selfies, jumping, a grumpy tourist, and a launch right into Switzerland

But for now, let’s launch into Europe.

Selfies:

 Other times just a few of us:

Often-times only the very tops of Lucy’s glasses made it:

And sometimes he added a whole slew of extras:

I had to crack up how everyone clamored over to his phone every time he exclaimed, “selfie!”

Those pics he took are so precious to us (and I’m sure mean a whole lot more to us than to anyone else).

A small note must be said about packing too because see those three small rolling bags up there those guys are rolling?  Well, those three along with another tiny bag half that size were our luggage.

We allotted ourselves each one half of a small carry-on rolling bag which was not easy (especially considering we needed pretty warm clothes), necessitated finding airbnb hotels with washing machines, and made us want to burn those few items of clothing we wore and wore and wore again when we got home, but I have to say, it was so freeing to have so little to lug around!

Lucy needed a little cheering up.

After exploring Zurich a little, and having a little panic when we thought I broke our car navigation system, we realized it was ok and headed to our bed and breakfast/airbnb.

**Side note: airbnbs are the BEST.  What a genius idea to rent someone’s home right where you want to go…cheaper than a hotel and with the added bonus of a kitchen so we could have our own breakfast and snacks where we stayed each night.  If you don’t know about airbnb and you have travel in your future you should definitely check it out HERE.

En route to the place we were staying we stopped at the TEMPLE in Bern.

This was built in 1953 and was the first to be built in Europe.

We met the sweetest couple there who had traveled on a bus with a bunch of other people from Italy to visit the temple:

Not sure how I happened to capture them with both their eyes closed, but I have to include it anyway since I think it was the sweetest part of our temple visit.

Then we drove on through the most picturesque, beautiful towns you can imagine towards INTERLAKEN.

Honestly, Switzerland is so amazingly gorgeous there’s not really a way to describe it.

Yes, I have been there before (back HERE with my mom and sisters), and I thought maybe I saw the most gorgeous spots back then.  But I’m here to say I don’t think you could fine a “non-knock-dead-gorgeous” place if you tried.

I mean, what other place do street signs have little boxes of flowers to make them look beautiful?

…and flowers spilling out of the windows everywhere you go?

We arrived at our bed and breakfast just in time to check out the cows (it was on a little farm):

…and to watch the spectacular swiss sky transform into this:

…and tuck the girls into little beds that looked exactly like what you’d imagine in the house of Snow White’s seven dwarfs.

The next day we woke up to a delicious Swiss breakfast our host whipped up for us.

(this place was more a B&B than airbnb)

Visited the cows and chickens again…

See that darling little boy up there between the cows?  He knew exactly how to run that place with his mother.  It was pretty darling I have to say.

I tried to get last-minute advice from the cute farmer’s wife as we packed up the car.

Then we headed in to the LAUTERBRUNNEN VALLEY.

The plan was to take a gondola up to Murren and Wegnen or Grindelwald depending on our timing, and hike and glory in the granite faces of the Alps surrounding us.

But the clouds were heavy above, gosh dang it!  There was a video camera that showed the view from the top and you couldn’t see anything but fog.

So we opted to hike/walk along the valley which was breathtaking itself.

Which everyone felt pretty good about.

We walked up flower-lined streets…

 …out to the path that took us to this waterfall:

We stopped for a late lunch here:

Where Dave and Elle promptly fell sound asleep (jet lag was catching up by now).  I love this picture:

…and when they woke up…oblivious to that unreal background behind them.  Ha!

We bought a few postcards for Max.

…and probably my favorite part of the day (which I know is weird) was watching this that they got going while I was in the post office:

I don’t even know for sure what they were trying to do, but somehow it just made my heart so warm and happy.  Oh man I love these people.

Even Swiss money is beautiful.

On the way back we stopped to watch a whole slew of paragliders drop down into a huge park area.

…and I taught the girls to make leaf skeletons.

(something I did all the time as a kid when we lived in England)

We passed by LAKE THUN which took our breath away so much that we had to stop to take it all in.

Not sure what Dave was doing up there…

That pose is even better 🙂

We skipped rocks and picked some out for our “travel box” collection at home (HERE).

Did our little jump…

…and headed back to have our own little picnic dinner at our B&B…

(We started playing this game every night on our last trip and played it pretty much every night on this trip too…it’s called “scum” and we love it.  Lu is particularly good at it which makes her pretty proud.)

As the sun was sinking Claire and I did a little yoga to bid farewell to that good day.

To be continued…

You are a gem if you made it through that whole thing!