Switzerland and Austria

After several years I am inspired to start blogging again.  Now that I am retired, I hope it is easier to find time for my blog.

We were fortunate to spend a little over two weeks in Europe.  What a beautiful part of the world.

The Alps were breathtaking.  It was hard to believe that everything was so green in September.

Innsbruck, Austria was the locations or two Winter Olympics Games.

Grandma's Party in 3-D

If you have 3-D glasses, you might like to view Grandma's Christmas Party in 3-D. Ryan is the photographer. Here are the grandkids dancing around the tree.
The tree was decorated in stockins with toys and candy canes for the great-grandkids. They also got a reindeer stuffed animal hanging on the tree.
The cousins had a fun time.Daniel found a nut in two tarts, winning two prizes from grandma.
We sang "Hang Up the Babies Stocking" for Holland and Bailey.We enjoyed a great dinner and visited with family.cousins joined in.

Alaskan Cruise

We just returned from a 7-day Royal Caribbean Cruise to Alaska. Everything about it was first class. We really didn't want to see it end. I am posting some highlights. Our ship was the Rhapsody of the Sea. It had 2100 passengers and 1000 crew members.

We took photos of our ship on the other side of the bay on an excursion on the Juneau Trolley.

Our stateroom was very lovely.


Notice Grandpa clowning around like Samuel.
Each day our stateroom attendant folded towels into amazing sculptures.

Check these out starting with the elephant.TurtleMonkey
Turkey

We really got a kick out of what he did with my shoes that I left out of the closet. He really entertained us and worked for a tip at the end of the cruise!
We took 245 pictures. I'll post another installment later. That's 11 down and 234 to post.

From Colorado to California

We have had a fun couple of week. We started the first week of our vacation in Vail, Colorado. We caught a Rockies game on a day trip to Denver. They have a beautiful ballpark. This is an annual trip we make. We attended the Temple in Denver. On our way to California we stopped over in Las Vegas. Gordon,Mother and I got to see Donny and Marie's high energy show. They were wonderful. Mom made the trip with us. She was pretty uncomfortable becuase she fell and broke her left wrist just days before the trip. It was a blast spending a week with kids and grandkids. Here we are purchasing tickets to Legoland. It is right across the street from our condos.

Check out how soaked everyone was from the boat ride.

Daniel's Baseball

Gordon and I drove down to see Daniel play baseball. He is on the Detroit Tigers team. He played left field and third base and did a great job. He had a couple of great hits and one RBI. We took our little red convertible down. The evening was warm and the sunset was gorgeous.

Cambridge Chapel Fire

(Click on the above title to view a Boston Globe video.) Help Christina, I have got to learn how to link to video and websites. I am still learning how to blog.

My sister called Sunday afternoon with sad news. Her son, Michael heard that the Cambridge, Massachusetts Ward Chapel had been destroyed by fire. I attended church in that building from 1969 to 1973. My two oldest children were blessed in that ward. I have many memories of Boston and ward activities in Cambridge. It was a lovely building just off Harvard Square and across the street from Longfellow's home. This has been upsetting news. I hope it will be rebuilt to resemble the old building. Burns and Brenda attended the same building while he was in law school. An article said that 22 fire engines and 80 fire fighters responded to the fire. It is in close proximity to many homes. The Institute of Religion had a library in the building. The video shows how they saved the library.