Trick or Treat

We had a successful first Halloween in Geneva.  When we lived here 10 years ago, I honestly don't remember seeing anything Halloween related in the 3 years we were here.  I was a bit worried that Kenzie & Lexi would be disappointed, since they declared that Halloween is their third favorite day of the year (after Christmas and their birthday).  But to my pleasant surprise, Halloween has certainly taken a rise in Geneva over the past decade, and we had not only a fun Halloween night, but also a festive month leading up to the big day.

Randall brought back costumes for the girls from his trip to New York at the beginning of October (a ninja per Kenzie's request and a cozy bat for Lexi, as the snow owl she wanted was sold out) and the day after he got back there was a Halloween event at Chateau de Chillon in Montreax, which is about an hour from Geneva.  Who can pass up the opportunity to go to a haunted house in a real castle?  We couldn't.  The girls were too young for the actual haunted house part of the event (which is probably a good thing), but we had fun watching knights sword fight, eating shepards pie, listening to live music and touring the beautiful castle.  Definitely a fun setting for a spooky Halloween celebration!

During the month of October we also visited an apple orchard, and picked out our pumpkins while we were there.  The girls and I had fun carving them last Wednesday afternoon after school.

On Halloween itself, we had a wonderful evening celebrating with American and Canadian friends from school.  One of Lexi's classmates hosted us for dinner and fun Halloween games before heading out for trick-or-treating.  

Trick-or-treating itself proved to be somewhat interesting.  We were in Veyrier and started out in a neighborhood that we had heard about that has lot of expats and therefore many houses that participate in trick or treat.  I think the kids hit about 8 houses there and then we walked about a mile towards another classmates house, finding a couple of additional houses along the way.  The kids had a blast and didn't complain at all about all of the walking and even though they ended up with far less loot than they would have in the US, they were content and happy.

A great Halloween and beautiful fall so far in Geneva!