2009 - Summer Trip to the US

This is Grant. After school got out, we left Germany, and flew to the US for the summer. We stayed at our Grandma & Grandpa Thomas' house, as usual. Here are some pictures of the things we did this summer.

We went to our Great Grandma Miller's house right after the funeral, to see the Fullmers and Grandma & Grandpa Miller.

On the 4th of July, we went and saw the hot air balloon launch in Provo with Bret's family.

Mallory and Natalie.

Dancing and throwing frisbees at the hot air balloon launch.

Ian and Nash hiking Timpanogos, preparing for the 50 mile hike.

Look at those fancy boots on Aunt Heather.

My grandparents cleaned out the basement, and look what we found! Don't I look warm? It was hot in there. We wrapped it up and gave it to Uncle Jeff for his birthday.

Luke found Uncle Bret's jean suit and Grandma's old wig.

Luke and I went to BYU soccer camp. We went 4 days, from 8 AM - 12 PM. It was a lot of fun. There's me with the ball.

Here's a good action shot of Luke. Unfortunately, it was a goal.

There's me, trapping the ball.

Mallory had a fun time with her cousin, Lucy. I don't think Lucy liked her popsicle.

My grandparents also found these old chairs in the basement. I went with Grandpa to take them to the dump.

Emily, Lucy, and Mallory in the bubble bath.

We went to visit our friends, the Larsen family. Luke and James are great friends.

Here's the whole Thomas family at the Dinosaur Museum. We thought we were going to go to Thanksgiving Point, but it was closed.

Grandma seemed to be having a lot of fun building the dam.

We saw our friends, the Hollidays. Olivia made me wear a horse head costume.

We went to Idaho for the Thomas Family Camping Trip. The cabin by the lake where we stayed had some boats. Here's me and my crew on the paddleboat.

And me and Isaac in the canoe, about to hit a log.

My Mom made us take pictures by the lake. We were all freaking out because of all the mosquitoes.

Here are my cousins, Isaac, Ian, Gabe, and Gavin. Me and Nash were trying to get in their picture on the paddleboat.

We went to Yellowstone. Here's Mallory, by a geyser.

This is Mom and some of her friends.

This Nash, Uncle Jeff, and Ian on their 50 mile hike in the Uintah mountains in Wyoming.

Nash and the other scouts on the 50 mile hike, fishing at a lake. Isn't Nash manly?

Norway Trip - August 2009

We finally went to Norway. When we were first married the Olympics were in Norway and Creed would often say, "Heidi, we have to go there!” Never in my wildest dreams did I think we really would.

It is a beautiful country and often it would remind us of the Midwest in the states with the red barns and farms. It was well worth the trip.

We were gone for a week before the kids started school. We went on lots of Fjord Cruises, buses, and trains. We were shocked at the prices of things but really enjoyed the beauty of the country and the friendliness of the people. We found a new love for the Scandinavian meatballs, gravy and vegetables and Creed even ate Reindeer…yeah, we’ll see if Santa brings him gifts this year.



I just went around and did a survey of the kids. Nash's favorite thing about the trip was seeing the fjords. Grant liked the glaciers and seeing the Coldplay concert in Bergen. Luke liked going to the aquariums. And Mallory liked....well she was almost asleep when I asked, and she said she really didn't like having to walk around so much. I know for a fact that she really liked the white seal stuffed animal that we got for her there -- she named her Sally the Seal.

In Eidfjord we took a bus up to a hotel at the top of a cliff where there is a good view of a large waterfall. As we got off the bus, we suggested Mallory leave Sally on the bus so she wouldn't get lost, but Mallory insisted on bringing Sally. As we were walking along a trail and down some steps, there was some traffic congestion at the bottom of the stairs and Mallory lost her balance and fell down the last step to the ground below and right into a puddle of mud. Sally, the white seal, ended up right in the mud, too. Heidi took Mallory in to the hotel for a quick clean up and to give Sally a bath in the sink. Sally's fur isn't as white now as it used to be, but Mallory still loves her. I think my favorite parts of the trip were seeing the city of Bergen, including taking Grant to see his first concert, and seeing Edvard Munch's painting, The Scream, at the national gallery in Oslo.

Nigel's Visit - July 2009 / Lauterbrunnen

Nigel came to visit last Saturday morning. I picked him up from the airport and we went directly into downtown Cologne. We looked at the Dom / cathedral, and then climbed the stairs to the top.

This is one of the bells in the Cologne Dom bell tower.

Sunday after church we drove down to Switzerland, but made a short stop in Freiburg (above).

This is the view of the Staubbach waterfall in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland.

We got up Monday morning and took the train up to Wengen, and then the gondola up to Maennlichen.





This is the view from the top of Maennlichen, looking back down into the Lauterbrunnen valley.



We walked along the top of the ridge toward Kleine Scheidegg, with this view of Eiger, Moench, and Jungfrau the whole way.

The north face of Eiger.

We walked down from Kleine Scheidegg into Wengen. Along the way we ran into a herd of cows with strange-looking horns.

Nigel's Visit - July 2009 / Gruyere and Montreux, Switzerland

We next drove over the Jaun Pass to Gruyere (the town that makes my favourite type of cheese), with a town and castle on a hill.

And then we drove down to Montreux, on Lake Geneva, where we stayed for the night.

We found a restaurant from our guidebook. It was a tiny hole in the wall place. The food ended up being OK, but the whole situation was a bit awkward because they didn't take credit cards, and we were running low on Swiss francs. So we had to take a picture of the place to remember it.

We then went into downtown Montreux, and walked along the lakefront. An older woman came along the path to this ladder, and started going down, saying something about the fact that she had lost one of her walking sticks in the water. Nigel went after her.

He ended up having to wade up to his knees to rescue her walking stick. Good thing he was wearing his lifeguard shirt -- people thought he was official.

Nigel's Trip - July 2009 / Chillon Castle

We went to the Chillon castle on Lake Geneva.