Yep, my boy is most definitely getting closer to the four-letter word… T-E-E-N… He celebrated his 11th Birthday last week!
This year he decided to go for a big party – or at least what passes for a big party in these parts – he invited 10 friends to a bowling center for a wonderful time. Last year, he opted for an intimate water adventure with just 2 friends.
Here are some pictures to share the event with you:
Here he is, at home, before the party, with the cupcakes and presents (these are from us and his grandparents and uncle).This is the bowling center near our place. It’s not glam or big but enough with 6 lanes, and other arcade games as well as billiards/pool. Actually, there were 2 other birthday celebrations the same day we were there!The kids enjoying the various games; TopLeft: Pinball, TopRight: Air Hockey, BottomLeft: Bowling, of course, and BottomRight: Ice Hockey.The gang 🙂And here’s our traditional birthday shot – the 3 of us, celebrating Tobias’ birthday in our new home 😉
The kids had great fun and i had a relaxing time, watching them play and laugh and having a good time. Tobias is already planning for next year’s party.
Yikes! i still can’t wrap my head around the idea that my baby will be hitting “some-teen” in 2 years!
Sigh! i guess that what kids do, isn’t it? They grow up. 🙂
She gives her all to us her children and her family, all of the time. Never thinking of herself, always making sure that we had everything we needed and making as many of our wishes come true as she possibly can.
Oh wow… it has been 24 days since i last wrote on this blog… i haven’t been offline for that long in a loooong time!
Why was i offline? Because moving is all about the mess! That’s right – it is one messy affair for us.
There was of course the mess of having boxes, boxes, boxes and yet more boxes all over the place. Then there is the sorting out and figuring out where everything would fit in the new home. After that, what on earth do you do with all those empty boxes?!
Well, we left… correction… i left most of them sitting out in the back. Good idea? Not so… some of they got covered in lots of snow, even thought they were under shelter the snow got blown onto them. And we had a ton of snow that week we moved in. When i finally decided to get to them, they had to be dragged out, literally… because they weighed a ton from having absorbed all the water from the melting snow! So take my advice – sort and get rid of those moving boxes or store them away immediately!
The one i have not shown you was the mess which was our bedroom… there was so much in there… we didn’t know if we could clear a space to sleep even :p
So having unpacked and sorted out boxes, you would think we could enjoy our new place. Nope. Here comes the next mess…
The mess of having no phone line and Internet for 3 whole weeks!
Yes, i will be ranting in this section…
Now before we moved, we had already notified our phone/Internet provider to transfer our line to the new apartment. They sent a technician over to activate the socket in the new place. He could not get it to work and said he would have to call the other company who owns the underground cables outside the house. They came a few days later and checked the cables and found that the underground cable had to be replaced along the whole street. So we wait for another company to come dig 3 holes in the ground outside our home and fix the cable. They did it and it all worked till the little box outside our apartment door. BUT it still didn’t work when i plugged in the phone. They managed to narrow down the issue to somewhere between that little box and our apartment door. We were advised to go back to the service provider, who said they do not do cabling inside the house and we should hire an electrician. We did – the one who was on the list of workmen from the developer. He said he did the lights but not the phone but that if we paid, he would come out and check things. We did. He came. And found that the socket isn’t actually connected to anything. He left. Checked some stuff with the developer. Then came back a week later, drilled a hole in our ceiling, found the wires, connected them and we had phone! BUT still no Internet. So 3 days later, again we called the service provider – their customer service was very apologetic and said this will be sent up a level and that someone will contact us once they have found the problem. i got a call (on my mobile) from the service provider to say now i have no phone even and he thinks 40 meters of underground cables are missing! We wait again for the other company to come check again. They came and tried various things and it finally worked at that little box. BUT still no phone when i plugged in. We went through all the adapters the service provider had given us (5 in total) and finally found one which worked. BUT still no Internet! So these men then went to check the main switch board in the village (they had already checked it various times before). Then they called to tell me, there is no Internet signal there either. i would have to call the service provider again. AHHHHH…
Thank God i did not have to call. The Internet came on by itself and now we are connected to the digital world again.
That was not all the issues we had… but it was the longest one and more tiresome one! We also had water leaking into the electric room – twice! More digging was needed to resolve that one. Then popping sounds in the radiators. Leak in the shower stall. Hole behind the kitchen cabinet drawer. Sigh!
Oh well, at least they are all good now.
Thank you for sitting through that long rant of mine. Here are some pictures of the new place to reward you…
Open concept Living/Dining/KitchenFrom top to bottom: Guest Room, Master Bedroom, Tobias’ Room
There are still pictures to be put up and the old apartment still has to be cleaned to Swiss standards… but i will deal with that later… now just wanna enjoy being home!
trippingdifferently 