Weekend away

Three weeks ago I went hiking with one of my good friends Trini. It was my first weekend away without Hannah or John in a long time, and it was great.... A lot of German, but great.

We found a Swiss Alpine Club hut in the region of Grindelwald to sleep at in which you had to hike 3.5 hours up to and then there was a peak to hike up to 1.5 hours from the hut. The price of staying overnight in the hut included dinner, breakfast, and fresh water for the hike. 

This was perfect because then I didn't have to make the already challenging hike harder by carrying food. I was 25.5 weeks pregnant on the hike and definitely had to take a slower pace, but I am quite happy I was able to make it the whole way. We were rewarded with amazing views from the stop, gazing at Eiger and Mönch across the valley was breathtaking. 

There are Swiss Alpine Club huts everywhere in Switzerland and you can usually arrange to stay in a more private room or the dormitory, whichever you prefer, and they are quite reasonably priced. I would recommend finding one to stay in if you ever want to do a multiple day hiking tour in Switzerland!

Baby Patton #2, the first 25 weeks

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It is crazy that I have been pregnant now for 25 weeks and I am just now writing a real update about this pregnancy. At times I feel like we are prepared for the little one and then I look at my to buy list and the state of the baby/guest room (yes when you live in a 3 bedroom apartment the crib and spare bed all go in the same room!) and then I think we will need some extra time! By the way one thing on my list is a fisher price rock n play sleeper, which was SO nice with Hannah, but they are not sold here, so if anyone has one they would like to ship to switzerland as a gift..... :) 

                           we obviously still need to clean the crib out :)

Really this pregnancy has not been much different from when I was pregnant with Hannah. This time I was 99% sure I was pregnant before taking a test and with Hannah I was just hoping for a positive test result. 

I never had morning sickness so bad that I actually got "sick", just a quesy stomach with both. But if I would have to say that one was worse, then this pregnancy I think I was a bit more nauseated, until about 10 weeks.

I have been a sleepy pregnancy person both times, with Hannah only until 14 weeks, so far the whole time with this one. This could be due to the fact that we rarely eat red meat and my iron levels are a bit low... I try to eat beans and dark green veggies, but a steak would be a whole lot tastier! I am sure having a toddler and working two days a week in another language doesn't help the whole tired symptom. 

I was active with Hannah and I have been blessed with no pain or negative symptoms associated with exercise this time around. I have probably been more active between hiking and running in the first 25 weeks as compared to my pregnancy with Hannah. Since we have no gym membership here, and limited pool access the last month or so might prove to be a challenge as I am guessing running won't feel so good then. We will see.

With both pregnancies my placenta has been anterior, which can make it harder to feel the babies movements. Hannah was a fairly chill in the womb, some days I didn't really sense her moving, this baby is a bit more active, but not crazy either.... I just hope the sleeping patterns of this baby will be as good as Hannah.

          Practicing feeding "baby"

The biggest difference with this pregnancy is not a symptom, nothing I sensed but what the doctors revealed to us. And that is, that baby Patton 2 is a Boy! Crazy! We are excited, but to be honest we thought it was going to be a second girl so we were a bit shocked! We are excited to see the difference between Hannah and baby boy P, and how she will be as a big sister.

Sorry I also have no baby bump pictures, but there is a bump, also similar to what I looked like with Hannah! I will post a picture eventually!

Sunshine

Family picture with the glacier behind us

After a summer filled with too much rain, as in the locals said the rainiest in 60+ years, it has been nice to have sun since Saturday and lovely 70 degree weather.

This weekend we drove to Kanton Wallis, which is south of us, close to Italy and the French speaking part of Switzerland. The mountains are all much higher there and the weather is also usually nicer.
John found a cute little holiday apartment, that was actually a Hamlet...whatever that is, that looked like the typical wooden Swiss house with flowers all around the windows. I couldn't live in a dark house like that, but it made us seem very "Swiss" for the weekend.

The mountain in the middle in the distance in the Matterhorn.

We spent the two days hiking around and up to the Aletsch Glacier. We bought a pass for the two days that allowed us to use all the trains and gondolas in the region for 30 francs a person, which made it easier to get higher up into the mountains.

View up the Glacier

I definitely could tell that we were higher in altitude by how easy I got out of breath when hiking uphill. I have been hiking quite a bit this pregnancy, but mostly down here in the "low" lands. It has been nice to be able to hike during this pregnancy, it is a great workout and a little easier on the body than running.
                                     
Someday I will have a pregnancy related post, someday :)

Growing up

Hannah has started to sleep in a big girls bed this week. Like most transitions (changing nap schedules, ditching the pacifier) she has adjusted with no problems. Well she has fallen out of bed 2/5 nights but she falls right back asleep when we help her back into bed. I am not sure how long it will last but she sits and waits on her bed until I get her in the morning. Sometimes she has found a Lego or something to play with, as it takes this sleepy mommy a few more minutes to really want to get out of bed these days. I am really just so thankful that this transition didn't change her sleeping habits at all!! 

                                  

  

Hannah has also been trying hard the last few days to put "big girl" puzzles together. Tonight while John and I were eating dinner she was intentely sitting at her table working on the puzzle... Too cute. It is a but too hard for her but it is neat to see her really wanting to figure it out. 

We also got to go to the doctor together today. I am suprised the doctor could focus at all during the ultrasound with a two year old bouncing up and down next to mommy. So far baby Patton #2 looks healthy and is growing! Any guesses on gender for those who don't already know.....

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Hannah has something to share:

We are expecting baby Patton #2 in the middle January. Gender reveal and pregnancy updates to be added to the blog soon!

Happy birthday Hannah

It is hard to believe Hannah has turned two, about two weeks ago. It has been really fun watching her grow and change over the last six months. She is really starting to understand the Swiss German (so I am told) since she goes to daycare the two days I work and has been saying many more words in English. It is such a neat thing to see small children learn more than one language, they pick it up so fast! 

She still enjoys eating most things she tries, sometimes getting her to try things can be the problem. But in general she is a good eater, and is a bit on the heavy side at over 90% :) Quite the change from less than 10% her first year! I was quite chunky as a little girl too, like ,other like daughter I guess.

Hannah is also very good at playing independently and demonstrates a good imagination. 

Lately she has been baking me lots of cakes :) lucky me. In general she has always been a happy and content little girl and that seems to be continuing. Of course we have our two year old moments, but thankfully not too often. 

Another thing that hasn't changed is that Hannah is an observer and is quite often too scared to try some of the things the other little kids are trying, swimming (she likes only warm water), run bike, going down the big slides, ect. But thankfully she does like the outdoors so john still has hope for her going mountain biking with him someday.

We couldn't love our joyful, content, Lego and puzzle loving Hannah more! Happy birthday Hannah!

Airplane

August first is the swiss national day, much like the 4th of July in the US. Everyone in Switzerland has the day off work to celebrate! This year Pilatus, the company John works for, had the roll out of their new airplane, the PC 24. This also happens to be the airplane that John is working on.  He is an avionics systems engineer for the Utility Management Systems group... Don't ask me what that means. Before the big roll out we heard they were expecting 20,000 people and we thought they were crazy, turns out 25,000 people showed up! 

It was actually a really cool event, besides being crowded. We had front row seats for the 2 hour program.

They had pilots perform an air show with all the old and current Pilatus airplanes with intermittent tradition swiss yodlers or alphorn players. Then the new airplane was pulled out by 24 military horses, which maybe was a but cheesy but neat nonetheless. John also had coupons for free food, who doesn't love a free bratwurst during an air show, I know I do. Now we will have to wait for the first flight to see how well John is doing at his job :)