Schnee, Schnee and more Schnee!

I'm not gonna lie, I totally dig the snow.  Annnd it's really pretty on the fall trees!

A few "before" photos taken on Sat morning and a few "after" photos taken on Sunday:

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

 Sophie likes the snow!

checking out the view

dodging the snowball Andre threw at her

 And a few pretty shots of our neighborhood walk this afternoon:

Today we went on our train ride.  We had a nice English breakfast while riding around the country in an old train that's been refurbished.  We brought the average age of the attendees on the train down by at least 20 years.  :)  The train is called the "Churchhill".  It was built in 1939 and was used to transport Mr. Winston Churchhill himself around Switzerland.  It was a nice ride and we sat next to a Swiss couple who we enjoyed talking to and getting good insider information about the Christmas markets!  A few shots from the train ride:

the "Churchhill" - photo borrowed from the sbb website

I'm ready!

and so is Andre!

they let us come up front and hang out with the conductor!

uhhhh - shouldn't his hands be on the wheel?

That's it from Switzerland.  Unfortunately for us, even with the snow, we'll still be going to work tomorrow.  Dang.

so much for the Swiss fall.....

Swiss Fall!

Given that on Monday, the high temperature was 46F, we thought that we should take full advantage of the gorgeous weather this weekend.  Who knows when winter will hit permanently around here??

We walked ("hiked") from Uetilberg over to Felsenberg on a trail called the Panorama Trail.  It was beautiful.  A few shots:

So glad the leaves change colors here!

one minute, you are in the woods . . .

and the next, you are walking by some cows.

Sophie doing her best interpretation of a cow

A Swiss farm on top of the mountain

Old graveyard & wild looking tree

Yay for fall!

Sophie & Andre

Next week, we are going on a breakfast train ride for our anniversary!

United States, Spiders and Guests, Oh My!

United States

It's been a week since we returned from our trip home and I think we have, maybe, just maybe recovered!  Our trip home was great.  We didn't get to see everybody but we did get to see lots of people which we enjoyed!

To summarize:

Things we missed about the US
1.  Family and Friends (awwwww - aren't we sweet)
2.  FOOD!  Mexican food, home cooked food, gluten free pizza, etc
3.  Cheap stuff

Things we did not miss about the US
1.  People who touch our dog.  She bites, people, she bites.
2.  The Humidity - ew, ew and ew
3.  Stores being open on Sunday - It took us a while to adjust to the stores being closed on Sunday here but now we love it!  Sunday = Funday in Switzerland!

Spiders

In other news, here is a recreation of a conversation between us today:

Andre:  Hey, by the way, there was a HUGE HUGE spider in the guest room this morning.
Melanie:  Ew.  Did you kill it?
Andre:  No.
Melanie: What?!?!  Why not!??!!
Andre:  It was so big it could have carried Sophie away.
Melanie:  So I have a giant spider just walking around my apartment right now.
Andre:  Yup.
Melanie:  Sigh.

On the bright side, Andre got industrious this evening and vacuumed the sucker up!  Apparently, our friend crawled up the wall during the day and was at eye level and bigger (riiight) when Andre got home.  My first question was:  What if he crawls out?!  Andre's response:  Go look at the vacuum.

Works for me!

Guests

We have guests coming in January!  Hooray!  Who else is coming to visit!?