Category: Family

About family & family issues.

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Christmas Letter 2011

Here’s another fond look back at 2011; this is the Christmas Letter which was sent out to some of our family & friends. This is a tradition for me (since we started writing the Christmas Letter some 5 years ago) to post this on our blog as a sort of record & reminder to myself…

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HI HI
How are you? We hope this Christmas letter finds you and your loved ones well & enjoying the Christmas season. We are delighted that it is snowing right now & we might, we just might, get a white Christmas – i think we’ve only had 2 white Christmases since we’ve lived here, so fingers crossed 😉

Last year was a year of settling for us & this year has been a year of changes and new experiences. What a change! hehheee…

The biggest change of all is that Sandra has closed her book business. Some of you would have heard about this & the whole long rather sad, frustrating process of this, in February/March of this year. It all started with rushing to yet another great bookfair & assuming that all residential roads are 50km/h. Well, to cut a long story short, Sandra got a huge fine & had been informed that the Kanton (state) will not recognise her International Driving License & she will have to take all the tests from the very beginning to get a Swiss one. She did try continuing the business without the use of a car; but getting all those heavy books to different locations by public transport was just too hard. On hindsight, which is always 6/6, it was a good thing. God had already put in Sandra’s heart a desire to slow down & focus on the family, especially as Tobias goes to 1st grade. & without this happening, Sandra would have just tried to continue juggling everything. Now it is good – Sandra has time to focus on the things which God has said are more important at the moment – it is all in God’s good plan.

So that’s the other big change – Tobias moved from Kindergarten to 1st grade & he loves it! There are more things for him to do & learn, so much more interesting for him than Kindergarten. He has German, of course, Math, Science (or general knowledge as it is translated from German), Music, Gym, Workshop & Religion. He gets to move around & switches classrooms for most of the subjects. His 1st grade teacher is lovely & patient. i’m not sure if i mentioned it before, but in Kindergarten, his teacher insisted that there was a problem & after a few different evaluations & a fair amount of money, it was concluded that he has ADHD. But now it seems that he is coping well in 1st grade – so maybe he doesn’t have this, maybe he was just bored in Kindergarten? Well, whatever it might be, we are grateful & praise the Lord that he is enjoying 1st grade & doing well & pray that he will continue to do so.

Tobias has also picked up several other activities outside of school – all of his own choosing. Judo is on every Wednesday evening – he absolutely loves it & is quite serious about this. He will be taking his half-yellow belt test this evening. He also has swimming on Fridays & has just gotten his 5th badge a few days ago. Learning the Guitar has also become part of his weekly routine – Daddy teaches him at home so lessons are as & when Daddy is home & they have time. But he really does want to play like Daddy, even thought he complains that his fingers hurt. Walter says it will take lots of training for them to not hurt so much.

So between Tobias’ school & activities, & Sandra’s own appointments. The week can get quite full. Sandra is still attending German class one evening a week & BSF one morning a week. She’s hoping to be able to get to take her B1 level test for her German (she got her A2 level certification this past July) & then will take a break from it. She has also recently joined a book club – she is very pleased about that,; she loves books so very much. & she loves words too – this year for a second time she has managed to complete the 50,000 words writing challenge in November (NaNoWriMo). She is also still involved with the Day Away Association for Women, now co-leading the Bern team.

Looking out the window now, watching the snow fall (finally, it is so late this year), reminds us of the ski trip we took in February. We finally did the Swiss thing & booked ourselves into a holiday chalet for a week in a ski resort – Laax. We normally only go skiing for 2 or 3 days. It was nice to spend a whole week there – though i think any longer would be a bit much. It was wonderful to also have a dear friend join us for that week. We all, except Walter, took classes. Our friend had his first experience on a snowboard. Tobias went to ski school with the other kids & Sandra got to go to lessons to refresh her skiing ablities. Now Sandra can hopefully keep up with Walter, who has really gotten quite good, on the slopes.

Walter still travels quite a bit for work. The travelling comes in spurts & he has been quite a few times to the US & Canada. In the months of October & November, he was gone for almost 4 weeks straight. Walter is still involved with the worship team at church, though with his travels it can get quite difficult to stick to the planned schedule. The worship team & a few members of the church recently had a jam session, just playing great music & worshipping the Lord. It was fantastic!

Of course, one trip which we all did together was our annual trip home to Singapore in July/August. As usual, it was fabulous to be back home, where we have missed our family & friends & without a doubt the amazing Singaporean food. It was a great time of catching up and renewing relationships. Last year Sandra got a new toy. This year Walter got a new toy – a tablet! He loves it & spends a fair amount of time on it. Tobias likes it too cos’ he gets to play games on it – much better than playing on mummy’s little smartphone. All in all, it was a good time of wonderful food with family & friends. We came back well-rested.

Oh, we also did an overnight stay at a farmhouse. It’s called ‘Schlaf-im-Stroh’ – Sleep-in-Hay. There are farms all over Switzerland which offer this, from about April till October. So we booked ourselves a night in October. It was rainy & cold but we still had great fun! On this farm, we got to play with bunnies & helped the farmer feed the animals. We picked eggs & fed chickens, we (actually mainly Tobias) helped milked the goats too. Tobias also got to brush down a little pony & ride on her. He loved it so much that he has asked to go back again – this time for 2 nights! hehheee… just a little side note – if you intend on going to one of these, do check that you are allowed to help out on the farm. Not all the farmstays allow that.

As the year comes to an end & we start looking to the new year ahead, we have also re-looked at our Blog – Wir Sind Ausländern @ yoongz.livejournal.com. Sandra has felt for a while now that she really needs to keep this blog more updated; she has also been inspired by other blogger mummies & desires that this blog be more than just a record of our time here. She wishes that this blog would grow to cover issues we face as individuals & as a family, to showcase our thoughts & cares, our journey throught life & also to inspire & help others, just as she has been inspired & helped by others; so to this end, our blog will be re-lauched in January 2012 under a new name & at a new internet address. So stay tuned for more.

Oh yes, i have to mention – we have new additions to our family – Gerbils! We now have 2 little gerbils, named Nox & Puddles, who are just adorable & great fun to have around. They were given to us by one of Sandras’ writer friends who had to leave for university. Tobias has been given the responsiblity of feeding them & helping mummy to clean out their cage. You can see pictures of them on our current blog.

Us in Como, Italy, Dec 2011

We pray & wish you & your family a Blessed Christmas & a Fulfilling 2012.

With lots of love,
walter, sandra & tobias


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Daddy Moments…

…this is one of those…

Look at the seriousness with which they are tackling the task of building their very first model plane together 😉

My dad – Tobias' granddad – had bought a couple of model plane kits for him cos my brother had a few and Tobias would like one too. The plan had been that my dad would build it with Tobias while we were in Singapore. However, as it turned out, between our many appointments and my dad working, there wasn't time. But it was decided that it was better this way cos that made them easier to carry home, instead of having to fear them breaking while en route, we simply packed them in their boxes into our suitcases.

The basic body of the plane has been finished but they are still adding little bits (decals) here and there so there is not yet a completed plane to be photographed. But they enjoyed working on it greatly.

I could have done it with him too – making it a mummy/son project. But I know I'm just not as good and I wasn't sure about which decals went where – the instructions were not exact on this point.

There was another reason why this became a daddy/son project – it just seemed like a father/son thing – don't you think so? This always makes me wonder about the question of how little boys wanna be like their daddy and little girls like their mummy. Is it genetics or more than that?

Even though Tobias spends more time with me, (just because daddy works away from home a fair bit), he still loves and sometimes even prefers to spend time with his daddy. He likes a lot of the same things which daddy likes. He is a daddy's boy 🙂

syc

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Schlaf im Stroh… Sleep in Straw…

We had 3 weeks of Autumn School Holidays in October… and we had fun 😉
Our biggest adventure was Schlaf Im Stroh – we slept in straw on a farm 😀

There are farms here in Switzerland which have turned their upstairs barn space into little sleeping areas, filled with straw and you can book a night or two or three or more for a sleepover. They do groups too. There are some farms which have more child-friendly things to do than others. But overall i think they are all quite good. They are also organised – as you would expect from the Swiss – check out this official website.

We stayed at the Erlebnishof Hatti. So it turned out that we were the only guests for the night that we chose – it was a Sunday night, apparently most people come either during the weekdays or else from Friday to Sunday morning. Very few actually stay Sunday night till Monday morning.

The one downside to this whole adventure was that Walter could only stay with us for the night and then he had to go back to work very early the next morning and didn't get to stay for the morning's activities.

There is soooo much to share from this adventure…

We arrived on the farm about 5.30pm on Sunday evening and were welcomed by the farmer's wife and told to make ourselves at home and that the farmer would be back from the fields in about half hour and we can help out around the farm.

We started small… playing with the many many bunnies they have…

Here's what the farm looks like:

There was also a lovely view:

Then we got to work helping the farmer. Here Tobias is pouring out feed for the sheep.

Then we helped to herd the goats back to their stalls – actually these animals are really quite smart, the moment you open the gate to the field, they start running up the hill to their stalls cos they know what awaits… Food! 😉

Here Walter & Tobias are laying out bread for the horses in their stall… i did not know they would eat stale bread and the farmer says it makes it more interesting for them if we spread it around a bit.

We then watched the farmer feed the pigs – i never knew how violent pigs can be when it comes to getting their share of food. i also did not know that they liked soured milk.

Then came the part where i was slightly afraid… i have always been slightly afraid of birds/fowls with sharp beaks… i have always worried about being pecked by those very pointed beaks! Not as scary as i imagined. Unless you are food, they are really not interested in you. So we went to feed the chickens.

The farmer also showed us where they laid the eggs – they had these big boxes where they put a whole lot of what looked like wheat kernels to me. The chickens lay them in there, hiding them among the kernels. It was really very fun reaching in and searching for the eggs. It was even more exciting when the eggs are freshly laid and they still feel warm. We got to feed chickens & pick eggs both that evening and the next morning. That evening all the chickens were rushing to the feed we threw out for them so none of them were sitting on their eggs. But in the morning there were a couple who weren't interested in the feed. Tobias went up to one of them and said in Swiss German, 'We are not going to hurt you. Please may we have your egg.' Then he reached in slowly and took the topmost egg. Soooo cute!

Tobias also got first hand experience at milking the sheep. This farmer did not keep cows but he had sheep so he produced… well, the sheep produced the milk and the farmer collected it. Here Tobias was putting feed to keep the sheep happy while being milked.

Then he was allowed to help prepare the pumps.

The farmer even let him try his hand at attaching the pump to the sheep's udders.

By then it was quite late. And we still haven't had our dinner. So we said good night to the farmer and went to have our packed dinner which we brought with us. Father and son had a game of table soccer before bedtime.

This is where we slept.

OOooh, before i forget, the farmer was so very nice and gave us 3 boxes of eggs to take home – 18 fresh farm eggs!!

It was a cold night and we all wished we had brought more to wear to sleep but we survived – next time we know. 

i heard the farmer get up and start his day at about 5.30am in the morning – Wow! being a farmer sure means long days – 5.30am till at least 8.30pm if not longer. But we were visitors so we stayed in bed. Tobias was a little sad that he missed the morning milking as that is when they milked the goats as well.

But he got to do something even better. He brushed down a horse.

It was a cold and rainy day. It had started raining the night before and kept on raining that whole Monday – it was light rain but it just didn't stop.

Then he got to ride on the horse. We rode (well he rode and myself and the farm assistant walked beside him) to the farm down the road which had Lamas and Alpacas. Very cute.

Then back to the farm again.

Just before we left the farmer let Tobias ride with him in the little sewage truck (it did not smell cos it's all contained) as he needed to drive it out to clean the sewage from the outdoor toilets they had installed.

Then it was byebye.

Tobias loved it soooo much that he has asked to go back again but this time for two nights instead of just one!
We certainly will be going back – anyone like to join us?
syc