Lovely Rappersville

We took a day trip on Sunday to Rappersville, a quaint medieval town along Lake Zurich. The city is known as the city of roses because it has more than 16,000 in bloom around the Capuchin monastery. Behind us is the castle that was built in the 1200's.

The town of Rappersville is beyond where we are standing. We are on the front steps of the castle in this picture.

You can drink from all of the fountains found in Switzerland, and they are regularly cleaned too (Thank God or we wouldn't even think about it!). The picture above shows one such fountain in front of the Rappersville castle.

One of the many clock towers in Europe. Europeans sure love their clocks!

That day the castle was open to view. This is the courtyard inside.

Outside of the castle walls are beautiful vineyards along the hillside going down to the lake below.

Beautiful views everywhere you look!

I was actually spinning on this thing. Sometimes you just have to have a little fun. I'm excited to take mom and dad (Edmonds and Martyn) to this spot so they too can go around the merry go round.

On our way home Scott decided he should open his umbrella. He does this from time to time for reasons that are unknown to me. I love my husband!

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

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=855271217187226306/l=411867009/g=7389791/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Fussen, Germany - Lots of Castles!!

On Saturday, Scott and I went to Fussen, Germany with our friends Barb and Scott, and their friend who is visiting from home, Carol. Fussen has six different castles to visit, and we decided to visit the largest and most popular castle inhabited by King Ludwig II in 1886. It was amazing! However, we had to wait two hours to wait for the rain to let up before we could hike up the 40 minute trail to the castle. We decided to grab some good ol' German beer.


After the hike up the mountain, we checked out the outside of the Neuschwanstein castle that was built in 1869. History says that Kind Ludwig had a passion for extravagent things, so he built this enormous castle for himself to show his dedication to poetry and literature. The walls inside the castle are painted to show many different literature stories such as Sir Lancelot and the quest for the Holy Grail.



Unfortunately, King Ludwig II was found to be insane by some high up officials in Munich. After 132 days in his castle he was taken out and dethroned. 3 days later he was found dead in a river close by, and 6 weeks later the castle became a museum. Sounds fishy.....
This is inside the Singers Hall. Our guide told us that the hall was reopened in 1969 to hold special concert events.


This castle was the summer residents of Kind Ludwig II as a child. It sits not far from his large castle.
It was a long rainy day, and Brooke needed to have some fun!

If you would like to see more pictures of Germany, click on the link below!

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=855131215946132480/l=395528990/g=7389791/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Zurich - 4th of July weekend!

Happy Birthday America!!! The American's Club of Zurich had a Fourth of July party with lots of American food, drinks and fun. We had a live band playing songs like "Sweet Home Alabama," and we even had fireworks.


The girls! (left to right) Kelsey is from Orange County, California, Barb is from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and you all know where I'm from! We really enjoyed the BBQ.

The boys. (right to left) Andy is Kelsey's husband, Scott D. is Barb's husband, and of course you've got my Scott in the picture too.



They were raffling off a sportscar at the party too...... we did not win.

This guy was awesome! He rocked it out to Sweet Home Alabama.

The next day, we went to the Caliente Festival in Zurich. You've got both Scott's and John drinking their beers. John, on the right, and his wife Kristina are from Pittsburgh.

The girls have ice cream!!

And these girls have....... well, they are very happy girls for sure.

If you want to see more pictures from the weekend, click the links below.

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=40961215363664480/l=395367333/g=7389791/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=69561215364307178/l=395367117/g=7389791/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB