Joyeux Fetes, Bon Noel!

Since it is now Mid-December and we just got our first decent snow storm (approx 8") I found myself bored since Ashleigh has already left town. I drove around witht he dogs running through snow drifts witht he mighty subaru for a while but then they plowed and salted the roads. 

Next option was to build a snow man on the corner to distract to passer bys on what Ash likes to call "the corner of death!" Anyway this here is to say Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Bon Noel, Joyeux Fetes!

Kelly's Visit

Scott and I were very sad to see Kelly (his sister) leave this morning after being able to spend two fun weeks with her here in Switzerland. Her boyfriend, Eric, joined us for the first week of her trip and then my parents arrived for the second week. We started the fun with a picnic on the shores of Lake Geneva. It was a gorgeous day and we enjoyed a great time with friends in the sun. Scott was even daring enough to jump in the lake. NOT me! Good thing we took advantage of the nice weather because we haven't had much since.

Here are a couple pictures of some of the highlights of our past 2 weeks together. I didn't include any of us at work during the week but I can confirm that we did quite a bit of that as well.

 Annecy, France

Chateau de Gruyere

Montreux, Switzerland

Chateau de Chillon

Interlaken (okay, we really have so many amazing photos from Interlaken that these do not do justice but at least I'll give you a flavor)

Our House and Hood

All in all, it was a fantastic two weeks with Kelly and Eric (and my parents).  We kept busy touring and exploring and also spent time relaxing. We had been looking forward to their trip for so long and enjoyed every minute as much as we expected. We still have three weeks with my parents and many more items on the schedule.

For tonight, we wish you sweet dreams.

Ashleigh

Bring on the Summer

It is May 21st and we are just gearing up for the next couple months of visitors. We absolutely cannot wait! We have Scott's sister, Kelly and her boyfriend, Eric coming next weekend. My parents come the following weekend followed by Anna and "Little" Erica.  I have been working on the agendas and they are just about ready.  In the mean time, Scott and I went preparation shopping today at Aligo, the sister to Costco in Switzerland.   We think we are pretty much set based on the trunk of goodies we have. Hum, on second thought, we might need a couple other things than beer, wine, chicken, pretzel rolls, and toilet paper. Ok, at least we have this week to work on it.

We have really been enjoying the Swiss life over the past few weeks.  We had a fantastic time in beautiful Strasbourg and then visiting Nick and Jessica in Luxembourg. The weather was beautiful and we had the best hosts ever.   We are now looking forward to a tubing trip down the river with them  in Bern later this summer.

When we were in Luxembourg, Jessica asked if I had ever noticed that the eggs in Europe sometimes come complete with their own feathers on the shells. I laughed and thought she was being funny. Well, it was only the next week that I opened a pack of eggs to see several eggs with feathers. I guess eggs here really are fresh. That is why they are not kept in the fridge.  PS If you haven't read Jessica's blog, you definitely should. She is great:  http://luxemblog.blogspot.com/

Scott and I celebrated our birthdays on the 10th (mine) and 11th (Scott's) and feel lucky to be ringing in another year. We celebrated with dinner on Lake Geneva for mine and burgers and beer with our friends Sean and Karen for Scott's Birthday.

That weekend, we had our friend Stacy here for a visit. The weather was not so great but we enjoyed ourselves anyway. We drove up to the mountains to see the view, ate some fondue and spent a day at the thermal baths.

Other than that, we have continued to explore our area and are finding new things every day. Here are a couple of highlights below.

Coming soon, Scott will be posting a blog about his new motorcycle :) We will also give a full update about the highlights of our upcoming visitors.

Have a great week everyone!

Spring has Sprung

Wow how the time has flown by.  It has been two months since our last post and going on 7 months since we relocated to beautiful Switzerland and it certainly is beautiful this time of year.  A lot has gone on since our previous post and I figured it was time for a quick update before this nice long Easter weekend.

Over the past couple of months Scott and I have both been crazy busy at work but there has been a lot of play along with our work.  I have traveled to South Africa, Romania, Dubai and Poland and although Scott has not traveled quite as much, he has taken several trips as well.  The highlight of my trips was a safari through the sand dunes in Dubai. It was great fun and ended at a camp where we could try snowboarding on the sand, riding camels and all types of other fun. I will not give you all the pleasure of seeing my big wipe out on the sand as I tried to "sand board". It is the perfect reason I prefer to stick to the lodge with a hot tottie and let Scott enjoy the snow on the slopes.

The other exciting part of my last couple of months is that I finally have a full team at work! I have 3 new people who have started on my team and so far they are all fantastic. I am thrilled to have them and they are getting along brilliantly. Hopefully the crazy hours at work are starting to die down just in time for our visitors to start coming this summer.

In addition to traveling for work, we have been able to enjoy a few local treats as well. We went to a near by Carnival celebration/parade and saw some really interested costumes. Several of them were R rated so here's a tame one of a band. We also enjoyed the Cully Jazz Festival which was in underground wine cellars. Very cool.

Other than these, we have been spending lots of time enjoying the beautiful weather and our home. My tulips are just blooming this week (those that weren't trampled by the horse size dog that lives here) and we've been taking many walks in the country. The scenery is just too nice not to post so here are a few pictures.

Well, we are off to Strasbourg on Friday and then to Luxembourg to spend Easter with Nick and Jessica Saturday through Tuesday. We will post more pictures and tales of our trip when we return. In the mean time, I'll leave you with a picture of the pups and a wish to you all for a very Happy Easter.

Love, Scott and Ashleigh

Snow? Not in Switzerland.

While our friends across the US have been dealing with snow and ice, we've been waking up each morning and saying, "didn't we move to Switzerland to enjoy the snow, what's with the 56° weather"?  I'm not sure what is with the weather but I have been very pleased with our clear days recently and I'm sending warm weather thoughts to my friends in the states.

We've gotten a bit behind on the blog because we have been busy busy.  A couple of weeks ago, we took the dogs on a short road trip to Aosta, Italy.  It is just about a 1 1/2 hour drive over the border. Aosta is a quiet little city in the Italian Alps and used to be a Roman military colony. We stayed the night there and enjoyed seeing the Roman structures and eating delicious Italian food.

Later in January, I went to Kuala Lumpur for our sales meeting. What an interesting place! We had training sessions and awards banquets for part of the trip but were lucky enough to have some time to explore as well. We did an activity that was a competition between teams and structured as a scavenger hunt through the city. 

 At the end of the hunt, we had a race to see which team could build a bike the fastest. Our team was the fastest (of course) out of 57 teams. I even helped by pumping up the tires. The best part, though, was once the bikes were built, they were given to children of a local orphanage. It was fantastic to see all of the faces of the children as they received their new bikes.

 The final day, we also had a bit of time to walk around.  We went to the Batu Cave and Temple and also to the largest bird park in the world.  The Batu Cave was very interesting and amazing to see the temple built into the cave which was also filled with monkeys.

Later in February, Scott held down the fort again while I traveled to South Africa. It was a busy trip with mostly work but I had some great hosts who showed me around. I couldn't help but laugh because while I was there I received an email from my HOA distribution in Texas. People were concerned because there were foot marks in the snow in the alley. They were gettin the police to patrol because it must be high crime. It turned out it was just the meter reader who had been by. While I was in South Africa, though, I was repeadely reminded to put my purse on the floor while in the car because someone would break my window and take it off my lap. Every house we drove by had electic fences about 20 feet in the air or razor wire. There are several people in our office there who have even been shot. I feel very lucky that my TX neighbors look for for each other so well but the degree of danger is just a bit different.

Our last trip so far this year was just this past weekend to Bern.  It was a fantastic little road trip just about an hour up the road. It is a beautifulcity with so much do see but in a very compact area. We were a little confused by the pink rabbits who were chasing one another with chainsaws and also ice skating but besides that, it was a great trip.

This weekend starts Scott's turn to travel. I'm not sure what I'll find to do for the next couple of weekends but I'll keep you all posted.

We hope you all had a great Valentine's Day and are ready for Spring to arrive.