Merry Christmas

My present is bigger than me!

It has been fun experiencing the holiday season here in Switzerland. There are lots of traditional parades in all the small villages, to welcome in St. Nicklaus, and of course Christmas Markets.

Beckenried Christmas Market

The bell ringers (each man walks and rings a big cowbell to a constant beat while they walk)  are in white, that we think scare away the evil spirits, then St. Nicklaus (Sami Claus) walks in behind them.

We went to a few of the Christmas markets close to us, and hope to explore some new ones in surrounding towns and countries in the next few years.

Sami Claus is in red

Hannah enjoying the baby animals at the Stans Christmas Market.

We are looking forward to seeing family and friends in America in the next few weeks. We are also looking forward to celebrating Christmas in a few days, to celebrate the life of Jesus, the Savior of the World.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Pattons

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Above the clouds

The little bumps are the tops of mountains sticking out over the fog/clouds

This time of year in Central Switzerland there is often a thick layer of "high fog" or some days it actually isn't that high. In fact some days if you go up 100-200 meters you are above this fog/cloud and in the beautiful blue sky.                                                                       

Once the fog settles in it usually takes about 4 days for it to finally burn off. It can be a little sad to live in the fog, but we are thankful that it takes 10 minutes to usually get above the fog into the blue skies.

This past Friday Hannah had her first trial day at daycare (here they have you trial 2 half days and a full day to make sure the child will adjust ok) and I took advantage by going snowshoe hiking above the clouds.

Happy in the sun!

 It was a glorious 2 hours in the sun! John just ordered a pair of snowshoes for Christmas so we are looking forward to many more hikes this winter when we get back from America (yes we fly in 1.5 weeks...eeek). I hope everyone is enjoying this Christmas season.

Work, work, work.

These last few weeks have been busy with appointments, mostly relating to two different job opportunities to work here as a physical therapist.

 The first one is at a really nice neurological rehabilitation clinic that was just remodeled this year. Most of the patients are inpatient and the clinic is situated in a hotel on the lake... super beautiful setting. They were wanting German and English speaking physiotherapists to join their staff to work with patients and to work on research projects alongside the University in Zurich. They were going to let me work 60%, even though they really wanted 100%, and seemed like a great group of people to work with, and I would have been able to speak some English. The major problem is that it is 45 min + depending on traffic away, now if only I had a boat it would be about 25 to 30 minutes as it is exactly on the other side of the lake. Literally from a town not too far away you can see the Hotel/clinic! 

The other opportunity I sought after a bit. I had met with the head physical therapist at the Hospital in Stans when we first arrived. Then, he was actually my physical therapist after my arm surgery. So, after driving home from the interview in Vitznau (where the neurological clinic was) and realizing how far it was I decided to contact the Stans hospital. Sure enough, they needed a physiotherapist for 3 months due to an operation and a 3 month vacation (that doesn't happen in America). They said that I would be guaranteed 40% up to 60%.  Also, I would just be working with the outpatient patients. 

It was a hard decision, but I am content with the fact that I chose to work in Stans, even though there is the risk that I would have work again after 3 months. The fact that I will be forced to use/learn German and that it is 3 minutes away on my bike, and that the group of therapists there seem really nice helped me make my decision. Things were left very open ended with the clinic in Vitznau, so maybe I will end up working there in April... then it is warm enough I could really boat to work :)

With finding a job comes the task of finding daycare. The demand here isn't like in the States! There are only two day-cares and then a handful of Tagesmutter (nanny) to choose. It is expensive either route you decide, but we have a daycare (Kinderkrippe) really close to us that we got to view tonight. It seems like a great fit, especially since we can sign just a 3 month contract and then extend it if needed. 

So with the reality sinking in that we are flying to America with a toddler in a few weeks and that I am going to be working in GERMAN (scary) when we return has my anxiety levels a little higher than normal.....
 

Thanksgiving in Switzerland

As Thanksgiving was creeping up on us this year we thought about hosting a full blown American Thanksgiving feast at our apartment.

Master baker

But as we continued to think about it we realized a) it would cost a small fortune b) we probably don't have enough space for more than a few families to come c) the time to get fully prepared was going too fast to actually pull a Real Thanksgiving off. So, instead we decided to invite our home group from church over for apple pie... dessert is the best part of the meal anyways, right?!?

Apple pie

Spielen...Playing

So this year, our first Thanksgiving in Switzerland was happily spent eating pie with friends from England, France, and South Africa, and with kiddos running around screaming!

It wasn't the typical American Thanksgiving, but it was fun and we are blessed to have people in our lives here to call friends!