Willkommen Zurück Nach Zürich

Well hello again Zürich. Nice to see you old friend! Only for 2 weeks and this time, but we do have a toddler in tow! Oh how things have changed:

Example #1. An 11 hour flight is no longer my time to catch up on movies that I haven't seen in the past year, it is now, do anything and everything possible to keep the child quiet, preferably sleeping, so there isn't a viral video of us on the internet. He did pretty good on the flight. The first 2-3 hours were a little rough as it was 3 hours past his bedtime, he had benadryl, he was confined to a very very small area, wasn't allowed to walk around, and so much was going on around him. The kid was WIRED, BUT once I got him to sleep, he slept for 6 hours across us and was pretty good when he woke up. I will say that the highlight of the flight was when Grayson stood up on my lap and started loudly chanting "pee and poo" for all of our neighbors to hear. Duane and I laughed so hard we cried.

(I might be really biased here, but this kid just warms my heart)

Example #2. First night of sleep. Our usual practice when we land somewhere with a horrific time difference is to get as much unpacking, grocery shopping, moving, exploring as possible in order to stay up as late as our bodies can physically manage, then crash hard. In order to help G, I made sure to wake him up at noon Zurich time, with the hopes of a no nap day, we could get him to bed by 8pm and he'd sleep for a good chunk of the night out of sheer exhaustion. Well, it seemed like a good plan, Grayson had other ideas. We did manage to get him run out, feed, bath, and get him to sleep with little fighting by 8pm.... but his little body thought it was a nap, thus woke up at 10:30pm, 1 hour after WE went to bed, and was ready. to. party. It took us 3 delirious hours to get him back down and thankfully, he stayed asleep till 8:30am when I woke him up. Then, Saturday night, he did it all again. Lucky us.

A small cat nap on the way to the apartment

Walking to pick up our pizza dinner

All in all, I am so glad our travel day is over and we are here. We were greeted by a continent wide snowstorm that really messed up travel. Luckily, we were not affected; but the giant, fluffy white snowflakes were a beautiful welcome disembarking the plane and driving to our apartment as we arrived to Switzerland winter.

 

On Saturday, in our attempt to get on the new time zone, and enjoy the beautiful snow before the predicted afternoon rain, we got out and walked around old town. Then on our way home, we introduced G to Kebab, a European dietary staple. I am proud to report that he liked it. 

Giving me LIFE this morning.

Then: The last time Grayson "played" in or saw any notable amount of snow (4.5 months)

Now: Giggles (18.5 months)

Everyone is getting ready for Easter

Making snow pancakes

Sunday morning we joined the masses and went for a beautiful walk along the lake. We even found a cool playground for G and a hot chestnut stand for me.

In the afternoon, one of my mom's siblings, Harold, and his family met us at our apartment to say hello and meet Grayson before going out to dinner at a delicious traditional German/Swiss restaurant, Zeughauskeller (touristy, I know, but the food is legit). Now, to start the work week with a new schedule!