We get our stuff, Sam gets sick and we go to Italy

Week 3 was very busy. It began with the arrival of our sea shipment on Monday. We both took the day off to receive it. Took all day and there was paper and piles of things everywhere as everything had to be unpacked to make sure all was there and nothing broken. Surprisingly, the only thing broken was a delicate (and not too valuable) glass cover for the cheese plate. No great loss. It was all very chaotic as there were 4 movers and only 2 of us. You would go downstairs to find someone had unpacked entire boxes of christmas decorations and piled them on a shelf...things that were supposed to stay IN boxes. Unfortunately, we had some re-packing to do. The other bummer was that we couldn't convince the movers to put our BBQ together. Oh well.

It certainly was nice

to finally have our things. Work had provided us with a 'pack-up kit' (which they still haven't taken away 3 weeks later - more boxes!) that included the essentials. However, in the land of cheese one misses one's grater (we broke down and bought one in the interim) and other things. The kitchen in our house is nice. White everything, which doesn't let me get away with messy counters. more cupboard space than at home which is nice but our big dinner plates don't fit in them. Will have to keep them down below. I guess European portions are smaller than ours. No surprise there. Our (small) fridge is built into the cupboards (we have extra fridge and freezer downstairs in the bomb shelter) and our stove is the countertop kind. Took us 20 minutes to figure out how to use it - it was locked- but we eventually did. We have an oven which is built into the wall, which I love. The kitchen came equipped with toaster, microwave, electric kettle and hand mixer with all the attachments, which is great as then we don't have to purchase them (with the different current etc. we couldn't use ours). We also have to massive converters if we really wanted to bring our own blender.

Here are some p

ics of the inside of our house - kitchen, living room, dining room and playroom - with our stuff in it. Not our furniture as you will see (although our dining table looks a lot like Dad's old set). Messy as we had guests last night (for pesto with parmesan straight from Italy...see below). Also no pics of the bedrooms because Sam is sleeping in one and the others are even messier than the dining room - still unpacking upstairs. Stay tuned. But there are pics of the playroom in the basement. YES! a playroom in the basement. I'm in heaven. Came in very handy last night when we could send the kids down there to make a mess while we (or everyone but me) sipped wine and ate cheese (ok, I ate the cheese).

Monday night we invited a potential nanny to our house for a meet and greet. we had dinner out back on the patio under the awning. Unfortunately we found out late in the game that she was vegetarian. She was lovely, 20 yrs old and Canadian. Here to get married to a local French guy. We liked her but have decided to stick with the current plan until next year, as I'm being selfish and not really wanting a nanny and Sam home every day when I'm home wiht the baby. Some sleep would be nice. Sam impressed this potential nanny by puking on the patio at her feet.

So, Sam has had his first Geneva illness. Aaron and I were both very busy at work, me having only gone in 3 days the week before and both of us having taken Monday off for the movers. On Tuesday morning, sam had a very runny nose and a cough, but no fever, so even though we knew he wasn't 100% we sent him to the Nanny. I decided we wouldn't send him to school in the afternoon, though, and went to get him at lunch which was good because he had been sick again (Sam has now been 'sick' 5 times in his life - we are luck). So we went home and cuddled and in the morning he was much improved and made it through the rest of a week. This was a relief to us because Thursday and Friday were holidays from work, as it is the Jeune Genevois (with accent circonflexe...still haven't figured out how to do accents on the ibook) holiday, all of Geneva closed down for this traditional fasting weekend (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeûne_genevois ) and we had planned and managed to book a last minute 4 day trip to....ITALY. Finally! I was pretty stoked...

Sarah, Aaron, Sam and WFII

xoxo