Einseldeln, Switzerland

Here we are just outside the church in Einseldeln. A town about 15 minutes from us, up the mountain. In the winter months, when there is a thick as soup fog covering Lake Zurich, if you drive up above the fog you can get these crystal clear days! This day was dark and gray at our house and 15 minutes later we were in the blue skies.

It was chilly, though, so the horses behind us get huge wool blankets to wear while waiting to take families on rides through the town.

Ice Skating on the lake just outside Einseldeln. This lake is easily 2 miles long and at least a mile wide. You can walk, skate, play hockey, take dogs out and even strollers out onto the ice. There are people as far as you can see, just basically hiking and playing on the ice. You can rent skates right there on the ice and when you need refreshements or warm apple cider, there are large tents set up. They basically plow large skate and walk areas on the ice.

I almost killed myself on skates, it was hard to get my balance after about 10 years of not being on ice skates..literally!

Ella and Charlie having a GO at skating....Ella has the single blade skates so she struggled a bit, but Charlie had the mini 2 bladed skates which just strap onto your boot so he was much sturdier.

Sunrise outside our window in January! This picture does not capture the pink, orange and purple streaks in the sky. It was awesome.

Winter Fun in the Rockies and Alps

Winter in Switzerland, Jan 2009!

We are back in Switzerland after spending a month in Colordado. It was a great trip home and feels good to be back into our routine and continuing our adventure! It took about 8 days to adjust to the time change, the kids were literally up with me at midnight helping to clean floors, cook, whatever we could find to do. Here Charlie and Ella are playing in our yard in Switzerland Jan 2009, the trees are fun to climb in the winter! No leaves makes it easy to navigate through the tree.

These trees are part of the apple orchard right behind our backyard. We have been taking walks with our sled and sledding everywhere, the fields are all filled with snow and the sledding is perfect right now.

Skiing in Vail, Colorado. We spent almost the entire month of December with family and friends in Colorado. We had lots of fun visiting, eating our favorite foods and getting up to the mountains for some fun. It was Charlie's first time on skis and he was tired after about the 3rd run....he started eating snow while skiing down. Ella was going up the charilifts with Ryan and they both skiied for about 2 hours.

Charlie...chichi chocho boy.......the cousins in Vail...............Ahhh, Cassidy, we miss her!!!

Me packing to go back, are you kidding me? We ended up buying more bags and coming back with 7 bags, 2 car seats, 1 double stroller and 3 carryons. Yes, we found a taxi big enought to haul our Christmas gifts and American necessities back with us!!