The countdown has begun. . .

Just a week until the big birthday!!!

Most of you know that I love celebrating my birthday!! Growing up my parents always treated us like we were a princess on our birthday! It may sound silly to some, but we always got to pick whatever we wanted for dinner and mom would make it. (And yes I could tell you what I picked for dinner just about every year!) They just did a great job of making us each feel extra special on our day! Well some how along the way my ornery side decided that it was much more fun to celebrate the whole month than just the first day :) Let me clarify that I don't expect people to wish me happy birthday all month (however I won't stop you if you'd like to start. . .hahaha!) or anything like that. I just use it as an excuse to celebrate and get together with friends more than just one day.

Really the month of March is pretty fun because I have almost 25 friends and family members with birthdays this upcoming month! Yes, 25, it's crazy!!! Now I don't necessarily get to see all of them to celebrate, but still it's fun to know how many people this month I know who are all celebrating the start to another exciting year. How can I not spend the month celebrating?!?! Plus, thanks to a great friend of mine, in addition to the birthday celebrations in March, I have been partying it up for another holiday, as well, every year in Kansas City for seven awesome years. . . . .  .  St. Patty's Day!!!

Really the month of March is always full of good good times!!!

Now I may be dreading the number of candles on the birthday cake this year, but it won't stop me from celebrating. I figure it's just better to embrace it and have fun!! Jeff and I are headed back to the US to celebrate the big birthday so stay tuned for pictures and stories!!

Bitter Cold!!!

For all of you back in Kansas enjoying the mildest winter on record. . . I am jealous! Go figure that January in Switzerland is one of the coldest on record! This is definitely not fair!

This weekend we drove to Versoix, a small village about 20 miles up the edge of the lake. The week we were in Egypt another winter storm moved through Switzerland. We had heard there were some impressive places where the waves had crashed up over the walls along the edge of the lake creating some amazing icicles. When I saw a friend of our's pictures I thought they had to be fake. You're about to see what I'm talking about. The first few pictures are from our friend, Matt. The last few pictures are the ones we took over a week later!!

Look how deep the ice is on the front tire of this car!

You can definitely tell which direction the wind was blowing!

Here's how things looked this weekend when we went to check it out for ourselves... still a lot of ice!!

The icicles hanging from the branches may have melted, but there is still a lot of ice!!

I think your bum might be a little cold if you wanted to sit and rest a minute!

I'm guessing most of you are now even more thankful you've had a mild winter!! I know I will be very happy for warmer weather to arrive. For now I'm just counting down the days for the quickly approaching trip back to the US for one of my favorite holidays ;-)

Pyramids, Deserts, and Camels . . .Oh my!

Jeff had a work conference in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt last week and I was able to go along with him. The city is on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula on the Red Sea. It's a tourist area full of beach resorts, but tourism is down about 70% with the country's unrest, so there were not a lot of people there. It was definitely warmer than Geneva, but still not beach weather with overcast skies and 65 degrees outside.

Here's a view as we came in on the plane of some of the resorts and the Red Sea.

And this was the view once we landed and were on our way to the resort.

Welcome to the desert!!

I enjoyed relaxing between Jeff's meetings. Then in the evening we headed to downtown Namma Bay where all the night life typically is. It's pretty much one hookah cafe after the other!! If you didn't know, it's forbidden in the Muslim faith to drink alcohol, so a lot of places don't even serve it. There's lot of fresh fruit juices, tea and soda. 

After Jeff's conference was over we headed to Cairo for a quick weekend to tour the city. Jeff's coworker and friend, Mohamed, is from Cairo so he was our tour guide for the weekend. The trip was very eye opening and interesting! Here's a few things I learned.

View of the Nile from our room

• Most streets don't even have lanes painted on them because it's a free for all! If there should be two lanes people find a way to make three, three lanes become four and you get the idea!
• There are over 22 million people in Cairo!
• Although the Muslim religion is the most common, 10% of the population in Cairo is Christian. 
• The Giza Pyramids are so much closer to the city than you would ever imagine!
• Everything is written in Arabic and English.
• You can get anything delivered! Fastest delivery in Cairo. . .McDonalds!! Yes, they deliver fast food right to your door step!

Jeff and I with Mohamed, our trusty tour guide!

I caught wind while we were there that Payless had recently opened in the new seven story mall so I had to see the mall (seven stories is a girl's dream) and check out the local new Payless. To all my Payless friends back home I have to say the store was looking good. Despite the way this picture looks there were quite a few people shopping.

There are so many American restaurant chains in Egypt!! 

And yes the sign below is for Dairy Queen and yes. . . . Jeff said it was delicious!!

Here we are standing between two mosques we toured 

with the mosque at the Citadel behind us in the distance.

Here's that mosque at the Citadel up close. It's pretty big! 

It's a copy of the famous blue mosque in Istanbul.

You can't go to Egypt without seeing the pyramids!!

All in all people were genuinely happy to meet us and proud to share their country and history with us. You can tell the people there definitely love their country and it's unfortunate that sometimes the media focuses so much on the negative things that it doesn't let the bright spots of Egypt show through...in turn leaving us with a clouded view of the country. Now having been there first hand I can tell you that it has a lot to offer and I hope everyone has the opportunity to experience it first hand some day.

Switzerland (not Sweden)

It's amazing how often people confuse the two countries! I never really thought about it before Jeff took the job here, but people often ask how I am enjoying Sweden. Probably because they are both in Europe and the only two countries that both start with "sw".... it's easy to confuse the two! So here are a few facts about Switzerland so you know a little bit more about where we are.

• Switzerland is a landlocked country surrounded by four countries: France, Italy, Germany & Austria.
• There are also four nationally recognized languages: English, French, German & Italian. I'm taking French lessons over here as Geneva is located in the French speaking region.
• The Red Cross began in Switzerland.
• Switzerland is known for it's many different types of cheese and chocolate as well. :) This may be one of my favorite parts of living over here!
• Geneva is the same latitude as Minneapolis, MN, but the winters here aren't quite as harsh since the city sits down in the valley between the mountains.
• Geneva sits on Lake Geneva which has been voted one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. The lake also one of the biggest fountains in the world, the Jet d'Eau. (See the picture above.)
• It's centrally located in Europe so it makes for a great starting point to visit all the other amazing sites in Europe!

Here's a map so you can see where Geneva is located... the far West (left) side of Switzerland.

It's been a pretty mild winter here in Geneva, but that all changed this week. So sad :( Here's a view of what it looked like from our balcony two days ago.