is and what she’s doing and gives her kisses any opportunity she gets.

Sisters!

It’s been 5 months since we arrived and we haven’t had much time to really enjoy our new city. Life is finally settling down now though and I feel like we can start exploring and enjoying London.

Skiing in Austria

Ok, so this blog post is way overdue. We did a ski trip in Serfaus, Austria for a week at the beginning of March and it’s now almost June. In the interest of catching up, I’m going to just give a quick overview of the highlights.

• Serfaus, Austria - Same place we went last year. Same friends. Same hotel. Same great experience.
• Nate was happy - he got to ski 5 out of the 6 days we were there. I being pregnant did not ski and instead was super happy relaxing, having a spa day and taking leisurely walks outside.
• Josephine had fun running around in the snow, taking a gondola ride to meet daddy for lunch, sledding, playing in the indoor pool and exploring the kids club at the hotel (Let’s be truthful, this one made all of us happy. While it took Josephine a bit of adjusting to get dropped off here, she did really love their big slide and all the fun things to do and we got to have free time to do the things mentioned above).

And that about sums up our week in Austria. We once again had a fantastic experience at the hotel with all food being included plus daycare. The weather was a bit colder and snowy in the beginning of the week and the sun came out at the end of the week. It truly felt like a restful, relaxing vacation. And those can be hard to come by when you have a toddler with you.

Big Changes Coming Up

It looks like 2016 will be a year filled with a couple of big changes for us. First off, Nate has received a great job opportunity through Nasdaq. However this new position is based in London. That means as of June 1 we will leave Paris and make a new home in London. He’ll get a chance to try out management and see how he likes it.

And on top of this, I am pregnant and due at the end of August. So all the more reason we want to get to London as soon as we can to get settled.

As for London, Nate and I took a quick trip there a couple of weeks ago as we are working with an agency to help us find a new home. We don’t want to (nor do we have time to deal with) a temporary home so we want to find a home and move into it right when we get there. We spent a day with the agency and saw 15-16 different places. Lots of variety which was good. There was one place in particular that we both liked and lucky for us, the landlord accepted our offer. Our new home will be in Parsons Green, in the southwest part of London. We are just finalizing the tenancy agreement now so barring anything unexpected, we should be able to get the keys on June 1. We’re really excited about the neighborhood as it had been recommended by a couple of people. It’s very family friendly, has a few good market streets with shops and restaurants and should make a good new home for us.

Our visas also came through this past week so we are officially allowed to move to London. Things are all moving in the right direction.

As for the new baby. We found out we’re expecting a girl! No big surprise there I suppose as our family seems to definitely favor girls over boys. We’re very excited though and Josephine loves to talk about her “baby sister”.

Now that we have a place to live, that’s created a whole new list of things to do. I’m working on finding a hospital for delivery, a doctor and childcare. It’s definitely a busy time right now trying to get everything organized but I’ll be excited to get to London and get settled there.

I’ll definitely miss Paris and I don’t think it’s quite hit me yet that we’re leaving. I guess I have too much other stuff occupying me for the time being. I know for sure I’ll miss the boulangeries, cheese and cheap but great wine. But I have to admit, I’m also really excited about living in an English speaking country again.

The countdown is on. Only 3 weekends left here in Paris. Hard to believe that we’re moving to yet another country. Let the adventure continue!

New Year, More Visitors

It’s been a few months since we’ve had some visitors and the start of the year started off with a string of them.

It all started with my birthday weekend when my good friend Kristine flew out on my actual birthday to celebrate with me. We had Wilma babysit and spent that Friday night out just adults. Then Kristine and I had some quality time to catch up and did dinner and a Crazy Horse show Saturday night. As for Crazy Horse, think Moulin Rouge but racier. It was recommended so a new experience for us both. We had such a great time together. There’s nothing like being able to spend your birthday with a good friend and your family. The long weekend went way too fast of course.

Then in mid-February we had a quick but fun visit from our friends Ben and Abby. They were only making a one night stop in Paris before they headed to Chamonix for a ski adventure. Once again we had Wilma babysit and went out for dinner and drinks. Sadly we didn’t get any pictures with them but so great to finally have them visit us in Paris!

And then right after their visit we got a special visit from Nicole, Michael and Ava. They spent a few nights in Paris before heading to Berlin and then London. Unfortunately due to our crazy schedules we weren’t able to spend time with them during the day but had a great time spending our evenings together.

Always fun catching up with friends and family here in Paris!!!

And New Year's in Arizona

We don’t like to stay home too long so after getting back to Paris from Annecy, we spent 2 nights at home before we boarded a flight to Arizona. This time it was to visit Nate’s grandma as well as his parents who flew in from Medford to meet us there. It was a quick trip as we only stayed for 5 nights over New Year’s but we hadn’t seen Grandma since Josephine was 3.5 months old so we were way overdue for a visit. It was an extra bonus that Nate’s parents, Bill and Dee, could meet us there as well.

Our travel day was exhausting as we connected in London and Josephine slept perhaps 1-2 hours the entire trip. But we survived.  We arrived in Phoenix around 8pm so had a chance to say hello to everyone, get settled and then finally crash after our long day of travel. We actually all slept fairly well, Josephine being the most important one for this, and woke up before 6am. I always love traveling that direction because you wake up early, not tired and you can get so much more out of your day!

New Year's Brunch

We basically spent the next few days eating all of the foods we had been talking about/craving/looking forward to (Mexican was an immediate first of course), going to Target, doing some shopping and most importantly just getting a chance to visit with family and relax. It was actually a really relaxing trip, minus the bit of jet lag, as we didn’t pile too much on our plates. We had a low key NYE and a lovely New Year’s brunch where Grandma lives.

As with all of our trips, they go by too fast and before we know it, it’s time to pack up and head home. We specifically chose to not go anywhere else in the Bay Area on this trip as we had limited amount of time and needed to get back to work at the beginning of January. Next time, a visit to the Bay Area will certainly be in order though!

And of course we have to support our Ducks

Christmas in Annecy

Nate and I decided that for this past Christmas, we wanted to stay in Europe. We were in the US the Christmas before so it just seemed right to stay here. And lucky for us, my sister and her family, our cousin, my parents, and even my brother-in-law’s family were all able to join us. It made for quite the Christmas celebration, especially for being so far from home!

We decided to head to Annecy here in France not too far from Geneva and the alps. We had never been there before but had seen pictures and it seemed like a quaint French town that was a perfect place to spend Christmas. The town sits on a lake and it gets into the Christmas spirit with Christmas markets, lights and decorations all around town. Being a large group, we rented two apartments not far from each other.


We arrived along with my parents a few days ahead of the rest of the group so we had time to stroll around the town, check out the food market, take a walk by the lake and just relax. It was just what we wanted.

Everyone else arrived the day before Christmas Eve and we had fun catching up with them and preparing for the Christmas festivities. Josephine had a blast with her three cousins as well. The last time she saw them was back in April when we went to Slovenia so now that she’s a bit older, she had even more fun playing with them.

We went to John and Julie’s apartment for Christmas Eve dinner and then church on Christmas morning and back to our apartment for Christmas dinner. It was a typical family Christmas set in a lovely French town.

After Christmas we all had one more day together before we would be parting ways. We spent a leisurely day in the town. They had an area where the kids went for pony rides (Josephine wanted no part in that) and we all could go ice skating.

It was yet another Christmas to remember surrounded by family. We are very blessed!

Merry Christmas!