My Wife, Courtney!

I had a last minute, fabulous visit from my girlfriend Courtney in February!  Courtney and I were co-counselors together for many summers at camp and my travel partner to Chicago!  She had two weeks to fill between her birthright tour to Israel and her travels in India for a wedding and she asked if she could come stay with me!  How great is that!?  She's already spent quite a bit of time in Italy so her visit was all about relaxing, visiting, drinking wine, and being my stay at home wife for two weeks, it was wonderful!

We visited Lake Barcis.  I love that place, it is beautiful in every season!

 That's beauty right there!

We took a trip to Verona, home of Romeo and Juliet.  Neither of us had been there so we went to visit for the weekend and we both LOVED it.  It was such a quaint city that was perfect for people watching.

This is a main piazza in Verona taken from the top of the Colosseum in the city.

 This is the restaurant where we sat for a few hours for lunch.  As we were sitting soaking up the sunlight children began to gather in the piazza dressed in their costumes for Carnevale.  We were enjoying people watching as more and more began to gather.  We then figured something must be going on down there for the celebration.  About 30 minutes later there is a huge crowd of people and there is a MASSIVE Carnevale parade going through the center with costumes, bands, floats, confetti, silly string, music, and dancers!  It was great!

Juliet's balcony...Romeo, Romeo, where for art thou Romeo?

 This is the entrance to Juliet's house (courtyard).  Everyone writes on the wall for their love.  So we had to join in the tourist tradition and add our loves to the wall as well!

Standing on the top of the Colosseum in Verona.

Playing in the piazza.  Apparently not much happens at 1am on a Thursday...but we didn't need people to stay entertained!

 Celebrating Carnevale in Venice with our painted faces, confetti, and of course, gelato!

We were attempting to have the confetti raining down on us for the picture, after multiple attempts, this was as good as we could get!  

We had a fabulous visit and it was so wonderful having Court come stay!  She was the perfect house guest, doing dishes, washing clothes, even helping me put on a baby shower for my friend Kika!  Court- if you have an interest in Florida, I'll be there in 2 months...I'm just saying :)

St. Moritz, Switzerland- Christmas 2011

Christmas 2011...just the other day, right?  Oh well.  We went to St. Moritz, Switzerland for our last Christmas in Europe.  We headed up there through snow covered mountains with my safety conscious driver going 20 mph for about an hour through the mountains.  But props to him for getting us there all in one piece, I suppose there is something to be said for that, thanks babe!  We arrived in the evening and wandered through the town to find some dinner and do some exploring.

Found my favorite lit up, snow covered street that was just beautiful!  And in the photo below one of the big hotels had this gorgeous tree lit up outside and the fresh snow just made it EVEN better!

How beautiful is that?  It was outside one of the major hotels in the town.  Though not quite where we were staying.  Upon doing a little research St. Moritz is a playground for the rich and famous going on their European ski vacations so there were a few very ritzy massive hotels inside town that were quite impressive, this would be one of them :)  We found a nice restaurant for dinner...with EXCELLENT ravioli, onion soup, salad, and water.  As expected, St. Moritz proved to be just as pricey as our last trip to Switzerland.  $100 ravioli dinner right there, people!  And when I say it was excellent, it certainly was, buuuut, not $100 excellent :)

I think we blended, Taylor and I were both classing it up in our pea coats, no one even knew we stayed in the hotel at the BOTTOM of the hill at the foot of town, we fooled them!

On Christmas Eve day, we attempted to go skiing, unfortunately it was cloudy, windy, foggy, and snowing.  We bought our passes and rode up to the slopes.  We both did two runs down and agreed we were done for the day.  The visibility was so poor you could hardly see right in front of your skis.  So we gave it up for the day and went to wander the town in the afternoon.

That evening we stopped at an outdoor bar in town with Christmas music playing and flame heaters going.  We had our Christmas eve cocktails in the snow.  These are the things I will miss over here.

Drinking my hot wine (gluhwein) on Christmas Eve in the snow :)

Christmas Day could not be more gorgeous.  It was perfect skiing weather, with great snow from the day before.  It was a great day on the slopes and a perfect way to celebrate the birth of Christ the King.  His creation is great!