Holidays in Michigan

Christmas in Michigan was so wonderful. Spending time with family really means so much more to us now that we live so far away. Here is a new family picture of the Martyns.

Matt and Julie, Scott's brother, Matt, and sister in-law, Julie, took a great picture with the Merchant's kids.

On Christmas Eve we spent the day with the Edmonds family. My brother enjoyed sitting and talking "shop" with Scott. You never know what kind of stuff these boys chat about while drinking a beer.

I couldn't believe how big my nieces Brenna and Julia got while we were away. They are turning into girls! Oh my! Brenna is going to be five in February and she loves to write and play at daycare. Julia is 3 years old and loves to talk! She is really great with rhyming and singing too.

My mom (aka - my best friend) is the best woman in the world. We had such a wonderful time catching up and just giggling together.

My parents decorated their house so cute this year. Plus, they bought new furniture for the bedrooms and dining room.

I had some time to see my friends too. Melinda and Jody are both married and living in Michigan. We email really often, but it was so cool to see them in person again.

Scott and Angie's husband, Zach, played fusball most of the evening to avoid the girls. =)

Little Miss Angie. I miss you so much. Steph was supposed to be here this evening as well, but the weather and sickness kept her away. We were 3 peas in a pod in high school. Now, we all live far about, but we are so lucky to talk with one another regularly. These girls have been so supportive of Scott and I.

Jaime had us all over her house for a fun "family" night out. Everyone brought their husbands and kids.

Scott's brother Matt and his wife Julie went to the Windsor Casino with us one night while we were home. I am the only one who made money, but my husband lost enough for the both of us. In the end we came out about even. =) Either way, we had a fun time playing games and hanging out with each other.

Here is a view of Detroit from Windsor. It actually looks really nice from here.... just don't go downtown at night.

We started a new Martyn tradition of bowling. The boys team won, but the girls team was much more stylish.

Matt and Scott sure do resemble their dad. At least they all chose Christmas colors!

Here is an action shot.

We also had some time to see my girlfriends from home. I'm so lucky to stay in touch with these girls as much as we do. They all have been a huge support system for me this year. From the left top, Ang, Steph, and Nikki. On the bottom row is Kirby, me and Andrea.

My brother brought the girls over right before we left so we could hang out. They LOVE headbands, an it just so happens that their Aunt Brooke does too. We all switched headbands that night.

My brother recently bought the wii, so we all went over to play some sports. Here is my dad bowling. I think he did pretty good!

My mom was pretty good at baseball too.

I think this is our favorite picture of my nieces. They put napkin rings around their eyes (this was on there own) to look like glasses. They seriously crack us all up constantly.

Thank you all for going out of your way to see us. We wish we would've had more time to spend with everyone, but 2 weeks goes by really quickly. Until next Christmas.......

Thanksgiving in Zurich

Happy Thanksgiving! Even though we're across the Atlantic, we couldn't let this holiday go without a proper celebration and well deserved meal.

Barb and Scott Dicken kindly opened their home to us and 6 other Americans for a huge feast. None of us had Thanksgiving off, so we celebrated on Saturday.

Although some ingredients were tough to find, we still managed to have all the good stuff on the menu: Turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberries, corn, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and homemade apple pie and pumpkin pie.


First things first. Scott Dicken had to turn on American football while we celebrated our Thanksgiving away from home. However, he had to record the games through their Sky TV on Thursday to replay it for us all this weekend.

We were so happy to have Thanksgiving in Switzerland. You can tell by the smiles on our faces just how excited we were.

All of us gravitated towards the kitchen as usual. Barb and I are waiting to get pieces of the Turkey.

Kelsey is due in April, so she brought along non-alcoholic champagne for her celebration.

Later, we all suited up for a game of good ol' American football. Barb and Scott were supporting their teams in the process.


Naty, Andy and I were studying the playbook before we went out. (We actually used it a few times!)

Let the games begin!

We were so thankful for our friends here in Switzerland to be "stand ins" for our family back home. They will never take your place, but it was wonderful and enjoyable to have a "family" away from the U.S.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Love,

Scott and Brooke

The Mountains Again!! - Illanz, Switzerland

This weekend 7 of us headed up to Nadia's house in the mountians. We hiked both Saturday and Sunday, and spent the evenings roasting marshmallows, (that we bought in the states b/c Switzerland's marshmallows are very different) playing Catch Phrase, and enjoying the views.

Nadia, Bridget and Joslyn trudging through the snow on the hiking trail.

This is right outside the house. We ended up doing a hike on the path behind us.

Bridget found out that Ryan is not only bilingual, he's multilingual because he speaks "moo" to the cows. =)



Here is a short clip of Ryan 'communicating' with our hairy, harmless friends. They don't seem very interested in food at this point!

This is the crew trying to decide if we should cross the stream that the cows were standing in at the moment. It looked pretty gross, but we all made it across in one piece.

The cows decided to come at us on our hike. We knew they wouldn't do anything, but it was kind of scary watching them move towards us.

A short video of the hike on Sunday. This is after we crossed the stream where all the cows were standing. All the cows followed us everywhere for the next 15 minutes out of curiosity!

Here is Scott having some fun with his new friends.

Family fun time in the morning. The sunlight was pouring into the room. Just beautiful. We had so much fun just hanging out with friends.

If you would like to see more pictures, click on the link below.

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=43691226253501603/l=435598976/g=7389791/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

The Mountains - Illanz, Switzerland

During our week holiday in October, me and 2 teacher friends went to the mountains of Switzerland. Nadia's family owns a house near Illanz, Switzerland pretty much in the heart of the country. We spent an entire week hiking everyday and sitting by the fire at night. It was lovely!





This is an early morning view from the living room. You can see so far!

Beryl, Nadia and I stopped to take a quick picture on one 4 hour hike. This day we were afraid of rain so we hoofed it back home.

Of course we had to bring lunch as every good hiker should. You never know when you might get lost. Plus, I love food.

Later in the week, Scott came for one night. We took him hiking too. Of course! He's in a field with goats right now. We realized that we had veered off the path and only had two choices. Either go down over a cliff, or climb up on our hands and knees. We ended up climbing through goat poo to get to the top of the hillside.



A short video of us beginning the climb UP the mountainside. Man! That was one heck of a climb - especially in tennis shoes for Scott.

This is the view once we reached the top. All of us were pretty exhausted by that point. Yet, we still had 2 hours of hiking left.

The sheep definitely thought we were crazy to come through their field. They all stood on the ridge looking down at us. Very Lion King don't you think?

Along the fun hike, we ran across a goat farmer and his goats. Apparently, they were trying to find some fresh pastures where they could graze. As the approached us, the only place to go was straight up the mountainside.

We felt that we needed a "professional" picture taken while standing in goat poo.

On our journey back from the hike we stumbled upon a church in the small village of Vrin. These skulls are said to be those of victims of the plague. Pretty creepy.




A short clip of the cemetery outside of the Church in Vrin.

Zermatt, Switzerland

We made it to Zermatt, Switzerland a wonderful Alpine Village in the Alps right next to the Matterhorn. We were very lucky to get incredible weather on this trip.

This is a shot of the little Village of Zermatt.

As soon as we arrived, we took a walk through the city and then headed up to the Matterhorn. Interesting fact about Zermatt is that there are no cars allowed in the city. All transportation is by foot or electric tram. Also, all the electricity in the city comes from hydroelectric power from the river.

Our first adventure in Zermatt was to go up 7,000 feet to the Matterhorn Glacier to get a better view of the peak. Behind us to the right is the view of the Matterhorn.

Here is a short clip of the view from up top.

While we were up on the Matterhorn Glacier, we took an elevator down into the glacier itself to go inside the Glacier Palace. Most of this was man made, cut right out of the glacier, but some of the openings were there before. Very eerie, but very cool!

This is a replica of the Matterhorn inside the glacier palace.



A video from insde the glacier. I can't explain how cold it was in there, but this should at least give you a good idea of what the place looked like inside.

The display the day we went was ice sculptures in the form of beer. Scott is enjoying his Guinness right now.

The next day, we went on a 2 hour hike up 3,000 feet to reach an amazing view. This was the view from an area called Riffelalp. There is a hotel here that is open during the Summer and Winter, but was closed when we were there :(

This video gives a better idea of the view from all the way up here!

We were lucky enough to catch the train back down. FYI - This is the highest train in Europe.
The city below is where we hiked from. Crazy!

We've decided that this is our favorite Swiss city to travel. We plan to come back in the winter to ski!