Weekend with Uncle Brad

(SIDENOTE: I'm sorry for the lack of blogging for you sweet readers out there who are still there!  I have all these pictures and posts lined up as I try to play catch up--from so long ago--of our last few months in Switzerland up til now.  Just stick with me while I take you back...)

In late September, Uncle Brad came all the way from the Washington D.C. area to visit us in Bulach (for the second time!).  Maddie was so excited to see him.  He came for a long weekend.  Carter warmed up to him once he was almost ready to leave, unfortunately.  But that's the difference between Maddie and Carter at this moment in time :-)

His visit landed perfectly with the alpabfahrt in different mountain towns of Switzerland.  This is a traditional "cow parade" when the farmers bring the cows back down the mountain to the lower pastures for the colder months in Autumn/Winter/Spring.  Then again in late Spring, the cows will go back up to the mountain pastures for grazing in the Summer.

We could not leave Switzerland without experiencing one of the cow parades.  We decided to go to a little town in central Switzerland called Kerns, just about an hour away from Bulach.  It was pretty neat to spend our 7 year anniversary at a cow parade in a teeny picturesque town in the middle of Switzerland.

It was so cool!!!!! Each farmer paraded the cows around the main block in the tiny Swiss town.  The bigger the bell, the better producer the cow.  Seriously, I'm so glad we were able to go see this.

It's always nice being "off the hook" with carrying a little one!

We really wanted to take him on a hike to this place right near Kerns.  We read about it and it looked really fun.  So we decided to chance the weather...

That's the only picture I got because we were literally hiking in the clouds the whole time.  Oh well.  Apparently we missed the good weather by a couple hours.  We got there after lunch and they said it was nice all morning.

The next day, we hung around Bulach, hiked up the hill in town to the overlook where you can view the alps, and grilled out.  It was a beautiful day to be outside.  It's funny that the kids are so easily pleased while us grown ups are bummed so easily.  They were happy as clams just hanging close to home and building a fire.  We were not as pleased because we wanted to be up in the mountains again, but one big drive per weekend is about the limit for them.  It's a little much to drive 1+ hours two days in a row.  Now that I'm sounding all negative, here are some pictures of our fun, relaxing day in Bulach with Uncle Brad.

He got plenty of time playing with Maddie-reading books, doing arts and crafts, and wrestling.  So cute.