Zurich Life

We had a particularly clear day last Saturday so we took a family walk up to a local park. Whoever says Zurich is not worth visiting or is not beautiful is crazy!

Another view of beautiful Lake Zurich (a different day)

Swiss Garden Houses

Since most Swiss people live in apartments, they pay to keep a garden somewhere else. When we were in Spain, some people who had visited Switzerland in the winter asked why there were lots of really little houses right by eachother (they were covered in snow). We finally realized they must have seen one of these garden places. There are rows and rows of these, only two can be seen in this photo.

This is how the Swiss do some of their recycling. I say SOME because there is a whole book (in German) on how and when you must do your recycling. This is a spot near our house, in the middle of a neighborhood. Here you can deposit tin, aluminum and glass, but not plastic and milk cartons. You have to go to the grocery store for that (and lucky for me, my grocery store just got redone and I can take my tin and glass there too!! It's the little things...). To recycle cardboard or 'karton,' you must leave it on the sidewalk in front of your house on a certain day every other month. Paper is the same, but it must be bundled with certain string at a certain height. Thus, I don't do paper. Why do I even recycle at all?

Cardboard or Karton recycling day

OH yeah, here's why we recycle. Our special city trash bags cost 4 bucks each. Tally has become our trash compactor. He's a man of many talents, actually.
We have lots of spiders by our house, probably because we live by the lake. Now that it's winter, they're dying off but during the summer we start naming them.

Tally's running club at work led a run through Zurich with tour guides and even a reporter from the city's biggest radio station. I guess they were doing a story on how work places can provide healthy activities. Here is the running club members that went, Tally had to go to a meeting at the last minute and didn't get to join us.
Kelsey loved the hour long run, chilling in her stroller. Everyone was super helpful and careful with her - helping me push her up hills, carry her down stairs, and pushing elevator buttons. The tires on the stroller were a bit flat and I was out of practice which made it a tough workout. It was fun though, and I was glad to see that we could (mostly) keep up.

The runners taking a short break for a picture

A Classic view of Zurich's Grossmuenster and Limmat from the Lindenhof

Another view of the Limmat

Temple & Talent Abend

On Saturday morning, we got to go to the temple in Bern for the first time since I was 8 months pregnant. We brought my friend Dianne to the temple with us (it's an hour and a half drive each way) and then she walked around with Kelsey while we were there. I'm happy to report that she did very well with Dianne and I'm so glad she's warming up to other people.

Oh yeah, and it snowed here this week and has been freezing since. Welcome to winter.

That night, we had a branch talent night. I signed Tally up when I found out there were no Americans participating. I also put myself in a dance number, to be fair. So, his was titled, "Surprise." This is what all my pictures should have looked like had I known how to use my flash properly (it's new, we're still getting to know eachother)

He asked the biggest guy in our branch to rip the phone book in half.

(This is how NOT to take a picture)

Of course, he didn't really want him to rip it (it was our only one). Not that he stood a chance.

Ta-Da! My super strong hubby pulls it off, even after several years without practicing

Isn't he a good sport?

Here we are dancing. I'm in the back left, exactly where I wanted to be for this one.

The food afterwards was great too. I love getting new ideas, and the Swiss know how to make their food look so cool. I brought a bruscetta (not pictured) that I got from allrecipies.com

Skyping with Julia

I figured I hadn't gotten a picture of Kelsey and Julia together in awhile, so why not now? I thought it was so cute that she kept looking over at Julia like, "hey, what are you doing there next to me?"


Tonight, we had a good talk with Julia via Skype. It was fun to get to see and talk to Peach in real time. She's been on a bike tour across the U.S. since August 2, 2008. Today marked their 3 months anniversary. They are in the Ozarks in Arkansas right now and are aiming for South Carolina. I'm nervous for them to cross the Appalachians, but they may end up having to hitch a ride over depending on weather/snow. If you want to see their progress, check out their website here or under my family websites.

Josh Jensen and Halloween

We met Josh Jensen (one of Tally's childhood friends) and his friends in Luzern while they were on their European dream vacation. They started in France and ended in Italy, which created the perfect opportunity to see them. After several plans, we decided the best and easiest for all would be to meet up in Luzern. It is one of our favorite Swiss cities (can you tell?). We were just glad to be able to see Josh, even if it was only for a couple of hours. Well, at least Tally and I were glad to see Josh!
Daddy had to calm her down. We think it was the beanie, but maybe it was just Josh ;)

All better!

Walking across the famous Chapel Bridge in Luzern.

Good 'ol friends, no matter where we are

It was a bit foggy, but still beautiful. There were a lot of local markets set up on either side of the bridge which added that extra taste of Swiss culture.

The Lion Monument

Next to the Lion monument there was a group of men dressed up like butchers, pigs, military, chefs, chickens...I don't know exactly what they were doing except drinking. Their costumes said protesters but their demeanor said PARTY! We got this shot with them. The pig next to Kelsey was making OINK noises. When she looked over and saw him right next to her she started crying (go figure). I would be scared too if I were her!

After seeing Josh, we rushed over to our Halloween party. Kelsey was a Bee Fairy complete with a "Honey Pot" for her candy.

The other bee's mom (Roberta) and I ran a booth with Halloween Thumbprint Creations. Basically the kids stamp their thumb on a stamp pad, then on a piece of paper, and then make a Halloween creature out of it. Jessi Berg is the one who thought of it and we did it together last year. Anyway, it was a popular booth and it was all Roberta and I could do to keep the booth running while watching these little ones! Luckily, they stayed close by most of the time and played with each other. Here are our friends Kevin, Lydia, and Ashton Coombs at the beginning of the event.

The girls, standing around chatting like girls do.

I picked up my friend Karen along the way so she and David could get in on the fun. It was great to have them there.

I thought this picture was funny. Don't try to make her take a picture or else!

Here are Roberta's kids (Anna & Mariah) with Kelsey at the end of the trick-or-treating line. After the first door, the kids from the front came back through and in their hurry to get more candy, started pushing the little kids over. It became a mad house and very stressful to keep track of all three of them. Luckily it didn't last long and we made it through with all three in one piece.

Her first piece of candy given at Halloween.

She didn't stop reaching in for the candy (as you will see in the next several pictures - I couldn't get her to stop to even take a pic!). She even got a few bites with the wrappers while mom was busy. What can you do?

Little miss priss with her honey purse. She's such a little girl!

Bees of all ages

Jennifer (blue fairy), Emily (butterfly), Kelsey (bee), and me (me)

Here are the girls last year at the Halloween party

And here they are this year. They grow so fast and they definitely didn't get a wink of sleep this time around.

As for Halloween night, we didn't get a single trick-or-treater. However, we do live on a busy road and we live in a country that doesn't celebrate it, so I figured we wouldn't. Instead, we had two of Tally's work friends, Mathias and Andrea, over for fajitas.
Aren't these darling? Mathias brought them (and a box of truffles, I told him he was welcome for dinner anytime) from Luzern as a way to say thank you for dinner. I love that about Europe. They have such wonderful table manners. My mom was right, I should have gone to Cotillion.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!