Vacation #2: Washington

For my family vacation we headed up to the lake house in Washington. On our way we briefly stopped by Leavenworth to show Fernando the German town.  And of course ate a Bratwurst.

Leavenworth, WA

A typical store in Leavenworth, with hundreds of nutcrackers

After passing through Leavenworth we made it to beautiful Lake Chelan!

It was super hot, but a relief compared to Houston

Here’s how we spent our time…

floating

Boating. With lots of kids on the bow

and on the back

roasting mallows

wakeboarding

eating pizza in the park

posing: all the grandkids

making rockets

posing with our rockets

blasting off the rockets

posing for the photographer

eating

cliff jumping

couples wakeskating

old skool kneeboarding

digging for gold

drinking guava

crashing really hard

soaking in the hot tub

eating the twins birthday goodness

laying out

playing in the water

playing in the sand

punishing each other

monitoring inappropriate swimsuits

did I  mention eating?

After Chelan, we headed back to Seattle…

Ballard locks

the needle

Alaska Wrap-Up

Just one more post on Alaska.:-D Diane already thinks that there are too many.

Chocolate fountain

Stone Man

Ghost Forest

This bear needed to get a better view of its surroundings

Not a truly wild bear, but the closest I got to seeing one in the *wild*

Bison

Baby booties in the Conservation Center gift shop

View from the Crow’s Nest

(Alaska’s only 4-star restaurant)

Delicious avocado salad

Iditarod Monument (starts in Anchorage on 4th Ave and D Street, I believe)

Anchorage is really far away from the rest of the world

Glacier Cruise

OK, so let’s all flash back to June when I was in Alaska. Here are some pics from the Glacier Cruise and other fun things I was able to do…

The journey begins…

Grass runway behind people’s homes

The train hugged the coastline

View across the inlet

One of many glacier sightings

Floating chunk of ice

Wildlife was minimal on this cruise, but I knew that going into it

Another tour group checking out Prince William Sound

Love how glaciers have a bluish hue to them

As you approach glaciers, you’d see lots of small chunks of ice due to ‘calving’

Glacial calving begins…

Starting to fall…

It’s pretty cool when you see it in person

Small calving…but large calving has created waves up to 20′ high in recent years

Over w/in a matter of seconds

Glacial ice

One cookie to fatten me up

Local joint in the small village of Whittier (pop. 182)

On the way home

Post-Christmas Fun

After Christmas, we call got attacked with the flu. Nobody was spared. It was a rough couple of days, but we still managed to have fun.

RSM Lake

Diane happy by the lake

Sunset after one lap (i.e., mile) around lake

Pink’s Hot Dogs in Hollywood

Sadly, one of the worst hot dogs I’ve ever eaten

Diane’s coleslaw dog was better

When I’m home, I love taking walks around the lake. Boy, do I sound like an old person nowadays. Oh yeah, we also went to Pink’s Hot Dog stand in Hollywood. We waited at least 45 minutes in line and the food was NO GOOD! Seriously, I will never go back. The Food Network recommendation was a total let down for me. Diane enjoyed her dog, but I sure didn’t.

Moi

UCLA

My lover and me

Santa Monica Pier

Our poor tree!

Yes, can you believe it? We came home from LA and this is what the living looked like. Our poor tree lay prostrate on the ground. Fortunately, few ornaments were lost and the piano wasn’t hit. Anyway, that’s our vacation in a nutshell!

Christmas Recap

OK, so we’ve been terrible about blogging for the past two months. Things got busy and we’ve been spending a lot of time house hunting. Anyway, here’s a 30-second recap of our Christmas vacation in SoCal.

Wahoo’s Fish Tacos with the Sumans (Eric/Laura and Mark, Sara, and Makenna) and the Hopes (Jason/Elise)

Christmas Eve Dinner

Diane opening some gifts

Christmas Day dinner before making its way to the dining room

Laguna Beach after Christmas

We had a great time celebrating Christmas and once the rainy weather left (Christmas Day), we hit the beaches: Laguna, Newport, and Santa Monica.

Part IV: Day Trips

After spending the first half of our trip traveling throughout Switzerland, we decided to slow things down and do day trips from Geneva. Wednesday was the most beautiful day. We had a terrific time visiting the International Olympic Museum and Chateau de Chillon.

Diane at the Olympic museum

Montreux

Chateau de Chillon

My lovely wife

Gotta have a pic in front of the Chateau

Thursday, we lingered around Geneva, played some checkers in the park and then hit up the European UN headquarters and International Red Cross Museum. I loved the UN and Diane preferred the museum. To top of the night, we made a Thanksgiving dinner at home: Geneva style! We ate ham, mashed potatoes, freshly cut tomatoes on fresh mozzarella; all with a little bubbly. Oh yeah, don’t forget the freshly baked bread!

Checkers in the Park

European UN Headquarters

Thanksgiving Dinner

Part III: The Good and The Bad

Monday wasn’t the best day on our trip…we spent 5 hours on the train and the towns we visited were…well, a little disappointing. Interlaken, a fabulous summer resort, was pretty dead. A few shops were open, but that’s about it. We then proceeded up the mountain to Murren, a little ski town–which unfortunately was even more dead than Interlaken.

Fortunately, we ended the night with a pleasant surprise: Luzern! After a day of seeing nobody, we were so thrilled to see lots of buildings, lights, and people! We spent the night at the Magic Hotel and got “upgraded” to an Egyptian resort.

On Tuesday, we created our own little walking tour where we visited the castle walls, saw the Glacier museum, and checked out the boutiques. We then headed over to Zurich and spent the afternoon checking out the high-end malls and shops–all out of our price range, of course.

Lastly, we thought it would be “fun” if we ran the last mile back to train station. OK, so it was totally not fun. We were hot, sweaty, and we totally missed the train by ONE MINUTE! Diane was quite upset at me (for good reason).

Hanging out at the train station

Lots of snow, but that’s about it…

Tram ride to Murren

Murren (Ski Town)

Luzern = Happiness!

Magic Hotel

Egyptian “upgrade”

Luzern by day

Lion statue at Glacier Museum

Part II: France

So, after a long night’s sleep, we finally woke up around 10:00am. Since France is literally a 10-minute drive away, we decided to visit some small towns. The first stop on our trip was Annecy: a small, cute French town with lots of little shops. That’s one of the things that is terrific about Switzerland–lots of small towns; a totally different lifestyle. Few shops were open because it was Sunday, but we still managed to peruse through a few stores selling artisan crafts and local farm goods. We then proceeded to another town (I’ll have to get back to you with the name) and ate lunch there.

The problem with not speaking French is that sometimes you don’t get what you order. I ordered a bruschette with tomatoes while Diane and Gloria both ordered a different kind of bruschette. We also ordered two hot chocolates with caramel and one regular hot chocolate. Guess what he brought?! One bruschette, two hamburgers and fries, one hot chocolate with caramel, one regular hot chocolate and a Coke. Are you kidding me?! How did bruschette turn into hamburger? And when did hot chocolate become Coke? Enjoy the pictures.

Part I: Au revoir les Etats-Unis

We left this past weekend and arrived midmorning on Saturday in Geneva. We flew on British Airways and it turned out to be just OK–nothing terribly noteworthy. For some stupid reason, I decided to book us a window and a middle seat rather than an aisle and a window seat. So there was this little college boy who ended up swiping the aisle seat that I should have had, but was too dumb to reserve. Another thing…the economy seats in BA are so small! I could barely fit in one and for the first time ever had my knees almost hit the seat in front of me. I was worried that I was going to have a miserable flight–fortunately, things did work out in the end. BA has a great in-flight entertainment system and I took a sleeping pill after dinner, which allowed me to sleep for about 6 hours straight. Before I knew it, we were landing at Heathrow and on our way to Geneva. Or so I thought. The transit line for people connecting in Heathrow turned out to be dreadfully long. We had to go through security again and the whole process took 90 minutes. Luckily, our connecting plane was delayed by snow in Amsterdam; otherwise, we would have missed our flight to Geneva.

We landed in Geneva and I was extremely impressed by the customs line. There was no line at all! It took us <5 minutes to pick up our bags and meet Gloria outside the customs area. They basically looked at our passports and said “Welcome to Switzerland.”

Since we were left with a few hours of daylight, we headed back to the apartment where we dropped our bags and proceeded to hit the town. We strolled through Old Town and visited lots of little shops. We had some fantastic hot chocolate (made with real Swiss chocolate and not the powder type) and headed back to the apartment around 6pm. While Gloria ran to the grocery store, Diane and I just crashed on the couch and bed. After a good 30-minute power nap, we were both ready to go. Since most things in Switzerland shut down around 5pm and lots of restaurants don’t open until after 6:30pm, we patiently waited until this Italian joint down the street opened up. We both ordered pizzas, devoured them, and then hung out at home until 10:30pm when we finally crashed.

 

By Lake Geneva

Flower Clock at the English Gardens

Overlooking Geneva

Gloria and Fernando at the local cathedral

Swiss chocolate!

10 Days and Counting

I was at the gym this evening when it dawned on me that in just 10 days, Diane and I will be flying across the Atlantic to Geneva! Originally, we wanted to take a cruise with some friends out of Galveston, but we were met with a less than enthusiastic response. Rather than stay at home and miss out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as a young, childless couple, we decided to take the plunge and buy some tickets. We will be gone for 9 days and will be spending it with my sister, Gloria. We’re very excited to explore Switzerland and Southern France. 🙂