It's been a while...

But let's just put it this way; life has been to 'busy' to keep up on blogging.. So let's try again to keep you all updated since I will have more than enough time in the coming weeks to inform you all about our life in Switserland.
Posting pictures will have to wait a while since I am now staying at my parents in law and my camera is back at our house. (But I found some `oldy`s` here in the computer!)
SO.. where to start; February was an 'ups and downs' month where my brother got married and Lukas and I stayed in Holland for a short while, that was ofcourse great. It was still cold there (snow everywhere) but the sun was shining and Michiel and Melina looked beautifull.
March came around and on the 4th we celebrated my birthday, my first as a married woman:) I was spoiled greatly as Lukas took me out for dinner and arranged a real `Birthday-table.` (A tradition in his family). The table wrapped in beautiful shiny wrapping paper, on top the presents also wrapped and spread in between some candy (healthy candy ofcours, dried bananas/apples, healthy bars etc) and even a cake incl. candles! Pictures of the B-day girl:













































April brought some new 'adventures'... Lets just put it this way; I've been drugged enough for a life time and am staying at Lukas parents place for a little while since I have a recovery of 6-8 weeks wherein I am supposed to really not do much else than rest... My knee (outer Meniscus) has been a 'weak spot' since I started playing soccer, and after they operated on it in the Netherlands in 2001 it always kept hurting. Figures that they messed up my knee even more (finally discovered here in Switserland) and now hopefully they fixed it well. It hurt so bad though, when the Meniscus was locked in again. I was glad I wasn`t really awake anymore when the two ambulance brothers carried me down our stairs and (appearantly) I still screamed with every knee movement..
Two operations one the week after the other(together lasting 4 hours), the 1st planned, the 2nd NOT planned, wore me out. I am very grateful we can stay with my inlaws for a while, because doing stairs is not my most stable thing right now with crutches, and since there is 8 big stairs in our appartment in Lucerne... ! I`m glad for the company also. They take me out for walks in my wheelchair like an old old lady:-) and are taking great care of me.
So lets just say that after all these weeks of 'resting' that are in store for me now I hope to become a better blogger ;)
Ohw; and Lukas is great; he works hard on his internships and ofcourse is a little messed up too since he knows how hard his wife can scream (I'm sure he will hire a 'stand-in' if I ever are in labor)



The waters of Amsterdam...


At the beach in Lemmer about a year ago







Engaged (note the RING:-) Autumn 2008
(haha lukas probably told me here: Okay this is the LAST picture where I`ll try to smile!)





In the bijkeuken after church about two years ago?..

Snowbo..-falling

My first snowboard experience!!! Too bad I dont manage to download the film where I keep falling down.. :) Can someone explain to me how that works? Downloading a small movie? Thanks!

ga schlittle

`The amazing Tree`






Trainpictures, on our way to and...


...from the Christmas celebration

Slayriding? I`m not sure what it`s called in English but that doesn`t really matter. It was LOADS of fun, that`s what matters! We were invited by some friends, also a young married couple (Brandy and Andy) to go and have some fun in the snow. They just bought a slay and we were able to borrow one (incl. steering wheel and brakes!)
We went to a place called `Sörenberg` http://www.soerenberg.ch/bahnen/ and saw lots of Dutch cars (and people) -Dutch Swiss-snow-lovers- there.
We took the slay `road` and had so much fun that we walked half way up again after reaching the finish, to slide down a second time. Having fun like little children! Halfways we discovered a tree covered with snow, so beautiful and worth posing for.
It snowed the whole time, and by the time we came back in Luzern we discovered it had snowed there too! : Bigtime! Everything was covered in about 20-25 cm of snow and last sunday, the 20th, the coldest temperatures this winter were measured in luzern: -19 C. Very exiting and most of all: So beautiful!
After church we took the train to Lukas`s ant, and celebrated Christmas there with the whole Maerki family. It was nice but also a bit confusing to meet up with all of the ants, unle`s, cousins and grandchildren. I`m still not sure who`s a child of who but I`ll figure that out some time.. :) Back in the train we took another picture because we forgat to take pictures at the Christmas celebration.. (Might have helped me keeping all of the families apart but unfortunately we forgat;)
We had a very nice time there and the weekend was over already..
Today at school the kids sold our last handcreme and we learned that the `Every Cent Counts`- action at the Radio/Television, brought in over 7 million Franks in Switserland for Malaria!!! Fantastic news.
I have to go, we wish everyone a Very MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

December & Malaria...

View from our living room (Mountains!!)



Wow.. already halfway december! Time flies!!! I notice with our fulltime jobs it`s hard to keep track of time. At school there are so many wonderfull preparations for Christmas going on, and I am enjoying the atmosphere this decembermonth at work every day. Unfortunately exept for the Christmas tablecloth Sinterklaas (my mom) gave me when I was in Holland, there isn`t much Christmas in our home yet! But soon I will have time to get into our attic and find our Christmas box somewhere!
Being back home, even if it was just for a very short time, was wonderful. It was so nice to meet my family and be able to find everyone healthy. I enjoyed it very much.

Also, my calling as a nursery (?) Sunbeam teacher is going very well. We almost made it to `remove`:) all of the parents from class and my 3 two-year-olds are being so nice to me- they didn`t even cry! And they are listening so well.. I hope it`s not just my weird accent that they`re fascinated with, and they won`t turn into disobedient children in a few weeks- but I`m really proud of them.

At work, at school, the teenagers in our class were very busy the past week producing handcreme or lotion. The Swiss television and radio have recently started a huge project called: `Jeder rappe zaehlt` which basicly means, every cent counts.
http://www.jrz.ch/www/de/drs3/jeder-rappen-zaehlt/155091.event.html
With this project they are collecting money for the many many people who suffer because of Malaria (about a million people, especially young children, still die because of Malaria each year)!
Dutch radio has participated in similar projects this for the past 3 years now, and now CH copied this. 3 Radiomoderators live in a glass box in the middle of city and shopping center Bern. They make radio there, don`t eat for a whole week and people can donate money by requesting songs that they in turn pay at least CHF 10,- for. Some people donate CHF 100,- in turn for hearing their favorite song at the radio!

So our class participated in producing and selling handcreme. Within 1 day all of our handcreme was sold, so we have to make some making more, but the kids gathered 750,- Franks already!! Isn`t that great? They worked so hard decorating the boxes and selling them.
I am so very impressed time and time again, by their endurance to get something done. It takes some of them a whole schoolday to type with a special p.c. system the words: `Lavendel Handcreme`. (So we could stick that on top of every single box.) I would -in many cases- have given up a long time before they do. I learn so much from them and am thankful everyday that I can walk, ride my bike, pick up something that fell down, go to the toilet without needing help, move and talk the way and when I`d like to. To work with teens and children with so many different disabilities and handicaps, (sometimes even in their young age progressive), often makes me very humble.
Back to malaria, you can take a look at www.jrz.ch - there is a webcam where you can follow the radiomoderators 24/7 livestream aus der Glasbox. It is wonderful to see how much money is being donated for more research, expensive medicine and musquito nets.

I`m also looking forward to celebrating Christmas with my family in law. Christmas is celebrated here similar to the way it is celebrated in the States. Everyone is buying presents for everyone and the Decembermonth is a very good time to think about others, who might not be blessed with everyting we enjoy each day...

It doesn`t look like we will be able to send around a lot of Christmas cards and whishes, but to those of you that reads our blog we would like to say:

Enjoy the atmoshpere of Christmas and we hope we will all be able to think a little more often, about what our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ did for us, and how much They must love us, when Jesus came to this earth to live and die for us..
And also, think of how They would like to have us help, love, and serve others, the way they would, so that we also can serve Them.

That you will feel warm and be bright and shiny happy these cold and dark Christmas days, encircled by those you love is our wish and prayer for all of you!

Have a great Christmas and Start of the new Year!

Stake Ball

Us right after a dance sweat dripping down our faces...;-)




Last friday there was a ball in Zürich at the Stake House. We went and we had such a nice time there! It was a blast and so much fun ballroom dancing with Lukas and remembering all of the steps and turns we once learned. There was a life band with church members that did such a wonderfull job making music, there were professional ballroom dancers and a very nice dinner. We forgat to make pictures but there was one made there so that`ll still come.
I absolutely love this time of the year with the streets covered with fall leaves, the cold -hat,gloves and warm coat-proof, but often sunny weather here. Preperations for Christmas, lights and decorations everywhere.. Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners coming up this week. In Luzern we have so many Americans now that they organized a Thanks giving dinner at Church this saturday, the day before there will be a 200-man staff Christmas-dinner at the school I work! A Christmas dinner before Saint Nicolaus (Sinterklaas) has even visited us! That seems the wrong way around but I absolutely love this time of the year!
Have a great week, I hope y`all enjoy the end of the November month as much as we do!

P.S. Lukas`s new hobby: baking bread (It makes our appartment smell sooo good I love it!)

P.P.S.
A quote I found (related to exercising -or not exercising):-)
“The difference between tenacity and stubbornness is that one comes from a strong will and the other from a strong won’t.” – Anonymous.

BED

NEWS: Our bed finally arrived!! We were lucky to have exactly 1 hour to rent a truck that was booked out the whole saturday exept for this one hour. Because we lived close by we could rent it. Lukas spent his saturday carrying our matrasses, lattenbodems, and massive wooden pieces of bed (heavy) up our 8 stairs to our roof appartment- and than building the whole thing together. He did a good job and our matrasses are sooooo nice!
We need some time to get used to the space the bed is taking (it seems like it`s consuming the whole bedroom but that`s because its somuch bigger than the matras that used to be there, and probably bc it`s white too..) -But we both love our new `Cinderella bed`. (that`s the official name, no joke;-)

So here are the pictures, I`ll try to get them into the right order this time, and not the wrong way around:))

work

I started working again!
It`s nice to have a distraction and everyone is being so kind and good to me at school. They send me home at noon to rest.. I notice I`m still tired and sleep a lot but I love being back. The weather is nice here, it was kind of rainy and very obviously autumn yesterday, leaves Everywhere but now its nice and sunny again.
Lukas is having fun at school too, he studies hard and is doing well. We heard the mexican flu landed in `central Swiss` now.. That`s our area - but we try not to panic :) jk- we hope to stay healthy and take care of ourselves so our immune systems are able to handle this flu - If it comes..
I`m looking forward going home to HOLLAND in exactly a month to celebrate `sinterklaas` with the whole family! It will be the first time going back since august the 8th and I`m exited.
It`s sinterklaas his b-day at December the 5th, a real old Dutch tradition. Unfortunately Lukas can`t come because he has tests the whole day- how can they possibly plan TESTS at Sint Nicolaus`s birthday???!!
In between, I`m trying everyday to keep my `endo-diet` ( http://www.endo-resolved.com/diet.html ) which in the beginning, seemed impossible to keep...
It`s getting a little better now that I`m used to it but is still hard. All I`m hoping is that it will help a bit in keeping me endometriose free and healthy!

Here are some more pictures; one of our Kitchen Table! The fruitscale and jar are presents from a very special family that came to our Wedding all the way from the States! The Tree is also a wedding present from Lukas`s best man and best friend. The tile is a weddingpresent from my Institute teachers in Holland, and the roses are from Emmeloord, my mom and dad brought them. They stood for at least 3 weeks!
Don`t we have a beautiful Kitchentable? :-)

This is me with short hair again! I love it!! (before-after!)
And.. last but not least, my new Swiss bike!!! I drove it to work the first 1,5 months almost every day. (25 minutes to and 25 back). It`s so nice to be able to get up the hills without having to step off! (I could`t make it with my old dutch bike, it had 3 gears, the new one has 28!! :))

Have a great November month!