Skiing in the French Alpes

One of the things that we wanted to experience while we were here was skiing/snowboarding. Neither of us had ever been before. I'm not sure if that's crazy or smart to go skiing for the first time in the Alps; but nonetheless, that's what we did. We went to Megeve in France which is near the Mont Blanc. It only takes about an hour to get there. (Side note: I also had heard that this is where some of the old movie Charade was filmed with Audrey Hepburn and Carey Grant). We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day either. The view from the top of the mountain was unbelievable. I had to keep reminding myself to stop staring at my feet and remember to look out and enjoy it!!

Since it was our first time we decided it would be smart to take lessons. I wanted to learn to ski and David wanted to learn to snowboard. So we each took a two hour private lesson and after that we were so exhausted we were done!! It was really fun and such a great experience for our first time out. I was completely terrified and even told my instructor so. Here were the thoughts running through my head: What happens if i get hurt? I really don't want to end up in the hospital again here. Who would take care of me if i get hurt because David works long hours. Since our fridge is so small and we have no car how would I make the daily trip to the grocery and how would I lug the groceries home? We live in an Apartment, how would I take the dogs out? The list goes on and on!! I know God is up there going "Brooke, I got this...seriously" but still I didn't want to do anything too crazy. I made it down the bunny slope a couple of times and then I went to the bigger slope. I'm sure I was quite the site to see when I lost control and couldn't stop and went into the woods all while arms were flailing about and screaming at the top of my lungs "stop me, stop me!!" Seriously, i'm pretty aware that it wasn't my instructors job to stop me, but thankfully he eventually caught up with me and did stop me. Bless his heart...I'm sure he was thinking what is this girl doing?! Luckily I made it through my first trip out without any accidents.

David did great for his first time snow boarding. We were told it takes longer to catch onto snowboarding but that once you do, it's easier to advance in it than skiing. He was incredibly sore the next day though!!

I will say one of the things that just baffled me was the amount of children on the slopes!! I couldn't believe how many little kids were out there 4-5 years old going down the big slopes and just flying past both me and David. It was amazing to watch them!

Here are some pictures from our day!!

This was David's snowboarding instructor!!

Our Swiss family!!

Back to Switzerland!

I have to be honest and say that I was not ready to come back to Switzerland yet. Not because I don't like it...because I really do. However, like I said before, 2 weeks was just NOT long enough!! Everyone else was staying for 3 weeks and we really needed that extra week to spend more time with family and friends. We had left our puppies in Europe and it was costing us a small fortune to board them. Plus we felt terrible because we have never left them for such a long time so we knew we needed to get back. Needless to say, I did not have the best attitude on the day we were leaving to head back. I hate flying so I was not in the right mind frame to make the trip back and then there it was.....isn't it funny how God likes to humble us when we are at our worst? As we walked to our gate to catch the plane we ran into one of David's co-workers who was on her way back to the Philippines. I was like...well shoot, now I can't complain at all!! The flight she was taking that day was twice as long as our flight. Let me be honest, you couldn't pay me enough to make that flight again anytime soon. It's an incredibly long trip and she is headed even farther away from her family and friends than we were so it put things in perspective. I realized I needed to adjust my attitude and be grateful for the experience we were being given!!

Anyway, once we got to Detroit we only had about 20 minutes before our flight took off for Amsterdam. We were running behind because our plane had to wait awhile before unloading in Detroit. So we separated, and David ran and got us some food and I ran and picked up some necessities (i.e. People, Elle, In Style, and Light and Tasty)!! I know your probably thinking that these aren't necessities....but just ask any lady over here...they are definitely necessities!! They are also a necessity for David! They keep me distracted while on the flight so he doesn't have to listen to me freaking out! I think we sat on the tarmac for an hour before taking off. There were so many large families traveling together and they would get on the plane and sit where ever they wanted. They messed up all the seating arrangements and everything became unorganized really quickly. There wasn't room for anyone's luggage, they couldn't find seats for people, it was a mess. I've never seen such confusion on a flight before. Everyone was so annoyed by the time we took off. Then, they kept having problems with the t.v.'s on the back of the seats. So for the next hour, they kept turning the system on and off.

Since it was after Christmas there were so many couples flying with young children. There was a couple sitting several rows up and a row over with two young children. We felt terrible for the parents but one of the kids screamed (didn't cry, but screamed) for the last half of the trip. I"ll be honest it was really frustrating for everyone on the plane because everyone was so exhausted by that point. As frustrating as it was for everyone else my heart always goes out to the parents in those situations. I mean seriously people, it's not like the parents weren't trying everything to make the child happy. They have to deal with the frustration of not being able to make the child calm down and then have a plane full of angry passengers staring at them. So I'm sure you can understand that we were in total shock when the lady behind us and the lady in front of us started screaming at the child to be quiet, and mortified that they would do this to these parents. And seriously, you would think grown women would know that screaming back at a child would not help solve the problem. I wanted to turn around and start screaming at both of them. I bit my tongue though...if people are really that selfish and crazy then nothing I would have said could have made them realize how cruel that was. Then, if we hadn't had enough excitement, while the plane was trying to land a guy, who was dressed in a way that might make some people nervous, starts getting a box down from the over head bin. He was sitting on the other side of the plane and several rows behind us so we didn't see him getting up. We just saw flight attendants screaming and running down the isle. Let me just say....this is not a comforting feeling at all!! I was never so happy when we landed in one piece in Amsterdam!!

By the time we got to Geneva it was Friday morning. We picked up our friends car at David's work, since we were going to be house sitting for them and picking up there dog at the boarders along with ours. David dropped me off at the apartment so I could run and get some food for us for the day. He had to run into work for awhile. I unpacked all four suitcases and then repacked for staying at their house for the week. When David got finished with work, he picked me up and we ran to get all 3 dogs. At this point we hadn't slept in about a day and a half. We were exhausted!! The dogs were all so thrilled to see us. We got back to our friends house and realized that their was something wrong with their heat. We were on the phone with them back in the states and they were trying to get a hold of their landlord to get someone over asap to fix the problem. It was cold in the house so we bundled up to try and stay warm. We napped on and off while waiting for the guy to come and fix the heater. He finally showed up and thought he fixed the problem but then realized he didn't. Finally, by that evening, we realized it was going to be way too cold to stay there.

We loaded the car back up (third time that day),got our dogs in the car, and Sammie, the big yellow lab and head back to our apartment. I grabbed our dogs and David got Sammie and we start walking into the our building. Sammie stops and freezes and we can't get him in the apartment. At this point is 11:00 at night. We are exhausted and we are trying to coax this dog inside or our apartment quietly. Seriously, I wish I had gotten it on video or at least a picture but at this point we were only focused on getting Sammie in the building. He is a pretty big dog. He definitely ways more than me so we knew we couldn't just pick him up and carry him in so I ran inside and put our dogs up and grabbed some dog treats. I ran back down stairs trying to get Sammie to eat his way inside. It didn't work. So finally David takes him back home. When David returned to the apartment and we realized we couldn't leave Sammie there by himself all night because it was way too cold. We remembered someone had given us a little space heater so we grabbed that and loaded dogs, suitcases, and food back into the car (fourth time that day) and headed back over to Sammie. So finally, after incredibly exhausting 48 hours, we were getting settled in and getting some sleep. At this point we make the biggest rookie mistake you can make while traveling. We didn't set the alarm for the next morning.

We knew better...but we thought it would be fine. It wasn't. We slept till about 2p.m. I am a morning person. I have never slept till 2p.m. I've really never slept till 10:30a.m. The next day was New Year's Eve and we didn't even realize it until it was pretty late. We were still too tired to care!! We were so tired that we remembered after it was too late that we had needed to go to the grocery to get food for the rest of the weekend. By the time we realized it, the grocery stores were closed. We had no food. We ended up at McDonald's and had to eat there several times over the weekend since grocery stores are closed on Sunday's in Geneva and for the most most part that is the only fast place to eat. When you go out to eat in Europe it's a commitment and when you are jet lagged the last thing you want to do is sit through a two hour meal. On Monday we still slept late and rushed to the grocery store that afternoon. Since it was New Year's Day the grocery stores were closed again. Eventually we found a store open in France and were thankfully able to eat something other than McDonald's.

Late Christmas Post!

So, I have a confession to make. I still have my Christmas tree up...eeek!! This is so unlike me. Usually it comes down right after the new year, but honestly, it makes this place feel a little more like home. It's pretty bare in the living room without it and the only people who see it are a couple of friends. One of my friends was telling me that the first year she moved here she left hers up till April! That's just life here people....i'm just rolling with it!! There is just something about it that makes me not want to take it down.

I have also been incredibly distracted since we have been back. I decided to have some allergy testing done over Christmas and found out I am pretty much allergic to every food known to man kind!! I'm kidding...it's not that bad. Apparently though, I am allergic to gluten, soy, and eggs. The gluten allergy is not a surprise. I pretty much new that was a problem but the eggs and soy I wasn't prepared for at all. I can't believe how much of food has soy in it (i.e. most lunch meats, vegetable oil, cooking spray, some spices, things you would never even think about). Anyway, the reason i am even mentioning any of this is because it has changed my entire world and it's the reason I haven't been blogging lately at all . I have been researching, reading product labels, translating those product labels, trying to figure out the rules on what has to be on a label in Switzerland and what doesn't and contacting companies about what products contain these ingredients. And products here are not listed in English which makes it incredibly difficult while I'm at the store. If I'm being totally honest it leaves me mentally exhausted most days. This would be hard enough in the states but there are so many companies coming out with food products in the U.S. for people with allergies that it would definitely make it easier if i was back in the states right now. However, I'm not and am going to do my best to figure this out while I am here.

So anyway....on to everything that I haven't written about since Christmas!! Wow...I can't believe it's already February. We had such a great Christmas!! It was an incredibly chaotic crazy two weeks, but we left feeling so blessed and loved. We did learn that two weeks was definitely not enough time to be home. David had to work some while we were in town so that left me to do all of our Christmas shopping. I like to be totally organized, so this girl likes to have her Christmas shopping done way before Christmas. Unfortunately with the weight limits on the luggage these days it's just not possible to bring that much back home. We each took 2 suitcases home. One was full of 7 days worth of clothes the other was full of things that we brought here or needed to take back because we weren't using. When we move home, we only get so much room on an air shipment so we have to make room for anything we have bought over here. Not having anything done before hand put me in total frantic mode when we went home. I had so much to do!!

I did all the Christmas shopping for each each side of the family and then we had to stock up on all the items that we needed to bring back (i.e. toothpaste, food, shampoo and conditioner, clothes) basically all of our favorite products that we either can't find here or we save money by bringing it back from the states. A big shout out goes to my sister Lily who is probably the one person who can tolerate being at the mall with me. You see, I have this special super power endurance that most people don't have when it comes to shopping. Unfortunately not a lot of people can hang with me when I go. I've been dragging her with me since she was little but we love it and it's great bonding time!! I think we were there every day for the first week I was home! It was tough trying to stock up and by gifts and trying to remember what all we needed. In between doing all of that, we tried to get into all our doctor appointments and made sure we got haircuts!! We did our best to have lunch or dinner with all of our friends and family members. Our day would start early and end late. It was so fun, totally exhausting, but totally worth it! Thank goodness for my Mother-in-law! No, i'm not sucking up. She doesn't have anything to do with computers so I know she will never read this. She did our laundry and helped me stock up on items that we needed from the store, went to the post office several times for me, and she makes my whole world go around when we come in town which allows me time to spend time with my family while we were there and friends. I just wouldn't have had time to get everything done so we were both so grateful for her help.

Since I did leave my house early every morning I never even thought to take my camera with me. I did not get enough pictures!! I don't think I got any pictures of our friends at all. I did manage to get some of our families at Christmas. We celebrated with my family a couple days earlier so they could go see my older sister and the grand kids for Christmas. I was thrilled to go watch my little sister dance at the U.K. game. Then we had Christmas afterwards. We had such a great time!!

Me and Lily!

Mom and Lily!

Dad and Lily!!

Lily and David!!

Lily in action!!

Me and mom!!

Part of the family!!

I did not get enough pictures with my side of the family!! This is unusual because we are one crazy picture taking family, but I was not on my game for some reason. Probably because it was late and I was still struggling with the jet lag at this point. I didn't get enough pictures with my brother in them either. Miles wasn't able to go to the game with us and then for some reason I didn't get many afterwards. Over Thanksgiving my brother got engaged and we are so excited for them and I am looking forward to adding another sister to our family!! Miles, I'm going to be following you around like the paparazzi when I get home!!

Miles and Miranda!

While my family had to go out of town for a couple of days for Christmas all of David's family came in. We decided years ago that instead of doing gifts with his brother and sister we would do gag gifts. It's inexpensive and we have the best time opening them.

(My sister-in-law Virginia made this for my Mother-in-law)Grandpa with the gradkids!!

Here are a couple of the gag gifts that were given.

Andy got a Richard Simmons workout video!!

And then so did Steve!!

Just what we both always wanted!!!!

I know Virginia greatly appreciated this beautiful shirt we picked out for her haha!!

Almost everyone got some kind of crazy shirt!! Here they all are wearing them.

Kate got some kind of a stuffed doll that was the ugliest thing you would ever see. Virginia got a clock that was addressed: To Virginia from your daughters school. I won't tell you the story behind that without her permission, but it is hilarious!!

Here is a picture of Me and Kate. We sat down on the couch and were chatting away when my father-in-law pointed out what we had done.

My niece had been playing with her dolls and we had sat down next to the correct doll (which matched us) without even realizing it. We had a good laugh over it.

He was so excited with his light saber that we got him, his face says it all!!

Our traditional game of UNO!

So typical of the boys!! I have given up trying to get a normal picture with David, Andy, and Steve!! lol

Roma!!

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I don't know about you all, but the weeks are flying by!! I can't believe it's already December?! We are continuing to stay busy. We even got to go on another trip over the weekend to Rome!! We weren't planning on going anywhere else this year but some friends of ours had hotel rooms already booked to Rome and so they invited us to come along!! We had a great time. We left Friday morning at 6:30 a.m. and got to Rome by 8 a.m. It was a quick flight which was nice since we will be making the long haul to the U.S. in a couple of weeks. We had two full days in Rome. The first day we did a lot of walking and saw The Spanish Steps, The Trevi Fountain, The Pantheon, and the Colosseum. We also did a little shopping. By the end of the day we were all exhausted from being up since 4a.m.

We actually were lucky enough to get a great deal at the Waldorf Astoria. They had it decorated beautifully for Christmas!



The next day we went on a four hour tour of Vatican City. Which included the Vatican, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Cathedral. Let me just say that it was information overload but it was really great learning about the history of everything. The rest of the day we did some souvenir shopping.

In true Henard fashion it sprinkled off and on most of the weekend. It could have been worse and luckily when it started to downpour we were eating lunch. We took several life threatening taxi rides while we were there. I mean seriously...I wondered if some of them had ever driven before. Several of the rides I really wasn't sure we were going to make it back to the hotel alive. What should have been an hour ride from our hotel to the airport only took 30 minutes because one guy was going 96 mph (about 160 khp) on the interstate....yikes!!

Some things I know we will want to remember:
1. The streets of Rome are incredibly slick when wet. Especially the Spanish Steps.
2. We had some great 1 liners: 1. "I didn't even know what a gladiator was until today". 2. In reference to Michelangelo's ceiling painting in the Sistine Chapel "How did they keep the ceiling wet for four years." (it took four years to complete the painting and the plaster has to be wet for in order to paint it.)

I won't tell you who did/said what, but it was definitely a memorable trip!

All in all...we saw a lot, learned a lot, and had a lot of good laughs!!