Sydney's 1st Birthday and visit from the Toews

What a wonderful week we had with my parents coming for a visit and Sydney having her first birthday! She started walking last week, and there is a video on Facebook of the first day that she walked! She was practicing a lot before her grandparents came. She really enjoyed reading with them.

They arrived in Geneva after a stopover in London to get rid of their jetlag. Our first day together, we went on a long bike-ride up and down the river, across 4 bridges!  It was a beautiful day.

We went to church on Sunday and my parents were able to see our typical Sunday service, which includes a lot of spontaneous prayertime, singing, and a message from the Bible. 

Sunday afternoon there was a citywide garage sale. Those of you who know my mom- can you imagine how excited she was?? It was blocks and blocks long! They went to Switzerland from Sunday until Tuesday while we had school. 

Sydney got to celebrate her birthday twice! We had two big carrot cakes with cream cheese frosting.



We had a party with Grandpa and Grandma Toews and the Rices. And we also celebrated her birthday over the lunch break with Granddad and Nana Potter (via Skype) and about 15 people in our building, singing happy birthday in English and French.

Wednesday we went on a long hike. Thursday was an all school field trip. We took windy roads up through the mountains in some of the most beautiful scenery we have seen! There were points where the mountain went straight up around us on both sides of the river. The road had been partially carved from the side of the mountain, and thus had a roof on one side to shed the snow off and into the river instead of piling up on the road. We visited a cheese factory and then went a 30 min drive more to see a watch factory. Ryan was in heaven seeing all the mechanics of how the watches and time pieces were engineered. It made for a long exhausting day but very informative.

Taking the cheese out of the mold, pun intended

Where they mix the milk and bacteria to make curds

Sydney eager to eat the cheese

At the watch factory

Friday we had class and Grandpa and Grandma got to spend the day with Sydney. :) That night, Nancy graciously spent her evening babysitting while we got to go on a double date with my parents to an amazing French restaurant. It is the first time we have eaten out in the 2 months we have been in France and it was so delicious!

Over the weekend, we went to the Abbey de Tamie, the medieval city of Conflans (singing in the old church to hear the beautiful acoustics), and hiked quite a bit in the beautiful mountains. We got up as far as the mountain cabin that we had hiked about a month prior.

Our camelback baby loves hiking

Sunday we held our own service at home. Since my mom enjoyed the cowbells so much in Switzerland, we wanted to see what they might cost. In Conflans, we went to an antique store and found a large 400 Euro cowbell and several smaller 150 Euro bells! I'm sure you can find them cheaper, but they were quite old cowbells! We also explored a European port-a-potty. Not your African squatty-potty! Good times!