Introducing...

The newest member of the Gillespie family! We call her "Beamy". She is super. We adopted her from a family in our stake that is moving to Singapore. We hope she likes it at our house.We are so excited cuz now we can get to church in about 10 minutes as opposed to 45 minutes by bus. It was really hard to find just what we were looking for. I really wanted a 4 door car and they seem to be much more expensive. Not to mention, it is hard to decide which kind of cars to look at when we are unfamiliar with so many of the brands. Well, without further ado, here are some pics of our pretty new (to us) car. And as you can tell, it snowed here this week. Actually, it snowed pretty much non-stop for 2 days. Everyone was pretty shocked cuz it doesn't genereally snow in Geneva much. Too humid with the lake right by us. But never say never. This is the view out the back of the house while it was snowing.

The end of an era :(

James has officially ended his two naps a day era. We are officially a one nap a day family. I am happy and sad at the same time.
I am sad cuz I really enjoyed going back to bed for his first nap every day. On the other hand, I am happy cuz now his one nap is a bit earlier in the day than his second nap used to be and so I am freed up a bit to go out and enjoy myself without feeling like a bad mom for sleep depriving my child. He still goes to bed at 6 pm every night so I have no complaints there. It is just sad to see him growing up so fast. We tell him every day to just slow it down a bit but is not listening.
On another bright note. Maybe this need for less sleep will help with the 14 hour plane ride that we have coming up on Sunday as we travel to Utah. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
Also, after losing a bit of weight while he was super sick, James has started eating lots and lots. I feed him about every 2-3 hours during the day and he eats and eats and eats. And then if I eat anything (even if it just after he has finished eating) he is all over that too. Silly Bimmy.

The Hunt Is Long Since Over.

Remember a while ago when I posted that the hunt for a great appartment was on? Well, it ended that same day. We got the amaizng appartment that we wanted and we moved in the day after my birthday. It took us so long to get internet (over 2 weeks) that I just forgot to post about the amazing appartment that we live in. Those of you who have Skype and have called us have already been given the grand tour but for the rest of you, here are some pictures of our amazing new place. Don't salivate too much and remember that it is only about 1000 sq feet total. So we have downsized a bit. On the bright side. Our house in Allen will seem like a mansion when we get home.
First, where we came from. These are some pics of the hotel we stayed in when we first got here. This is the completely inadequate kitchen area. Notice the lack of fridge? That is because it was a barely working mini fridge that fit under the counter. Not exactly inspiring is it? This is in the living area looking toward the kitechen/entrance. This is looking back from the entrance to the window.This is the view that we had out our windows. Notice the tram in the forground? It pretty much ran all day and all night. And it wasn't exactly quiet. This is what living in the city is all about.This is the new view that we have out the back of our current place. Much nicer hu? There is a great green area back there just for our building. And there are lots of little parks close by. Oh, and no tram out front.
Here are some pics of our new appartment before we moved anything in. Amazing hu?
And last but not least. Here is the appartment after we furnished it with lots of used stuff and lots of Ikea stuff. It cost us about chf 4000 after it was all said and done. Brian can correct me if I'm wrong but that is what I think. This is our lovely living room looking out the back wall of windows. Like our used Ikea couch? We do. It folds out into a lovely double bed for those of you who decide to venture over here. Don't worry, there is a huge screen that rolls down over the back wall to give you plenty of privacy. We also have a little "office" set up on the other side of the room with a desk and such. It is a pretty big living room.This is our bedroom. I made Brian splurge on a king sized bed. I am so glad I did. I love it. Totally worth the extra 100chf that we spent on it. Notice the windows are completely blocked? It is one of my favorite features that the appartments here have. They have these blinds that roll down from above and lock together to block out all light. Even during the day. Love that! And here is James' room. Like the second hand chair that we got at the local "D.I."? We do. His crib here is about half the size of his crib at home. Anyway, we are still looking for a car but I think I am closing in on one! Hopefully. I really want to put a car in my lovely garage. I will post about it as soon as I can get a car. Everyone keep your fingers crossed!

Le Marche de Noel

Well, we finally ventured out again yesterday. We just haven't gone many places lately with the weather being so cold and James getting sick. So I told Brian that this weekend we needed to get out and go somewhere just to shake things up a bit. We heard about a Marche de Noel (Christmas Market) that was going on in Montreux on the other side of the lake from us and it sounded like as good a place as any to check out. We rented a little car and off we went (with our rented GPS) to find the market. It took about an hour to drive around the lake and it was rainy and gray but we got there with no problems and then went to check things out. When we got there we immediately sat down to have a bit of lunch as James was hungry. He had a pretzle and some grilled chicken while Brian and I enjoyed some cheese fondue, hot chocolate and hot apple juice. It was very yummy. You can see James was too busy eating his pretzle to be bothered to smile for the camera. You can also see his red little nose as it was pretty cold out.Then we set off to check out the rest of the market. I must admit that most of the market wasn't super Christmas focused but there were a few fun things to see. I was looking for a couple of specific Christmas items that I thought I might not find but Brian has such a good eye that we finally spotted exactly what I was looking for. (I can't tell you what I was looking for as they are gifts to people at home).
James did get a bit irritated and finally fell asleep in his stroller for about 30 min. toward the end of our stay. Miracle! After checking out all the booths we strolled through a couple of stores that were close by and found another perfect gift for someone back home. Here he is in his irritated stage. He just made some irritated noises and then started sucking on his fingers like he usually does when he is experiencing something unpleasant. All in all, it was a fun day and we enjoyed getting out of the house together, even if it was raining the whole time. We were also going to try to go to another medieval market that was going on at a chateau just a few minutes away but we just didn't end up with enough time. We plan on going to that one next year... The market was right on the lake which was beautiful even though the day was gray.

To: Him, From: Her and Bimmy

Happy Birthday!
Today Brian turns a whopping 30 years old!
That is all I'm going to say as I am older than him and he wouldn't want me to say anything else about him anyway.
We lub Him so much!!
Lub,
Her and Bimmy