Yes, yes I know summer is almost over. But in this house we are just now finally having our FIRST normal week of summer routine. We joined the Y last week so this week our schedule has included me working out while the boys have gym time and then when the weather permits we have been making it to the pool. The winds are starting to get a bit chilly but nothing compared to that alpine air that we never grew accustom to at the pool in Switzerland. In between catching up with friends we haven’t seen in a while and our pool and gym times we are enjoying having some time at home where I am not working on the house and we are just doing “normal” day to day stuff. It is refreshing for me to be on this side of transition. I realize we will have a new wave of it when our fall routine ramps up but for now I am just enjoying the new groove and thankful for…

…the summer tomatoes from my friend Rebecca’s garden (the menu for last night was tomato pie and tonight we will have fresh salsa with our tacos, thanks, Rebecca!)

…my husband that planned well financially for this insane time of house-gutting and having to buy two cars at once! Ouch

…and beach boys

post coming soon on our trip to VA Beach over the weekend for a friends wedding!

Since we will be stateside for a bit this was a treat to do one last homeleave before the next phase.  Seth spent most of his leave painting and working on the house but he snuck in a few fun days before that all began. You can click on the pictures to make them bigger. I haven’t learned how to do a collage and the thumbnails cut off some of the pictures but this was WAY too many pictures to put in full size and in a zillion posts. Sorry for the photo dump!

We started in Friendswood with Seth’s family! We made it to an Astros game which made Seth’s heart content. Oh yes, and he had some Whataburger too. What more could a guy ask for.

on our way to Ft Worth we popped in and saw our friends Bo and Leigh and their little girls! Their new home is so beautiful and was such a welcoming space!

Seth stayed in Ft Worth for a couple of days with us and then packed up and drove a penske up with his dad to get going on painting and getting the house liveable!  While he was away we went to the Ft Worth zoo, got spoiled with my moms good cooking, went to Glenrose, Texas to look for dinosaur tracks in the river at the State park, spent time with my brother and my sister-in-law Tina and weathered the heat of the Texas summer!   We also got to catch up with good friends from our old Dallas days!

part way through our time in Ft Worth we went away to my sister-in-law Tina’s family lake house in Possum Kingdon! On the wall of their kitchen they have a quote that summed up the weekend: “Home is where you treat friends like family and your family like friends”.

After our time in Ft Worth the boys and I headed back to Friendswood where we spent a few more days with Seth’s mom and had some great cousin time. It happened to be Jackson’s birthday so we celebrated there. I had planned to keep it REALLY simple and it was but Jackson started asking about invitations and friends and DADDY so by the end of the day our fun frozen yogurt outings with cousin morphed into a pizza/swimming party to lessen the blow of a birthday during a move.

These weeks were packed and exhausting but so fun too. I learned pretty fast that I don’t enjoy being a single mom and that it was very hard to be away while Seth was working on the house. I am so happy to be here now working together and making progress towards being settled!!

So it turns out that when everyone in the US found out we were coming back they decorated with American flags, shot off fireworks and fired up the grills for good old American hamburgers….not really, it was actually the 4th of July, but it may as well have been for us because it was so fun to come back just before the 4th and soak in lots of patriotic love!

We stayed for our first few days stateside with my brother and his family. My sister-in-law and brother kindly braved a day with our boys so that we could spend a day finalizing our kitchen remodel and picking paint and appliances for the house. (I don’t recommend doing this with jetlag but it’s just how it worked out)  The next day was the 4th and we spent the day playing with the kids, going to a 4th of July parade that my niece Ruthie was marching in, grilling and going to the pool. At the end of the night we let the kids try some sparklers. Stephanie did a great job of decorating the table and adding little festive touches!

The boys did well with jetlag all in all. We wrapped up a few more house details and flew out Thursday morning for Texas.

As you can see I am backtracking big time but we would miss so many special memories if I just jump in now! So enjoy…or bear with me, whatever the case may be

The Friday before we left Bern Seth’s coworkers hosted a farewell party for him. I didn’t get many pictures as I was chasing boys on the lawn of the Embassy but it was a neat time to see Seth’s coworkers appreciate him and thank him for his work. This was his first position managing local staff and it was neat to see him grow in his managerial skills. It was evident at his farewell that he was well respected and will be missed.

The Saturday before we left Bern our friends threw us a wonderful farewell party along the river. Our friend Daniela booked a place with a big outdoor grill, playground, awnings for shade and of course the  river! It was beautiful and so many special friends came to wish us well. We felt so so blessed and overwhelmed once again to see how God provided friends for us in yet another home.  We have so many wonderful memories, pictures and extra pounds (for me) that we will cherish forever…well not the extra pounds, those will be gone soon but the memories of Switzerland will be cherished. Just like anywhere we have lived there were good days and bad, things we loved and things we never quite got used to. I could go way deeper into all of this but I am so crunched on time so without further ado here are some pictures!

Bitter sweet for sure!! As we left Bern we were so anxious to be back stateside but so sad to say farewell. I am sure we will be processing all of the farewells for months to come!

Two days after our farewell we loaded up and flew back to Washington, DC….