The accident

my welcome home dinner

I will keep this brief because, well it isn't a very exciting story. I have been wanting to say I broke my arm biking down some crazy steep mountain, but in the end that would be a lie.
John and I were out on a date, a road bike ride date. This was going to be the first of several road bike ride dates as we found a nice Swiss girl from church to watch Hannah close to once a week. We had a great 2 hour bike ride and decided we would put our bikes in the cellar instead of our apartment (the cellar is where they really belong).

The vertical dark line in the lower bone is my lovely fracture

The Swiss people love to clean everything. So, in typical Swiss style they must have decided wash and buffer the section of parking garage floor by where we live. The lights in the garage aren't super bright and neither of us noticed it was really slippery. I was maybe going 5 mph and turning left and before I even knew I was falling I was on the ground hurting really badly, feet still clipped in and all.

 

We managed to put the bikes away, I found some ice and John drove the baby sitter home- sad ending to a good bike ride.
Four days later I found out my left elbow was broken, had surgery and spent 3 days in the hospital.


See the lovely splint I am supposed to wear for 6 weeks, except when doing my exercises.

Hannah has been a trooper staying all or half day at other peoples houses during my hospital stay and recovery.... thankfully she I an easy baby and doesn't have stranger danger yet!



Stanserhorn Berglauf

The start, only about 100m before we started going up!

Two Sundays ago, 3 days after my biking accident, I completed my first berglauf. A berglauf is simply translated to mountain run. Most typically in Switzerland you run up the mountain and ride a lift down and they are all of varying distances and elevation change.


The peak of this mountain was the finish

The Stanserhorn berglauf happens to start in our town, Stans, so I thought it would make for a nice low stress attempt at my first berglauf.  Little did I know when I signed up, that I would be completing it with a broken arm :)

The day of the race was great weather, but a tad warm near the top when I was tired and the mountain is STEEP. The race was 11k and the first few k's were on asphalt (which was steep and not exciting)and the rest was a hiking trail.
Overall it was a great experience, except I was jealous of all the tall men who were power walking faster than my slow jog :) Oh and hopefully next time all 4 of my limbs are in working order!



 Views from the top, just above the clouds

 Finish strong

 Restaurant from the top

My poor arm and swollen left hip

Gondola ride down, coming out of the clouds!

BBQ's

The weather has been really nice here the last few weeks (and now while I am stuck in the hospital) which was nice for two picnic/BBQ's we had planned.

The first was a BBQ with our small group through church. One lady from our group hosted at her family's house in Buochs. They have a lovely 3 floor home, even with a backyard! This is not too common in Switzerland due to the cost.  Anyways it was a lovely BBQ with lots of yummy food and time with great people. Plus Barbara, the hostess, made amazing chocolate cake for dessert which is going to be my cake recipe for Hannah's 1st birthday!

 

 

 

The other picnic we went to was to celebrate the 4th of July! There aren't too many Americans around so half of the group was from England, but they love a reason to celebrate! This picnic was also in Buochs at a park right on Lake Lucerne, beautiful scenery.

 

 

 Hannah was all sported out in red white and blue and looking pretty cute I must say! It felt like an authentic 4th picnic except there were no fireworks to end the evening.

Hannah 11 months



Loves the outdoors

I have been lacking in blog posts lately! Part of it is trying to get out and enjoy the great weather. The other reason is I took a spill on my road bike and really hurt my arm (will hopefully find out today if it is broken) and typing one handed is no fun!
I can't believe Hannah is 11 months....so close to 1 year old....crazy!!  
Here are some brief highlights of what she is up to:

Hiking is hard work

~ She is such a chatter box these days. She doesn't have too many actual words but LOTS of sounds... maybe its German :)
~She likes to play on all fours and crawl a bit that way, but is much faster scooting around.

 

~She loves to stand up in her crib and play during nap time :) Thankfully she does still take two long naps during the day it just takes her awhile to be done playing and actually fall asleep!
~She has 4 teeth and seems to be getting more soon. She usually gets a bit of a cold and lots of drool, both of which are happening.
~Does well eating finger foods and has started to show some food preferences.... more fruit and pizza please :)

 

~Her love of bear and animals in general keeps growing.
~Still likes to hold on when standing so I think we have awhile before walking, which is fine by me!

 

We love our happy little Hannah and it is so fun to see her changing every day!


I forgot

I had to add this picture!  It was supposed to be in the last post, but I forgot to upload it. Can you tell my brain to turns to mush at 9:30... I rarely stay up til 10 on weeknights!! I am so old :)

First time in a pool: Isn't she a cutie!!!

Iowa: Post wedding = family time

John had to rush back to Switzerland to get back to work, boo, but Hannah and I stayed a week longer. Even though I was nervous about traveling back to Switzerland alone with Hannah I knew it would be worth it to spend more time in Iowa. Hannah seemed to be happy to stay as well!

Hannah and Paula, the maker of "blankie"

On Tuesday my mom and I took Hannah to the swimming pool in Cedar Falls. It is a really nice pool with a lazy river that you can ride around in tubes. The best part was that they had little tubes for babies with the bottom filled in. That way my mom and I could just walk beside Hannah. She loved it!  She is definitely still a little cautious when it comes to actually getting in the swimming pool... I am hoping that changes with time!!
The next day was a chance for us to go up and visit Great Grandma and Martin. This was a nice visit, although their house full of antiques didn't provide too many baby proof toys for Hannah. Good thing they had a cat to keep her entertained.

We didn't get any pictures on Thursday, but my mom was SO proud to show Hannah off to all of her co workers. It is what Grandmas do best :) My good friends and  us (Hannah, Grandma, and I) also got together at a nice little wine shop in Cedar Falls. I would highly recommend Luna to anyone going to Cedar Falls. They have a very nice patio out back with a good wine and beer list!

Beautiful evening at Luna

 

The rest of the weekend was full of family time with my parents and sisters family. A lot of us have birthdays in the summer so we had a big birthday party for everyone! It didn't take Hannah long to figure out that she liked the cake!

Grandpa and the Grand kids on Fathers day

 

 

I guess that wraps up the summary of our trip to Iowa!  Now we are back in Switzerland enjoying the beautiful weather this week!

Dad and his two daughters

 

 Hannah and cousin Sydney

 Enjoying the cake