Happy New Year

To prepare ourselves for a new year we decided to go sledding in the mountains.  There was way too much traffic heading up to Grindelwald (we were warned to never go skiing the week between Christmas and New Years and now we know why) from Interlaken so we just kept driving past the turnoff and headed to Meiringen.

We passed mistletoe filled trees.

And then found a hike across the train tracks,

 across a bridge, below a waterfall,

with a lovely view back down the valley to Brienz.

The kids practiced their "leave no trace" and avoided even leaving footprints.

But then the challenge became to walk only on snow.  When the snow disappeared they carried a supply and slowly carved off what they needed to only step on snow.

They spent more time on their back sides than on their feet.

A relaxing and sunny stop for lunch,

with close up views of mistletoe growing on the trees.  The hemiparasitic plants actually penetrate the branches of trees to absorb water and nutrients from the host.  It is strange to see hibernating trees with new green growth that appears to be growing from the leafless tree.

A view back to Brienz.

Erin's biggest worry this Christmas break was returning home with a broken nose.  Somehow, her nose was the target of each of the boy's antics at one time or another.  We are happy to report that she is  returning to BYU with her nose intact, albeit a bit bruised.

New Year's Eve cuisine included makeshift Chinese hot pots and dragon fruit (Ryan prepared).   Sparkling drinks were opened and toasted at very precise intervals of time (Kent organized),

and lots of noisy noisemakers (Nate fueled).

Erin finished a baby blanket crochet project she started 3 years ago, so she was feeling very accomplished as we rang in the New Year.

New Year's Day was a typical, lazy, game-filled day with games at the Lutz' and then off to the gym for lots of sports.  On the 2nd we visited Latenium in Neuchatel, a museum about the archaeological finds in the area that date back hundreds of years to tens of thousands of years.  Kent and Nate found ancient games to play

Dan embraced the local cave bear (now extinct) while Ryan tried to protect us from its ferocity.

But then as usual, we ended up at the school gym playing basketball, volleyball, football, soccer, ultimate and whatever other sport we could dream up.

Happy New Year!  2014, here we come!!!