The Price of Beauty/Homeschooling...there’s an app for that

2 topics for the price of one today.  First up: the price of beauty.  Switzerland is a beautiful country...but wow.  Sticker shock.  When Ryan and I spent over $100 on 2 bags of groceries the first night, I chalked it up to the fact that we had to buy things at a gas station.  I’ve found out since that the normal stores aren’t much better.  Some of the highlights from yesterday’s grocery shopping trip: a $6 bag of marshmallows (we couldn’t have a bonfire without them according to my kids), $10/pound for chicken, $3 a dozen eggs, and a $5 box of 25 little ziplock bags.  We’ll be eating lot of pasta, rice, and potatoes in Switzerland. And rinsing out our ziplocks after we use them (okay, probably not. But we should).  And since tortillas are $5 a package, I might finally learn to make my own.

Ryan was told he should take a trip TO GERMANY to get his haircut.  Why?  Because what costs him about $35 in Germany will be closer to $65 here in Switzerland.  So we’re going to go to Germany on Saturday (about a 30 minute drive) to get Ryan a haircut and fill up our gas tank.

The diesel I use for my car was cheapest in Luxembourg at $1.70 a liter ($6.80 a gallon).  Here it is $2.15 ($8.60 a gallon).  If you want to do the math for a 16-gallon tank, you’ll be able to feel my pain.  I promise now to complain less about $3+ /gallon gas in the U.S.  

Luckily Ryan got a rail pass to go to work.  The crazy thing about the Swiss train?  They don’t collect a ticket or check your pass when you get on. No turnstile.  Nothing.  One of Ryan’s work colleagues said that they do occasionally check them, but Ryan hasn’t had his checked so far.  As yes, the trains do run like clockwork.  Swiss clockwork.

So enough on the shopping and on to topic #2.  Homeschooling.  My brother asked me if we do any kind of curriculum.  Um...no.  It’s a pretty loose system we’ve got going on.  Yesterday wasn’t so great, but things improved today since Mason became Andrew’s tutor and Katie became Chloe’s.  Pure genius.  Instead of having all four trying to get my attention, now they are self-sufficient.  Of course, Katie’s idea of being a “tutor” involves shopping for the best preschool apps for Chloe on her ipod.  Mason likes to make intricate worksheets for Andrew that he can do as homework later in the day (imagine my surprise when Andrew actually did them).

My niece Megan is doing a legit home-schooling course, which has been put on the back-burner due to a lucky discovery in the storage room in our house.  We were told we could use the things in the room, and two of the things happened to be guitars. Megan has a great voice and has always wanted to learn to play the guitar. And since we are in the middle of the woods with not a lot going on, the timing couldn’t be more perfect.  I’m not great at the guitar, but I at least know how to tune it, read chords, and do some other basic things.  So once I passed my little bit of knowledge on to Megan, I’ve heard a lot more singing and a lot less typing on the computer.  We had a great time tonight busting out “Edelweiss” (to get us ready for our Salzburg trip next week), Taylor Swift, and John Denver (that one is for Courtney).

I even attempted to make Playdough for my first time ever today, since I was pretty desperate for something for Chloe to do.  I bought “food coloring” at the store to try to make it more fun, and chose to try the blue out.  The blue was more of a grayish liquid that had no affect on my blob of salt and flour, so it was a very “natural” blob compared to normal playdough.   We didn’t have any rolling pin, so we used the bottle of wine the owners had left for it.  At least this way we got some use out of it.

I think everyone’s favorite course is Fire Building 101.  Between the fireplace that heats the house, the firepit outside, the grill we used to cook on outside, and a vast supply of split firewood, I have made more fires in the last few days than in the last few years of my life.  And it isn’t getting old.  It’s supposed to finally warm up during the next couple of days, and my only regret with that is that it might mean we’ll have to cut back on the fires.  At least the indoor ones, anyway.

Beautiful Day

Laying in dandelions, hunting for snails, and finishing with hamburgers grilled over the fire.  There were some not so picturesque details involved with our first day of "home schooling", but luckily I didn't take any pictures of that.

Welcome to Lochli

We left Luxembourg on Saturday morning to drive through Germany to get to Switzerland.  Along the way, we stopped to eat lunch with some “friends” who are stationed at a U.S. military base in Germany.  I put “friends” in quotes only because we hadn’t actually met these friends before we ate lunch with them--but they are friends now (the kind without quotes).  It started when a good friend of mine in Charlottesville introduced me to her sister living in Germany via facebook, and it turned into a very, very appreciated lunch invitation/rest stop on our journey south.

Once again showing how small the world the world is, my new friend had worked for a year for my uncle and was a mission companion to one of my roommates from college.  

We continued south, and I came to love and appreciate something I’ve always heard about: the German Autobahn.  My GPS shows me the speed I’m going next to the current speed limit.  Once we hit the Autobahn, it only showed my speed...because there were no speed limits.  Okay, sometimes there were, but only as you pass by towns and through tunnels.  The only bad thing about going so fast is that the scenery was so beautiful that I didn’t get to enjoy it as long as I would have liked.

It’s a little surreal to be going 85 miles and hour and have someone blow past you.  Those “someones” were consistently  driving a BMW, Audi, or Mercedes. But I don’t think I was ever passed by another 8-passenger Peugot Expert Tepee (the fancy wheels we have over here).  I owned the passenger van category.

We made it to Switzerland in the evening, and attempted to find the house we’re staying in.  I thought I had it programmed in, but when our GPS said “you have arrived at your destination” she was very wrong.  We were nowhere close to a road that lead to a bridge that you had to walk across to get to a house.  And those were all the directions I had to go on beyond what I thought were the cross streets.

These are the hiking trails behind our house. We're staying in "Lochli".

Luckily we had a phone number to call, so we pulled into a gas station and were able to get a hold of someone who said they would come to where we were and we could follow him to the house.  And it’s a good thing he did, since there’s NO WAY we ever would have found it otherwise.

It’s off a side residential street, and then back into the woods on a narrow dirt road.  We were able to pull up close to where the bridge is, and took out our luggage.  Then we drove about 1/4 mile back down the road to where we could leave our car.  

I found this house on a website called HomeAway.  It was the only house with 4 bedrooms, and was surprisingly affordable.  Probably because it’s a solid 5-minute walk up and down hills and across a bridge to get to your car every time you want to go somewhere-- and not everyone is into that.  But we took a gamble, and once again our gamble paid off.

The house is older, but has been renovated.  Mostly straight out of IKEA, but still has plenty of personality.  My kids love: the red spinning chairs in the kitchen, their awesome bedrooms with fluffy duvets and cool doors that can double as windows and have views of the yard, the wood-burning stove that heats the house, the koi pond and fire pit, and the waterfalls that we can walk to straight from our house.  

I love that the entire upstairs is an open master bedroom, there is a washer and dryer (that took me about 30 minutes to get to work, and I’m not entirely sure I’m doing it right), there is a fence that goes around the whole yard keeping the kids from falling into the river below, there is beautiful scenery, and I have a big kitchen.

Ryan also loves the house, but would have appreciated it if the ceilings were about 2 inches taller on the main floor.  It’s kind of like when we drove our van into the underground parking structures in Paris, except he actually scrapes the ceiling when he goes under the beams without ducking.  And then there are a couple of really tricky spots where the height goes down to about 5’7”.  Perfect for smacking the forehead of someone who is 6’0”.  It has happened a few more times than he would have liked.  

It’s fine when you’re paying attention to where you’re going.  But with kids, you’re often reacting to something you hear going on--and if you’re not thinking about the ceiling, it can catch you by surprise.  And since you’re already kind of annoyed that you’re having to break up a fight or something like that, having a smack on the head takes the whole thing to a new level.  And it isn’t pretty.  

Luckily the upstairs has open, beamed ceilings that are far away from the top of Ryan’s head.

We went to church in St Gallen, and appreciated the fact that there were people willing to translate for us.  We even got little headsets.  There’s nothing like arriving a couple of minutes late to church to find that the only row of 7 seats available is the front row and then having someone bring up a box of headsets to you to make your presence fully known.  

After church, we explored the “nature preserve” that our house is located in.  There are a couple of waterfalls and stairs that lead up to a “magic meadow” that will be perfect for soccer, frisbee, kickball, etc.  It’s still early spring here, so a lot of the trees are just now getting leafs on them.

Hauling the $100 of groceries back to our house.  Luckily you can fit $100 of groceries in just 2 bags when you buy things here.   And we were just buying food to last us the weekend.  It wouldn't have been so expensive if  all the grocery stores weren't closed (it was 6:00 on a Saturday evening). So we had to buy everything at a gas station.

 This is the side and back views of the house.  The door above goes into Katie and Chloe's room.  We used the firepit on the first night, and Katie insisted we dine al fresco on the picnic table.  The chain link fence overlooks a drop off down to the river.

 This is the pathway down to the house.  You go down the hill, across the bridge, and up another hill.

 The kitchen.  Pure IKEA.  My kids love the chairs.  I love the beams and the brick wall behind the stove.

 The other side of the kitchen, including our wood-burning stove.

 The upstairs.  Having a real house again after 3 weeks of being cramped has been heaven.

Up in our "magic meadow" at the top of the trail behind the house.

 Crossing the bridge on the way to the car.  It's a good 15 feet down to the river from the top.

And then again on the way home.  

 Every field around us has stacks of wood and a bathtub for good measure...

 Our store of firewood.  It should keep us going for a while.

Ryan will be going into the university tomorrow, and I’ll be doing some real home-schooling with the kids.  I think we’re all looking forward to a day at home where we aren’t tripping over each other.  Wish me luck with the home-schooling thing.  I have had many friends who rave about how much fun they have with it.  I've never imagined myself being one of those people. But I'm willing to give it a try.

The Quinns do Luxembourg

We left Wednesday morning for our 4-hour drive to Luxembourg.  Before we left, we had to use up the last of the 30 euro punchcard I had bought for activities.  Which meant we spent an hour in the morning  playing mini-golf in 50 degree weather (if that) and driving the gocarts.  But we had the satisfaction of knowing that we didn't waste any money.  For the record, if I'm ever in a situation like that again, the punchcard might "accidentally" go missing.  

We have great wifi again, which should have been good for my blogging posts.  Instead it has meant that I can finally use itunes again and download a couple of episodes of Modern Family and rent a movie or two from the comfort of our home. 

I'm going to be honest--I was pretty tired of moving by the time we did this one.  This is the fifth place we've been to, and the packing/unpacking routine has gotten old.  We've been on the road for close to 3 weeks, and the month or so before we left for Europe wasn't the most relaxing times I've ever lived through.

In fact, my mantra had become "The only way out is through".  So many times I wanted to just put my head in the sand and try to ignore that I was somehow supposed to get my house ready to sell at the same time I was getting my family ready for a two month trip which would be followed by a move across the country.  There was never a time when I didn't have fifty different things on my "to do" list.  

But I knew that ignoring everything would just make things worse.  Which would usually help me get back up and keep checking things off my list.  Sometimes I would actually do the things on the list, and sometimes I would decide that they just weren't important enough to care about and I would cross them off without doing them. The closer I got to the day we left, the more I chose the second of the two methods.

I felt the same way when we were getting on the plane to Barcelona and I panicked that the whole thing I had planned was pure craziness and there was no way I was going to emotionally survive being everyone's tour guide, cook, chauffeur, etc.  The day leading up to our trip and throughout the whole plane ride, I told myself the same thing--"the only way out is through".  That in in end, we'd survive the transition and figure out how to adapt--and probably still like each other on the other side of it.

And so far, so good.  But I'm ready to be done moving around--and I still needed to make the most of our last spot before getting to Switzerland.  The weather wasn't exactly cooperative (in the 50's with sporadic showers), but we were able to manage a few excursions.

Yesterday, we drove to Vianden to a chateau that was restored about 20 years ago.  I like that Luxembourg has a lot of stone outcroppings that are incorporated in the buildings.  I planned my trip around what would appeal to a 6-year-old, and so far the particular 6-year-old I'm traveling with still enjoys exploring castles.  The hard part is that when Ryan asks about the places we've been, I don't have a whole lot of facts to tell him since we usually cruise through from room to room.  And the fact that most of the signs are in a different language doesn't help either. 

Vianden Chateau (Luxembourg)

Vianden Chateau

Today we ventured to Luxembourg City, and started with the American Cemetery there.  There are about 5000+ soldiers buried their from WWII.  I had imagined having a moment to help my kids appreciate the sacrifice that those who serve their country have to make, and why that is so important.  The cemetery was beautiful and had a very sacred feel to it.

Instead, I listened to about fifteen solid minutes of Chloe crying about how she needed to use the bathroom and Andrew complaining about how cold he was (something that happens when you leave.your.jacket.at.home.for.the.tenth.time).  So much for our little special moment.  Once we got back into the car, Ryan asked, "Amy, what was it that made you want to go there today?"  My response was, "I don't want to talk about it."  Ahhh, the joys of traveling with children.  They help make every place memorable, but not always for the reasons you expect.

American Cemetery in Luxembourg

American Cemetery in Luxembourg

 I had a feeling my second excursion for the day would be a bigger hit.  We went to the casemates in Luxembourg City, which are tunnels and rooms in the city walls that were used for defense throughout the history of the city.  There were lots of tunnels and passageways, and fortunately only one way through--since we could easily have lost someone.  


In fact, Katie decided it would be a good opportunity to see if we would realize it if she was missing, so she stayed behind in one area to test us.  Um...we failed.  I told her we would have figured it out eventually.  And that she should probably keep up if she wanted to go home with us.  Because I wasn't making any guarantees since I was trying so hard to not have Chloe tumble down one of the many, many winding spiral slippery stone staircases we traversed.  


Mason used the casemates as an opportunity to see if he could scare me by jumping out at me and yelling every chance we went around a corner.  He did get a reaction out of me--but it wasn't the one he was looking for.

Casemates in Luxembourg City--with Andrew wearing my jacket.

Standing on top of the Casemates in Luxembourg City--hoping our kids don't fall off the wall while we're taking pictures from the other side.  It's a loooong way down.

Inside the Casemates

We had time to fit in one last place since it is close to where we are staying in the town of Larochette.  The chateau here hasn't been rebuilt, so it was a great chance to explore some ruins.  There were awesome views from the top of the town below.


After the ruins we went into the town to the boulangerie to buy some pain au chocolate one more time before leaving.  I have come to appreciate pastry shops in a whole new way during the past couple of weeks.

The remains of the chateau in Larochette, Luxembourg

Chateau in Larochette, Luxembourg

Chateau in Larochette, Luxembourg

Tomorrow, we drive 6 hours to Switzerland.  We're renting a house there (www.ihrferienhaus.ch) that's about 20 minutes from where Ryan will be working.  You have to cross a bridge over a river to get to the house, and the only place to park the car is a four minute walk from the house.  Should be interesting!

Tuesday: Giving Paris One Last Try

We left the house as soon as we had downed our waffles (I will miss French waffles). Since the portable GPS which we used the last time we drove to Paris was low on batteries, I gave the job to our built-in car GPS. I mean, what could go wrong?

Clearly the car GPS has a different idea of what the best route is. It not only took us a different way, it took us straight into miles of construction traffic. I’m usually not a big fan of construction traffic--you know, the endless miles of bumper to bumper madness in the middle of endless stretches of road--but it is compounded significantly when every minute wasted on the road is one less minute in Paris.

So I fired the car GPS and got back out the portable one and a cord to recharge it. I think car GPS will stay fired for a while--it seems to really like the scenic route. In the end, it delayed us almost an hour. But we eventually made it back to the parking garage we used last Saturday and got to the metro.

Paris has had one highlight for Andrew: the Eiffel Tower. The rest he could take or leave. So to make it more fun for him, I left him a note from his Angry Birds stuffed animals letting him know that they wanted to go to Paris with him. So to Paris they went. I’m not sure how much more fun it was for him, but I think it helped at least a little.

My kids loved the snack machines at every metro waiting platforms. So of course, the Angry Birds did as well.

We started back at Notre Dame, but actually went through the cathedral this time.

Then we gave Musee D’Orsay one more try. The lines were double what they were the last time (probably because the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays), and it was cold and a little rainy. So it was a no go. Again.

According to a map I had looked at, there was a metro stop nearby that we could walk to from there. It ended up being quite a bit further away, but it did lead us through the Jadin de Tuileries, which was a beautiful place to walk through to find a metro. With lots of statues of naked women--as my kids frequently pointed out. But most importantly, it had a functional bathroom--which neither Notre Dame or the Subway right across from Notre Dame where we ate lunch had.

It cost us almost $5 to use the bathroom, but the advice that we got from from some friends who had also gone to Europe with young kids (thank you Sam and Jolene) was that everything works best when people have full stomachs and empty bladders. It has proven very true.

We took the metro up to the Arc de Triomphe and conquered the spiral staircase that took us to the top. The view was great, but there was still a little rain and a lot of cold wind, so we didn’t last long.

For our last stop, we went up to Montmarte to the Sacre Couer cathedral. We rode the funicular up to the top, walked through the cathedral, and then back down the stairs. We fit in a carousel ride before heading back to the metro and then called it a day. The kids found little Eiffel tower keychains to give to their classmates, which they were thrilled about and Katie got a beret. Which she loves.

By the time we got back to the car, we were all pretty exhausted and looking forward to being warm and dry. The day didn’t go as well as I had hoped, but at least we gave it a good try and were somewhat successful. And when you’re taking four young kids around Paris on a cold, rainy day you have to have reasonable expectations, I guess. I think we will all have good memories of Paris, and I have lots of reasons to try to get back some day. But we’ll be leaving the kids at home for the next trip.

We leave for Luxembourg tomorrow, and will be there three nights before moving on to Switzerland. We have rented a house there for a month, and I’m looking forward to not moving around so much. And to having a house with normal internet that doesn’t require me to sit in a restaurant at 9:00 at night. Thanks to everyone for your comments on my various posts--I look forward to actually responding to people once we get a little more settled.

Tuesday: One Last Chateau and Some Good News

For the good news, you have to read the other post I did. It was all too much to put into one.

I wish everyone reading this could picture the scene I'm in. The only wifi in the camping resort we're staying in is in the bar/restaurant. I head up here every night for an hour or so to try to use their pathetically slow internet to get a few things done. I can either sit in the freezing cold open air area, or come in the closed off part. Clearly I'm picking the warm area--and tonight it's karaoke night. So there's a few French families here belting out "Say You, Say Me" and "Thriller". Fun times.

We went to the Chateau de Compiegne today. It was a house used for a variety of kings, queens, emperors, etc. I loved the house, but I think my favorite part was the tour guide you can see in the left side of this photo:

When we first got to the chateau, we had to wait 15 minutes to go in since we got there during the 1 1/2 hour lunch break. People really like their lunch breaks here. When the time came, a tour guide went through the door to the “apartments”--but motioned that we weren’t allowed to follow and closed the door behind him. A second guide left the door open--so we tentatively went through.

As we made our way through, we saw the first guide who was eyeing us as we walked past. I felt like we were doing something wrong, but couldn’t tell. Then in the next room, there was a new guide (the one in the photo above). He started following us--making me kind of nervous--and then came up and talked to me while I was taking photos.

I thought I was going to get told not to take pictures, or that we were doing something else wrong. But instead he wanted to guide me to what he clearly thought was an ideal place to take a picture. Then pointed to a certain place. And then he waited while I took the picture. And then guided me to another place that was another favorite spot. And waited while I took the picture.

I think he liked the fact that you would see the fancy bed in the huge mirror. All I know is that this was the shot he wanted me to get. And savor. I expected him to say "That's the one" a la Napoleon Dynamite.

He spoke very little English, but clearly loved the building that he watched over and was using everything he had to share it with us. And he loved photography, since he said “nikon” to me and pointed to my camera (I have a canon) and then at himself. He continued on with us through each of the rooms he was watching over, sharing with us in his broken English the beautiful details and history. And showing me the very best places to take pictures. And waiting while I took them.

So much better than the angry museum guard from Paris. But maybe he wouldn’t have been so nice had we brought Andrew along...

Signing on the Dotted Line...Times TWO

We finally know just a little more about our future.

We’ve known since January of 2011 that Ryan didn’t get tenure (huge downer), and we’ve been in a holding pattern until now. We were fortunate to have another year of employment at the University of Virginia to give us time to look for our next job. We knew that before the summer of 2012, two things would have to happen: we needed to figure out our next job and sell our house. Both of which make us really sad since we have loved living in Charlottesville.

We divvied up the assignments. Ryan would work on finding the job and I would work on selling the house. It’s been a long 16 months. And in the end, we both closed our deals on THE. SAME. DAY. Well, at least verbally. Closing deals is a little trickier with 8 hour time differences and no access to office equipment.

Mine was a process of 15 months and 3 weeks of fixing, de-cluttering, cleaning, and renovating. This was followed by about 8 days of giving it over to a realtor--and we have a contract for our asking price (with us paying closing costs).

One of the reasons I planned this Europe trip was so that we wouldn’t have to be in the house while it was on the market, since we weren’t sure how long it would take to sell. We arranged things so that the day after we left, the realtor would go to work and have it on the MLS by the following weekend. It’s a great way to sell a house.

Ryan’s journey was a little more complicated. There have been doors open and close, and a long process of waiting for things to make sense and feel right. We have had so many generous friends along the way and colleagues of Ryan’s who have been of great help and very gracious.

In the end what we’ve been lead to is a one-year visiting position back where we started 15 years ago: BYU. We’ll be going through the job market process AGAIN next year, but for now we’re going to appreciate the fact that we get a year to live by family and friends, enjoy the mountains, watch some BYU sports, and have Ryan get to work with great colleagues (which he’s been blessed to have at every place he’s worked).

Now that our house is pretty much under contract, we have a closing date (June 19th). We don’t get back from Europe until May 31st, and we leave for the Outer Banks (North Carolina) on June 17th. The kids will be in school during the first week we get back, and then we’ll have one week to have to enjoy Charlottesville before we move our things out and leave for the beach. And then we’ll work our way out west.

I haven’t decided yet what form that will take. I need to wait and see how this trip goes to see if our family can do more life on the road or if we will need to get to a permanent residence ASAP.

Between now and then, I will finally put some thought into finding a place to live in the Provo area. Any opinions for those in the area? We have one kink when it comes to housing: Scout. He’s a very cute, and very furry kink.

He’s living with my sister in Boise right now (I gave my sister my dog, and she gave me her daughter, Megan). So on our way out West, we’ll be picking him up. I know that rentals are a little trickier with pets, but we’ll just have to hope for the best.

So far, things seem to be working out--so we’re hoping this one will too.

But for now, we’re going to celebrate a little--by going to Paris tomorrow as a family. Hopefully it will be a smoother day!