June 10th- Zurich/Luzerne/Interlakken/Wengen

June 10th- Zurich/Luzerne/Interlakken/Wengen

We woke up really early this morning to have breakfast at the hotel in
Zurich and it was SO AMAZING!  Seriously...one of the best breakfast's
ever!  It was really fun.  The hotel had an amazing breakfast buffet,
and it was so delicious!  We had about 45 minutes to eat and then we
headed in the car to Luzerne where we attended the ward there!  My dad
had to- unfortunately- tell one of his missionaries about his father
that had had a stroke and was braindead.  SO sad.  That's got to be
one of the hardest things that he has to deal with as a mission
president.  After church, we walked around while Dad talked to his
elder and the church is in the coolest spot ever!  Seriously!  We
walked around the buildings that were butted up against the church and
on the back side, it was on the most beautiful lake ever!  I can't
remember the name of it, but it was so beautiful!  We got a whole
bunch of pictures, dreamed about living on that lake someday, then
moved on to the next beautiful place. :)  After we were all done with
that, and the President was done, we headed down to Downtown Luzerne
and walked around and OH MYGOODNESS!  That was the most beautiful
downtown ever!  It- thus far- has been my favorite place that we have
been.  It was SOOO beautiful!  We walked over the cool bridge that is
lined with flowers, walked around the neat cobblestone streets, and
then ate lunch at such a delicious place!  Cole and I had the yummiest
sausage stuff (can't remember the German name!) and a delicious
Sauerkraut.  Oh so good.  I have already gained like 10 pounds on this
trip, and we are only like a third of the way through!  Yikes!  I
might be back up to my post pregnancy weight if I keep it up!  Worth
it.  Worth it.
    After Luzerne, we hopped into the car and drove up through
Interlakken- which is so marvelously beautiful!  It is breathtaking!
I really can't even describe how beautiful it is with words.  It is so
beautiful here!  Everywhere you look is just another scene from a
postcard!  Interlakken is so beautiful.  After Interlakken, we drove
up into Lauterbrunnen-which is actually where Bry and Meg got
engaged!- where we hopped onto the coolest ever little cable car train
with all of our luggage to the little ski town of Wengen.  We had all
of our luggage, because no cars can come up to this place!  How cool
is that!  The train ride was SOOOO awesome ! It was only like 15
franks or something like that, maybe even less, but again, it was
absolutely breathtaking!  There were waterfalls coming off of all of
the sheer cliffs of the Alps, green everywhere, coolest little
chalets, animals, scenery, everything.  Just absolutely amazing.  The
train only took about 15 minutes or so, and we were up in Wengen.  We
are staying here for 2 nights, so it's kind of fun that we can just
hang out a bit.  We trekked a bit to our hotel-the Hotel Belvedere-
and set up shop for a bit!  It started to rain shortly after we got
here, and everyone kind of wanted to rest for a bit- plus Stockton was
taking a nap.  So we watched a little bit of the French Open (Djokovic
and Nadal are playing for the championship!) and then headed out for
some dinner.  We went to the YUMMIEST restaurant!  Again, I am gaining
weight like a freight train!  This really is the way to visit Europe.
With your parents that are kind enough to foot the bill!  There is no
other way that we would be able to do anything even remotely CLOSE to
this!  So lucky.  Stockton was great again today!  What a sweetheart!
He melts everyones hearts that we see, and hardly makes a peep!  He
was a little bit fussy today at the restaurant.  Not bad, but bad
enough that we needed to take him out of the quiet restaurant so that
he didn't bother anyone.
    We got back here to the hotel with all the intentions of playing a
round of 5 crowns, but we all pooped out of that!  I decided to get
into the nice HOT tub and read my book.  Let's talk about dreamy!  I
LOVE doing that!  I could do it every night probably and be just fine
with it!  We're in the ALPS!  NBD!  We are having such a great time.
We have got a really fun day of hiking and stuff planned for tomorrow
though, so it should be a great time!

Silly mom :)

Is this not the most beautiful bridge you've ever seen?!  My Dad said that in August, the flowers in the planters hang so low they almost touch the water.  He says it is breathtaking!

Peek-a-boo!

My Mom was in HEAVEN having this cute baby to snack on!

SO many cool buildings in Luzerne.  This was one of my favorite cities for sure!

Twins??

The view from the street right behind the church.  NBD.

After church in Luzerne.  My parents did SO great on their talks!

Waterfall in Lauterbrunnen

The Bread Loaf :)

Our Coolest ever hotel in Wengen.  Court thought it was haunted. :)

Stockton and I's get up for our hike!  He was quite snuggly. :)

Train station.  SO cool that the only way for us to get there was by train!  It made for a very beautiful, quiet time on the streets of Wengen.

June 9th- Munich/Zurich

June 9th-Munich/Zurich

We woke up this morning pretty late!  It was nice to be able to sleep
in a little bit.  Well, actually, everyone else was able to sleep a
little bit fore, but Stockton wasn't much up for sleeping in, so we
hung out a bit while everyone else slept in! All the missionaries got
there at around 8 for a homemade pancake breakfast!  My mom really out
did herself and the missionaries LOVED it!  They all headed over to
the mission office after for the rest of their conference. We were all
able to head there as well, and give a short little tidbit about how
missions have affected our lives and the lives of our families.  It
was really fun to be able to be there and to see them in action!  I
left the meeting a little bit early to get back home to finish
preparing for lunch- which was a baked potato bar!  So easy and yummy.
Except for the fact that I could NOT figure out how to turn the oven
off when I got home, and it just kept getting hotter and hotter, and
the baked potatoes might as well have been mashed potatoes they were
so done ! But they were delicious, so it didn't really matter. :)
Sister Claire Pingree- President Tim and Lou Ann's daughter-is serving
in this mission, and she came over to the house to get a package that
we brought her!  She is SO dang cute.  It was so much fun to see her,
and to get to talk to her for a little minute.  Her and her 2
companions ate lunch with us as well, so that was great.
    Everyone was SOOO tired after lunch, so when the missionaries went
back to the mission office for the rest of the training, we all stayed
at the mission home and had naps!  It was great.  Stockton is being
the best baby ever!  He is a bit fussy today because I have been
eating a little bit of cheese and chocolate and stuff, so I have to
try and lay off a little bit.  Poor little gassy dude!  But seriously,
he could not be a better baby for this trip!  What a dream.  We woke
up from our nap just in time to pack a little bit for the next few
days we are going to be away!  Then we got to talk to our cute kiddies
back at home!  We needed to wait until about 7:30 or 8 in the morning
their time so that they would be awake, and STILL Lincoln was so tired
that after he said HI to us, he went back to sleep!  So great.   But
the kids were darling.  I haven't started to miss them just yet.  Is
that bad?  They are having so much fun where they are, and we are
having so much fun where we are, that it is hard to be missing them
too bad.  But I most definitely do miss them, that is for sure!
Soooo, after we chatted with the kiddos we hopped into the big blue
car and headed for Zurich!  Zurich was absolutely AMAZING!  Holy
smokes that is a cool city!  We didn't do much, because we were kind
of late , but we were able to walk around the whole down town, and it
was so neat!  On our way there, we stopped at a beautiful gas station
to get some stickers for the car to travel around and just ate there
too!  It was surprisingly really yummers!  Who'd a thunk!
Anyways...downtown Zurich was so awesome.  It is supposedly one of the
most expensive places in the WORLD to live!  Yowsas!  I could see how
that would have been true.  It was really neat though.  Fun to say
that I have been to Zurich.
    As soon as we were done with downtown, we headed to our hotel- the
nicest hotel ever!  It was the Reniassance Hotel in Zurich, and it was
SO awesome! Apparently, it is fairly new- like it has only been open
for not even a year yet!  So it was really neat to stay there.  The
beds were really comfy, and we even got to watch the end of the
Germany/Portugal soccer game!  We have to wake up early in the morning
tomorrow though to get an early start for church.  But Zurich is
amazing!

I can't remember what the river is called here in Zurich...but it was SO purdy!

The view in the car on the ride there.  The car rides were SO absolutely beautiful!  It was hard to stay awake, but it was so pretty when we were awake! :)  Thanks Dad for being such an amazing driver!

Our first meal from the gas station.  I did NOT eat the leburkesa (I don't know how to spell it!), but Clle said that it was delicious!  We drank lots and lots of Apfelshorle

My mom is so funny :)

We pulled over on the side of the road to take pictures of this amazing view! 

Ahhh......

June 8th- Munich

June 8th-Munich

W had a pretty relax day today.  We got up REALLY early...we had to be
down in the lobby of the Kyriad by 5:30 a.m. To get to the airport by
6:30 because our flight left at 8:15 from the Paris De Gualle airport.
It usually takes apparently about an hour to get there, but it ended
up taking us like 30 minutes because our taxi driver was flying! I
swear he was going about 100 miles an hour!  So we got there in plenty
of time, and had a very uneventful flight back to Munich.  When we got
there, Mom and Dad were waiting for us, and it was so great to we them
again!  I sure have missed them since they left on their mission.  It
has been really fun to be with my dad.  What a good dad.  It has also
been so much fun to see them in action here on their mission.  We
rented a huge old van there at the airport, and we actually split up
so that the girls could go to the store with my mom, and the boys went
home to the mission home.  The store was really cool actually, and we
had fun being there with mom.  I can't believe that she can speak
German!  It's so much fun to hear her sprekin deutch!  She is so
awesome.  We got a few things for lunch, and later on for dinner with
the Zone Alexander's, plus we got about 20 chocolate bars! We wanted
to try everything, so we got everything!  It's amazing...they have one
entire side wall of the store completely dedicated to all different
kinds of chocolate!  So yummy. Unfortunately,  Stockton is NOT liking
all of this chocolate, and cheese and stuff.   Really need to lay off,
but it is just so yummy!  It really isn't worth it though.  He gets
quite grumpsters.  Poor little dude.  He had been the best baby ever
here!  It's been fun to have him as well.  It has been really fun to
see my mom and dad with him.
   So we hung out for quite a white.  We weren't really able to do
much, because it has been raining pretty hard all day, so it was nice
to kind of chill and do nothing for a bit.  That night starting at
about 5 or so, all of the zone leaders from the mission came over to
the house and started up in Zone  leader council.  It was really fun
to see them all and text to now them a little bit. They are a great
group!  They really love my parents, which is really fun to see.  I am
so glad that they get to experience their greatness like we did all
growing up.  They really are wonderful people, and are perfect mission
presidents!  My mom set up a big dinner of sandwiches with meats and
cheeses and all sorts of yummy things, and boy can those  missionaries
eat!  It is so great how grateful they are for good things to eat.
Something that they didn't have to either buy or make.  they had a
great council all together, and we were able t o share some
experiences of our own as well.  Makes me excited to be a missionary
someday with my dear!  We pretty much fell into bed as well, we were
so tired.  It was a great recharge day.  We have a pretty busy day
tomorrow!

The sister in the middle (Sister Claire Pingree) is a great friend to the Smith fam!  Her family is in our ward here in Denver, so it was fun to be able to deliver a little package to her, and chat with her for a little while. She is so wonderful. 

The whole big group after Zone Leader Council

June 7th- Paris

June 7- Paris

What an eventful day we had today!  We had planned on all meeting
today at 9 to go to the Louvre right when it opened up, but everyone
was so tired that we ended up meeting around 10ish.  I- of course-
woke up at 6 and wasn't able to go back to sleep!  Stockton was up as
well, just kicking around and being all cute and stuff, so I fed him
and we chilled for a bit while we waited for Cole to wake up!  We were
ready by 9, so we were able to let Stockton take a well deserved nap
whilst laying down!
    When everyone was ready, we headed over to the Marche Franprix for a
few things for the day, then headed to the Le Sud (right on the corner
by our house, and also where we ate last night!) for some Crepes.
They were pretty good!  After that, we hopped onto the Metro (we are
pros at it by now!) and headed to the Louvre.  The Louvre was amazing!
It was so neat!  It is the largest museum that I have ever seen!
Seriously- you could spend days/months there and not even see
everything that you want to see the way that you want to see it!  It
was really neat to see the Mona Lisa, the Wedding Feast painting,
statues, everything else that we saw- all in person!  I have read
about them, and seen pictures and stuff of them, but it was just so
much fun to see them in person!  I can't believe that we are in Paris!
So cool.  We stayed there for quite a while- like 4 hours or
something.  That was most definitely enough for all of us.  We were
ready to move on.  The best thing that I did for sure though was to
get the Audio guide!  It was so fun to be able to listen to
information about everything.  I think that my favorite part of the
museum was the Mummy/Egyptian part.  Mostly the mummies though.  They
even had a REAL body that had been mummified- I don't even know how
long ago!  It was so cool.  Coles favorite part was right when we went
into the museum, the first thing that we saw was the basement of the
Louvre, which used to be a fort and we were actually walking through
the moat!  So cool!  He also really liked the Egyptian collection, and
he also liked the Wedding Feast painting as well.  There were SOOOO
many people there!  It was so crazy!  So many kids- lots of field
trips.  It was neat.  The kids in Paris go to the Louvre, we go to the
zoo. Hmmm....   Anyways...it was neat.
    After the Louvre, we all headed back onto the Metro to try and see
the Catacombs, but we got WASTED when it closed RIGHT before we were
able to go in!  The line was formed, but it closed at 4 p.m. and we
were in the next group that would have been able to go! DANGIT!  We
were all pretty disappointed, but that's alright.  So then, we all
split ways!  Cole and I headed to Notre Dame, because the rest of the
group did that yesterday when we were at the French Open.  It was SOO
pretty!  It is one big cathedral- that is for sure!  We wanted to ride
the elevator up to the top, but again, we got denied because it also
closed at 4!  NUTS. It's alright though. We were able to go inside and
check out all of the cool stuff in there.  It was so awesome! But
again, it's amazing how far from the truth they have gotten.  All of
the rest of the world.  I am so glad to have a testimony of the true
gospel.
    After we hit up Notre Dame, we didn't know what else to do!  I was
SOOO tired, and my back was hurting like crazy from toting Stockton
around the whole time, but Cole wanted to see some more, so see some
more we did!  We went to Saint-Michel which was SOOO awesome!  It
seriously was so great.   It reminded me a lot of China Town- just
small narrow little streets with shop after shop right next to each
other!  It was SO cool!  We went to dinner in one such little shop and
it was delicious.  We were also able to watch Sharapova beat her
opponent- Kvitiva- in the Semi-Finals of the French Open!  I LOVE IT!
It's been so fun to watch this tournament right here in Paris where it
is.  What a dream of ours.  So- after dinner we walked around some
more, up and down streets, and it was great.  It was really seeing
Paris!  Where people live, shop, go to school, etc.  It was really
neat.  We were even able to stop at a little Creperie and have a
Nutella Crepe and get some breakfast for the morning!  Of course, we
hopped right back onto our new best friend- the Metro- to get home and
settle in for the night!  It's going to be an early morning tomorrow-
we have to be down in the lobby at 5:30 to head to the airport!  Our
flight leaves at 8:25 a.m., and it takes about an hour to get to the
airport from where we are.  So...signing off!

Just outside the Louvre

The entrance to the Louvre- from the street

Proof that Stockton was there- Ty and Mal in the background too!  BONUS!- 

This was probably one of my favorite things at the museum.  A real live mummy! SO COOL!

The Mona Lisa is way different then I expected- plus there were about a million people around, and she is encased with plexiglass.  Kind of unromantic isn't it?!

In front of Notre Dame

I think all the carvings on the outside are SO cool! 

does this remind you of Hunchback of Notre Dame- the Disney movie?  I thought so!

Such a trooper!

The Pantheon- closed when we got there

Such a cool building!

I was always....ALWAYS feeding Stockton.  Boy's gotta eat.

Sorry- I guess these pictures are all jumbled up!  This is the entrance...Cool- right in the middle of the pyramid!  I think- at least! :)