Sunday, November 29, 2009

The Best Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year, we did the funnest thing ever. We went to the Bern Switzerland temple! A short 8 hour drive, makes it a good trip for a long weekend like Thanksgiving. And since it was a planned ward temple trip, there were many people to trade babysitting (I think this was the first time in years D. and I got to go together), and many of our best friends were there to share some fun time together. We were able to stay at the hostel there at the temple and had the funny coincidence of running into the Harris' from Loveland who are serving a mission in southern Italy!

This is a quick picture we took from the road on our way there. Switzerland is such a pretty country, we could have filmed the whole drive nearly. It doesn't represent any of their tall mountains, but some of the beauty of that country.

The temple is so beautiful, don't you think!?

Here is a quick family photo of us outside the temple. We took the children on a night walk around the grounds so we could admire it at night and have a good talk. In the morning of one of the days, all the Primary kids there got to meet with the temple president and talk with him. It was a very neat experience.

The boys were fascinated by this simple Christmas tree on the temple grounds.

Before heading back, we spent half a day in Bern touring the city and checking out their Christmas market. This was a candy store our friends showed us that has a slide into their below street level store. Here I. takes his turn.

And now A!

K. says, "I want to eat it all up! Candy, candy, more candy!"

Our friends next showed us a store with an open elevator that you jump on when it's level with the floor your on and that you can ride full circle (up one side and then down the other) without getting off, so you see all the mechanisms. Neat and creepy at the same time.

We also visited a church known for having an amazing 360 view of the Alps and all the surrounds. D., K., and I didn't go up top, but I. and A. went to the top with our friends and took some photos for me. I thought this was a pretty good representation of the view.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

We had this amazing derby race come right through our neighborhood! We knew it came through, but we've never known when. This year, we happened to be outside and saw the signs up and walked literally a little down the street to watch. We happened to be right at one of the sharpest curves, and I kept thinking they would slide into this huge concrete block just on the other side of the curve, but no one did. So much fun! Here is a little video so you can have a taste of it too!