Hi dear friends,
It is amazing how time flies when you have a baby who is changing every day! Ella is now 9 weeks and growing so fast! She is a delight and has been so much fun to have as part of our family. She has been discovering her fingers in earnest this past week - sucking on them whenever she gets the chance. Its very cute! She generally eats and sleeps very well, so we are really blessed, last night she even slept from 9PM till 5:30AM straight through, which was very nice as we got a long uninterrupted sleep! 
I am at home during the days looking after Ella and still trying to get some studying done amidst other housework. I am also seeing "clients" who are coming over to get Nutritional advice even while I am just a student - I don’t charge but use it for great practice, and that has been keeping me very busy in the afternoons! The word is spreading and I have been getting more and more people coming to see me. I am loving it as I am already seeing such great results with them that I can’t wait to be fully qualified and be set up with my own practice!
On a different note, Andy is on crutches at the moment as he hurt his knee a couple weeks ago when he was just getting off his scooter for a meeting at work. It’s the knee that was shattered in his motorcycle accident back in 2000. It’s been really good up untill now, but the doctors say the meniscus has worn down and his knee is swollen and not doing too well at the moment as a result. So he is going to physiotherapy now for the next few weeks and we’ll see how it goes. Hopefully he won’t have an operation, but we’ll see.
In the midst of all that has been going on we are also in the process of building a house up near Zurich!
Andy’s sister Karin and husband Lukas bought some land about 30-45 minutes away from Zurich on a mountain overlooking the valley, mountains and lake. It is a beautiful section on the edge of a tiny village. There is even a paragliding centre just up from the property and Karin and Lukas have been getting lessons so they can become qualified to paraglide! That will be amazing having them flying around overhead!
Anyway, they have divided the land into 4 parts and will be building a house for themselves, a house for his parents, his brother and we will be building a house as well. When Lukas was planning to buy the land he said his dream would be to build log homes on it, and we just happened to have a friend in Germany who works for a company building log homes, called Kanadablockhaus (www.kanadablockhaus.de). So we put them in touch with each other and Lukas decided to have them build the houses! It’s such a cool connection and so perfect! We have designed the house that we will have built which has been a fun process, the loghouse design will fit so well on that mountain!
So our house will be built sometime later in the year (depending on how fast the other 3 get built) and we are planning on renting it out. It will be a house with a smaller basement apartment that we can use when we go up to visit, so it works out perfectly, and who knows we may just retire there one day! 
When this unique opportunity came up for us to get involved in the project and build a house, we didn’t think it would be possible because of the finances we would need to do it. But we really discussed and prayed about it and knew it was the right decision, so we jumped in! Its also special because it is a family project and Karin and Lukas will be living there as well.
Interest rates for mortgages here in Switzerland are really low - 2.5% for the building loan - so its great, aside from the cost of most properties which just makes it normally very hard to buy.
The cost of building up near Zurich is much cheaper than we would ever be able to buy even an apartment down here in the Geneva region, so it works out really well. We have been able to already put some money down for the deposit, some from ourselves and using the value of the land as guarantee, but we still need to come up with about 50,000 Swiss Francs by the end of the year. We’re looking at borrowing the money from family, but if you have an extra 50,000 and want to invest in something like this, we’d love to hear from you too! 
So there is lots going on in the van der Gugten household! If you haven’t heard from us for a while and you even wrote a personal note to us after the birth of Ella please know that we love you all and are trying to get back to you and we are sorry for the delay! I am even trying to master the art of typing with one finger while holding Ella in my other arm, but its a bit tiring so I haven’t gotten very far with getting back to anyone yet.
I am hoping to though as you all mean so much to us and we love staying in touch and hearing from you all. I loved all the comments that you all shared with us before and after the birth of Ella. It was so encouraging and made us feel so loved to have so many friends to share the process and the special moments with!
Big hugs and blessings to you all!
The van der Gugten family!
Rachael, Andy & Ella
Posted by: Rach
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