Joyful Journey

It appears to be official now. We have an apartment reserved for us in Reidt bei Neerach, which is about a 30 minute ride by bus and train into downtown Zürich. According to Bob, this little village looks like what you expect a Swiss village to look like, other than the fact that we are not in the Alps! This link will take you to some photos of the larger nearby town of Neerach. And once we are settled in, I hope to post some pictures of our little corner of Switzerland! Of course, you can always plan a visit and snap some of those photos yourself!! So, until then, Tschau or Auf Wiedershen!

My perspective on things really does matter. I have a choice at how I look at things. I can look at it from eye level, from below or from above. Things look differently from each view, don't they? Case in point, Joel's photo of Sydney snapped while looking directly down on him. (One of Syd's "tricks" is to leave a piece of food or doggie biscuit on his nose until you say "okay," at which point he snatches it, seemingly out of the air, and catches it before it hits the ground.) What a good reminder this photo is though of making sure I am looking at things with the correct perspective. Whenever I encounter what, at least from my perspective, appears to be a difficult situation, maybe all I need is to look at it from a different view. I don't have the ability to truly see the big picture. Not like God does. The view from which He is working all things, seemingly good or bad, for our good. With the Psalmist, I desire to say, in all circumstance,...

Bob is back in Europe for a couple weeks and while in Zurich, he visited a number of apartments. He has put our name in for 3 of them, and we hope to hear sometime this upcoming week! Thought you might like to see two of the apartment buildings we are looking at. The first photo is in Zumikon (town very close to downtown, but good taxes and many English-speaking individuals as there is an international school in town) where we are looking at a top floor flat about 1450 square feet, and the bottom photo shows the apartment house in Kusnacht, town farther down the lake and this apartment has great lake views (orange and yellow building, first floor flat, approx. 1200 square feet). He also put our names in for a place out in a small town which looks very much like you would expect Swiss villages to look. The town, Reidt bei Neerach, is about 30 minutes via train and bus to downtown Zurich. We continue to pray that the Lord will place us where He wants us. Our selfish prayer is t...

Our apartment hunting trip is now complete! Unfortunately, since coming home, we have learned that both of the apartments for which we submitted our names were rented to others who had put their names in before us. So our relocation assistant is checking on some additional places and Bob will check them out when he is next there the beginning of July. We may end up having to live in a hotel or hotel apartment for a few weeks before something is available. We continue to pray that the Lord would place us where He wants us! We did get in some sightseeing while there. We visited Rheinfall, the largest waterfall in Europe. Even for someone growing up within driving distance of Niagra, the Rheinfall is still spectacular and made even more so by the ability to get so very close to the falls itself. (One hour train ride from Zurich for those of you making your "things to see when we visit the Thimsen's" list.) We hiked along both sides of the falls and especially enj...

"Mom, come look out front..." This is getting to be a regular occurence at our house. Joel looks outside and there is wildlife! I recently saw an adult-sized red fox and this appears to be a kit. Who knows, maybe last week was mama or papa. We watched as it found and ate what appeared to be a lizard with a long tail or a small snake out of the grass. It seemed to find quite a bit to eat in the yard. Go for it, kit! Sydney missed out again. He was sleeping in the garage after a "strenuous" game of "retrieve the tennis ball."

Took Amtrak to Newark (now that's a story for another post!) to visit Daniel and Angie and family as well as travel out to visit Dad and Mama Miriam. Friday morning included a few minutes of Aunt Pammy's babysitting service. Noah cooperated for a mini-photo session. What can be more fun? The girls were having fun Friday evening playing with their Nintendo DS games, and even more fun trying to teach their Daddy how to play.

My favorite photo of our time in Luzern, however is from town, looking up at Mount Pilatus. Next time we visit we trust that the weather allows us to take Europe's steepest cog railroad up this mountain. "Say to God, 'How awesome are Thy works!'" (Ps. 66:3a)