European Vacation

I don't think I've ever been so glad to be home from a trip! Don't get me wrong - the trip was absolutely incredible! Zurich, Switzerland is a beautiful, fun city; the skiing in St Anton am Arlberg, Austria was great; the alps are breath taking; the family time was superb.

Traveling to Europe with a 1 year old who gets sick the last couple days = exhausting.

Sarah, in her usual way, handled everything far better than we could have imagined. She adapted to the 6 hour time change well. She LOVED the constant audience of my parents, brother, and his girlfriend. But Thursday night she started getting sick ... by Saturday night, our last night, she was sick enough that we called a doctor. I think the U.S. should take notes from the Swiss medical system ... instead of going to an ER, you call an "on call service" and a doctor comes to you! So for far less than a typical ER visit would cost, we got to stay in our hotel room and a doctor came to us (at 2am). Thankfully, he said Sarah's breathing issues were all in her throat and not her lungs ... BUT ... she had an ear infection. He gave us several different medicines which did the trick and her ear was better enough that she did not scream on the flight. She's still not back to her perky little self, but is getting better. And she is so glad to be home! -- when she has the energy, she crawls around in sheer delight from toy to toy!

The big Sarah news is that we can officially say she learned to walk in Austria!! 1 evening last week she started taking little steps towards people. Our reactions spurred her on - we were all sitting in a circle and she would walk across to whoever we asked her to walk to. She then decided to truck off down the hall to our bedroom and back! It is still a means of entertaining us rather than her primary means of mobility (crawling is still far more efficient and safer in her opinion!) but she is walking more, and will walk on request!

I can never choose just a few pictures after a trip like this, so I figured out how to do a slide.com show. We flew into Zurich last Thursday morning, as did Jamey and Dana. We spent Thursday and Friday seeing Zurich and adjusting to the time change. Mom and Dad flew in that Saturday morning, and we head to St Anton by train Saturday afternoon. This 1st slide show is from Zurich and the train.

This slide show is from St Anton. This trip was my 1st time to the Alps. They are stunning. The pictures don't come close to doing justice. Also, the St Anton am Arlberg ski area is 9 times the size of Vail, CO. That's HUGE. We didn't come close to skiing everything.