… that was and still is what i say to myself every time i have to walk down the stairs the whole of yesterday and today, and likely tomorrow too!
No, i didn’t hurt my foot or injury my leg…
On Saturday, we went for our first ski of the season and it always “kills” me. My muscles always protest for the next few days after that first ski, letting me know that it wasn’t fair to put them through that after a whole year of “rest”.
We went skiing at Engelberg, Titlis, on the Jochpass side of the mountain with some lovely friends. It was nice. i had not been back to this resort since before Tobias was born so it has been a while. It is a beautiful place indeed.
Unfortunately, i was too busy trying to get my “ski-legs” as well as helping Tobias to get his back so didn’t take any shots of the lovely sunny day on a beautiful snow-covered mountain.
i do have a shot of my son making a silly face on the way up in the cable car.
My son with his silly face 😉
He was a little panicky at the beginning, saying he had forgotten how to ski. But it really didn’t take long till he was once again zooming down the hill, leaving poor mummy behind… as always… i really need to improve my skiing skills. My biggest fear is crushing into other people rather than being afraid of going down the slope. i need to develop more confidence in my stopping and avoiding skills…
Maybe next year i’ll go for lessons again…
For now, i think we are ready for our ski weeks. At least now i know i can make it down the hill, slowly but surely 😉
… yep, this is what this post is all about… PLANES…
Just a few days after Christmas, we were at the airport to see off yet another international student. Then less than a week later, we were back there again, seeing off… you guessed it… another international student.
For those who don’t know, off and on we get international students who come to our church while they are here studying. In the last few years, most of them have come from either Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, generally Asia. And having been international students ourselves, we know how it can be hard (not saying that it always is for every person, it certainly wasn’t for me) and we remembered how much we missed home-cooking during those times. So to these ones who come, we invite them over and we do some home-cooking, usually involving a sleep-over too. And some of these students stay for internship and at the end of that, they sometimes come stay with us for a few days or a couple of weeks. It has been wonderful having them around, they have been a blessing to us as much as we have (i do hope so) been to them.
Anyhow, we saw at the Zürich Airport that they have opened their new observation deck (since end of 2011, i believe) and we thought we go check it out. It now costs CHF5/. for an adult and kids from 10-16 pay CHF2/. It used to just cost CHF1/. But then there was a little less technology involved.
Here’s what i mean:
You can now track the planes you see moving around the terminal and taking off. All you have to do is point a special binoculars type thing at the planes, a yellow circle appears and it tells you what plane it is and where it is headed. It also gives you technical specifications on the planes. Very cool. It can zoom in pretty far too. There are a few of these around the deck so you won’t be waiting too long for your turn, even if it is crowded.
Left: shows technical info about the plane you are looking at. Click on a button and… Right: shows the flight number and destination.
You are actually standing on top of Gate B, so if there is a plane which is ready to take on passengers, the board next to the stairs leading out onto the arm of that gate will tell you all you need to know about the plane and where it’s going. Once again, very neat little feature.
This one was going to London.
Of course, they have the good o’ playground, just upgraded and new now.
i like how the outline is traced out on the ground too.
They also have a little restaurant right there on the Observation Deck B. It doesn’t serve lunch/dinner type meals but good snacks and of course at “airport” prices.
There is also an Observation Deck E but that is only open during the summer months. Maybe we’ll try going once. Although i imagine they would have to bus people to Deck E as it is not directly connected to the terminal itself. But i’ll post about that when we do visit there.
It’s a pretty good place to spend an hour or two with the kids if you happen to be at the airport either sending off or picking up someone. Oh, i forgot to mention, you do have to go through a small security check before being allowed on the Observation Deck.
So being inspired, the next two days or so, we had a little plane fun. Tobias had gotten a plane making set for Christmas; the rubber-band powered planes. And so he and Daddy set to work and here they are flying their creations 🙂
Flying-high 😉
Hope you have a plain-sailing “plane-flying” week 😉
… there were a couple of posts i had intended to write in the second half of December but life and Christmas took over. They have been given mention in our Christmas letter but here they are combined into one long, picture summary.
On December 15th 2012, Tobias took his Judo yellow belt test and …
… he passed! (no photos of the actual test, parents were not allowed in)
He’s being goofy with his brand new yellow belt.
And 3 days after that, Tobias and Mummy had their 1st ever recital. It was the Music School’s piano recital but the piano teacher had a slot to fill so she asked the violin teacher who asked us to play 😀 We had missed the violin class recital because Tobias had his Judo test. Tobias was calm and played like he always did, which is well. But Mummy was a nervous wreck!
Here’s a photo (not the most flattering but the light was low and my point & shoot camera is just crappy in low light conditions):
Here we are playing the 5th (last piece) with the piano teacher accompanying us.
Here are 2 of the 5 videos which Daddy shot:
Oh, this was not mentioned in our Christmas letter but i would like to showcase it too. We had a couple of international students with us over Christmas and enjoyed the joys of ripping away wrapping paper together on Christmas morning.
All proudly displaying their presents 😉
Then we sought out the fresh cool Christmas air after a big Christmas lunch (oops… sorry, no picture of Christmas lunch – i forgot to take a picture, that’s what happens when i do the cooking).
We took a nice walk in the nearby forest.
We also had some good o’ playground fun.
We had played lots of Wii table tennis and thought we give the real thing a go as well 🙂Of course, the see-saw is the classic playground, not to be missed.
And we went up to Zermatt as they wanted to see the famous Matterhorn. We stayed in a nice little hotel at the foot of the mountain for one night and went up the second day and this is what we saw:
We were at the lookout point at Gornergrat, hoping for a view of the Matterhorn.
Yep, pretty much snow in our faces. It was just bad luck or more like bad timing but we had fun sledding!
Thanks for the fun, laughter and great company, Jon & Joyce! Wishing you both all the best as you step into the next chapter of your lives.
trippingdifferently 