What a year it's been!

Well, it's that time of day…Baby K's fussy time. I've read that it's quite common for babies to be fussy in the evening, and she falls right in line with this. It's not constant crying, but every evening from around 6:30 until bath time at 8:00, she is not in the best of moods and fights hard against sleeping. I tell you this because ultimately this time of day is what made me realize I need to post about our last year.

Catching a little snooze

The past few days when Baby K has been fussy, I've tied her on to me, turned some music on, and tried to keep moving in one way or another. I play the playlist on Apple TV (typically singing along), which also shows a screensaver of many pictures we've taken over the past year, which is what leads me to this post. I actually started this post with her tied to me, bouncing on the exercise ball.

How we've been spending the evenings

I missed the anniversary of us being in Basel for one year. The actual day was March 24, but as we had a four-day-old baby, some other things took priority over blogging at the time. Over the past few weeks, BK and I have had many conversations about what an incredible year it's been. We often ponder how we will look back on this year as we get older, realizing that there are still many more things to come in life, but the past year has been pretty great, and I'm not sure that we'll have another like it.

Our first night in Basel- living in a hotel at the time

So what has dominated the past year? Travel, of course. I would also say learning to live abroad was a big one too, and I underestimated how intense this would be. BK and I both agree that we never thought we'd have the opportunity to travel to the extent we did this past year. We visited numerous countries, and even more cities within each of those countries. Most of our destinations were from a sort of travel wish list we came up with- Paris, Rome, Greece- but we also had some unexpected ones as well- Romania, Belgium.

Pinning places we've been on the map

People often ask what our favorite destination was, but that's a really hard one to answer. It's almost like they all have hold their own memories, and we liked them for things that were specific to that place. Each place has it's own different and unique characteristics that made it special for us. If I had to pick a few favorites, I would probably go with Rome, Amsterdam and the Grecian Isles.

The Pantheon- one of BK's favorite things we've seen

The sheer amount of history we have seen and experienced is a bit mind boggling as well. Just thinking about how long some of the monuments we have seen have been around and what has happened around them is crazy; especially in places like Paris, Athens and Rome. It's interesting to learn about how events throughout history have shaped the place you're visiting, and typically have impacted world history in one way or another.

Sunset in Greece

And then there's living abroad. It sounds so glamorous, right? I'll admit, it is pretty awesome, but it also takes a lot of work to even start to get integrated and learn all those cultural norms you have no clue about. In the beginning there were plenty of days when I thought my head would explode because I felt like I had no clue what I was doing. Was I going to break every rule the Swiss had? I don't think I broke every rule, but it's definitely a live and learn situation. And German…that's a whole other story.

They're cute, but they sure didn't adjust very well...

I can't talk about the last year without mentioning the thing we topped it all off with- Baby K! She snuck in just before the one year anniversary of us being in Basel, which is quite fitting and obviously an amazing way to end our first year abroad. I love her more and more every day and love the little family that she, BK and I have become.

After dinner on the patio

So after all that, what will the next year hold for us? We'll experience life as a family and all of the adventures it holds. We'll continue to travel, although I'm not sure that we'll go at quite the break-neck speed we did this past year. BK and I still have a number of places on that wish list that we'd like to see before we end our adventure of living abroad.

Who knows what else? I'm sure we'll continue to experience all kinds of new and different things as we live life here in Switzerland. I'll keep you updated as we make our way!