Mother… Stayed with the child to make sure she is ok….

Wow, just realized that we haven’t updated our blog since March last year! Well, it has been a very busy year.

Mikayla was born on the 14 April 2011. She weighted 3.56kg and 50cm. It was a long day… but a quote came to my mind, “one day of pain give a new life”. Mikayla is now 9 months old, 8.65kg and 71cm. She is healthy and active. During my pregnancy, I was very strict with my diet i.e. low salt, low sugar, low fat. It is definitely worthwhile when I see her so healthy now! What is more important than having a good health? It is very tiring to look after an active baby but it is also so much fun and joy to watch her movements and expressions. She is so clever that she would fake coughing to get our attention. When she refuses to sleep, she would cry out so loud that I am afraid the neighbour would knock on our door, not because she is noisy but to think that she needs help! After she got our attention, she would immediately turn into an angel with an irresistible smile!

Mikayla likes music. When she hears something that she likes, she moves her hands and shake her head. Doesn’t matter how many times I have seen her shaking her head, it is still very enjoyable! She nodes her head with others, “give me 5″, and instead of clapping her own hands, she holds my hands and clap them for me. When I am just about to explode, she gives me kisses. How cunning is that! Babies have their own mind. What we think was not funny, she laughed out loud, even just with a fake hiccup. She likes being taken up and down the stairs with me following from her back. She likes grasping my glasses and throw them on the floor. She intentionally does that everytime I feed her as I have no hand to stop her. How smart is that!

She started to stand up before she turned 6 months and started to walk with support before 9 months. She enjoys walking with the walker as she has a lot of freedom. She now knows the places well and can turn at tricky corners. It is amazing how well and fast babies can learn. However, Mikayla doesn’t like to be on the tummy. She is getting much better than before now and has been moving out from her play zone. I usually just let her play even though she is complaining as that is how she would crawl. If I go to her, the first thing she does it to grasp my hand and stand up.

Today, I opened the rice cracker packet in front of her, she quickly gave me a very sweet smile. Then, I asked her to pick one rice cracker from the package. She looked at me for a little while then put her hands into the bags. Instead of one, she took two and then gave me a very cunning smile again. I don’t know if she did it on purpose or not but it was very funny. I took one away from her and told her she is only allowed one. I had tried 3 times today and she only picked one for the last time. Let’s keep trying and see

Since then, our lives have become very busy with many meetings with the architect, contractors, finance adviser, etc as we want to make sure that the apartment will be ready by April 2011. To be honest, it wasn’t an easy process at all!  Anyway, everything were finally sorted last week and they have finally started building the interior of the apartment. Can we really get the key on the 31st March?

During this whole process, what we really wanted to share is that God is the one who listen to prayers and how supportive the brothers and sisters were. In order to be able to purchase a property in Switzerland, it is a must to have a B permit as a foreigner (which we have since Nov 2008). Every year, we have to renew this permit and usually it is a straight forward process. However, nearly about a year ago, we submitted for a renewal and don’t know who and how, it was messed up! To cut the long story short, we have been waiting for our new permits to arrive for nearly a year! And of course without this permits in hand, problems come with the apartment (and also other issues with doing things in Switzerland).

A couple of weeks ago, we have received an email from the notary saying that new condition will be added to the contract that if we haven’t received the B permit by xxx, the developer will not able to sell the apartment to us! Devastating! We have paid the deposit, and other charges – quite a lot to loose if this doesn’t go through! We were worried and have sent out an email to pastors, brothers and sisters and close friends asking for their prayers! To cut the long story short again, after 3 days, we have received another email from the notary that he has communicated with the commune and approved that it is just a technical problem from the making of the card and hence omitted the “special condition”. Problem solved! Thank God for answering our prayers!

Second destination – Happy Baby in Crissier where we bought the pram. We were lost a little bit even with the GPS …hahha! Ok, picked up the pram and dropped by Media mart nearby, got a few things and drove back to Lausanne. It was an exciting day afterall! hahah

We have reserve a terrace since end of last year and since then, we were busy meeting with the architect, contractors, finance adviser, etc. Some of them are not efficient at all (perhaps they are truly busy that things have to be delayed …). We are finally meeting the lawyer next Monday to discuss the notary – time to pay the deposit to secure our new place! We were hoping to get the key on the 1st April but I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a delay with how things are progressing … Anyway, I am sure God will prepare the best for us.

B permit – testing our faith and patient! we have submitted our form to renew our permit since April 2010 and still we have not received it! We really need this to sort out many important legal affairs including signing the notary, life insurance, mortgage, baby insurance, etc. The latest news – should receive in 2 weeks!

Churches are not well established here and hence lack of church life – no direction, no fellowship, no spiritual growth. First we were committed in a Chinese church – although the cultural background is very different but we believe that as long as we have the same direction with God’s guidance, then there is nothing we cannot do. However, it was extremely disappointed that it turned out we were never been trusted! All that we have done, we focused on God as we know we gathered to serve God not man. We never pointed at anyone with personal feeling but for God’s kingdom. Unfortunately, we were accused of things we didn’t do, abused with things we didn’t say or mean. In this case – why stay and being treated badly? This is the most unhappy thing or the only regret we have in our life since we moved to Switzerland!

We are now attending an international English church which has been great! It is a very special church as there are many nationalities gathered to worship God. The leaders of the church seems to have a good idea of the importance in a church that is God’s teaching, God’s love and God’s fellowship (at least to our seeing). We were attracted by the well organized and relevant sermons by Rev. Ellice Potter and the bible teaching class which is also host by him. We feel that our relationship with God has been closer since we joined this church. May the Lord continue to bless and guide us!

The working environment is obviously different here. For me – there is no one like Richard, my previous mentor and boss. It is comparatively more stressful here due to the nature of my job and my boss’s background. For Leo – the nature of the job is not stressful but he happened to meet the worst boss one could ever have!

However, life is still full of God’s blessing! Leo has recently found a new job at Medtronic – better company, better career, better future and better salary! There will be a few exciting changes in our lives in the near future! – more to share next time. Despite the lonely feeling from missing families and friends back in New Zealand / Australia, we are blessed with a few good friends here in Lausanne.

May the Lord continue to keep us here in Switzerland and bless those we miss back home.

We had such a great time with friends – There were Leo and I, Christy, Sandi, Kui Thong and his family, Ken and Faith. It was actually the first time we used our balcony and the bbq grill! Everyone was enjoying themselves and our living room was fill with joy and laughter.

On Sunday morning, we attended the bible study at 10:30am. This was the first time we had bible study since we moved to Switzerland. We really felt that it is necessary to pay more attention on our understanding to the bible and our spiritual growth which many people has ignored its importance. The discussion on eternity and how many christian and non christian have misunderstood it was very intriguing and motivating. The English service started at 12noon after the bible study. After that, we went home for a rest before we went down to Ouchy to watch the NZ vs Italian match at 5:00pm. New Zealand did very well, their defense in particular: 1-1

As usual we visited a few tourist attractions.  If you are an art-lover, I highly recommend you to visit the Picasso museum, La Sagrada Família and the Gaudi Park.  I am honestly not too excited about the works of Picasso as I think my artistic sense is not really up to that level, but I do like some of his works and bought a few postcards.

The La Sagrada Família is a church designed by Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) and is still under construction.  It is truly an amazing design – blending nature, modern art, cryptic and biblical stories into the church building.  A picture is worth a thousand words – which I will post later.

The Gaudi Park features more of Gaudi’s works.  Magnificient is the only word that can describe them.

We also ate a lot, well, as usual.  There are 3 things I must try: Sangria, paella and the suckling hog.  I only knew there are other variations of paella when I arrived.  Apart from the traditional paella, we tried the paella cooked in squid ink and the paella in noodle instead of rice, named Fideua.  The paella in squid ink is our favourite.  I had Sangria with my meals every single day, and Doris was complaining that I talked too much when I drink.  Oops that sounds like my dad.

We had big problem finding restaurants serving the suckling hog.  Finally we found it in a traditional restaurant.  It was lucky we went early as there was a long queue when we left!  They also serve very well prepared fish and I must say all the food that they serve are truly stunning.  Although it was the most expensive meal we had for the whole trip, it well worths it.

We also tried a lot of tapas in the tapas bars and cafes.  Not all of them are nice, I must say, but generally they are tasty and make a good snack between meals.  Spanish usually have dinner after 9pm.  Spanish hams are also very famous and we had that for breakfast (!!) on the first day.

Our next ‘big’ trip is going to be Lisbon.  Before that, I seriously need some rest…

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

We happened to be visiting Holland on the coldest weekend of Europe.  It was very windy.  However it has such a nice scenary!  I especially like the houses along the canals.

There are a lot of bicycles in Amsterdam as it is well planned for cyclists.  This is a ‘bike park’ near the train station:

Bike park

As you can see it is full of bicycles.  If it was not that windy, we would have hired some bicycles and travel around.

View our photo album here

We have also visited Willeke’s place in Leiden.  Thank you for the lovely dinner!  And we also had a very nice chat.

Kat stayed in Leiden for 2 weeks as she was working in Willeke’s lab to gain some experience.  And hence we had a tour at the lab and the hospital (which was attached to the lab) and I have seen a lot of things which I have no idea about!

The trip was great fun and relaxing.