South for Christmas

As we were all by ourselves for Christmas this year, we decided to head down to Morocco to go warm up a little bit. We bought the tickets before baby girl was born and it ended up being more of a hassle to get her passport than we thought it would be. We needed her birth certificate before applying, and the Swiss were requesting that Daniel and I provide original birth certificates for ourselves dated within the past 30 days (Really?! Do birth certificates change after they are issued at birth??) Daniel got us out of that, and then the embassy was randomly closed for a couple of weeks... After the huge hassle, in the end we got the her birth certificate in time. Good thing; it would have been such a shame having to go without her. Evaëlle did great on her first flight. 

When we got into the airport in Marrakech, Jaxon looked at the Arabic writing on the airport and said, "I can read that: it says 'Marrakech Airport.'" We stayed the night in Marrakech and headed out first thing the next morning on the first class bus (just by chance) to Essaouira, a beach town located on the Atlantic coast. The boys loved looking out to the country side taking in all the new images for them: herds upon herds of sheep, each complete with its own shepherd; people transporting their goods on donkey-Jonas was especially impressed by the way they rode them side-saddle ("That is a bad idea," he told us. "They are going to fall off."); rickshaws; camels; even trees with a dozen goats perched up on the branches. That was something I had never seen before. When we arrived in town we decided to spring for it an hire a chariot to carry our things. It was a good choice as we had also decided to drag the baby bed along, a first for us, and also because I am pretty sure we would never had found the apartment on our own. Plus the boys loved it. 

Daniel had found this apartment on this internet quickly and when we walked in we were thrilled. It was located in the city walls along the ocean side. This was the view from our window.

The master bedroom

After unpacking a bit we headed in search for food.

We were not disappointed. At the port around a dozen venders had tents set up with an array of seafood displayed, various fish, huge crabs, shrimp, squid, lobster. They loaded up a tray for us and we said yes. They grilled it right in front of us and kept on bringing more seafood to us. The cats ate whatever escaped to floor. I was glad I wasn't here pregnant with all my toxoplasmosis paranoia. I probably would have been having cat nightmares at night.

After lunch we experienced our first Moroccan gateaus at the port. The vender had approached us while we were eating lunch and we told him that maybe we would buy some after we were done, kind of hoping he would forget about us. But no, he hovered  and he was there the instant we had our last bite. We picked out a few and then he threw in about five more for free, thrilled to be getting rid of some.  They were palatable...the first time.

Enjoying some freshly squeezed orange juice. This was one of the things I loved from my last trip to Morocco with my brother 12 years ago.

We slowly made our way to the beach afterward and enjoyed our first gorgeous Essaouiran sunset.

As night fell we headed back into the medina (old city) and had our first bout of carpet shopping. The guy was quoting us beyond crazy prices so we never had any intention of buying, but the kids had a blast climbing up and jumping off the piles of carpets. At first we tried to tell them no, but the owner said, "No, no, let them. They are kids." Hmmm...we weren't in Switzerland anymore!

Coming home we enjoyed our first evening by the fireside.

Here and there

 Although we have tried to slow life down a little bit since Evaëlle joined us, we've still had some adventures. She had her first trick-or-treating experience. Like usual, it was a very profitable evening for the kids.

 We just love having this baby girl around; she is just the sweetest. In addition to being content she also seems to have an ambitious streak- she started rolling from her tummy to her back when she was four weeks old and just started to roll from her back to her tummy to her back at 11 weeks. That's early, isn't it? In any case, I was surprised. My boys didn't do that this early. Let's hope she is not an early walker! She is also a great sleeper. I am hoping that our Christmas trip doesn't ruin her...

 Ignore the hairy legs-I just love these smiles! She doles them out whenever anyone pays her some attention.

 Jonas has decided that he doesn't like having his picture take any more, unless if involved a funny face, that is.

 We always drive by this bridge whenever we go to Annecy, but have never stopped, despite Jaxon claiming it as his favorite bridge. Well, we finally made a visit after a failed activity (I had only noticed the big bold words on the website saying that it was open everyday, missing the fine print that said that was only in July and August...)

 
Thanksgiving with friends.

  The ice skating rink is finally open!

 Hameau de Pere Noel

 Yummy Hot Chocolate! But Daniel wouldn't know. He opted out of drinking the part we saved for him at the end...

We got a bunch of good snow in the mountains so Daniel took the boys skiing. I have to say, I was a little bit jealous, but in any case I had a bunch of work for another WHO consultancy I am doing. (Does it still count as maternity leave?) And in any case, I am pretty sure Eva would not have appreciated the -7 degrees Celsius.  In any case, the boys had a wonderful time. Vive the ski season!

Evaëlle's first month

Evaëlle's first month of life was a success. Her first weekend home she experienced her first walk, her first trip to the park and her first campfire. Okay, so really she slept through her first walk, her first trip to the park and her first campfire. Daniel took his paternity for her first week. While maternity leave is pretty good here (you receive 80% of your salary for four months following the birth) paternity leave is not required, but luckily Daniel's company gave him a week off.

 We received daily visits for 10 days postpartum from the midwife. Here she is weighing Evaëlle using a fish scale.

Timing worked out great; as soon as Daniel had to go back to work my dad and my sister, Susan, arrived to help me out (my mom couldn't come due to some health problems). It was so great to have them here! It had been over three years since I had seen my sister last and it was so much fun to be able to spend some concentrated time with her. We had some really nice days (and some not so nice days) that we were able to take advantage of. We visited Gruyere, Chateau de Chillon, Lausanne and Yvoire, among others. Little Eva essential slept through all of the adventures. 

This baby got super spoiled (me too!) while they were here. I thought it was going to be quite a shock for her when they left and she suddenly realized that she wasn't going to be cuddled constantly whether awake or asleep for the rest of her life. But she has done okay.

We took Evaëlle to her first Halloween party at Chateau de Chillon.

We bought her this little polar bear ensemble form H&M for the occasion. As if Jonas needed even more incentive to treat her like a teddy bear.

Jaxon likes to read her books.

Learning to take a bottle; she does really good.

Jonas protecting Evaëlle's eyes from the flash

The boys making bread at the Signal de Bougy boulangerie. I just had to throw this in somewhere.

So that is about it. We are certainly loving having this little baby girl around. It has been even more fun as she has started to give us the best smiles ever (I still need to catch that on camera). Jaxon says that she is the best one in our family. It is amazing how even one month in it is already hard to imagine life without her.