Sisters are the Best!

So, we returned home from the hospital and tried to get settled in as a new family of four.  Clearly Grayson settled right in.  :) 

I love this picture!  It's real life, and it's fun real life.

Leading up to having baby number 2...abroad, in Switzerland I had tried to convince my mom or sister to come help out bond with the baby, but Melica has 3 kids and logistics were difficult.  Anyway, it just hadn't worked out.  Until....they surprised me!  My mom helped with my sister's kids while she flew to help me!  It was SO great.  (and that's the understatement of a life time).  She brought us wonderful things from America (like Ghirardelli brownie mix, PB, and new treats for the kids), she cooked for me, she cleaned for me, she held Grayson so that I could nap, she played with Cohen, and she was fabulous company!  It was amazing!  I have no shame in admitting tears were shed when she left...and maybe even after she was gone...for a while.  Yea for sisters (and Moms)!

Getting some snuggles.

Opening new goodies

While she was here, we thought we needed to at least see something cool.  She had traveled all this way, it seemed lame to not venture out (even though she made it clear that was not her purpose or expectation in coming).  So we thought we'd visit the castle only 20 minutes away.

Well, once we explored the castle, we thought we should go a little further.  There is a dam in one of the 007 movies and also an old Roman bridge close to it that we had been wanting to see.  It wasn't much further, so we checked the bus schedule and headed on.  We had to transfer train to bus, and got on our last one headed up the mountain.  After we were on it for a bit, we thought Sterling should ask the driver what time the last one goes back down (just to make sure we didn't miss it).  Well, it had just passed us.  Turns out they were on the "winter" bus schedule, of which Google was apparently unaware.  So we thought the one we were on would turn around and go back down, so we'd just ride it and not get off.  So after we went significantly further, Sterling asked the driver if he went back down.  Nope, only up.  Seriously?!  We were so far up the mountain now, the driver told us it'd be like 200 francs to get a taxi to come get us and take us back.  He also said the hotels were all closed for the winter.  But he and an old lady in the front took pity on us and stopped along the way until we found one open hotel.  

Since this hadn't been part of the plan, we were without, well, anything.  But, we were the only people in the hotel and it was beautiful.  It had an entire wall of floor to ceiling glass windows and the view was spectacular. The bus back down didn't come by until close to noon, so we were forced to just relax and enjoy ourselves.  

In the morning we went for a walk and found a quaint little village to explore.  We walked along the river and listened to the water and breathed in the fresh air.  So beautiful.

These were taken from the bus ride back down. 

The color of the water was so amazing.  It was all just breathtaking.