Desaples

Every fall "the cows come home" in a traditional celebration called La Désalpe - literally coming down from the Alps. We made it to two different festivals this year and Laura loved them.  She saw cows, sheep, donkey, goats and horses up close and personal.  At first the loud bells around the necks of the cows scared her, but she got used to it after awhile.  While Laura's favorite part was the animals, I liked shopping in the markets the best.  Such fun, crafty, Swiss stuff to be had... I didn't buy much, but looking is half the fun!

With all the traffic, we were a little late to the first parade of cows in Charmey.  It meant we got a good view, though.  Everyone just pulled over and ran across the street to watch the cows go by.  Either that cow is really big, or our car is really small...

One cow broke ranks and headed straight for us! 

 Laura is really distracted.

 The decorated sheep.

 She's started smiling on command (sometimes).  This is her sporting pig-tails for the first time.  At first I couldn't keep them in and now she asks for them all the time. She needs something done to her hair though, it's finally!! (it only took 2 years) long enough to get in her eyes.

Before winter arrived (it's 32F outside right now), Laura decided to play on the porch in this interesting outfit.

Time for a break! 

 Our second desalpe in Semsales. Laura talked about the donkeys for days.

 An interesting float? in the parade. The man in back was playing music by manually cranking a handle.

 Hard at play...

 I take no responsibility for this outfit.

Happy to be outside at the park behind our house.  This fall has brought the opportunity to search for chestnuts.  We find them and then feed them to the deer who live next to the park. 

Laura wanted to be like mama.  She carried her baby around like this all day - even on our walk to the park.