Dani Schwendener invited us to another one of her concerts. Each time we have gone it is fun to see Dani take the lead and get all the handshakes and hellos from all the important visitors. She is the concert master for the symphony she plays with. I just want to stand up and cheer and say “I know her!” She is great.

Debbie and Noel Tognazzini were in Zurich for a couple days so they joined us for the concert. They are such great people and I am so glad we were able to meet up together! Elisa’s right–they were really nice.

The concert was fabulous! The second number, a piece by Wagner I think, felt just like falling in love! There were a few times that the music gave me chills. There was a cool effect where the orchestra sounded like it was approaching from a long distance. They just had a recording of the piece that was muted and that was playing simultaneously with the live music. It fit in with the piece better than I can describe it, I guess. It is always so nice to hear amazing music performed so beautifully.

Thanks to Neide for watching Eden while we were there. We had only called her the day before, and asked her to meet us at the train station at 6:30. That morning, at 7:30 am, I got a phone call from Neide. She was at the train station already. She had been calling and waiting for an hour! Oh, no! 🙁 She thought we wanted her to babysit in the morning so we could go swimming or something. Both German and Portuguese use 24-hour time, so if you want to meet someone at 6:30 pm, you’re really supposed to say 18h30. Oops. Anyway, Neide is really nice. She was flexible enough to come by in the evening too, and watch Eden for 3 hours.

Today we visited Mt. Pilatus. We took the popular “golden roundtrip” tour with a ferry, then a cogwheel train up the mountain, then a gondola down the other side. Pilatus is also the first Swiss destination we ever visited, and now it’s one of the last, so it was our own golden roundtrip. Poetic, isn’t it? 🙂

The weather was great. It’s Memoiral Day in the U.S. today, but it’s a working day in Switzerland, so the mountain wasn’t crowded. Today was my first day off that I would have been working at Google (if I were still working for Google). For the next two months the calendar has nothing but Saturdays.

Pilatus has an awesome ropes course. Elisa and I both did it: tight ropes, zip lines, ladders, and jumping from great heights. Eden was a trooper. We just took turns. I’m always surprised at how spectacular the scenery is in Switzerland.

• Photos on Pilatus

After a few long days we are finally home with our puffy little girl. Tuesday morning Eden and I showed up at the hospital at 9:30 am. The day was spent getting our room and then waiting and waiting and waiting. We were visited by nurses, an anesthesiologist, doctors and finally Chad. Eden had some trouble getting her naps in with all the new things and the many interruptions but we made it to the end of the day alright. Chad and I watched a movie out on the patio (thank goodness for the beautiful weather). I stayed the night with Eden and Chad went home to get some good rest and get in contact with family.

Eden had her last meal at 7:30 am and the prep for surgery began. It was only her last meal for a few hours! Even though we kept talking about how she was going to be put down, we really meant only a temporary sleep. At about 11:30 she was given a relaxant. By the time I got back from the bathroom she was already acting loopy and looking glazed over.  Everything she did was in slow motion. She was happy and definitely relaxed–it was funny and cute.  At noon we went down to the operation area. Chad accompanied Eden into to operating room where she was given some gas and fell asleep. He was then escorted out to where I was waiting. I would have loved to stay to watch, but the surgeon had serious objections.

We had a mini date for the next two hours. We walked down to Lake Zurich, ate kebabs and talked about all the craziness that has been going on with Chad’s job (another long story). We ate ice cream and walked back up to the hospital. As soon as we reached our floor we ran into the doctor. She told us everything went great and Eden was being moved to recovery. Just a few minutes later they took us down to be there when she woke up. 

Poor little Eden looked completely wasted. She was all hot and puffy. She seemed to wake up as soon as we arrived. She only woke up from the pain though. They gave her some more pain killers which took effect almost immediately.  She fell back asleep and we waited with her. She stirred a few more times and was just miserable. She was so wasted she didn’t even cry . She just whimpered. Thankfully within the hour she was starting to crawl around and was looking as though she was starting to feel much better. She slept on and off for the rest of the afternoon. By that time the worst anticipation was over. It’s a relief to have a successful surgery behind you. Finally she was able to eat and drink something around 7:00 pm. We played on the floor for awhile and she seemed MUCH happier by the time I left for my night at home.

Today was just long and boring, and waiting. The hospital room started to look like a cell. Eden had to wear an IV all day. She had one hand all bound up, looking like HellBoy, to keep the needle in place. She didn’t let that stop her though. She was crawling around and climbing all over everything. The doctors took their sweet time in releasing us. They were short-staffed today because of the holiday. It was understandable–just annoying. Home feels sooo good. We’d rather be at home working instead of at the hospital resting.