Switzerland, Day 3 - Bellinzona

Monday, May 16th

Dave and I got 8 day passes for all of the transportation in Switzerland (buses, trains, boats). It was great to be able to go anywhere we wanted without having to worry about whether or not we had the right tickets to the right destination. This also allowed us to go to a lot of fun places, like Bellinzona, during our stay. Bellinzona is close to the Italian border and is all Italian-speaking. There are three castles there.

The view from the restaurant where we ate lunch.

One the of the three castles there. This is the middle castle

How nice of them to build this little bathroom in the castle wall.

The largest of the three castles.

A view from the largest castle of the other two castles. You can easily see the middle castle, and if you look very closely you can see the third, and smallest castle up the top of one of the hills. We hiked to all three and it was quite a hike!

Switzerland, Day 2 - Old Stomping Grounds

Sunday, May 15th

This morning Dave and I went into the city to go to church. Dave was excited to listen to the meeting in German to see how much would come back to him from his days in the mission field in Germany. When we got there, however, we realized that the branch we attended was 75% English speaking. They still conducted the meeting in German, but they had headsets we could listen to with a translator interpreting. It was great - Dave got to listen in German, and I got to listen in English.

After church we met up with Brian and Kathy and went around to all of the places I remembered when I lived in Switzerland as a child.

My old house

A restaurant our family would go to sometimes (The Gambrinus, or as we called it, "The Chicken place"). It's still there!

The school I went to. It's a beautiful old mansion converted into a school. When I was there it was called "The International Primary School of Zurich". Now it is called Z.I.S. (Zurich International School)

We stayed at the Hotel Alexander for over a month when we first moved to Switzerland before our house was ready to move into. We got quite comfortable with the staff and the restaurants. Unfortunately when we went back it was closed for renovations.

Brian was so sweet to remember that one of my memories was of eating these cream corns and he bought some for us to enjoy on the train. YUM!

Switzerland, Day 1 - Rapperswil

Got to Switzerland at 7:30 in the morning, local time (which was like 12:30 am Missouri time). To try to overcome jetlag, we kept busy all day. You can see by the look on Dave's face that it wasn't always so easy.

We went to Rapperswil with Brian, Kathy, and family to an old castle. Claire was feeling a little camera shy.

We got to see a wedding party at the castle that released all of these red, heart-shaped balloons into the sky.
The roses were in full bloom and beautiful. I love the way these arch over the doorway of this beautiful old building.

It's About to Get Ugly

Last year on facebook, I saw pictures of a friend that had gone to an "Ugly Christmas Sweater" party. It looked like so much fun that I wanted to do one this year. We had a great night and all of the people that came were such good sports. We have great friends.

I thought I'd be fancy and try to make my own eggnog. I found a recipe that people raved about online, so I tried it and after two batches of stirring and stirring and stirring over low heat (so as not to curdle) to bring to a boil and only partially filling the punch bowl I was serving it from, I thought "this is for the birds" and bought the rest and mixed them together. I guess "fancy" I am not.

I took a million pictures, so please bear with me.

And the winners were (drum roll please)...

Best Couple (yes, their sweaters are sewn together):
Guy and Jena Fish

Most likely to out-shine the Las Vegas strip:
Andrea Bemis

Best Homemade:
Brian Stafford

If grandma had been wearing that sweater, I'm not surprised she got run over by a reindeer:
Kristy Smith

Biggest Party Pooper:
Greg Tilton (Blue? Come on, that's not even a Christmas color!)

And the winner for UGLIEST:
Shane Hoyt (front view)

(Back view)

Gingerbread House

I wanted to make gingerbread houses this year from scratch. My sister has started doing it and swears that it is easier than it seems....However, upon unloading our Christmas decorations we discovered an unopened pre-fabricated house that we didn't use last year. The kids were so excited and I was already started to feel like making my own was one more thing to have to do that I relented. Maybe next year...

Fall Cleanup

My kids actually asked me if they could go out and rake leaves this year! Pick my jaw up off of the floor. Maddie and Ryan did the bulk of the work, while Phillip's version of helping was staying out of the way...on the trampoline.

The best parts of raking fall leaves are:

playing in the piles you make...

...and coming in afterward for some hot cocoa.