Happy Holidays from the Bieter Family

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Here are the Bieter's at their best performance seen on JibJab yet: The Snowball Fight!

Coretta's First Play Opening Night

Nick and I went to opening night for the play Aladdin and the Magical Lamp on Friday to see Coretta perform. She did a great job, although being up from 7 am until 11 pm, makes for a long day. She was in almost every scene dancing and singing. She had two costume changes. The first she wore silky pajamas and the other a yellow tutu for the ballerina scene. I hope all goes well tomorrow. She has two shows and will be at the theatre from 1 pm until 11 pm. Keep up the great performances Coretta. Your Mom and Dad are very proud of you.

Below is a picture collage of pictures I took during the production.

Thanksgiving in the Swiss Alps

Being an ex-pat is always hard around the holidays, especially when you live in a country that doesn't celebrate that particular day. That is what it is like living in Switzerland. Nick went to work for a half day today, Coretta and Geno had school. No four day weekend as a family spending time with extended family and friends. This year we were able to find a reasonably priced turkey (8.4 pounds for 49 dollars) which was a bargain from last years 100 dollar turkeys.

We celebrated around 5:00 pm. Everything about the day was going as planned, until we tried to turn our stove top on to make the potatoes. Nick turned to me and said that the stove top wasn't working. When I went over and tried it, he was right. Just two red dashes. No power. I quickly went to read the manual, which stated that either a fuse was blown or you need to call customer service. Nick went and switched the fuse. We tried again. Nothing. At this point, I am laughing. We have a friend coming over for dinner, and our turkey is ready, but no way to cook the potatoes or heat the corn. First thing we thought of was to call one of our neighbors and ask to borrow their stove. No one was around, so we quickly moved to plan B. Plan B was to put the potatoes and water into the stove, crank the heat, and hope they will boil. As we are thinking up this master plan, our dinner guest arrives and had a good laugh at our expense. Finally realizing that it may take all night for the potatoes to boil, we made a consecutive decision to cut the turkey and go ahead with the rest of the food. We had turkey, homemade wheat bread, corn, stuffing, and apple pie. Although we couldn't make the potatoes or gravy, it still turned out well. Here are some pictures of our Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to all of our friends and family that are celebrating this season around the world. We love and miss you.

Coretta´s first Play: Aladdin and the Magic Lamp

The rehearsals are slowly coming to an end. Coretta has one more rehearsal before the opening night on Friday November 27th at 8 pm. The other shows are Saturday November 28th at 3 pm and 8 pm, and December 5 at 3 pm and 8 pm. Nick and I are attending and are looking forward to seeing the hard work put forth by all of the people that were part of this play. You can see some photos from their rehearsals by clicking on the official site English Theate of Zug and click on the upper left corner on pictures of rehearsals.

Coretta´s Unit on Mountain Gorillas

Coretta has been working on an Endangered Species Unit Titled Then and Now for a few months in school. The objectives of this project were to choose an endangered species that interests you, research information about your topic, create a visual (poster, booklet, paper) and create a diorama of their natural habitat.

Coretta chose to research mountain gorillas. Since 1963, there are only 200 mountain gorillas left and did you know that they share 98 percent of the same genetic make up as humans?

Coretta´s research and information was thorough and concise and she did a great job presenting it to us at school today. The pictures on his post are from our time at her school today which include a picture with Mom and Dad, her diorama, and poster. A job well done Coretta!

Homemade Carrot Cake

I decided to try my hand at making a carrot cake from scratch with cream cheese frosting, and the picture shows the results. It was, to my surprise, very delicious.

Coretta Sprains her Wrist

Coretta was out playing with her friends on Friday night, and when she came back in, she was holding her wrist. She wasn´t crying, but when I looked at her wrist it was swollen in one spot and her face was white as a ghost. I was worried that she may go in shock, like Nick did when he sprained his, and decided it would be best if she went to the Cantonal Hospital and have the ER Doctors take a look at it. Nick drove her and they didn´t get home until 10 am. Her hand was wrapped in he color of her choice, and was given pain medication, and gel that needs to be applied morning and night.

If it is still causing her pain and difficulty, we have been encouraged to take her into her pediatrician on Monday. Apparently in small children the X-ray does not necessarily show small fractures, so we will see. She is a trooper.