Stoli had puppies!

Allison's golden retriever, Stoli, had puppies over the weekend! She had 4 girls and a boy....aren't they cute!

busy busy week!

What a crazy week! Monday-Wednesday I was in an all-day class.... quite intense, but really interesting. The professor is from Harvard and was an excellent teacher, well worth giving up 3 days of sitting at my computer...... Tuesday night was Adrian's birthday celebration dinner at a tapas restaurantin town, his real birthday was the same day as Mark's defense last week so we had to delay things for a bit. The food was good, but for some reason, the waiter decided that he'd only speak to Joe's summer student in broken/bad spanish instead of speaking french with one of the many fluent frenchies at the table.... very bizarre. Last night Joe made mini-burgers for me and 'the boys.' They were mini because I came home with the wrong sized buns.... they were out of the normal sized ones by the time I got to the store!! But they turned out great and we got to hear all about Stephan's trip to Texas/Mexico. Of course, here are some pics from this past week....

-Full bellies at the tapas place....Sai what are you doing?

-A rainbow over Lausanne from our kitchen balcony on Monday night....

Dr. Mark's thesis defense

Yesterday was Mark's Thesis defense. He is officially a doctor, how exciting! Joe, Mark and Sai all moved over here together from Northwestern in January 2004 and Mark's the first of Melody's students to graduate from EPFL. Of course the lab couldn't let Mark defend his thesis without a little fanfare, so they all dressed up in labcoats and presented a 'mortar board' to him and put together a hysterical slideshow of pictures from the past 3 years. Our camera is in it's death throws, so only a couple pictures came out from last night....
-The first time the entire Swartz lab has ever worn labcoats....
-Melody introducing Mark to the audience, as well as some little known facts about Kansas...

Jason & Jen's visit!

they came, they went and they left a wake of disaster in their path....just kidding. We had a great time hanging out with Jason and Jen. It's the first time that the 4 of us have really gotten a chance to hang out and get to know each other more than just a couple hours at family events and it was great! Saturday we introduced them to the caveau in Lutry, of course. Pascal gave us a wonderful selection of red wines to taste and add to our list of wines tasted there. Then we took a bottle out to the lake to enjoy the sunset.

Sunday we went up to Interlaken, the Schilthorn, and Bern.
-on one of the 4 cable cars to get to the top of the Schilthorn.

-On top of the Schilthorn with the Jungfraujoch behind us.
-Relaxing on the train on the way home.

Monday Jason and Jen walked around the city in the morning while Joe and I were at work. I met them for lunch and then the 4 of us took a boat trip down the the Chateau de Chillon in Montreaux. It was such a beautiful day to be out on the water.
And then Joe introduced them to Satellite before we went home and I made fondue for dinner. Then they were off to Italy to continue their 2 week European excursions. Hopefully I'll find time to post pictures from the past 2 months soon....

I'm so sick of the microscope!

So this morning I spent 2 1/2 hours on the microscope taking pictures, which doesn't seem too long until you realize that you back is all scrunched funny from it and you've taken 208 pictures. So, in an effort to procrastinate assembling my 208 images, I thought I would update here and let everyone know that I feel like a hunchback.

This weekend was Stéphanie's birthday barbeque by the lake and we had wonderfully warm weather... the best in the 3 years that I've been going to her Bday barbeque. Joe joined me after a while, he had another Bday party to attend, so I was forced to speak french until he arrived. That's not entirely true, but I did speak quite a bit of french with some dude named Pierre who loved the States but refused to speak English- go figure. Sunday I had a nice and relaxing day doing laundry and vacuuming, like usual. And after dinner, Joe and I went on an exploratory walk in a neighborhood near ours and I found an Italian ice cream shop attached to a pizza parlor. I was so excited! I even got a waffle cone! It wasn't freshly made, but considering I found ice cream that wasn't Movenpick and actually tasted like ice cream, I was ecstatic! So, soon, when the weather is not threatening a downpour, as it has for the past 2 weeks straight, we'll head over there with the gang, and get some pizza and ice cream on the terrace.

This weekend, Joe's cousin, Jason, and his wife, Jen, are coming to visit! We have no idea what we're going to do while they're here, but I'm sure we'll figure something out once they arrive Saturday afternoon. I'll let you know how it goes!

French class is over!

So yesterday was my last day of french class for the year, which ended with an exam. I didn't study for the exam this time, so we'll see how well I could conjugate the subjunctive verbs when I pick up my test next week. In other news, this week was quite busy with work stuff. I finally met with my advisor after not seeing her for a couple of weeks. And now, of course I have lots of things to accomplish by the end of the month. Hopefully I can get it all done!

In regards to fun things we did this past week....The Beer festival was a lot of fun this past weekend. Thankfully the weather cooperated better than last year and we had a great time down by the lake. Monday night we finally watched the Robin Williams stand-up DVD that Stephan was always talking about... it was very, very funny and not for the easily offended. My sides hurt from laughing so much. Dance class was fun this week, but I found out that there are no organized classes in July and August! And I was just getting all limber again.... well, I guess I will have to drag Joe out to go hiking more this summer so that I can stay in shape until classes start again in September. And last night we had a little girl's night at the caveau in Lutry. We were quite boring last night since we all went home after the caveau closed, but we're looking forward to Stéphanie's birthday party this Saturday night by the lake. It's always a good time with the Swiss girls... and boys, too. Not much planned for next week, but Joe's cousin, Jason, and his wife, Jen, come on Saturday to stay with us for a couple of days before they go to Italy. It'll be great fun having them around!