Lake Ride
Saturday we went for a bike ride around the lake. It was an almost perfect day. We woke up late, had blueberry pancakes for breakfast, and then rode to Imensee where we stopped for a swim. When we thought it would rain, we hopped on our bikes and continued around the lake. We took a very leisurely pace.
It was beautiful. When we got home, we grilled burgers (Wolfram has loaned us a rather nice grill for the patio) and watched a movie. I hope more of our weekends in Switzerland will be like this! Alas... the summer will come to an end... Then today I experimented with transportation. I usually take the bus home from German class. Today I rode the ferry (it's more like a ship). It took an hour and 1/2 because it makes stops at cities all around the lake rather than going direct. But this was not a problem. It was a beautiful boat ride and I enjoyed sitting in the sun. And it cost a mere 7 CHF. Not too shabby! The photo on the left is the approach to the town we live in (Arth). The photo on the right is the approach to a different town. There are often restaurants with "Terasse(s) am See". "See" is "lake" in German - and nouns are always capitalized : ) You can likely figure out the rest eh? Some days it is quite lovely to be here. Others... well life happens you know? We will have an appointment with Randy Barlow tomorrow morning. He represents an international adoption agency and will be completing our now 2nd Home study for us. We are looking forward to hearing his advice about the adoption and how we should proceed. Hopefully he will tell us only good news this time! We will keep you "posted" (hee hee).

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More Pictures from Mythos.
We are slowly acquiring new blogging techniques. Hopefully there is a slideshow here:)



Our hike up Grosser Mythen was quite an adventure. We took loads of photos. These are some of the better ones. How do you like our space saving photo display? It only took about 72 hours to figure out @#$!?(*^&

Speaking Wolframese!
Wolfram took us on another outdoor adventure Sunday. If it is going to make us hurt the day after, Wolfram might be involved. He led us to the top of the "Grosser Mythen" in Schwyz (the Kleiner Mythen is a wee bit smaller). The peak of Grosser Mythen is at 1899 m (That's a lot when you are climibing it...!) www.mythen.net . India went along also. Claudia was kind enough to entertain her at lower elevation while we made our way to the summit.

Here is our route:
Needless to say, India is enjoying herself immensely. She whines like a baby when she sees Wolfram and Claudia. She undoubtedly knows that some adventure always awaits with them. As we began our hike, we went through woods that seemed to be the inspiration for a Fairy Tale. Rene and I could not decide if these more likely belonged to Goldilocks or Hansel and Gretel (I saw no bread crumbs!). The views along the way were spectacular. But hiking was seriously hard work. On the way up, Wolfram would not let us pause. His motto was - pack light and travel fast. Good thing he was leading us along or I might have gotten stuck at the first land bridge! This picture was taken on the way down. It's amazing, they don't even look tired. Good thing you can't see me in this one!

Settling In
Hello Again! We are finally settling in. Once again we have internet and consequently blogging access. The furniture and "goods" all seem to have arrived safely and are finding their place in our new home. We discovered a washer and dryer in one of our bathrooms. That is a delightful and unexpected surprise. Just after moving in we went for a weekend to Geneva. We met friends there (Drew & Diana from Atlanta, Shannon & Vaughn from London, we just missed Melissa and her sister-- darn it!) They were all on their way home from a Swiss biking adventure. It was very nice to see them all. So check out some pictures.

Swiss beach? The lakes in Switzerland have "beaches" all around them. Interesting eh?

We are behind on our updates!!! We have not taken photos of the flat yet because we have much to do yet. We will get there. It has not all been fun and play. We have had to contact lots of agencies about our international/international adoption. The US embassy sent us to the Dept. des Innern, who sent us to the embassy, who referred us to the foreign police, who sent us back to the embassy, etc... We finally scheduled an appointment with the Department des Innern. It was in the Canton of Schwyz which is really at the "heart" of Switzerland. It is a beautiful little city. Check out this view. It is picturesque. We had a bit of a walk from the bus stop to the Dept. des Innern.
Here's Rene calling the US Embassy. The next photo is the building the Department des Innern is in. Another dead end? After our appointment we stepped outside to call the US Embassy. We finally got connected to someone in immigration.

Here's the scoop as of today: we plan to proceed with the adoption. We will be the baby's parents as soon as we leave China. The baby will have papers to travel with us. The baby will be traveling as the child of US citizens, but with a Chinese passport. He/she will not become a citizen of the United States until we all immigrate to the US as a family. Therefore, the baby can live in Switzerland with us, but not as a US citizen. We will have to get special permission for the baby to reside with us here (from the Foreign Police in our Canton). At this point, we must 1)update our homestudy 2)get fingerprinted and renew immigration paperwork that has expired 3)get permission for our baby to live here with us with a Chinese passport. Once we have completed these three steps, our wait for a referral should not be long. Maybe 2 or 3 months. We are encouraged that it seems we can continue with the adoption. It is disconcerting that our baby will not be a citizen of any particular country. Still... we are hopeful it will all be resolved soon.