Mount Rigi & Lucerne, Switzerland

On Sunday we took an all day tour that started with a bus ride through the Swiss countryside. It was dreary & rainy but still beautiful - I can only imagine how pretty it would be on a sunny day!

Adorable little Swiss town

Rape seed field...aka Canola oil

Giant rock left from the ice age

We arrived at the base of Mount Rigi and took a cable car halfway up the mountain.

Once we got to the top of the cable car ride we hopped off and took a cog railway to the top of the mountain.

Crazy optical illusion - these houses looked tilted!

Top of Mount Rigi when we got up there - it was soo foggy

Justin, my dad, and I walked up to the Summit...it was steep and COLD..Elevation 5,896 Feet

Quick pic before we ran back down and left my dad in the dust...tooo cold!

Snow!

It cleared up before we went back down the mountain

We were hiding inside from the wind :)

Snapped a few pictures after the fog cleared

After about an hour on top of the mountain we took the cog railway all the way to the bottom to catch a paddle steamer boat to take across Lake Lucerne to the town of Lucerne. More pretty views on the way down the mountain.

Check out the gorgeous weather - Hard to believe it was the same day as that rainy bus ride!

Let's go back and stay in this hotel!

Justin sat inside and watched the steam paddles almost the whole boat ride...boys!

Lucerne

We had a couple of hours of free time in Lucerne  - since it was Sunday almost everything was closed but we managed to find an adorable fondue restaurant and had cheese fondue for lunch. It was a great afternoon! We ended the tour with rain in the last 30 minutes but took cover in McDonalds - Justin and I split a McFlurry with Toblerone...even their McDonalds menu is better!

Our fondue restaurant

Mmm

So good!

Pretty church & ominous sky

Pedestrian bridge

Lots of people just hanging out on a Sunday 

Pretty flowers

Such a pretty city!

McFlurry!

We got back to Zurich Sunday evening and ended up going to bed early with no dinner since we were still full from the fondue. I had a horrible time getting to sleep - I guess I had the full effect of jet lag. It ended up taking me over 4 hours to fall asleep only to wake up early to catch our flight to Copenhagen. Luckily I wasn't tired the next day because we only had a day to explore Copenhagen...only the most expensive city in Europe!

Our Journey to Zurich, Switzerland!

I can't believe that we have already been home over almost 3 weeks...the jetlag is gone (even though I didn't really have any) and summer is in full swing...too bad there's still that little thing called work we have to tend to! We planned this Baltic cruise back in March of 2012 so it's hard to believe that it has come and gone. We had a fantastic time and I'm going to split up each location into separate blog posts because I have entirely too many pictures...but I wouldn't have it any other way!

We started our journey from ATX on Friday morning and flew to Atlanta. We had a quick lunch in Atlanta and then boarded our flight to Zurich. It was about a 10 hour flight and after dinner and 2 glasses of wine (Justin had 2 beers) we took a unisom and ended up sleeping most of the flight - it was great!! I'm never able to sleep so this flight didn't seem any worse than the flight to NY! 

Waiting in Austin before our very long day!

Dad is passed out in Austin...

Beautiful sunset

View of Zurich & the Swiss Alps while landing

After we got our luggage we headed over to the train station. We had detailed instructions how to take the train into the city and get to our hotel. It was not as easy as we thought but luckily we ran into a nice man that spoke English and told us exactly what we needed to do. *Turns out they speak mostly German in this part of Switzerland. We went to Geneva when I was in middle school and they spoke mostly French so this was a surprise!* Taking the train with carry-on luggage and your checked bags was NOT an easy task. Once we made it to the main train station downtown we navigated to find the city bus we needed. Luckily the bus dropped us off directly across the street from our hotel. Our rooms weren't ready (since it was only 10am) so we decided to leave our luggage and explore the city.

I love all these European cities because they are so walkable.

Pretty park

Swiss National Museum 

Adorable little Swiss street - I didn't notice all the Swiss flags until I saw the pictures!

St. Peter's Church - the oldest church in Zurich...said to have largest clock face in continental Europe

Mom & Dad

Fancy sports car...which had a carseat in the passenger seat! NBD

Pretty view of the Swiss Alps!

Lake Zurich runs through the city

Grossmunster Church...built in the 12th Century

We stopped at a local grocery store to check out all the unique foods...and this is what we found!

Texas BBQ Sauce Pringles...do we even have these here??

When we got back to the hotel Justin, mom & dad were all ready to pass out and our rooms still weren't ready (2:30pm-ish). They told us we could wait in the internet room so as I'm on the computer I look over and find this!

Seriously?! I'm not even tired...something isn't right here! Our rooms were ready about 15 minutes later and since the ones we booked were full we were upgraded to suites! They were so nice...on the top floor, 2 rooms, and what a view!

Our living room

Bedroom

Bedroom

Bathroom with skylight

View from our room

We were right on the river

After our my 4 nap we headed out to dinner. Since we had walked all over town and were still tired from jet lag we decided to try the pizza place just down the street. Luckily they had one menu in English so we didn't have to guess or just order Pizza Margherita.

Yummy pizza place we had dinner

After dinner we went back to our rooms to relax and try to get some sleep since we had a full day on Sunday visiting Mount Rigi & Lucerne!

Bloglovin' & Feedly

Since Google Reader is going away soon *tear* I had to find another way to follow all of my blogs. So far the two sites I've found that I like the best are Bloglovin' and Feedly.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

I'm still testing out bloglovin' but click the link above to follow my blog there!

*Update: the chrome extension for bloglovin' has an unread blog count !*

My only complaint about Feedly is the icon in chrome does not show the amount of unread blogs like the google reader icon.

Feedly

Austin Zoo with Sweet Friends!

A few weeks ago Magan, her mom, grandma, Dustyn, sweet baby girl and I got a chance to take a trip out to the Austin Zoo (Justin was at home helping his parents do some manual labor). The weather was indescribably perfect and we had so much fun! Magan & Dustyn are fostering the sweetest 8 month old baby girl and I can't share any pictures of her time at the zoo but take my word that she is adorable and had a fun time!

This guy was definitely trying to woo some lady peacocks!

He was beautiful!

Big ol turtle just hanging out

Biggest pig I've ever seen!

Lazy kitty cat!

Haha this guy was CRACKING us up! Crazy eyes/teeth all the way!

Sweet sweet deer!

After our morning at the zoo we headed over to Torchy's Tacos and had a yummy lunch and then Magan and I made a stop at Yogurtland before heading home. What a fun Saturday with great friends!

Guest Bathroom Cabinet Refinish!

When Justin and I bought this house we knew there were several updating projects we wanted to take on - from cleaning/painting baseboards to re-doing floors/cabinets. Don't get me wrong - everything in the house is in wonderful condition, it's just not all our style. 

We have been tossing the idea of staining the cabinets but hadn't made the leap to do it yet. I found the Rust-oleum Transformation Kit for half price at home depot and we decided to give it a go! We chose the guest bathroom as a trial to see if doing the kitchen ourselves was actually feasible or not.

Before I get to the before/after pics - here is a quick recap of the process and what we thought of it. 

 *4 Easy Steps*

Deglossing

Bond Coat
Decorative Glaze

Protective Top Coat

The drying time between each step is what caused the process to take so long (varied from 2-3 hours to 8 hours). Also having to do each step on the front/back of the cabinet doors. The prep with taping was also a little time consuming but not too bad.

I would totally recommend this kit to anyone wanting to update their cabinets. We were going from light to dark but I imagine if you're going from dark to light it could take more coats and be a little more time consuming. We were a little worried we might kill each other doing this but we ended up having a ton of fun and can't wait to do more house projects together! We have decided we will do our kitchen ourselves but I think it's going to be slightly really overwhelming so we will start that after vacation! Here are our cabinets in Espresso!

Prep finished

Cabinet doors after de-glossing

First bond coat

After the decorative glaze

Finished product!

Obsessed with the hardware!

Love love love!