About a month ago I was having dinner with some girl friends when my friend Haley gave me the most amazing thing. A magnet for my oven with all of the conversions of temps.

This may seem like an ordinary gift but for me it was very timely. Nearly every day I use our oven. And every day I checked my little dripped on print out that was crumpled in the kitchen drawer by the oven. You would think after living in Bogota and converting for those 2 yrs that I would have all of the important temps memorized but I don’t. It appears that I have a mental block . Something is engrained in me to rely on what I know. What I am comfortable with. And that, my friends, is Fahrenheit.

I find culture shock rears it’s head at times and in circumstances I wouldn’t expect. I think I thought in clean, fancy shmancy Switzerland that there wouldn’t be culture shock and if there was I should just buck up and accept it because who can complain living here. I agree, there are much worse places we could be. Thank you to those of you serving in places that are even farther away feeling! At the end of the day when we are away from home, we are away from home. You know that feeling you have after being on a long trip…all great places and fun people…you just want to be home. I have days like that here. We are soaking in experiences and enjoying all of the wonderful things Switzerland has to offer. But the truth is it isn’t home.

How could something so simple as converting temps for the oven be annoying?  How could I be so thrown when cilantro is not available on the one day I want to make guacamole because I am homesick for Tex Mex?  How could I feel like shrieking at the lady at the store who glares at Jackson for just being in the store with me? How could I be grumpy about cooking dinner because there isn’t any easy pick up dinner that we can afford? How could I be so anxious about driving…isn’t a car a car anywhere? Aren’t roads all the same? Those things that we know and are comfortable with just aren’t the same every where we go. It doesn’t make them wrong it just makes them different from what we know.  It brews the perfect concoction for culture shock. It comes in many different forms. Sometimes it boils over (God forbid when I am driving or in the grocery check out line with 2 toddlers), sometimes it calmly simmers, but it’s there. And unfortunately it doesn’t discriminate. It occurs anywhere that isn’t home.

So thanks, Haley, for giving me a gift that reminds me of home. And that provides a crutch for my brain that is locked into Fahrenheit and can’t seem to embrace Celsius! I am so glad that you are a friend that reminds me that is okay!!

After our Heidelburg adventure the Friday before we tried to go into Easter weekend with the mindset of LOW KEY! The only plans we had as of Friday morning were that we had invited over 2 couples from church for a casual Brunch on Easter morning.

On Good Friday we took a long walk by the river and talked to Jackson more about the meaning of Easter and specifically Good Friday. We had been reading to him in the weeks leading up to it but it was neat for it to be the real day.  While we were skipping rocks by the river Jackson and I found a rock with lines on it that looked like a cross. He held onto it and thought it was so neat since we were talking about the cross.  If I can get him to help me find it I will post a picture.

We colored eggs together and just enjoyed a quiet day at home.

On Saturday some friends invited us to go on the boat on lake Thun. It was a nice unexpected outing. It was a gorgeous ride. The first half we had glorious sun and the second half we got to watch as a storm rolled in. We got off the boat just as the rain got going. The boys had a wonderful time! I think I had expected the boys to be content to watch the water and look out over the side of the boat..for at least a few minutes. After about 10 minutes they were both ready to run laps around the boat deck. So it goes. About halfway through we gave in and bought them ice cream so that we could all sit for at least 10 mins and enjoy the scenery!

handsome “little BIG boy”

our friends Karen and Andy brought their dog Bella. She and Jackson kept each other company throughout the boat trip. Check out the color of the water!

this may become Seth and I someday if we never have a daughter! This was for real! This dog belongs in Paris!

The Easter bunny did make it to our house in Bern. He brought us a basket for all of us to share. He seemed to focus less on candy this year and more on Spring activities. The basket had a new ball, jump rope, a kite and a bubble tumbler! (since the boys are learning to share (ie fighting over toys constantly) we decided to do a joint basket to reinforce this)

Karen brought a fruit salad…almost too pretty to eat!

the guys showing Jackson how to play an egg knocking game

Jackson happily joined in

We kept the menu simple with my mom’s sausage egg bake, fruit salad, rosti (Swiss hashbrown-type dish) and bread with some berry whipped butter. We finished it off with mini cheesecakes!  I got away with only making the egg bake, whipped butter and the cheesecakes!

Monday we really did nothing but take a long walk together and laze around the house.

Yesterday we went to the petting zoo across the river with some new Swiss friends. I may have mentioned them here before. They are a Swiss couple that have lived abroad…in Houston! They have 2 little ones about the age of ours and Jackson goes to an English speaking playgroup with the little girl. They are very friendly and gravitate towards us because they desperately miss the US and now that they have returned they find Switzerland’s social scene to be somewhat cold. Yes, that’s right folks. From the mouths of Swiss natives, it’s cold. Gorgeous, mountainous, beautiful, picturesque, but sometimes rather uninviting. Now we have met some lovely people but for the most part it feels very tough to crack the code and cozy up to the culture. Try as we may. (post coming soon on attempting to be myself, a chronic people-pleaser, in a place that doesn’t want my pleasing

Anyhow, as most of you know, or probably would assume, I do not speak Swiss German. So when I am out and about I do my best to follow all of the rules but often fail miserably. Miserably but not unknowingly. You see, it is not uncommon for people here to “speak into your life”, as in, offer correction and guidance. Back to the petting zoo. After a fun time of letting the kids run through and enjoying being outside we decided to go into the small cafe for a hot drink and snack for the kids. As Jackson and his friend rushed the ice cream chest, the other mom and I headed to get something hot to drink. As we headed that way an elderly woman began to rant because we had brought strollers into the cafe. My friend spoke kindly to her in Swiss German and she huffed and headed on her way. I am pretty sure we ruined her day or at least rattled her good for her whole walk home. That’s what a stroller can do. I was so thankful to have a Swiss friend to help guard me from my ignorance in the situation. It takes no genius to translate being lectured whether you speak the language or not. But it takes skill to talk graciously back in the complainers native language.

… Now back to Jackson and his friend raiding the ice cream chest. Both kids quietly and politely selected their ice cream and put it up on the counter to pay. Cafeteria-type cafe’s aren’t always Jackson’s place to shine.  But yesterday I was impressed with his success. In the midst of the social tiff though I didn’t check Jackson’s selection. An ice cream cone is an ice cream cone, right? So we made our way to a table and Jackson tore open his cone. My friend sat down and vented about how rude people can be. I looked over as Jackson finished his first few bites and noticed his ice cream was a light brown color. Not chocolate brown, more like khaki. I reached over and took a bite. Sure enough, a big heaping cone of coffee ice cream. He loved it. And it loved him. They loved each other into the afternoon with zero nap and energy plus. It occurred to me that Jackson has NEVER had caffeine. Besides the caffeine in chocolate, he has had none. For obvious reasons. He doesn’t need it.  We have never been on a deserted island with only a coke in sight. There has always been an alternative available.

So there you go, 2 rookie mistakes on a sunny Wednesday morning. A stroller run wild out of the petting zoo and into the cafe  breaking all sorts of laws and a small child experiencing his first, and likely last for a long while, COFFEE ice cream cone. Jackson enjoyed my mistake!

Ella insists upon holding Jackson’s hand. He normally bucks any system but for some reason he complies with her!

I am playing a bit of catch up today. We have been enjoying Spring so much that we are using most waking moments on the weekends to be outside.  A couple of weekends ago we decided to head to Emmental for their hot air balloon festival. We asked our friends Nick and Kima (South African friends…we met in Bogota..living in Zug, Switzerland now) if they wanted to join us. The weather was amazing.  After arriving to the location where we saw signs for the festival we learned that the balloons had landed early in the morning and that there would in fact be no balloons to see. OOOOKKKAAAy. Now that our little boy has been deflated. We decided to take a walk down to the cheese factory. We of course hit up a bakery on our way and stopped for a little snack. Followed by a nice picnic in the grass. Basically we were together for a couple of hours and ate most of the time! It was so fun to see the kids playing together and to catch up a bit. Thanks Nick and Kima for being good sports about the non-festival of balloons. Most friends would have been pretty annoyed to have driven so far.

pretending there is a big, beautiful balloon attached to the basket

sweet Erin

the boys were rewarded after being good travelers with popsicles on the porch.

The next day, Sunday, we were invited to a picnic to celebrate one of Jackson’s buddies birthdays. The picnic was at the Bern Rosengarten that overlooks Old Town. It was another beautiful day. The kids enjoyed running freely while the adults enjoyed picnicking and chatting. A highlight for Jackson was that the big fountain had a bunch of frogs swimming in it.