earthsedge

For my last birthday, I decided to get a flip video camera. I don’t aspire to be much of a movie maker, but we wanted something for family videos (something better than our ancient digital camera) and maybe for the occasional touristy thing.  I didn’t really want to drop a lot on a high camcorder, and even if I did, the issue for us is portability. So when I heard about an insanely good deal on the flip at amazon (I think I got it for about $60), I went for it. I did some research before, and most of the reviews were overwhelming positive. My verdict? It’s been perfect for us. It’s small, incredibly easy to use, and the quality is fine for us. I’m not sure I would have paid full price for it, but for $60, it’s amazing (I’ve noticed Amazon has runs the same special from time to time). Sometimes I’ll just carry it around in my pocket and video Aidan throughout the day, and I know we’ll enjoy these videos later down the road.

Of course, what I don’t like is managing all these videos. My project this weekend is to sort through the all the files that have accumulated on our computer, and then upload the keepers to flickr. I’ll probably delete everything but the best of the best, and save the editing for another day. Here’s a few that I just looked at:

Aidan gets a “new tractor.” Almost as good as the first one!

I like this next one because it catches a few things that Aidan does. Like randomly saying “pop” (even though he understands the question and knows what he should say-he does this a lot, and sometimes he cracks himself up), hearing the car outside and immediately saying “car”-he hears the traffic outside our window and he can tell by the noise whether it is a car, tractor, motorcycle, or bus. But I especially like the “bye bye” at the end:

Dancing:

This has been an eventful week for us. Chris finished his communications course and Aidan turned 18 months old. As a part of graduation for Chris’ school, we went with his classmates and staff to Lausanne by boat. Aidan loved eating in the nice dinning compartment and watching the water from the bow of the boat. It was also a special time for Chris and his classmates, as they thanked their staff and spent a little time together before everyone goes their separate ways.

We now have next week off, to relax a little and for Chris to get ready for the next course: a three month science and humanities school. After that, Chris just has to write a thesis and he’s finished with his degree. We’ll be writing more about what’s next sometime soon.

I am doing well. Last week was pretty busy for me. I helped to edit 9 research papers for the students in Chris’ class. It was a lot of late nights but so worth it to see people able to turn in high quality papers. It was also a good experience for me. I wouldn’t consider myself as a grammar guru, but after coaching the ESL students in that area, I have at least improved in my ability to spot grammar mistakes and help others write more polished papers.

And finally, it’s time for a little Aidan update! We are constantly amazed at how much he is changing and growing. Many of our co-workers have commented on how he’s changed, becoming more expressive and more talkative with the people here. And, of course, everyone knows how much he loves tractors; they are always willing to start up a conversation with him about his “great love”!

In addition to loving motorized vehicles of any size, Aidan is turning into a little fish. We have a real difficult time keeping him away from water. He loves splashing in pools or fountains but he’s even content to play with the sink faucet. On hot days, he can spend hours playing with buckets of water, splashing, spilling, drinking (nasty!), and wading in the water.

Aidan is also doing incredibly well with speaking. Many children his age have a vocabulary of 20 words or so; we’ve lost count, but it’s at least over a hundred. A few weeks ago, he began putting short sentences together. Some of the sentences that you might hear if you hang around him are:“Want a more, Maaa!” (“Ma” is his way of saying please); “I want cheese;” “Where’s Daddy?”; “Where’s tractor?”; and, “Go car!” (translation, “I want to go somewhere in a car.”). He’s still working on his pronunciation though. Instead of “boat” he says, “butt”; he prefers, “cracky” to “cracker” and sometimes likes to call his Daddy, “Da-dees.”

And finally, it should be said that Aidan got to ride on a tractor yesterday! He’s waited his whole life for this special event. He was very serious about it, sitting very carefully on Chris’ lap, but he did loosen up enough to play with the steering wheel and honk the horn. Here’s a few pictures from the last month.

The big moment:

Playing on the slide in Lausanne. Aidan loves to climb up and down.

On the boat, wearing his new John Deere vest from grandma:

Swinging:

Aidan’s routine is to wake up and lie on his back saying, “tractor” over and over again.

Eating cherries:

Lining up his tractors. Not quite as orderly as Edith and Emma!

Little hiker:

I took this pic during one of the (brief) moments Aidan was sitting still today. I think it captures his personality pretty well!

I think I mentioned before that Aidan is obsessed with tractors. He probably says the word “tractor” well over a hundred times a day, although recently he’s been saying “ackle” (motorcycle) a lot too. Last time I was in Nyon, I bought him a matchbox tractor and we took a video of when I gave it to him. I love this video because 1.) he responds to all of Becka’s questions with the word “tractor”  and 2.) he also uses another one of his favorite words, “uck” (stuck) when he realizes the tractor is “stuck” in the packaging.

This weekend we had Friday off so we took advantage of it and spent the day in Geneva. Geneva is only about 25 minutes away by train, but that’s after a bus ride down the hill to Gland. I’ve been looking forward to this since we arrived in Switzerland; Geneva is one of the world’s influential cities and was a key place during the Protestant Reformation. We hardly did it justice in a day, but it was still fun. We strolled by the lake, walked through downtown, ate lunch in a park, went to the Museum of the Reformation, Reformation wall, and finally Maison Tavel. I was hoping to go to the Palace of the Nations, but maybe next time. Here’s some pictures from the day:

From a distance; Geneva fountain

Reformation wall

Swiss chocolate: window shopping

The flower clock

Ancient/modern city

swinging

I spent the rest of the weekend working on a major research paper that is due in June. The actual paper will be fairly narrow in what it covers, but broadly I’m studying postmodernity, Christianity, and mission in Western Europe. I’m really enjoying it, mainly because I’ve chosen to read some authors who are arguing that postmodernism is the best thing to happen to Christianity in a long time. I’m finding it’s a refreshing perspective, as theologically you end up with a far more relational understanding of what it means to follow Jesus. If I get a chance I’ll write more on some of the data I’ve found on Western Europe-it’s fascinating stuff.

On another note, Becka broke her toe this weekend! She doesn’t think it’s too bad of a break, and there’s not much that can be done but trying to stay off it. We’re thankful it wasn’t a leg!