My Musings

Delicious Reads

2012-01-25T15:02:00.001-07:00

As I blogged last year, I belong to the BEST book club in the entire world. I am not exaggerating, it honestly, sincerely, really, truly is the best. Click here to see my post from last year that explains more about this amazing club. For those of you that aren't going to click on that link I am going to copy and past from that post cause I like the way I said it last year and kinda don't feel like saying all the same things but in a different way so ....

"So this past year I joined the most amazing book club that has ever existed! We read such awesome books that cover such a wide range of topics, genres and reading levels. I love the variety that we have in our books from month to month! I also love all the people that are part of this club, I look forward to book club all month long because of how fun everyone makes it. Since it is such a big club I always manage to meet someone new each month, which is awesome! I love meeting new people. Another huge benefit of being a part of this particular book club is the food, we have a delicious FEAST every month! We have a lot of talented cooks in our club so we have a wonderful gourmet spread every time! I must give props to my dear friend Kelly Dearth for making it all happen! This is her lovely book club that has grown and developed over the past 5 (now 6!) years. She hosts it every month and puts so much work into making it the delightful thing that it is, thanks a million Kelly!"

My second year in Delicious Reads was even better then the first! I strived to be more involved and to read more of the books then I did last year, I read all but two this year! I tried to read the books even if I knew I couldn't make it to the meetings which helps a lot in our discussions throughout the year since we sometimes compare and contrast writing styles, themes, characters etc. Towards the end of the year I also started getting into going to book signings with some of the members of the club, they are so fun and interesting! So here is a recap of our book club year :

2011 BOOK CLUB BOOKS AT A GLANCE:

January - PRIDE AND PREJUDICE By Jane Austin - Our Rating, 4.2 stars

February- CLOCKWORK ANGEL By Cassandra Clare - 4.4 stars

March - THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN* By Kate Morton - 4.4 stars

April - THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL By Emmuska Orczy - 3.7 stars

May - SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE* By Alan Bradley - 4.6 stars

June - THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN* By Garth Stein - 3.2 stars

July - DIVERGENT By Veronica Roth (couples book club) - 3.5 stars

August - PARANORMALCY By Kiersten White - 2.0 stars

September - THE BOOK THIEF** By Markus Zusak - 4.8 stars

October - WOMAN IN WHITE By Wilkie Collins - 2.75 stars

November - CLEOPATRA'S DAUGHTER* By Michelle Moran - 3.5 stars

December - LEFT TO TELL By Immaculee Ilibagize - TBA

*My favorites of the year

**My absolute favorite of the year (That book is seriously life changing)

2011 BOOK CLUB PICTURE RECAP:

{JANUARY}

{FEBRUARY}

{MARCH}

{APRIL}

{MAY}

Karin, Mom and Thomas got to visit this month! Bethy moderated this book as well and did a fabulous job!

{JUNE}

{JULY}

This month was the couples book club where the husbands read the book and came to the meeting. It is always interesting to hear their thoughts on the book, they always really get into the discussion which is neat.

Sometimes as a favor Kelly will make a CD with songs that relate to the book in some way. Last year she did it for the final book in the Hunger Games series and this year she did one for Divergent. I love these favors!

{AUGUST}

{SEPTEMBER}

Kelly made her own version of a book that is described and made throughout the story and passed it around so we could all write notes or thoughts about the book.

{OCTOBER}

I was in Switzerland visiting Bethy in October/November so I didn't get to go to this meeting but it looks like it was a memorable one. Instead of just a discussion they had a murder mystery dinner and everyone was assigned a character.

{NOVEMBER}

So we read this book during November and discussed it in December. Our December meeting is the best one of the year, it doubles as our book club Christmas party. We always have cheese and chocolate fondue for dinner, then discuss the book, then have a book club boutique, then have our gift exchange. It is always such a blast! A perfect way to kick off the Christmas season.

I won the prize for getting the most correct answers on the quiz!

{December}

I wasn't able to make it to this meeting and the pictures haven't been posted yet. But the book was very good

Happy Birthday Kelly

2012-01-23T15:31:00.000-07:00

Kelly's birthday is on December 30th. Her favorite season is Fall. Since those two things will never coincide we decided it would be fun to throw Kelly a fall themed birthday, so she can enjoy all her favorite fall things while celebrating her big day. We held the party at Laura's house and Bethy and Angie did a marvelous job turning the venue into an autumn oasis. Laura worked her magic in the kitchen, like she always does, and made her famous and fabulous chicken pot pie that is to die for! The buffet also included two fruit platters with different dipping sauces, one was a caramel cream cheese concoction that was divine! Libby made her coconut cupcakes, one of Kelly's favorites! And we had crio bru and caramel apple spices for our yummy drink bar. Oh it was fine dining at it's best! I am so lucky to be friends with such wonderful cooks and creative geniuses

The dress code of the party was comfortable lounge wear and the goal was to be stress free. So after our delicious dinner we hung out, swapped stories, opened presents, shared giggles, ate some more food, had second helpings of crio, and just had a wonderful time as friends. Throughout the entire night we all helped make a special present for Kelly, a super cute fall wreath. Everyone would just work on it at their own pace, working while we all talked. Since there was so many of us making one craft, it wasn't stressful or rushed and we had one adorable masterpiece by the end of the night for Kelly to take home.

Laura has the most adorable cat, she has like ten names so I'm not sure what her original name is but we call her Dees, she had a fun time crafting to. She liked to be right in the middle of it all, surveying our crafting skills.

Seesters!

More pictures of the cat because I love fuzzy animals way too much.

The finished product!

One Fun Day

2012-01-21T16:07:00.001-07:00

We have such fun days when the Burton's come to visit! Today was an especially fun day! The day began at Brighton for our annual family ski/board day. This year's group consisted of Andrew, John, Ricky, Me, the Madison's and Taylor and Becca Palmatier. It was such a perfect day to be at a ski resort. It was warm, lightly snowing and the snow was soft and wonderful! We all had a total blast! I am so glad that the Burton boys love to ski so much even though they live in Arizona! I always look forward to our ski day every year. I keep hoping one day they will want to learn how to board.... One day, one day.

The awesome girls of the group

we did a lot of waiting ...

While us big kids were out skiing Karin, Jenny and my mom had a fun craft/activity day for all the little kids and their cousins. One of the activities was to wrap a friend up like a snowman. I thought these pictures were too cute not to post.

Ben went the extreme route and even wanted his face covered, he definitely looks like a snowman!

Thomas had a blast being santa at the party!

After our various activities we all gathered at Cheesecake Factory for a delicious family dinner then headed over to Thanksgiving Point for a trolley ride through the holiday lights. (A little glimpse into my job, I book all these tours for the holidays! haha)

We had rented out the entire trolley so we had it all to ourselves wich was so fun and nice! The little kids LOVED the ride, they were fascinated by all the lights. Evie gave us such a cute little commentary of everything she was seeing, her little face and voice was filled with excitement!

After our fun trolley ride we came back to the water tower plaza to get hot chocolate at the ice cream parlor located inside the deli. Cute bethy had made little hot chocolate packets for all of us with a peppermint stirring stick and some baby marshmallows to make our hot chocolate all gourmet.

Will is such a little ham and is the master of silly faces for photos (PS all these Thanksgiving Point pictures are from Bethy, isn't she just the best?)

The kids love lining up along the counter while they enjoy their treats from the ice cream parlor, our family usually fills the whole place!

All four sisters!

Will was so cute on the drive home, he is a very dedicated little artist.

I love spending time with my family! We always have such a good time with each other!

Breakfast At The Grand

2012-01-17T16:41:00.000-07:00

Every year my Grandmother takes the entire extended family out to brunch at the wonderful Grand America Hotel. I look forward to this tradition every year, I think it is such a fun thing to do with the family and a fun way to get to see everyone. Above is a picture of granna with some of her great grand children. Granna is such a sweet, loving and thoughtful lady, I am so grateful to have her as my grandmother and to have the opportunity to get to know her sweet spirit.

Some of the girl cousins

After our delicious meal we always like to wander about the hotel and enjoy all the glorious decorations they have up for the Christmas season. Their Christmas trees are always spectacular, so classy and gorgeous!

Then we stumbled upon the new toy store that had just opened earlier this year. OH. MY. GOODNESS. That place is so completely magical and enchanting. At every turn there was something amazing.

These little fairies were in a giant tree that was right in the middle of the store, I thought they were so dainty and fun!

CANDY!

Space ship Christmas tree

This dog was made entirely out of rolled up pieces of magazines and news paper. How neat is that!

Uhm, yes, I do want this awesome doll house

Such a fun Christmas tree right by the toy store. At fist I thought it was decorated with balloons, but they are actually big glass ornaments.

The holiday windows weren't nearly as neat as they were last year. They told the story of a little penguin named Maurice. I didn't do the entire scavenger hunt and follow the entire story, but I did think the little penguin was adorable so I included a couple of pictures of him just for kicks.

That afternoon Karin took Jenny and I to get pedicures as our birthday presents, it was a very fun and funny experience. Lesson learned : don't wear skinny jeans when getting a pedicure hahaha. Then we picked up mom and went to lunch at Elizabeth's Tea House downtown. We had pasties, meat pies and scones and I thought it was all delicious!

Christmas Day

2012-01-16T15:11:00.001-07:00

We celebrated Christmas a day early this year which made it a nice and relaxing day. We all slept in and then enjoyed our traditional Christmas breakfast of the cinnamon rolls we made at bread day at aunt Sue's, they are soooo delicious!

Then we all gathered for our Christmas pajama picture on the stairs, every year it gets more and more crowded and chaotic, but I love this tradition! We are going to have to get creative with fitting everyone in as more and more babies come

Then it was present time! All the kids carried in the presents and were so excited! I love watching little kids on Christmas, their joy and enthusiasm are so sincere.

Grammie had helped all the kids make these snowflake ornaments for their parents. Will and Nora were so excited to give their mom and dad their gorgeous gifts!

Thomas' reaction to the adorable clothes I gave him, I knew he would love them!

Helping Sammy open one of his gifts

Will was excited about the things I gave him as well, he worked so hard on his glow in the dark book while everyone else opened their presents.

One little Elf had had a little too much excitement. Oh those cheeks! They are just so kissable!

Will was very interested in some Swiss chocolates that the Madison's gave me, I was nice enough to share them with him.

Rum balls, jewelry, and lotion my mom got all she asked for and more!

Owl number 385 for my dad's collection

So happy and content on Christmas!

Sammy really wanted some of Grammie's rum balls, but seeing as these were the strongest rum balls any of us had tasted, we decided it best if he didn't try one. It probably would have knocked him out for a couple of hours haha

Sam LOVED having his older boy cousins around to play with, he was their little shadow and followed them where ever they went. The Burton boys adored him right back and loved playing with him! I love that all the cousins are so close even though they don't live near each other.

Thomas showing off one of the cute outfits I got him for Christmas. What a little stud muffin!

Then it was time to reenact the Nativity. This is always such a funny experience. Every single kid wanted to be a shepherd, we had to convince Evie to be Mary, but as you can tell in the pictures, she wasn't too thrilled about it. Surprisingly no one wanted to be wise men, so we stayed true to the story and had no wise men at the birth of Christ. Thomas seemed to be ok with being the Christ child until it was time to take the pictures ... so he was replaced with a baby doll, but he still wanted to be in the pictures haha. So enjoy the fun pictures we got of our reenactment of the Nativity.

Thomas telling some jokes ...

Finally Evie was happy when she got to hold a little sheep and not a baby

Ben was the most patient shepherd of the entire clan. He sat and smiled the entire time, at the end he slowly inched away and took a little nap on his sheep.

After our manger scene we gathered in the living room to watch a sweet video on Mary and the Christ child. It was a nice way to remember the true meaning of Christmas.

Then Bethy gave a little presentation on the Christmas markets that she and Reece visited in Switzerland, Austria and Germany. The pictures she showed us were breathtaking, those markets look like the most magical things in the world! Then she gave each one of us a little ornament that she had picked out at the various markets. They were such sweet and special gifts.

We had such a fabulous holiday with our entire family! It was a very merry Christmas indeed.

Christmas Eve

2012-01-12T16:30:00.001-07:00

My mom's Christmas decorations are so magical every year. She has such a talent for making things beautiful. I had to post a few pictures of her fabulous dining room table centerpiece, it was magnificent. This is where we had our Christmas Eve dinner, it created the perfect atmosphere for our holiday celebrations.

In the hall way just outside of our dining room my mom created a magical woodland forest. She thought all the grand kids would find it enchanting, which they definitely did. Whenever any of them came to visit through out the Christmas season they would go take a little peek at all the cute little critters my mom had hidden amidst the pine. I thought it was a cute and unique idea.

My dad collects owls of all different shapes, sizes and materials. It collection had definitely reached the triple digit numbers, his office is one HUGE parliament of owls. The owl collection was what gave my mom the inspiration for her woodland forest, thus it was filled with numerous owls.

After dinner the Burton boys put on a delightful concert, they are so talented. Andrew, John and Ben played some pieces on the piano. Then John played a couple of songs on his clarinet, he just started lessons this fall, he can already play so well! Andrew plays the bass, too bad that is such a hard instrument to take places it would have been fun to hear him play.

Every time the Burton's come to visit Bethy puts on a culture day and teaches all the kids about different places around the world and their different cultures. It is usually centered around somewhere she had traveled to in that year, she had done a Japanese day, a Cambodia day and on Christmas eve she did a Swiss day and taught all the kids about the country she and Reece had been living in for the past 4.5 months.

We learned where Switzerland is on the globe, the kids had a hard time finding it it's so small!

She talked to them about the herds of sheep and cows that have bells around their necks and played a video she took of some cows so they could hear how pretty it sounds when they graze.

We learned about St. Bernards and why they are often seen with a small barrel around their neck

Then we learned about L'Escalade, a very popular festival in Geneva that takes place in the beginning of December. Long story short Escalade celebrates a very unique victory, when troops were coming to take over a castle one of the cooks saw them coming and poured boiling hot stew over the castle walls making the soliders retreat. The kids really liked that story.

Varying degrees of attentiveness from the kids, Will is my favorite in this picture, he is totally eating up the every word of the story. After the kids had been told the story we reenacted it in my parent's stairwell. Karin and her boys were the evil soldiers coming to storm the castle.

Evie and Nora were the cooks that were waiting for the right moment to pour their boiling hot stew onto the attacking soldiers.

ATTACK!

RETREAT!

The kids loved this part of the evening, we ended up reenacting the event several times. Then bethy gave us all chocolate cauldrons which had little marzipan vegetables inside, apparently these are all over Geneva during the festival, I thought they were adorable. Very "harry potteresque."

Then it was time for the grandkids to open their one Christmas eve present, they were so excited! Nora and Will had spent a majority of the day working on a family portrait which they presented to their parents as their Christmas eve present. I love how they are such good friends!

Grammie also got a fun surprise Christmas eve gift. Karin and gathered up all the kids and had them draw a nativity scene on a table clothe, it was so precious I had to include some close ups of some of the details.

Jens had taken some pretty cute pictures of the kids while they were making their wonderful masterpiece so I thought I would include some images of the process.

Will's Christmas eve present was an Animalia book, those books are INCREDIBLE and magical and awesome.

Puzzles always play a large part in Johns family holidays, we just have a puzzling family ... bahahaha pun intended. So Mike and I had been working on this puzzle basically all day, it was so hard.

Come night time, when we had all changed into our Christmas PJs, we still hadn't finished. So after all the kiddos had gone to bed, finishing the puzzle became the family's number one priority. I am proud to report that we did finally finish that beast and it was oh so satisfying!

Time to go to sleep so santa can come!

Candlelight Christmas

2012-01-11T14:35:00.001-07:00

This holiday our family tried out something new, we spent an evening at This is The Place park's Candlelight Christmas. It was honestly so much fun, everyone, of all different ages, loved it! The whole park is decorated for Christmas and each pioneer house has an activity for guests to do.

I know this picture is blurry but I was amazed at the beautiful view of the city you get while at the park and Zoo Lights really looked all decked out this year, I wish I had had time to go to that fun Christmas experience as well. There is always next year.

We began our evening by taking a fun little train ride to the top of the park so we could make our way down through the park and hit all the houses. It was a fun little ride, they had Christmas music playing and it was fun to see all the houses trimmed with Christmas lights and decorations as we chugged past them.

Our first and favorite stop was the social hall where we received dance lessons. Our family had a ball and all 17 of us spinned around the dance floor, switching up dance partners and just having a grand old time. We had a hard time moving on to the next house but we only had a couple of hours to cover the whole park, but we definitely created a lot of fun Christmas memories.

We spent a lot of time at the fire pits along the path, the night we went was absolutely freezing so standing around a fire felt fabulous!

Our next stop was a silly little Christmas puppet show about why santa has reindeer pulling his sleigh. The kids seemed to really love the performance.

The little ones really wanted to meet the puppet cast after the show, Thomas especially liked them. (PS I was having major camera issues so that is why they are kinda dark and grainy ..... you can't win them all)

Patiently waiting....

Across from the social hall was a live nativity. We found the shepherds warming up by the fire and they informed us that baby Jesus was sleeping. So they let us take pictures of them to represent the nativity and we moved on to our next event.

Our next stop was signing the naughty or nice list in the Relief Society Hall. All the kids made sure to get their name on the nice list and received a candy sucker. All the adults had heard that the naughty list signers got better candy so we all took turns adding our names to the naughty list and received a handful of coal (yummy chocolate!). When Nora saw that her mommy and daddy had signed the naughty list she got extremely and sincerely upset. She full heartily believes in the naughty and nice list and could not fathom that her parents had willingly put their names on the naughty list. They told her they still had a couple of days to change their ways and make it back on the nice list and that seemed to calm her down a little. I love that girl, she is so funny.

Ricky made sure that everyone could see sweet Karin's name on the naughty list haha, so when it was her turn she made sure Ricky's name was nice and big as well.

The little ones enjoying their "nice list" suckers.

A couple of Santa's reindeer were there visiting. I love reindeer I think they are such neat/awesome/cute/huge/cool/fuzzy animals.

Then we stepped inside and discovered that Santa himself was there taking some last minute requests. This santa was one of the coolest Santa's I have ever seen, I just loved the unique fur trimming on his entire outfit, the style of his hat, the style of his coat, his authentic snowy white beard, just everything about this santa was so great. He was also such a sweet and tender santa, the way the real santa is I am sure. He had cute conversations with all the kids and generously gave out tons of candy canes to everyone.

We ended the evening by exploring the magical gift shop. I found a package of the coal we had received for signing the naughty list, I thought it was so funny and wanted to get some but I didn't know who I would give it to, but I know where to find it for next year if anyone is mean to me over the course of this next new year...

We had such a fun night I think this might have to be a permanent addition to our family Christmas traditions.

I Am Thankful For ....

2011-12-12T13:35:00.001-07:00

I always look forward to the Thanksgiving holiday, it is always so fun to be with family and to celebrate everything that we are thankful for. We have a very traditional Thanksgiving in our family, we have special recipes that we cook every year that we only make for Thanksgiving dinner. My mom and dad start cooking two days before the big day, they are just the best, I love their cooking everything they make is sooooo delicious and I think it is so cute that they cook together. I am thankful for my parents.

My mom asked me to put some decorative finishing touches on the table to make it a little more festive. So I added a few fresh fall colored flowers in silver julips then set the table using my mom's fabulous autumn time dishes. I am thankful to live close enough to home to be able to come home for the holidays and to be able to help my parents out in anyway that I can.

My dad and I are the bakers in the family, we both just love to bake! So I always help him with the rolls. He likes to be in charge of making the dough, but I help him shape each roll. I am thankful for all the things my parents have taught me, espcially the things I learned and things I learned to love based purely on their example.

Jenny brought this fun craft for the kids to do while we finished up some of the cooking. You make the turkey's tail feathers out of silk flowers. I though they turned out so cute! I am thankful to come from a family that values and supports the arts and creativity and who all love to craft and create fun things.

My mom had made these cute turkey crayons and gave one to the girls along with brand new coloring books, filled with blank pages just waiting to be colored! I am thankful for being a part of such a thoughtful, caring and loving family.

I got to brush the freshly baked rolls with melted butter, I love doing that, it is makes them look so yummy.

Mom making some gravy, me finishing the rolls, and my dad carving the turkey. I am thankful for every single minute I get to spend with my family doing the things we love to do.

These stuffing balls are my favorite Thanksgiving food, we only make them once a year so I think they are very special. I am thankful for my family traditions.

The gravy boat we used this year belonged to my grandmother, I thought it was sooo pretty! I am thankful for my grandparents and ancestors and for everything they did to give me the life I live.

The girls ate early and then cuddled up to watch a movie while us grown ups ate our meal. This is the "nest" it has been in our family for years, me and my sisters used it when we were kids and it is just the best thing in the world, it is the most comfortable thing in the world when you are a child. I am thankful for being blessed with such a happy childhood and all the memories I share with my sisters.

The wonderful finished buffet, everything was AMAZING! I don't even know how it is possible but I it seems like it gets better every year. I am thankful for being blessed to have enough food to eat at every meal.

Nora had learned a couple of Thanksgiving songs in her kindergarten class that she spontaneously shared with us. She wanted grandpa to sing along even though he had never heard the songs before, it made for a pretty good post dinner show ... I am thankful for all my adorable nieces and nephews and the joy they bring to our family.

After dinner we went to Century 16 Theaters to see Puss in Boots. I thought it was hilarious, Jenny and I laughed the entire time. I love humpty's gold sweat suit. Then we came home to have dessert. My dad made his traditional pumpkin pie as well as a lemon cheesecake for those weirdos that don't like pumpkin flavored things (pumpkin flavored anything is my favorite!) Both desserts were delicious! I am thankful for my happiness and the simple pleasures I get to enjoy that make my life so fun.

Jenny brought another craft for the kiddos, gluten free cookie and candy turkeys! The girls had a great time making them and their turkens looked fabulous. They didn't last too long, most of them got gobbled up seconds after being created. I am so thankful for my sisters and everything they do to make family gatherings so fun.

I am so thankful for all my many blessings, no words can describe my gratitude

Zermatt

2011-11-28T15:43:00.001-07:00

The train ride from Geneva to Zermatt was absolutley stunning, the Swiss country side is just gorgeous! There were hundreds of vineyards that created a patchwork of patterns all over the fall covered hills. (all these pictures were taken from the trian window, so yes some are blurry and some have reflections but just go with it ... haha)

After we switched trains and began the climb to the hill top town of Zermatt the scenery totally changed, now instead of rolling fields of vineyards we were surrounded by tall mountains covered with brilliant golden pine trees. It was was like being in a fairytale land. All the people on the train were giving us crazy looks becuase our cameras were set on rapid fire and we were taking millions of pictures out the windows while everyone else just quietly sat in their seats, but we couldn't help ourselves, every second we were presented with a new gorgeous view.

After about three hours of train riding we arrived in the whimsical town of Zermatt.

To prevent air pollution which could obscure the town's view of the Matterhorn, the entire town is a combustion-engine car free zone. Almost all vehicles in Zermatt are battery driven and almost completely silent. I love that about this town, it adds to the"toy town" feeling that Zermatt has. After we left the train station we checked into our quaint little hotel, got fitted for all of our snowboarding gear, then walked to the top of town to get some pictures of the famed Matterhorn.

Oh how I wished this was a basket full of real St. bernared puppies! But I have already seen a crate full of puppies on this trip so I can't complain

The Matterhorn really is such a majestic and beautiful mountain, it is such an icon it is glorious to see it in person! Luckily the day we got there we had such a great view of it, we snapped a couple of pictures but figrued we would have the whole next day to photograph it so we turned back to town to get some dinner, we were freezing! As it turns out it is good that we did snap those couple of pictures ....

Bethy took me to the resaturant that she and Reece had been to when they visited Zermatt a couple of months ago. It was an adorable, cozy little place. When we got there they were only serving drinks, dinner wouldn't be served for about another hour or so. Since we were so cold we decided to stay and order some hot chocolate and wait for the dinner hours to start. The lady waiting on us was this adorable old grandma type that gave us a book about the Matterhorn to look at while we sipped our hot chocolate and waited for the cook to arrive.

I had to have a fondue dinner while in Switzerland, it would be a complete sin to come to the land of chocolate and cheese that is famous for their wonderful fondue and not even try it. So that is exactly what we had, cheese fondue and bratworst with hashbrowns, the PERFECT meal for a cold fall evening in a Swiss mountain top ski town. Oh it was delightful, that fondue was delicious and warmed my frozen little body from the inside out.

Bethy is the biggest mustard fan in the entire world, so she was excited when we were given a tube of mustard as a dipping sauce for our bratworst and hashbrowns. She thought it was kinda funny that it came in a tube, so we documented it.

We had the privledge of having this adorable little fellow sit at the table next to us. He totally looked like a stuffed animal. Apparently the resaurant we were dining in is a local favorite and everyone in town goes there. When we arrived there was a group of old men playing cards in the back, looked like a regular weekly event, later on a group of kids came in and our sweet little waitress gave them all oranges and the kids knew some of the old men playing cards and greeted them enthusiastically. Then a cute little lady comes in and sits next to us with her cute little puppy, she orders her usual and her little dog begs for a treat from the waitress. Apparently this place is a favorite of dogs as well becuase our waitress carries dog treats in her apron and gives all the dogs that come to dine little treats under the table. So the dog sitting next to us never took his eyes off of our waitress the entire time he was there. What a fun little place!

After a glorious fondue dinner we walked back to our hotel room, bundled up in our pajamas, cuddled up under our comforters and watched Stardust. It felt like a good old fashioned slumber party with my sister, it was such a fun night!

The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn to get ready for a day on the slopes. Below is the view from our little balcony we could just barely see the Matterhorn! After we had each put on about 5 layers we walked to the ski shop to pick up all our equipment then headed to the shuttle station to pick up the tram that would take us to the resort.

The bench at the tram stop

By the time we got to the ticket office this is what the Matterhorn was looking like ..... not a good sign. When we tried to purchase lift passes we were told we would need to wait 30 minutes while they checked the conditions of the mountain... not a good sign number two ....

Trying to remain positive while we waited ....

After our 30 minute wait we were all notified that the mountain was closing and would remain closed for the remainder of the day due to unsafe conditions. TEARS!!! Ok I didn't really cry but it was kind of a set back seeing as that was the entire reason we came to Zermatt ... BUT lets be honest I probably would have come home with a broken leg or something I am infamous for doing things like that haha. So we snapped a few photos of us with our gear to prove we had gotten 98% of the way to snowboarding on the Matterhorn paradise galcier. Reece had let me borrow all his snow gear which is nice I would have been sad if I had to pack all that stuff then never use it.

So after accepting the fact that the mountain was closed we went back to the hotel and changed out of our snow gear and created new outfits using all our warmest articles of clothing. Then we dropped our luggage off at the train station then set about playing in the cutest little Swiss town ever. We wandered about the streets, taking pictures and just enjoying the relaxed layed back feeling of having absolutely nothing planned, sometimes that is the best way to enjoy being on vacation.

Of course we found a kitty and of course we picked it up and played with it. I don't know why I love little fuzzy animals so much, it's almost unhealthy how much I love them. This little kitty was adorable though, he had the most unique color patterns. We wondered if he had ever been picked up before, he seemed a little hestitant about it at first, so we put him down but then he kept following us and asking to be petted so we tried it again and he just loved it. We are taming the world's animals one kitten at a time.

One street had some construction going on and instead of the normal tarps they have, with the company's logo plastered all over it, covering the construction site, they had tarps with children's drawings of Zermatt. They were adorable! What a smart construction company, high five to you guys. I took a picture of my two favorite ones. I just love the goats on the Matterhorn

We came across a little cemetary that was littered with golden fall leaves. I thought it was such a beautiful graveyard, each grave had a plot to plant flowers in, each one was different but all of were very elegant.

During our wanderings we passed a bakery that looked so warm and inviting so we stopped in to get some yummy pasteries. We both got different kinds of studels, I got apple and Bethy got vanilla creme. I also got a clown shortbread cookie sandwich. These cookies are everywhere in Switerland, every single city we had visited and every bakery we had gone to had these. So, since I am all about experiencing the entire culture of a country when I visit, I figured I should probably have one while I was there.

This was a fabulous moment that I tried to document but it was extrememly hard to capture. Right when we had finished our little goodies and were getting ready to start our hike to the corner canyon, a brisk wind blew and picked all the leaves off of the tree branches and stired them up from the ground and completely filled the air with glittering fall leaves. It honestly was like a scene from a movie, leaves were everywhere and it was glorious! You can kind of see some against the dark wood of the chalets. But it was such a fun memory to spontaneously experience with my sister in Switerland!

Our alternative plan was to hike to corner canyon. I had seen some pictures of when Bethy and Reece visted and it looked like a really cool place! There is a very short hike to get to the toll booth so we began the walk up. We had great views of the blue mountains, fall colored trees and wooden chalets all the way up. Our plans were foiled yet again! When we reached the toll booth we were informed that corner canyon was closed for the season. We were somwhat prepared for this since some of the trail that we were on was covered in snow so we thought it might be closed, it was still worth the walk up though I thought that was fun!

Our alternative to our alternative plan was to find a herd of either sheep or cows and take pictures with them. A herd of sheep grazing on the hillside right across from the trail to corner canyon came to our rescue, you can always depend on a bunch of fluffy sheep! I thought they were adorable, they had the cutest black faces and black spots on their knees. My favorite part about these sweet little sheep was they had bells around their necks, so while they grazed there was always a chorus of bells with a whole range of pitches ringing. When we walked up a few of them seemed a little bit curious about our presence, but most of them didn't even seem to notice we were there. So we took lots and lots of pictures and just took in the whole scene and the wonderful experience.

And of course we had to try and pet them. They had a similar reaction as the cat did that we encountered earlier, they seemed hesitant, but also seemed to kind of like it. It kinda seemed like they just didn't kow what to make of it. I doubt they have random people trying to pet them very often.

The views from their little hillside were breath taking. These sheep would have a perfect view of the Matterhorn when that silly mountain isn't being shy and completely covering itself with clouds like it was today. Good thing we got some good pictures of it yesterday and this morning becuase it was no where to be seen for the majority of the day.

After hanging out with the sheep fora good little while we decided it was time to head home to Geneva. I was flying home to the States the next day and still had a great deal of packing to do at the apartment. So we walked back through the town to the train station. I could have gone for another night of fondue, hot chocolate and movies in this cute little town, but alas I had to bid adieu.

For lunch we stopped off at another bakery. We looked for a place to get one last bratworst and maybe another pot of fondue but those silly Europeans close their cafes right in the middle of the day. So we had no choice but to eat some more pasteries.

So we had seen this little treat numerous places, we saw it in Zurich and in Geneva and then here in Zermatt, we had no idea what it was, we thought it looked like ground beef but since we only saw it in bakeries and creperies we figured it was probably some sort of chocolate mousse, so we figured we should just try it so we wouldn't have to wonder about it our entire lives. The verdict, it was disgusting, and we still can't tell you what it was haha it tasted like bean paste hahaha I thought it was pretty funny that we had built up all this anticipation for it and it turns out to be something completely weird. BUT at least we know now! and it was yet another funny memory added to my every growing back of fun memories.

We got a few quick glimpses of the beautiful scenery before night fall. Since we couldn't watch the moutains and countryside fly past us out the window we decided to watch a movie on the train ride home. The movie we chose was called Love Birds, it stars Murray from Flight of the Conchords (I don't know the actors real name) I thought it was a hilarious movie, if your interest has been peaked look it up just thinking about it makes me giggle.

Well this is officially the last post about my wonderful trip to Switerland. I am so grateful for the opportunity I had to go, I had such a fabulous time and created some lasting memories. It was so great to see Bethy and Reece, bethy and I usually get together to do something fun and crazy a couple of times a week so I have been DYING not having her just a 20 minute drive from me. It was so great to see her and experience all of her favorite things in her temporary European home. I hope one day I am living somewhere exotic so she can come visit me and I can hopefully give her an equally fantastic experience as she gave me both in Switerland and when I visted her in New York while she was completing her internship in fashion photography, I know they are a rockin couple! Love you guys!

Genève: deuxième partie

2011-11-23T16:49:00.000-07:00

On my second day in Geneva I got a little taste of what it is like to actually live and function as a resident in a foreign city, and not just parade the pretty sights like a tourist. This morning I went to the grocery store with Bethy to pick up some ingredients for some fall treats we wanted to make to enjoy the autumn season. Finding some of the simplest ingredients was a challenge, baking powder and baking soda were the especially tricky. We had to go back to the apartment and translate our entire shopping list into french which helped a little bit. We were pretty successful! There were a few "specialty items" that we couldn't find such as pumpkin puree and marshmallows (we later found marshmallows at a Wal Mart equivilant and discovered that they are apparently an all American food thus considered a foreign food in Switzerland. There were directions on the back of the package with very detailed instructions on how to "BBQ" a marshmallow as well as an entire paragraph dedicated to describing what a s'more is and how it is a traditional American food. Go America.)

A close up of the tricksters that were hard to find

I didn't realize that the pancakes we know and love are considered "American Style," I learned all sorts of things on our little trip to the market. After our excursion to the store we came back, put away our goodies then made some good old American style pumpkin spice pancakes (minues the actual pumpkin...) Since syrup was one on the things on the list we couldn't find at the market, Bethy improvised and made a dolce de leche topping with pumpkin pie spices in it I thought it was delicious. We also had some juicy persimmons that complimented our spice pancakes perfectly. Oh joy, I just love the fall!

After our wonderful meal we spent the rest of the day shopping! Geneva has a nice shopping district that is a fun bustling atmosphere to be a part of. We spent most of our time in H&M then strolled over to Bata shoes, we ended up getting matching boots! Twins! They are different colors though, so we won't be the identical kind of twins. After we had shopped until we almost dropped we stopped by a roasted chesnut station to try the treat that we all sing about every Christmas season. They were a lot different then I imagined they would be, but I thought they were delicious! And now when I sing about chesnuts roasting on an open fire, I know all about how yummy they are!

Then we wandered through the small charming streets of Old Town on our way to the restaraunt we had planned to meet Reece at for dinner. All the old stone buildings looked so magnificent glowing so brightly against the dark night sky.

Tonight we dined at Chez Ma Cousine. On one of Reeces first days working at CERN he asked all his officemates for suggestions on places to make sure to eat at while he and Bethy were living in Geneva. Almost all of them mentioned this place and told him exactly what to order. Beth and Reece and eaten here a couple of times before I came to visit, so they knew the ropes when they took me. It really was delicious, the thing to order is the roasted half chicken that comes with a healthy serving of thick cut fries and a house salad. The chicken was incredible, perfectly seasoned and so nice and juicy!

By the time we walked out the door there wasn't a piece of chicken left on our plates and we were all stuffed. We walked through a little bit more of Old Town to help our food digest before going home to make dessert!

When we got home we made some fall shaped sugar cookies! Karin had sent Bethy some adorable cookies cutters that we just had to use! The first challenge was that Bethy's apartment didn't have an oven .... but, I looked up directions for microwave cookies online and found some pretty good recipies for sugar cookies. The second challenge was then converting all the measurments from those recipies to the metric system. I think we converted everything correctly except for the butter .... our dough tasted extra buttery .... but that isn't necessarily a bad thing, butter is what makes everything taste so delicious. I was so darn curious about how they were going to turn out, the result .... they turned out exactly like normal sugar cookies in about 1/8th of the cooking time! It was a fun little experiment.

Cooking in Bethy's cute little kitchen

Cooking in the mirowave ...

The end result!

Bethy made some warm, tangy apple cidar to drink with our cookies while we watched another halloween flick on the computer since today was the atual halloween day.

Day three in Geneva was full of excitment and fun! We began the day by traveling to CERN to see the amazingly cool, spacey exhibit they have there that explains all about CERN's mission and what exactly it is they do there. On the train ride over, Bethy and I almost melted in our seats when a couple of guys boarded the train with a crate FULL of PUPPIES!!!!! Was this a dream come true for both of us? Why yes, yes it was. The guys that had the dogs only spoke french but they could tell, somehow, not that we were super obvious or anything, that we wanted to pet the cute little puppies. We were surprised that he actually let us pet them and even take some pictures! Are they not unbelievably adorable, they slept the entire train ride and were just waking up when he stopped to let us pet them. I will never get over how amazing it was to literally see a crate full of tiny, adorable puppies.

Right next to the building where the CERN exhibit is, was this beautiful sight, we couldn't resist, we had to take some pictures with this gorgeous backdrop

As you can tell from the pictures, the exhibit about CERN is amazing and unbelievably cool.

Each of these little "eyeballesque" stations explained different aspects of CERN's history and mission.

These chairs had speakers in them so when you leaned back and selected your language a voice would come on and talk about different topics all relating to the company. Each chair had a different topic.

A map of the ginormous CERN complex, you could touch anywhere on this map and information would pop up about that specific location.

So much science! My little art oriented brain was about to explode trying to understand everything I learned at the exhibit. It was pretty neat to learn about and it is so amazing that Reece got the opportunity to work there! Reece is majoring in information systems, so his internship dealt with storing all the data that is generated at all the different labs (I think... Bethy correct me if I am wrong haha seriously, so much science)

Another thing on Bethy's "favorite things about Geneva list" is the street performers that perform on the number 16 tram. They jsut sporatically come on so she was hoping I would get the chance to hear some of them during my visit. On our ride back to Old Town we were lucky enough to get some performers get on our tram! They sounded really good and played some classics like Girl From Ipanema. I took a close up of the guatarist's guitar becuase it was decorated with Megamind stickers! How very neat.

When we got back to Old Town it was time for lunch, so we found a creperie with a fantastic view and settled down for a fabulous European lunch. It was a little bit chilly out today so we both ordered a cup of hot chocolate to warm us up. Then bethy ordered a savory crepe and I ordered a sweet crepe and we switched half way through to create a perfect meal!

We had a wonderful view of the St. Peter's cathedral out the window

After lunch Bethy gave me a tour of Old Town during the day. We began by going inside the cathedral. It was a very lovely church, I espcially liked the stained glass windows, they created magical, ephemeral patterns on the wall when the sun would shine through them.

The rose windows were stunning

This wooden carving reminded me of a character you would see on an episode of the classic tv series Duck Tales...

We accidently happened upon this amazing side chaple that was absolutely exquisite! The painted ceiling blew me away, I thought it was all gorgeous!

This window portrayed the story of Jesus blessing the children, it was very sweet.

Strolling through the leaf covered streets we came across a little protest, goodness they seem to be everywhere now a days.

After exploring all of Old Town we came home to warm up and get ready for dinner. When Reece got home we walked down the street to Coup de Girafe which is the cutest little eatery in the entire world. It has a very Anthropologie feel and only serves unique quiches and salads.

I got a fig quiche and it was delicious! The sweetness of the figs was such a unique flavor I never would have thought to put into a quiche but it was pretty magical.

When we got home Beth and Reece started doing some suspicious behavior, talking only in whispers and refusing to tell me what they were up to. Those two can be so sneaky.... Turns out they were making me the most magical and elegant birthday cake I have ever seen! Bethy hand painted then glittered toy animals to dance around the base of my spice bundt birthday cake! They are too sweet! I totally wasn't expecting this because we had already celebrated my birthday and they had given me a wonderful gift. But being the amazing people they are they just kept on giving. They lit the candles, sang me happy birthday and let me blow out my candles thus giving me one more, very special Swiss, birthday wish ... lets hope it comes true!

What a wonderful way to end my last day in Geneva. After devouring every yummy bite of our pieces of birthday cake, we watched yet another movie then cuddled up to bed, Beth and Reece in their bed and me in my sleeping bag exactly one foot away from the base of their bed, we literally had a two week long slumber party! The next morning Bethy and I packed our little travel suitcases and jumped on the train to Zermatt for our snowboarding get away .... to be continued .....

Genève: La Première Partie.

2011-11-21T12:09:00.000-07:00

After our week abroad we came back home to Geneva. Here are some pictures of Beth and Reece's cute apartment in the city. Bethy has done a wonderful job with the decorations, and making it feel like a nice place to call home. She made paper mache deer antlers and a faux chalkboard wall right next to the curtains that is just fabulous, she is a creative genius!

This is their cozy little kitchen. When you don't need it, it conveniently folds up to look like a wall of cabinets which you can see in the picture above. I thought that was pretty niffty!

The night we got back from Annecy, Zurich and Bern was the night of the biggest halloween party in all of Switerland. It's a pretty well known event and people from all over come to celebrate the holiday. Bethy and I had to get pretty creative with our costumes since we didn't have too much to work with, but in the end we looked pretty cool even if you couldn't really tell what we were. I wanted to be something the resembled a peacock in some way. So Bethy did my awesome make up in purple, blue and green, I wore a peacock green shirt and we tied green ribbons in my hair. Bethy wanted to be a butterfly so she did her make up in pretty pastel sherbet colors and we cut out paper butterflies, colored them in all different color combinations and she pinned them in her hair.

I have a very beautiful sister!

It took us a little while to get into the party since they stopped selling tickets by the time we got there so we spent a lot of time out front. We saw some good costumes while we figured out a way to get in, I loved the Cruela Devil and her dalmation puppy costume duo, the scottsman is pretty good as well. Finally we found a way in! The party was so fun! There were thousands of people there and soooo many good costumes, Europe knows how to be creative and classy with their halloween costume choices

Bethy's butterflies glowed in the black lights, a very cool feature of her costume that we hadn't planned on!

Right when we got in they were having the costume contest. Each contestant had to dance for 30 seconds to show off their costume. In the end the third place winner was a girl who had an amazing Shiva costume, sponge bob square pants came in second and a group of crazy doctors took home the grand prize.

This is kinda of a bad picture but one of the contestants had a very good Edward Scisser hands costumes, I wanted him to be in the final three, he really looked exactly like him!

The DJ was on a big stage that was decorated to look like a huge sunken pirate ship! It was really cool

Blurry but fun! Probably the best halloween dance party I have ever been to

The next morning we slept in, big time! We were exhausted from all our travels as well as from dancing the night away. When we finally did wake up Bethy made us the most delicious monte cristo sandwhiches ever! She actually used freshly made french toast for the bread! I basically ate my entire sandwhich in two bites, it was that good! Such a great way to start the day.

After a relaxing morning and afternoon chilling at the apartment and taking our time to get ready, we packed a cute little pic nic and lots of swan food and headed down to the lake front of Lake Geneva to see the famous jet and to feed some ginormous swans. We went at such a beautiful time of day.

Then it was swan feeing time! To be honest this was one of the things I was looking foward to the most out of the things Bethy had told me she was planning to do while I was visiting. I love feeding swans, ok fine, I love anything that involves any kind of animal. These swans were ginormous and aggressive, I was a little nervous I was going to lose a finger! But I think swans are such beautiful birds, I would have them as pets if I could. I started out feeding a couple of swans that were near me, then in no time I was surrounded by a swarm of big, white hungery birds.

Then we strolled along the water front and crossed the street to one of Bethy's favorite places in Geneva, it is a huge park that reminded me a little bit of central park. There were numerous varieties of trees, vines and bushes that were all dressed in their most vibrant fall colors. There were huge grassy fields were games of ultimate frisbee and soccer were being played, there are a couple of chateaus and manors scattered about on the grounds, there were also a few different themed gardens and waterfalls along the winding path. It is a very beautiful place.

Bethy lead us to her favorite bench in the park which is facing a pretty little waterfall, here we sat and enjoyed our cute little picnic. We had cheese and chocolate of course, salt and vinegar chips, kiwi foam yogurt and hard boiled eggs. I loved the hard boiled eggs in Geneva, they are sold in grocery stores and the shells are painted different colors based on what kind of package you buy. Bethy and Reece buy the package that have their shells painted red and we would eat them for breakfast, lunch or for a snack. I wish they sold them in the stores here in Utah.

After our picnic we walked home to bundle up and watch a fun halloween movie! Leading up to halloween we watched Arsnic and Old Lace, The Corpse Bride, Young Frankenstein and Hocus Pocus to get into the Halloween spirit!

Bern

2011-11-16T14:51:00.000-07:00

The day after our wonderful Zurich adventures we boarded the train to take us back home to Geneva. Since we found ourselves with some extra time we decided to spend the afternoon in the charming little town of Bern, since it was one of the stops on the rail from Zurich to Geneva. Bern is such a beautiful place and it is absolutely exquisite in autumn. Right down the street from the train station there was an amazing farmers market with booths of stunning fall goodies. I absolutely adore farmers markets! I think they are amazingly fun and endlessly fascinating. The produce section of this market was to die for, one entire side was devoted to floral shops that had GORGEOUS fall wreaths, garlands and bouquets. I know I have mentioned floral shops and their autumn offerings too many times already in the past few posts, but they seriously were unbelievable I just can't get over how beautiful everything was, I really, really wanted it all!

Gingerbread! I love gingerbread, Bethy and I each got a little brick of it with a sugar frosting bears on them, mine was gone in like 10 minutes ... it was extrememly rich and had an interesting filling, I can't even describe what it was, but I just couldn't stop nibbling away.

Look at that adorable little face. This lady had a corgie and a pug, I thought that was an interesting combination ... But I love corgies I think they are such cute little dogs I love their squatty little legs

This is a cuckoo clock that is one of the main attractions of the city of Bern. It is a beautiful clock. Beth and Reece had visited Bern before and waited for it to go off and said it was anticlamatic so we didn't wait around for it to strike on the hour, but it was still fun to see.

I loved this little boy's outfit, so classy.

Einstein lived in Bern for a few years on one of the main streets of the city. It is labeled on the outside and has a picture of Einstein in the window. Here is a little excerpt about his stay in Bern ...

"The year of 1905 was very good for Albert Einstein. He published 5 of his most important papers and he referred to it as his “Annus Mirabilis” a miracle year which included his breakthrough on his Theory of Relativity. Einstein was 26, had recently married his sweetheart Mileva, taken a job at the Bern patent office and moved into a two room apartment on the main historic street of Bern, just a short walk from the town’s famous medieval clock, the Zytglogge, with its hourly glockenspiel movements of human and animal figures. He lived in the upstairs apartment at Number 49 Kramgasse street from 1903 to 1905."

There are numerous fountains all over the city and each one has a story behind the scene that is depicted on the top of each fountain's pillar. This one looks kinda sad and gory ... I don't know the story that goes along with it, but I took a picture to show how elaborately they are painted and sculpted, they really add a lot to the aesthetic of the town.

I LOVE bernese mountain dogs, I think they are the most beautiful dogs in the world. This one was extremely well behaved, his owner was a cute little old lady and he was very loyal to her, he got a little antsy being away from her long enough for me to get a picture with him. He was so sweet.

I loved this street performer, what a fun thing to share with everyone visiting Bern. Her ginormous bubble creations were fantastic. The bubbles were woven into so many shapes and sizes and the color was unbelievable.

Bears are the city's mascot, thus live bears have been kept within the city ever since the 1440s. This is where we spent the majority of our afternoon, at the bear pits. They have a mother and two cubs on one side of the encloser and a papa bear on the other side separated by a concrete wall. All four of them were extrememly active while we there so I took A LOT of bear pictures, I tried to cut it down as much as I could for this post, but I love fuzzy animals I just had to include a lot, I thought everything they did was so cute.

Here is the papa bear, he was massive.

Here are the two cubs. One was very lazy and would just lay around at different spots around their enclosure, but the other one was very active and was running around everywhere doing all sorts of silly things. I think they look exactly like teddy bears.

This is the view the bears have from their enclosure, they are right on the river.

Mama bear went for a swim

The active cub liked to tease his mom during her swim

Papa bear found a bag full of hay and had a fun time playing with it in the water, silly old bear

Love the ears

Eventually we pulled ourselves away from the bears and headed back to town for lunch

I loved watching this father and son, he is skateboarding uphill, what a stud and what a fun, cute dad.

If you haven't noticed I love to people watch, I find people to be fascinating. On our way back to town we passed the bubble street performer again, she had let this adorable little boy have a turn at making bubbles. He did a pretty good job! He would sprint backwards and fall down every single time, but be so happy about the huge bubble he had made he would get up and do it again. I also loved the fact that he is sticking his tongue out becuase he is concentrating so hard, my sister does that.

We got lunch at a cute little pizzeria right on the edge of town. They had hawaiian pizza! I have never, ever seen a hawiian pizza on a european menu, I was so excited I love pineapple on my pizza. It was delicious, I ate that whole thing

After lunch it was time to head back to the train station, we had a party in Geneva that we needed to get back for! We made a couple of stops on our walk back. First we stopped by this gorgeous park that had the most breath taking views of the river.

We saw this poster for a party and I was so sad the we had missed it, I bet that would have been an awesome scene.

Then we peeked inside the main cathedral. It had beautiful stained glass windows that were so vibrant and wonderful! There was even someone playing the magnificent organ when we walked in, it was a neat experience to hear.

I love seeing colorful reflections of stained glass on cathedral walls

Then we continued our walk back to the station taking in the unbelievable views of autumn time bliss in Bern. In the first picture you can see the glorious alp mountain range

More Zurich Fun

2011-11-14T12:19:00.000-07:00

The next part of our Zurich adventure was exploring and enjoying the beautiful lake front. The fall leaves were in "full bloom" and were gorgeous! Bethy and I couldn't resist, we had to play in the leaves for a little bit ...

Look very closely at this one ...

This picture is a little bit random but I found a holly bush! I have never seen holly "in the wild" it was a very pretty little holly bush.

After strolling along the peaceful water front, playing in some leaves and a little bird watching we found a park bench with a great view and sampled some of the sweet treats we had bought at Sprungli. First, we tried numerous flavors of their famous macarons. Of course they were all delcious, but my favorite flavors were champagne and raspberry

Our sweet view while we enjoyed our sweets

Then we busted out the Top Ten best chocolates that Sprungli sells. We could only try a couple since our blood sugar levels were already pretty high. But they were equally as wonderful.

Then we walked across town to their big shopping street to take a peek in some of sweet clothing stores such as Zara and H&M. The walk there was very charming, the street pictured below reminded me very much of Diagon Alley or Hogsmede. The flower shop on the corner had the most amazing and unique arrangments for fall, I love how all the floral shops incorporate very different plants and flowers into their creations.

After shopping we dropped our large bags full of goodies off at the hotel and walked over to Octoberfest. There is no need for any of you to worry, we did not partake in any of the activities, we just went to see what it was all about, enjoy the fun lively atmosphere, and take some good pictures. Octoberfest lived up to all my expectations, people dressed up in lederhosen and direndls all over the place, fun music with everyone singing along at the top of their lungs, HUGE steins, just every little stereotypical thing was there, and it was great.

Zurich is stunning at night, this was our view as we walked home to our hotel.

Zurich

2011-11-12T11:17:00.002-07:00

A couple of pictures from the train ride from Annecy to Zurich, the countryside is just gorgeous!

This year I had a very, very happy birthday. My 25th birthday was spent in the wonderful and beautiful city of Zurich with the marvelous Madisons! This city is awesome it's big, it's gorgeous, it's clean and it is so fun! I woke up to a little present that bethy had wrapped so cute! Ah how fun!! She is so thoughtful. Bethy got me such cute things from H&M including earmuffs, a beautiful scarf, adorable hair pins, and a fun orange headband! I loved everything so much! I wouldn't wait to wear them all so I wore the scarf and the headband the rest of the day. Thanks Beth and Reece!

Then we set out to explore the town! Our first stop was the Grossmunster, one of the most famous landmarks of Zurich. Of course we couldn't take pictures inside (boo!) but my favorite part of the church were the agate stone windows. Artist Sigmar Polke designed windows using colorful, thin slices of agate stones to create beautiful contemporary windows to decorate the church. The great German artist Sigmar Polke (1941–2010), known as “the Alchemist” for his love of working with and combining unconventional materials, completed a large cycle of extraordinary windows for Zürich cathedral—his last great work—just prior to his death in June of 2010.

After touring the church we climbed up the hundreds of stairs in one of the twin towers of the cathedral to get a breath taking view of all of Zurich.

It was A M A Z I N G! I literally could not stop taking pictures, what a stunning view

After we came back down from the top of the tower we headed across the river to the Fraumunster to see the famous Marc Chagall stained glass windows (the Fraumunster is the church with the green steeple that is in several of my pictures.) Once again there was a lame no pictures rule so I couldn't take any with my bulky, unstealth SLR ... So I pulled a few images from the internet to show you how amazing the windows are.

After our tours of the two most famous churches in Zurich we set out to explore the little ins and outs of the city. There was a picture waiting to happen at every turn, the whole place is so picturesque. We also had fun window shopping and looking at all the fun fall displays that all the stores had designed. One of my favorites was a classy little floral shops that had all sorts of autumn gifts and decorations.

Then it was time for lunch. If you are in Zurich for one day there is only one place to eat and that is at Cafe Sprungli, it is just heavenly. The Sprungli & Lindt (more commonly known as Lindt chocolate...) company began in 1836 and they have been making divine confectionery concoctions ever since.

Intricate little chocolate chesnut

We got plenty of sweets from the very chic chocolate store before heading upstairs to the elegant cafe for lunch. Reece and I both ordered their roast beef club and it was to die, for it is definitely in the top three of the best sandwiches I have ever eaten in my life. It had a tangy herb aioli that was nothing short of amazing. Bethy got a couple of their exquisite tapas. It was the perfect birthday luncheon.

To be continued ....

De Deux Jours en Annecy

2011-11-10T14:14:00.001-07:00

We spent another half day in Annecy, we just couldn't pull ourselves away from this cute little town. We got yummy crepes for breakfast, I got the nutella and coco crepe, we weren't exactly sure what the coco was referring to so I took a little bit of a chance. I was very pleasantly surprised when coco turned out to be coconut! It was an excellent way to start the day.

We walked up to The Château d'Annecy (Annecy Castle) which was the home of the Counts of Geneva (12th–16th century). Today, the restored castle houses the Art and History Conservatory of Annecy and the reginal offices of the Alpine Lakes. We tried to go in but it was closed, :( it sounded like it has some pretty neat things inside. But it still has a pretty impressive exterior.

After we found out the museum was closed we walked up to this beautiful church, I'm not exactly sure what the name of it is, but it is stunning nontheless. Reminded Bethy and I of something you might find in Rivendale.

On our walk back down to town, you better believe we stopped to play with some adorable kitties that we found. The black kitty on top of the car had the most unusual tail, it was permantantly curled in a spiral like a little piggys. Then the grey kitty totally tried to steal my gold watch while I was petting it. I have bethy as my witness that while I was stroking it's fluffy fur, its reached up with both paws and tried to pull my watch off, it was pretty funny.

Then we jumped on a train to Zurich!