Our New Home

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Well,....all the months of planning, stress and worry are over. We have successfully sold our home, our cars, our furniture and pretty much everything but our children and our clothes. We have exchanged our spacious Texas home , for a cozy rented 3rd story flat in the historic center of Lausanne, Switzerland (complete with 49 steps and no elevator). We now rely on public transportation and our feet (we are all becoming quite fit!). I, the momma, am trying my hand at stay-at-home parenting. This is a necessity at present, as it is a full time job trekking to the grocery store and deciphering the food choices in French! Yikes! Nate is now settled into his new position at EPFL (Ecole Polytechnic Federale Lausanne) as a researcher working on brain mapping. Our goal is to live as frugally as possible, so we can pad our travel fund. We hope to take one solid excursion to somewhere fun and exciting every month. Abigail, our precocious 5 year old is enrolled to start kindergarten this fall in the Swiss public school system. She will be learning French via immersion, with lots of other expatriate kids. She is a little nervous, but I am sure in no time she will be translating for her parents! Arabella, now age 3 (who thinks she is 13), is thoroughly enjoying the less rigid stance on public nudity...as she sheds her clothes with lightening speed at every fountain she encounters.
Lausanne is gorgeous! It is a tiered city resting on the banks of Lake Geneva (Lac Leman)..roughly 30 km from Geneva. It has beautiful cathedrals, gardens and all the quaintness you would expect from Switzerland. We are expecting our first visitors from the US next week and will be trekking to Paris!

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Photos

Nic on Lake Geneva
...ahhh, work? I don't think so...on a paddle boat in Lake Geneva (Lac Leman)...mountains in the background, France across the water. This is our background...can you believe it???

Nic and girls: Lausanne
Our apt. is in the background...the pink building with green shutters.(Rue Cheneau de Bourg)

700 year old stained glass
yes, this is our bathroom door...700 year old, original stained glass.