Our final day in Switzerland was spent driving back to Zurich where Elisa showed us a great time walking around the gorgeous city. I have a vivid picture in my mind of the vantage point above the Limmat River as well as tasting macaroons for the first time but unfortunately my iPhone’s battery was dead [...]
For our last full day in Grindelwald, we decide to take a page from the hang-gliders constantly passing through our view of the Eiger and be adventurous. We walked through town to find the gondola which would take us up the mountain to an alpine playground we had read about in the tourist brochures. This [...]
Since I have already spent two entire blog posts telling you how we drove to Munich and the Black Forest, I will spare you the details of the commute to the Swiss Alps. I will just tell you that we knew we were getting near when we started seeing views like this: This: And this: [...]
I was going to try and do all of the Black Forest in one post but it would have been way too long so it is now three. After the post-wedding breakfast, Claudia told us that we must visit the town of Freiburg on our way to the Swiss Alps. I had had her say how cute it was a c0uple of times so I convinced Andy to make the stop. We were really glad we did.
Keeping our promise to Anna probably had a few people suspicious of us crazy Americans. We didn’t have them take Anna’s place setting away (even though she wasn’t there) and so they continued to serve the phantom guest food. Each time a course was served, Andy and I took turns slinking out of the room with the plate and walking it back to the top floor of the farmhouse for Anna to consume. We would then bring back the dirty dish from the previous course. Luckily the wait staff was varied so I don’t know that they caught on. For some reason the exercise conjured up images of taking food to someone in a dungeon. Anna was happy though and we were very grateful to have her there to watch the girls.
The road to the Black Forest was long especially because the notoriously fast autobahn was riddled with construction. Between detours to quaint little German towns, stopping for meals, stopping to breastfeed and pit-stops in response to “Mommy, I need to go potty” at which time I almost wished Belén was not yet potty-trained,we eventually found ourselves driving in the dark in a foreign land with still more than an hour projected for our commute. We made one final stop at a gas station on the edge of the Black Forest where Andy took Belén to the bathroom and came back to the van with a crying child and puzzled look on his face. He then proceeded to ask Anna and I about the female anatomy and what would cause pee to not go straight down into the toilet but instead squirt up a bit getting an emotional toddler’s tights wet.
Twenty eleven has been full of adventures. From weekend excursions to McCall and Sun Valley to Belén’s second birthday, the birth of Eloise Mae, camping, Europe and all of the day-to-day moments in between, it has been an amazing year. Here is a look back through some of our favorite photos from the year.
