Switzerland!

Derek and I went to Switzerland on September 27th with other people from his work.  This is the annual reward trip for Nature's Sunshine's top managers in the field.  We go as "hosts" and are required to be nice.  Since the people we travel with are generally nice, this is not really a hardship.

We arrived in Switzerland on the morning of my birthday, and I spent time doing the head bobbers on a bus just as Derek predicted.  It was a beautiful trip.  We have been blessed to see many wonderful locations around the world, but I do not remember spending so much time trying to come up with more adequate descriptive words because "awesome", and "spectacular", and "beautiful" didn't seem to cover it.

I will share a couple of photos here, and a link where you can look at all 150 + pictures if you really want to, but I must say that even the pictures aren't quite adequate at showing Switzerland's beauty.

Switzerland was green, with beautiful Swiss houses that had flowers in window boxes.  This was just a pretty farmouse that I liked.  It was one of the very few houses without the flower boxes.

This was taken when we were on top of the world (or it seemed like that).  This was when we went to Schilthorn, and took four tram rides to the rotating resaurant at the top.  It was awesome.

Derek and Sherie and, on the right, the rotating restaurant.

Click on the blue Switzerland to see lots of beautiful pictures.  Unfortunately, I never was able to capture a picture of the vinyards that go to the tops of many of the mountains.  They have built rock walls to make terraces and the grapes are planted right up to the edge.  We're not sure how they get up there to get all of the work done, but it sure is gorgeous!

My great, great grandparents (My Dad's Mom's paternal grandparents) are from Switzerland.  We were not able to go to north eastern Switzerland to see the places they were from (St. Gallen, and Thurgau), but I did talk to one Swiss gentleman who had studied there.  I was thankful that he was able to tell me a little bit about it, but I couldn't help wondering if I have some distant cousin running around up there that looks like me that I could have seen had I been able to go.  You never know!

Switzerland sure is beautiful!  I enjoyed everything I got to see and had a wonderful time with Derek.  Thanks to Derek's parents who stayed with our kids, and therefore made it easy for us not to worry, and thanks to all of those who were at home wishing me a happy birthday while I was far away.  I was thankful for my friend Erika (Derek's co-worker Al's wife) who sang happy birthday to me and gave me some Swiss Chocolate, and for the NSP manager who wished me happy birthday several days in a row and made me smile.