Pros and Cons of today

Here are the Pros and Cons of June 30th.

PROS:

-The Euro '08 which was hosted by Switzerland and Austria is over...so that means hopefully all of those millions of fans will go home and leave Zürich in peace, plus we won't hear honking ALL NIGHT LONG from whoever won each night...Spain won the finals last night and oh we all got to hear about it. Way until the wee hours of the morning.



-It's nice and hot so when I bake bread it will rise nicely.


CONS:

-Construction has commenced again and our tram stop has been discontinued. ARGH! They are going all night and next weekend will be a total disaster.

-It's soooo hot here without AC, on the 6th floor and roof windows...which means that we are like a greenhouse, I have no energy to do anything let alone make it down the 6 flights of stairs because we're out of apples and tomatoes.

Playing around with shutter speed and f-stop

I can't wait until I'm reunited with my tripod in the U.S.

June 23rd

Today my Dad would have been 58. He was funny. (Check out our vintage kitchen before it was remodeled. )

We celebrated by making his favorite Jello salad which my mom used to make for him every year. Good thing Jared likes it because I'm going to make it every year.

Here he is with my nephews in May of 2006...well trying to get Johnny to sit for a photo was next to impossible. Hudson seems to be enjoying himself.

Christmas 2005.

In Utah in May 2005 just a month before he passed.

A Spectacular Weekend in Zermatt

Ever since I can remember there has been a photo of the Matterhorn up in my Dad's library at home. He always had a dream of visiting the Matterhorn in Zermatt, Switzerland but never made it before her died. Most people know the Matterhorn as a ride at Disneyland, and come to think of it, that just might be another reason why my Dad liked D-land so much. This weekend my mother, Jared and I took a beautiful train ride to Zermatt in honor of my father because this is his birthday weekend and favorite time of year because it's also the longest day of the year. After months of rain we were fortunate to have the most amazing weather.

We stayed in the cutest hotel. Le Petit Hotel. We didn't even have to fork over 5,000 CHF for a view of the Matterhorn outside our window.

(For your information, in these photos the sky was really that blue.)

We took the Gornergratbahn up to Gornergrat for spectacular views of the Matterhorn and surrounding beautiness.

SO CUTE! SO BIG!

My beautiful mother.

Glacier water. Oh and the water in Zermatt was sooo good and ice cold straight from the tap.

I really love my husband.

In the little church we lit a candle for my Dad...

...apart from the crowd because that's what he liked...to be left in peace.

Clearly something was put on that post so the mountain goat would come lick it for the tourist. I've hike with real mountain goats in Washington and they've got better things to do.

Some other mountains...whatever.

Jared has a bum knee right now so he iced it in the snow.

Beautiful alpine blue flowers.

OK, so this bird is currently eating a crepe that is my Mom's. She didn't get to finish it because it swooped down from the sky and took it out of her hand as she was about to take a bite. I didn't see it because I was taking a photo but I did hear the fluttering wings by my ear. A squirrel did that to me once when I was hiking Half Dome. Except it was a sandwich sitting on my knee. I was annoyed.

Later in the afternoon we took a funicular up another mountain to get an alternate view of it. So, most of the weekend was spent staring at the Matterhorn.

We couldn't hike up the mountain because of Jared's knee, but if we did I bet we'd get a thumbs up to climb the Matterhorn.

I think they meant "Goggles" not "Googles".

A shot before dinner...

...and after...

...and in the morning from our rooftop.

Some facts about the Matterhorn:
-14 691.601 feet
- On average 3 people die a year climbing it and someone has died each year since 1961.
-Woman used to climb it in their skirts
-There was a Swiss guide who had climbed it over 370 times, his last time being at the age of 95...he died in 2004...not while climbing the mountain.


More Amazing photos...I took a lot.