Nighttime in Scotland

Recently, I spent 2 weeks in Scotland for work. Johnson & Johnson has a manufacturing facility in the town of Inverness, close to Lochness. We worked long hours so we usually wouldn't be out of the office before the sun went down. Here are just a few photos I thought were kind of cool of the Inverness downtown area at night. It's a beautiful little town with a rich history.

The River Ness at night. It's almost as black during the day as it is at night. It's deep and dark and flows right from Lochness.

An almost-full moon peeking through the clouds next to one of the cathedral towers in town.

My Not-So-Full-Time Mission

I bet you didn't know that I served a mission! That's why I'm doing the MTC mission pose! Where did I serve you might ask? Luzern, Switzerland. For how long you say? 8 days! And why you wonder? Well, one of the sister missionaries in our area got sick and needed to return home. The Mission President needed someone to fill in for a little bit until he figured out what he was going to do with the extra sister. If she left the area, all the lessons the sisters were teaching would have to stop. We couldn't let that happen. The work must go on, right! Luckily, Bryan was out of town for work, so the fact that I had to sleep, eat and spend all my time in Luzern with my "companion", Sister Robinson, didn't cause too much trouble. I was able to do all the things the missionaries do, including waking up at 6:30 AM. (That was not my favorite part.) I even attended a tri-zone conference in Zurich and balled my eyes out when the conducting general authority asked me to bear my testimony to all the missionaries in attendance. Of course that would happen! We taught discussions to investigators, knocked doors, taught English lessons and ate at members' homes. We learned about halfway through the week that married members are not allowed to be mini-missionaries. Oops! It was a really good experience nevertheless, but boy oh boy was I glad to get back to my husband.

Me and Sister Robinson

Wonderful view from a member's home. Love those eating appointments! (P.S. Feed the missionaries!)

Tri-Zone Conference in Zurich.

A friendly cow along the way. Gotta love Switzerland.

Babysitting... kind of.

A few weeks ago, Bryan and I did some "babysitting" for a friend of mine while she and her husband went out of town. Instead of playing the strict babysitter role, we felt more like the crazy Aunt and Uncle who like to spoil their nieces and nephew when the parents aren't looking! Let's just say that movies, fresh baked chocolate chip cookies and skipped bedtimes became the norm. We had a really good time with them. What great kids!

Making our own pizza dough for dinner.

A trip to feed the birds. This swan was not afraid of anything!

Siblings getting along......Priceless!

Fall Favorites

With Fall comes many of my favorite things. Apples, pumpkins and lots of yummy treats, to name a few. Bryan is in Scotland for a week and a half for work, so, as the saying goes, "When the boys are away, the girls play", right! I had my two gal pals over to make some caramel apples and some pumpkin pie squares. They turned out delicious and we decided to make it a tradition.

Mary and Stacie. I love these girls!

Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory....Eat your heart out!

My latest attempt at sourdough bread. It tastes good but it ain't no SF sourdough. I sure miss that stuff.

Butternut squash soup. I was pretending to be on a food photo shoot. :)

Since I pretty much neglect household duties when I'm the only one home, (yes Bryan, I know it's hard to believe, but I leave my clothes all over the floor) I decided to take an afternoon walk to capture some of the colorful fall leaves. It was gorgeous! Every year I am still amazed that the leaves change from green to vibrant shades of yellow, red and orange.

Sunflowers for sale in October! Can you believe it?

The local farms sell apples, fresh apple juice, all sorts of squash, fresh bread and eggs. The juice is my favorite. They also sell flowers that you can cut yourself. Payment is done on your honor. There is a box and you deposit your money through a little slot. So logical!

A large Cathedral in Zug.

I can't believe the color of these leaves!

Not exactly a leaf, but what a cool scooter!

I was walking by the lake right as the sun was setting. A perfect way to end my day.

A quick self portrait.

And finally a shot of our wonderful town of Zug while I waited at the bus stop. This fall has definitely been one of my favorites. I can't wait till next year when I can do it all over again.

Gotthard Hike

A couple weeks ago Taylor and I went for a hike in the Gotthard region of the Swiss Alps. It hadn't yet snowed in the high mountains but it was still chilly in the morning. There was frost in the morning and it took a little while for the sun to peek over the tall mountains. In this picture you can see the spine of the mountains we hiked over.

The fall colors were out in full abundance. Fall in Switzerland isn't as fantastic as it is in New England but it's still very nice.

More fall colors.

Taking a short break before we hike over the pass. From this spot we could gaze across the valley to the East and look at several massive glaciers.

Taylor leading the way. The trail was mostly deserted. We didn't see many people. There are more touristy trails on the other side of the valley but we wanted the mountains to ourselves.

Leg 1 of the hike completed. We stopped here for lunch and then continued along the other side of the mountain chain.

Alpine lake.

This is the final stretch of our journey. The sign said we could make it down in 4 hours. We needed to do it in 2 in order to catch our bus. We started hiking early but daylight was running out fast due to the lateness of the season.

The first mile or so of descent into the valley was all boulder hopping. It was fun but a little exhausting after a while. The valley was absolutely beautiful.

Mountain reflections in the stream.

More reflections in the water.

We trucked it down from the pass as fast as we could but we weren't making the time we thought we'd need. We came across a mountain hut and almost decided to spend the night. However, the friendly Swiss man in the hut told us the buses leave every hour until late into the night. We decided to keep hiking and that we'd come back someday to the hut and spend the night. It was in a fabulous place.

Short break.

At this point we had been hiking almost 2 hours since the high pass. We were still quite a ways from the valley floor and the bus stop. It didn't help also that around every corner was an amazing view that we felt we couldn't pass without a photo or two.

We finally made it! Taylor is excited because a friendly Swiss couple picked us up at the farm and drove us the last couple miles down the dirt track road. We didn't miss much in the way of scenery since it was just an old road and the trail had finished a while back. We arrived at the bus stop 5 minutes before the bus came. All in all, it was a great day and we had so much fun.