All of you know by now that my Nana came a little over a week ago to have a Swiss adventure…read here if you missed the whole story! Don’t get confused by the title of the post linked….Nana isn’t a spider. You’ll have to read to catch up! 

Slowly we are getting into a new routine and trying to balance her desire to get out of the house with the need to also rest and lay low. It makes life more than interesting. I often find myself pushing the stroller with Owen bucking in the stroller seat, Jackson on one side hoping to speed up and Nana on the other struggling to hold tight enough. We are quite a spectacle for the Swiss to behold!

Last week Nana got to experience play dough time with the boys, lots of book reading, an outing to the river, raclette, dinner at a beautiful lookout restaurant and then after church on Sunday night we walked her downtown to see the Rendevous Bundeshaus light show! Here are some pictures from her first week in Switzerland!

playdough time!

Owen sticks closer than a brother! He is Nana’s watchdog!

rock throwing demo for Nana…don’t worry dad he looks closer to the edge than he is!

raclette night

looking innocent…she tends to get them riled up and gets Owen wrestling her!

evidence!

and this is just tiny sneak peak at the light show!! More to come on this…maybe tomorrow!

So that catches you up on our week! I will try to stay up with uploading pictures because I know many of you that know and love Nana would love to see what she’s up to!

he looks so little yet feels so big!

brothers

helping with leaves

looks like he caught something….all of the trees look like they are leaning with him!

he wrapped it up and slipped it into his pocket

hope you don’t mind the company fisherman! they were hooked!

On Friday night Seth and I hosted a dinner party…a fondue party at that. I shouldn’t even call it a party because it was super low key. Just low lighting, 2 pots of cheese, lots of dippers and good company. With the craziness of last week Seth decided to come home a bit early on Friday which allowed me to sneak out on a “date” with Jackson to the grocery store for our dipping bread. Jackson had been in a funk all day so I thought it might be good for him to get out. When he zipped his coat he said “mom, I think I am wearing the same shirt I slept in last night”. Poor kid. We had had a home day with lots of cleaning and prepping for our visitor so I had let him stay in his sweats. He was a little self conscious but I reassured him that no one would know he had slept in his baseball shirt. Bad mom, I know.

Before we left home Jackson caught on to the fun of the fondue party plans and actually started to cry that he wasn’t invited. This wasn’t like him to be so disappointed. I remembered that the store sells little individual tubs of fondue and I asked if he wanted to have his very own fondue pot for dinner. He was thrilled. So, we got him his own little “Gerber” pot of fondue. He proudly dipped and enjoyed. He’s such a character.

When the fondue pots were scraped clean and the house got quiet we started hearing Jackson coughing. Poor kid hadn’t been able to sleep well and was wide awake and coughing up a lung. Seth had to go out to a friend’s in the middle of the night to get medicine because there wasn’t a 24 hour (or even after 8pm) place near our home. Don’t get me started….I get grumpy when I get talking about conveniences that they just don’t get here. I was happy to have a friend we could call! Anyhow, seems the crying for a pot of fondue may have been linked to being sick which we only learned later! My mom used to make us chicken rice soup or poached eggs on toast when we were feeling sick…much more sensible than a tub of cheese!! But he loved it!

Now I must admit that I am quite fond of hypotheticals, not fond per say but I guess but just comfortable with them. I think they help me think things through and anticipate possible things in the future and maybe keep my cool if they arise. This isn’t the time to chime in on not worrying about the future. I know, I know.

As you regular readers know Nana is scheduled to arrive today. I heard this morning that her flight was significantly delayed leaving Bangkok which would get her in to Moscow as her connecting flight was meant to leave Moscow. So my aunt and I both spent time on the line with the airline to try to find out what would happen if she didn’t make the connecting flight. I checked the website and the only update I could get was that the plane left Bangkok, nothing about when or if it was delayed. What’s the point of a status update?! Moving on.

So I finally got through to someone in Customer Service. She looked on the computer and said it was on time. Okay, great, but that’s confusing since we know it didn’t leave on time. Can a plane make up 3 hours in the air? Hmmm. I sure hope so.  So I asked her what the next flight was if Nana were to miss the flight. She said “ma’am, I can’t give out any private customer information”. “Okay, I am not asking for any information. I know who she is and I know she’s on the flight. can you tell me when the next flight out is to Zurich?”  She then went on to ask for Nana’s information. Turns out the next flight isn’t until tomorrow at noon.

Nana doesn’t have a Russian visa which means she will be sitting in the Moscow airport over night….IF she misses the flight. But get this, each time I asked what assistance she could get or if there was a hotel in the airport that she could use without a visa the lady would say “mam, the flight is on time so we don’t have to talk about if she misses her connecting flights.” Maybe it’s not Russian culture, but for goodness sake, I needed to know what circumstance my “assistance needing grandmother” would be in if she HYPOTHETICALLY speaking would need to wait for another flight.

Knowing Nana she is kicking back and getting loads of attention from some kind passenger on her flight. If she arrives in Moscow to learn she is waiting over night she will befriend a desperate family who is looking for someone to adopt their sweet children and Nana will show up tomorrow on my doorstep with a family of Russian orphans,  extra peanuts from her emergency stash and showing no wear from this ghastly journey.

Praying she makes her connection and we can get her home safe and sound!