The beginning

Here we are in the international terminal of O'Hare Airport. Melissa was wonderful and drove us and our 6 suitcases and 5 carry-ons to the airport.

Check-in took a long time, but went well. Now we are having or last meal before we go through security. Uno's pizza was our choice for our last meal.

Here is a photo of how Claire is passing the time, furiously writing on a placemat with a pen!




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Practice makes perfect!

On Tuesday, as we were making our flight reservations, we realized that Claire's car seat would likely not fit into the airplane seat. Oops! After some quick research, we ordered one from amazon that was sure to fit into the seat. It arrived today, so we took it out to let Claire play in it and get used to it. Here she is, sitting in her seat, wearing her snuggie, practicing being ready for takeoff!


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3 days

As of today, we have 3 days left until we board our flight and begin our life in Switzerland.

The past week has been busy and very productive.  The dogs flew out to Gordon's mom in Washington one week ago today.  That was a very difficult day for both Gordon and me, but the dogs are happy there and I am so relieved to see that.  I love that we are able to Skype with the dogs.  Seeing them and knowing they are happy makes me feel so much better about leaving them.

We are all moved out of our house.  Every single thing we own has been packed in boxes or suitcases, donated, sold, put in our storage unit, or moved over to my parents' house.  I had a very hard time deciding what to get rid of.  At the beginning of the packing process, I was reluctant to part with anything, but by now, I am much better.  I hope that I am able to keep myself from accumulating so many things when we live in Europe!  I know that we will have much more limited space, so that will help.

I cleaned the house top to bottom and got it ready for our tenants.  Our tenants completed their final walk-through with Gordon yesterday.  They'll move in this weekend.

We have our visas in hand and our airplane tickets have been purchased.  Our flight leaves at 8:05 p.m.  I hope that Claire will sleep through at least some of the flight.  But if not, we have our carry-on filled with toys and things to keep her busy throughout the flight.  Our flights are on British Airways and I thought it was funny when I called with a question and the man who helped me had a very thick southern American accent.  Ha!

Our containers that will be shipped to us are almost ready to go.  Gordon will take those tomorrow morning to be put on a boat destined for Switzerland.  Pirates, stay away!

Our suitcases have been packed and unpacked several times.  It is pretty difficult to decide what I can live without for 3 years and what I can't live without for a month.  Each day, I take more things out of my suitcases, realizing that I do not NEED them.  Yesterday, it was 3 bottles of perfume and 4 bottles of nail polish.  Those things are pretty heavy!

Packing all of our things and preparing for this adventure we are about to begin has me thinking about all of the adventures Gordon and I have had as a married couple.  In 5 and a half short years, a lot has happened!  It started with our wedding in Yosemite, which was the perfect beginning for the path on which life would take us.  The adventure continued with our move to Arizona shortly after our wedding.  Three years later, we were back in Chicagoland and we welcomed our gorgeous daughter into our family.  Now, we prepare for perhaps the biggest adventure of all.



 

Airplane!

This weekend, my mom, Claire and I came up to Wisconsin to visit Jeff, Stacy, and Daniel.

Claire was great in the car on the way up here. She slept almost the while time. In the hotel, however, she is a maniac! She is into anything and everything. Climbing, opening, closing, emptying everything. This has me thinking about the flight to Switzerland. More accurately, the flight that will go to another country and then to Switzerland. In 15 days. How in the world are we going to contain this baby for 9 hours? On all of the previous flights that she has taken, she has been great. But those were relatively short flights. And they all occurred before she started to walk.

I pray that she sleeps a lot on the plane. And that when she is bot asleep, we are able to keep her entertained!


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Making Plans, Changing Plans

Today, Gordon got a call from his employer in Switzerland.  Due to a Swiss national holiday, his start date has been moved from June 1 to June 6.  That means our move date is moved from May 25 to May 30.  Therefore, we get 5 more much-needed days to prepare ourselves for the move.  This come as a huge relief to both Gordon and me.

On Friday, we chose our tenants and on Saturday, they signed a two-year lease.  Choosing the tenants was agonizing for us, but I feel confident that we made the right decision.  I am relieved that we were able to find a nice family and that they will be in the house for 2 years.  I pray that all goes well with them in our house.

This week, the major packing begins.  Tomorrow, I start packing up the kitchen.  Wish me luck with that!

  

Sad day

Today was a sad day.  It was my last day of work.  I said good-bye to all of my patients, said "see ya later" to my coworkers, and picked Claire up from my parents' house one last time.

Tomorrow, I begin a new job.  Tomorrow, I will be a full-time at-home mom.  This is a job I never imagined I would have, but here I find myself jumping in with two feet, hoping that I am good at it.  

At the clinic at which I work(ed), I had what I thought was the perfect arrangement.  I worked 3 mornings each week for 4 hours at a time while my mom watched Claire.  I was able to keep my career, but I still spent most of my time at home with my daughter.  Claire seemed to enjoy this arrangement also.  3 mornings each week, she was able to be with her grandparents and explore their house, which is full of places to explore and things, and trouble, to get into.  

Soon, our world will be very different.  In Switzerland, Gordon will to go to work every weekday and it will be just Claire and me together every day.  I wonder what those days will include.  Trips to the market?  Get-togethers with new friends?  Walks along the lakeside path of Lake Geneva?  Playgroups?  Surely our days will include naptimes, mealtimes, and playtimes.  Life will be the same in a lot of ways while also being very different.  Whatever our days include, I know that life in Switzerland will be what me make it to be.  I hope to make it to be wonderful and fulfilling and full of adventure.

So while this day started out to be a sad day, it has ended up to be a day of new beginnings.  A day full of promise.  A good day indeed.  

So much to do, so little time...

Today is May 3.  This means that we have only 22 days until we get on the plane and begin the next chapter of our lives.  In Switzerland.  I still don't think it is real to me.  Are we really moving to Switzerland?

We have been busily preparing ourselves, our dogs, our belongings, and our house for the big move.  I have donated/sold/thrown out countless things.  We will be moving very few of our belongings to Switzerland with us, and we will have a very small storage unit, so there were a lot of things that had to go.  It was very difficult for me to get rid of these things, but it is a relief to have fewer things to worry about.

This weekend, we will purchase the crates that the dogs will travel in.  Unfortunately, the dogs will not come with us to Switzerland.  They will fly to Washington to live with Gordon's mom and her dog, Macy.  I know that the dogs will have a wonderful life with Denise, but I also know that I will miss them terribly.  They are my first babies and I can't even imagine life without them.

As for the house, we made a major decision this weekend.  We decided to rent the house rather than to sell it.  After 17 showings, all of which were a challenge to prepare for, we realized that it is not, in fact, in our best interest to sell.  So now, we are fielding calls and emails from many interested parties and we will decide soon who the best candidate is.

As for ourselves being ready, this week is my last week of work.  I will miss my job and my coworkers enormously.  I hope to find an outlet for my physical therapist side in Switzerland.  Gordon has been learning French with Rosetta Stone and he is doing very well with his lessons.  As I listen to him learn, my French knowledge comes back rather quickly.  I hope that once I am immersed in the French language, my fluency will also return quickly.  As for Claire, how does one prepare a just-turned-one-year-old for a move to another country.  I feel very sad that she will not see her grandparents at least 3 times each week and that we will be so far away from the rest of our family and friends, but I believe that this adventure will have a profoundly positive impact on the person that Claire will be.

On our to-do list this week:  choose a company to replace our fence, schedule a time for my uncle to replace our furnace, choose tenants for our house, pack up more of the house to be put in storage, and about a hundred other things!

So much to do, so little time...