October was action packed! We dove right into our new life and said yes to every opportunity. The weather started to cool a bit and we did lots of hiking. Our new friends introduced us to lots of new trails and the views continued to wow us. Everyday is like “The sound of music” here.

You know how everyone in Europe takes a month to travel in the summer? Well, we were surprised to discover this includes the cows too. They spend the summer vacationing in the mountains. When they return, there is a big festival and parade to welcome them back to town. The cows are decorated with flowers and there are local dances and music.

So if reincarnation is real and you have to come back as a cow, try to be a French cow. They have it pretty good.

We also went to Rome in October. I love history and art so it was perfect for me. Craig is a big foodie and loves architecture so he loved it too and I don’t need to tell you how the kids feel about gelato. Everyone was happy… most of the time.

We had to make the joke that at least we can say our kids fought in the colosseum.

I knew we were going to see ruins but I had no idea the entire city would be filled with them. You couldn’t walk 10 feet without seeing something of historical significance. It was really incredible. Craig and I watched a Netflix series called “Roman Empire” before we went so it was cool to see all the real places we’d been watching on the show.

And this picture from Vatican City cracks me up every time. Craig is drinking the biggest beer in the universe and there’s a guard with a machine gun behind him and the Vatican in the background. What more could you want out of a photo?

The kids also got to participate in a street magic show. I think it may have been the highlight of the trip for them.

Or maybe it was when Caleb picked out his dream car.

All in all, it was a fantastic first trip to begin our European adventure. We will definitely go back.

But the month wasn’t over! When we flew back to Geneva, Craig drove the kids back to France and I took her train up to Lausanne to see my friend Ashley and volunteer to help with the TEDx event she curates. I love watching ted talks onYouTube so I was super excited to get to be there in person and be behind the scenes a bit. I had a great time and hopefully I didn’t get in the way too much! I think most of the work I did was to help untangle these strings, ha!

The show was super inspiring and the women and girls involved were such great role models. Ashley is an amazing person. Thank you, Ashley!

And can you believe this was not the end of October? There’s more but I’ll put it in my next post when my mom comes to visit and we get our first snowfall. Cheers!