Playing Catch Up!

Our lives have been pretty boring since our parents left. With the exception of my new nephew born yesterday. He and his Momma are doing great. He is already showing signs of being Sarah's son...need I say more =)

So, i'm trying to figure out ways to work out that aren't boring since I don't have a gym membership right now. Possibly it will come in September when my work out partner April returns from her holiday at home. So i've taken it upon myself to start hiking in Uetliberg. It is what we call a very very steep hill. The swiss look upon it as a mere bump in the road. You can tell who is swiss and who isn't as you are walking up the hill. The swiss people are slow and steady and carrying on a conversation as if they are strolling through a level park. Everyone else like Adam and I are huffing and puffing our way up this gigantic mountain. So to condition myself i've started hiking up it a few days a week. I wouldn't blow this out of proportion since it just started this week =) I unfortunately always get to this one section of the trail and start remembering all of the CSI, Criminal Minds, and Law and Order type shows where the crazy person is hiding in the woods and jumps out and drags the girl into the woods. So i've started e-mailing Adam before I leave and as soon as I get home. I know that switzerland is one of the safest places in the world and I am not the only person running this trail. Lots of women are walking by themselves from my age all the way to around 70. And they are doing it faster than me as well!!

More new activities that we've taken up is swimming and barbecuing when we can. Adam had last saturday off so we got to run around and play all day. He got to see the inside of the grocery store again. Always a bad place for him to play alone without supervision by the way. Then we went to the lake and found a great place to swim. There weren't many people there, so we thought it would be awesome. We then realized why there weren't many people there. The entire bottom of that area is mud with a lot of long grass growing up. It felt disgusting on my feet. Adam would sink his feet in occasionally when he needed to stop for a minute. I would latch on to his shoulders and keep my feet up hahahahaha! After that we just laid around in the park relaxing in the sun. It was an awesome saturday afternoon.

Adam finally found a barbecue grill half off so we got one for grilling in the park. It will be great to take home as well. So far we've only cooked some brats on it in our back yard, but now it is well seasoned for the park. That's pretty much what everyone in town does here on saturday and sundays. They go to the park and take up some territory. Then they break out their picnic lunch or grill to make lunch and just hangout all day with friends and family. It's amazing to see all the people crammed in and enjoying themselves. They truly know how to treat a weekend.

Other than those riveting highlights not much else has happened in Switzerland in the last week. We are adapting better to our environment you could say which is great. More will come i'm sure after our next guests arrive. We can't wait for Scott and Amanda to get here on Sunday!!

Our parents are here!!!

Sorry for the delay in posts but Adam's parents have been here since last tuesday. We have had so much fun taking them around and traveling to new places ourselves. His parents were dead tired they day they arrived...much like we were. Sleep deprivation for 30 hrs will do that to you. I did my best to keep them awake while adam went to work. I took them through Old Town Niederdorf to look at the buildings, down to the lake to walk around and see the Alps, and to the Viadukt to the food market. We finally came home and I let them take naps while I tried to figure out our travel plans the rest of the trip. Wednesday I took them to the main train station to the market for lunch and to get some cheese. There is a british cheese shop that has cheddar!!! Other than that it's all stinky swiss cheese. Adam met up with us later to run around and show them the city.

Thursday was our first day trip. We took off for Schaffhausen to see the Rhine Falls. It was a very long day but the falls are amazing. They are not has tall as Niagara Falls but they are bigger in the volume of water going over them. We had the best weather which we were afraid it would rain on us since it's been raining the last month here. But it didn't start until we were leaving.

The Rhine Falls

All of us on the rock in the Center of the falls

Here is a video of the Falls

Friday, it was raining everywhere so we decided to head down to Milan for the day. It's about a 4 hr train ride one way but worth it when you walk up to the Duomo. We ended up just walking everywhere and finally found the famous Galleria, the outdoor mall, which houses some big names like Louis Vuitton, Prada, and McDonalds. Dave has listed it as the fanciest McDonalds he has ever seen and I have to agree. We had lunch in the Galleria and then we went outside to the Duomo to take pictures. It was beautiful. Probably the prettiest church I've seen so far over here in Europe. By far the most ornate. After we strolled around and found a castle to go through before heading back to the train station. We also got Gelato...twice there hahahaha!

Saturday and Sunday were catch up days for us. Dave and Debbie still needed some sleep after walking around the 2 days before, as did we.  It was also raining off and on the whole weekend so we took the opportunity to show them around Zurich and eat some traditional cuisine. Lets just say Fondue is not our thing anymore and we won't be going back. Sunday we took them to our church so they could see it.  We had an amazing pastor from the ICF Munich church speaking and also they played 4 songs that we've sung at Metro so we were right at home. As we left the torrential rain started, so by the time we made it back to our place we were soaked. We got all the travel plans finalized for the next week.

Mom and Dad trying out our awesome paddle boats!

Tuesday they took off on their own to Fribourg and Gruyere. We equipped them with a phone just in case but they did such a great job going around on their own. Adam and I had tickets for the outdoor movie theater that night so we didn't see them till the following evening. Wednesday they went to Luzern to Mt. Pilatus and again got around great!

Thursday was their last day here and it was supposed to be the nicest so we took the train to Interlaken and hiked around. It was Beautiful! Lots of snow capped mountains and on the other side teal blue lakes and rivers, the epitome of Switzerland and a great end to their trip.

We just dropped them off and are sad to see such familiar faces leave but we will see them again in december. Thank you Mom and Dad for such a great trip...and for the Peter Pan Peanut Butter =) We Love you!

Adam & Abby