Switzerland - Hillyard Reunion '08

We were so happy and lucky (happy-go-lucky) to have Kevin's parents come visit us last week! It was amazing how wonderful it was to see family! We had the best time with them and were able to sneak away for a few days down to Switzerland to fulfill Lynda's dream of singing in the Alps - "The Hills are Alive!!" We got to see some amazing mountains, waterfalls, lakes - ahh, just the beautiful scenery. Not to mention the chocolate and cheese! Lynda and I have decided that it will be the first of many Hillyard trips to Switzerland and that we are going to have a big family reunion there when all of the grandkids are old enough - so in like 20 years? Just kidding!

We stayed in 2 places while we were there; the first was right on the French/Swiss border in a tiny town in the middle of the famous Mont Blanc mountains (the cool pen my boss used is names after them as a result of their constant "white top") called Charmonix. It was the cutest little town and you could actually see the huge glacier sitting right on the mountain. The second place was by the tallest Alp in Europe - the Jungfrau. We stayed in the little town of Lauterbrunnen right across from a giant cascading waterfall! It was magical! 

As wonderful as it was, we didn't get the best weather. It was quite rainy and cold, but that made for some whole new adventures! We decided to take a hike to go see all the new waterfalls the rain was making in the valley and went to the "Waterfall in the Cave." There was this huge waterfall that travels almost the whole way down the mountain in a cave! It was amazing, but we got completely soaked (even more soaked than we were from the rain)! While this picture does not demonstrate the waterfall to the best degree (see our Picasa album for better ones), it does begin to demonstrate how wet we were! Kevin's dad said it looked like I peed my pants backwards!

While the fog made skiing or even taking the train to the top of Jungfrau kind of a waste, we still decided to take the train up a little bit of the way. Kevin was so excited to see snow, I don't think I'm going to be able to get him off the mountain this season. Since it was still so cold up there and not much to see because of the fog, we spent a lot of time in the little shops at the train stop. This is Kevin and I getting in trouble because we were about to take a picture in these hats...we are both about to say "Oh sorry..."

Thanks for a great trip Hillyards!!