Hitting the Slopes

Today we arranged a babysitter from 8-5 so we could enjoy skiing in the Swiss Alps! We are so thankful for the girls/families that we have made connections with here to babysit Hannah, and that she is usually a good girl for her babysitters. Many ski areas have daycare areas, but it was just SO nice to have the babysitter come to our apartment so Hannah was in her own environment.

The hospital that I am working at currently, has 2 season passes to a local mountain, Klewenalp, available to employees. I arranged to take them, for FREE, this Saturday so we could enjoy a day of skiing within 15 minutes of our house. A good friend here, Mirjam went with us, and showed us how real Swiss people ski. She learned to ski when she was 3 I think and basically lived on her skis every winter! It is so cool to see all the little kids learning ski with their parents or in a ski school, it truly is part of Swiss culture.

From the top, off Piste skiing in fresh powder. Lake Lucerne in the distance.

We were blessed with fresh powder and I was even brave enough for some off Piste skiing! I am sure we will be feeling it in the morning, but it was worth it. The views were truly AMAZING!

Catching some rays at lunch. 

It was especially nice to have a day away together as John is leaving for the USA for work on Tuesday for 12 days. I am not looking forward to being a working single mother :)

Tired

Kussnacht am Rigi with Mt. Pilatus in the background

Right now as I type this I feel SO tired. It is mostly due to a sinus infection that has been plaguing me for over a week. I don't enjoy being sick, but I especially don't like it in a different country where you don't know the names of the medicines you would usually take. I am thankful that the Swiss health care system is very good, actually really good, but I just really don't like making phone calls in German. I was feeling rather terrible on Thursday and decided to call the doctor, but they had no appointments. So then I went to the pharmacy and got all the natural sinus products they had to offer, the Swiss are rather fond of Homeopathic alternatives to medicine. Then I did research, really just on the Mayo website and felt better after reading that most sinus infections get better on their own....it just takes a long time!  I am feeling like I might have turned a slow corner in getting better, but I am still SO tired, boo!

Sweet playground in Kussnacht am Rigi

Yesterday I also had little energy, but it was SO nice out. I mean sunny and 50 degrees. We went on a slow walk by the lake and then drove to a town about 30 minutes away Kussnacht am Rigi. We were surprised to find a nice little cafe (no still not a good ole American coffee shop) with a little play corner for kids. The funniest thing we saw, which I didn't get a picture of, was they had set up a man made sledding hill down the main street. And people were dressed up in costumes and went sledding down this "hill". They all had numbers on like they were getting judged on something, needless to say we couldn't quite figure it out!!
I will leave you with a picture of Hannah. She loves her new Lego table, and is really quite talented at the tower building!

 

 

3 weeks ago

Playground at a little zoo in PA

I can't believe it has already been 3 weeks since we returned from our month long trip to America. It was a good time spent with family and friends in both Pennsylvania and Iowa. The first 2 weeks were spent with John's family in Pennsylvania, and then Hannah and I flew alone to Iowa for 2 weeks. Before leaving for the USA this time I was a little anxious because traveling with a small child 16 months old, isn't the easiest age to fly with, on a 9 hour flight, during the day. BUT, Hannah did good, falling asleep in a carrier, the Ergo, for 2.5 hours,(meaning I was standing up for 2.5 hours but whatever she was quiet and asleep) which was such a blessing.


Playing with Sydney, my sister's daughter.

The day we flew to Iowa was terrible weather, I mean I think our flight was the only one that made it! Too bad our luggage did not :(  Then the flight home... It was during the night which I thought she would sleep most of the way. Well I was wrong. She finally fell asleep at like 10 pm but only for 3 hours when she woke up, scared and crying. Thankfully she was happy/delirious for the hours she was awake on the overnight flight, but I definitely didn't get to rest. But, it did help her transition back to Swiss time as she only woke up one night!!! That was awesome, because time change stinks with little ones!!

Anyways, enjoy the pictures and comments!

 

More from the zoo playground, it was a morning out with John's family and the youngest cousins.

 "I want to go back to America"

 

 Goofy girl! 

 

Hannah with my cousin April's children

All bundled up because it was very cold in America.

 Ring around the Rosie

 

 "We all fall down"

 

Not in America, but here in Switzerland at a birthday party for her friend Abigail.

Still Alive

We made it back from the USA, well actually 2 weeks ago, but time has slipped away from me, so after a 6 week break I finally have a bit of time to sit down to type. Some of that is false, I have had time to blog, but I just didn't feel like it I guess. :) 

Our snowshoe hike today, that is a convent in the background.

Our time spent in the US was very nice.... I will upload pictures for another post later this week, but it was nice to get back home to Switzerland.
We are having a super mild winter so far here in Switzerland and I am loving it! As most of you know/are experiencing America is having a very COLD winter, so it was hard for Hannah to play outside. We are having fun being able to play easily outside in 40 degree weather.  So if anyone wants to visit in the winter, January and February seem to be nice weather, the fog is gone (which is usually here in November and December) and it isn't too cold. 
Since we have been back we celebrated 1 year here in Switzerland! We are happy to say that especially in the last half of this first year we feel fairly settled here. We have friends, a great church family, and several weekly playgroups that we go to. All of those things make this feel like home for now. I can't believe that last year at this time we were living in a one room farmhouse.... I don't want to relive those 6 weeks EVER again!

Beautiful day today!

The other big thing that has happened since we got back is I started work 2 days a week and Hannah goes to a local daycare. So far out of my 16 new patients, only one was a rather unfriendly Swiss lady who refused to work with a foreigner. But I politely excused myself and my boss and I swapped patients, and everyone was happy. The thing I really love is how little paperwork you have to do here. I mean like 10 minutes a day in the hospital outpatient setting, and another 15 minutes secretarial work,  maybe getting your charts ready and scheduling patients as there is only secretary that works a few half days a week.  The hospital has a therapy pool, so that has been fun getting some experience treating patients in the pool! All in all it is going great and I would love to find additional work after this 3 month contract ends in April.

 

Hannah has done fairly well at daycare as well. Crying a few minutes at drop off, which is normal. Playing. Eating 2 plates for lunch (she is a bit chubby). Sleeping "well", although she is always very tired when we pick her up and a bit crabby the next day.... so I think sleeping "well" at daycare doesn't quite mean her normal 3 hours!
All in all we had a smooth transition back to a new life of Mommy working here in Switzerland.

 

 

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.....