Two days after arriving back home, Mike Hack came out to visit us for a few days. We were really sorry to miss Rose as she had to go back to S. Africa. We spent lots of time with Mike just hanging out, watching videos and visiting. It's amazing how you just carry right on as if we had just seen each other yesterday...



Mike stayed for a few days and then we drove him out to Weggis, which is right near Luzern (Switzerland), to stay with some other friends. It's about 1 1/2 hours from us.














While there, we drove way up on this little meandering road that you could barely fit on. We hiked up on a path on the mountain trying to find our way to the top and searching out a spot for our picnic, but after meeting some other people along the way, we found out we couldn't get to the top on this path. The scenery was incredible. We were under the clouds in the town, but up high we were looking down onto the clouds from above. It looked like a lake of cloud in the valley.















We were not dressed appropriately for a hiking trip, so we turned around and went back into town where we ate our lunch along the lake...it was freezing cold. This is the first time we can really say that we had a picnic by the lake in winter!
















We then met and visited with Sue and Suru Blatter - friends of Mike and Rose. They have a beautiful place overlooking the lake. It's used for retreats and groups to stay. Absolutely gorgeous. We left Mike here for a few days and headed back to the start of our new school year. Students started arriving the next day and pretty soon the place was full and alive once again. I was surprised to hear how everyone was so anxious to get back here. We're not into the full swing of things. The semester ended about a week after school started so exams were happening that following weekend already.

On Thursday, Mark took the boys out of school and headed back up to mountain to pick up Mike. They spent the day on the ski hill right near their place. What an experience to "ski in the alps". This ski hill is more geared towards families and has easier runs which was perfect for our "not very experienced" guys.