l'Escalade

We had the privilege of enjoying another Swiss Holiday this year. The city of Geneva celebrates their success over an invasion from the French. A very worthy cause I would have to agree!
We began with a history lesson and tour of the city with Sophie. She is the lovely lady that helped us get settled here. Shops all over are filled with these chocolate pots.

The tradition goes something like this: The French were nearing the outer walls of Geneva. A lady was preparing some soup and heard the intruders. So. . . she poured the soup on their heads and deterred them from making it up any further. Apparantly it also bought the neighbors some time to get the ammo ready. Here's to soup for ammo!
Now they celebrate with chocolate pots that they fill with marzipan vegetables.

On the day of l'Escalade, it was December 12. Everyone eats vegetable soup. At Henry and Elsa's school the kids all brought vegetables and they cut them up and made the soup to serve at the party.
Apparantly soup wasn't enough for this party. They also sold hot dogs-which were very popular. Can you find Elsa and Henry in this crowd?

The afternoon was freezing! We ended up leaving the playground early. The whole thing was on the playground. Poor Ansel was sooo cold.

After school we had a party at our house with some friends. I forgot to take pictures. It was more of the Christmas variety.

After our party was over we head straight to the church for more veggie soup and a celebration with the Stake.
Somehow the dressing-up for children invaded the Escalade tradition. (I bet they were jealous of our Halloween). The kids really don't need a reason to dress-up. They had a great time.

So count them, three parties in one day! What fun.

We waited until Liz and Chris arrived on Monday the 15th to break our own pot of chocolate.

Escalade was a good time. Maybe next year we'll join much of the others in the city for the fun run!