November, a busy month!

This month has really flown by! On November 20 Savannah turned three years old! She was so excited about her presents and her cake!

Ryan has been traveling 75% of the time which has been very tiring for him and a drag for the family but we managed a day trip to Neuchatel, Switzerland.

This church had a beautiful blue painted ceiling.

Lots of winding uphill streets..

Savannah in her chainmail at the history museum.

Surprisingly, the best thing about Neuchatel was that they had a Mexican restaurant!! We were so excited to order fajitas, queso and chips, black beans, and margaritas! We think our standards on Mexican food may have dropped a bit due to deprivation.

We took a weekend trip to Turin. We were so impressed by the St. Bernard Pass that we took to get us through the Alps to Italy-what an amazing engineering feat! It was a tunnel that was at times totally enclosed and at times only covered. It was snowing as we drove and it made is so much less stressful!

Turin has the 2nd largest Egyptian museum outside of Egypt and it was a very impressive collection.

Travis had a lot of questions about this...

At this meal we had some interesting things including octopus risotto!

This is us in front of the Shroud of Turin-we all look really interested huh? This actually a reproduction-the original will not be shown again for 2 years.

Turin has the most covered shopping in Europe apparently-lots of marble pathways with glass ceilings.

This was a flea market Ryan stumbled upon during his run that apparently is where pickpockets sell their stolen goods!

The last thing we did in Turin was visit the Auto Museum. It was really well done-dozens of automobiles from the past 100 years. 

We decided to get ready for Christmas early as we had visitors coming. Our friends Chris, Ritka, and their son Enzo visited us from Zurich. We went to a wine festival, had a pseudo-Thanksgiving dinner(with chicken), and explored the town including our new ice skating rink.

Finally, we were sad to lose Grandma Lewis, Ryan's grandmother, on November 20. Ryan went to Ohio for the funeral. We will miss you Grandma!

Autumn is here!

Autumn has definitely arrived!   I've never lived somewhere where there was so much beautiful red, orange, and yellow.  In Austin when the leaves began to fall(usually end of November) it just made me think that we'd have to rake up all of those tiny oak leaves!  So it has been real treat to see them and feel the brisk air that signals that winter is on its way.

It is also time of "vendange" which is the harvesting of the grapes that have been growing all through the summer and are ready to be picked. All of the grape leaves have turned yellow and red.

Many schools in Europe have a fall break that is 1 to 2 weeks. To us it seems too soon to be having a break from school since it just started the beginning of September! Fortunately during the break we were able to have some visitors-our friends the Moores came from Denmark to visit. The kids had so much fun together and we enjoyed showing them around town.

We visited Labyrinth Aventure, an outdoor playpark with ziplines, inflatables, trampolines, etc!

Chateau Chillon had a Halloween party and decorated the entire castle and the kids all dressed up for the party.

We went to the Knie Circus, the Swiss national circus that has been operating for 200 years. It was pretty impressive and thankfully there were no clowns! (I just don't like them!)

We went on a cruise around Lake Geneva that was a relaxing way to spend an afternoon.

We visited to Gruyere to have fondue and visit the Caillier chocolate factory. Both were delicious!

 

Hmm...which chocolate to choose??!

We were sad to see the Moores go as they headed off to Zermatt. We were lucky to have another visitor shortly after they left. Our former nanny Megan came to visit and she and the kids picked up right where they left off! They had so much fun playing together and we enjoyed having her around as well. It was great to get some good child management reminders from her now that I'm home with them all the time!

We walked around town so the kids could show her their favorite sites..

On a rainy day we visited the Nestle museum where we watched a video on digestion and played with a machine that spit out chocolate, naturally!

We went to visit Leysin and took a cablecar to a rotating restaurant.

  We visited some spooky caves that also had an underground waterfall.

And took a funicular train up to a fondue restaurant. 

We all had a great time with Megan!!!

Finally, the kids dressed up for Halloween for parties at school. Unfortunately, no trick-or-treating here but they still had fun!