End of the Riviera and off to the Alps!

Our time by the beach just flew by.  We thought about planning lots of outings but then would just end up happily playing by the water.  We did end up finding one more castle to explore though before we left.  Here are a few extra photos I found on Luke's phone and a few of the castle.  Part way down starts our adventure to the Alps .... and adventure it has been!

Luke thinks he needs a haircut.  I don't know what he is talking about.  :)

Playing soccer wherever we go

A pizza and beer/wine at the harbour in Vernazza

Sausage anyone?

Nana trying out the captains seat

So we knew our house in the Italian Alps would be remote. And we knew it would be a bit of an adventure.  But you never REALLY know until you see it.  Right before we left I got an email from the owner just letting me know that if we see scorpions that they aren't poisonous and to just put them outside.  Right.  Well once we turned off the highway our real adventure began.  I posted a photo of the road on google maps below.  What you can't see is the incline.  We start at the bottom of the mountain and go to almost the top of the mountain in about 15 minutes.  Once we arrived we had to walk through the entire village to get to the very last house because the streets are so small no cars can drive on them.  We wind our way through the village and there is our 320 year old house.  It is absolutely quiet and serene and picturesque.  We met the 3 residents that live here full time (the whole town has 3 people!) and have been learning so much about the way the Italians used to live.  These little villages are now remnants what use to be.  We hiked through the forest behind our town and found another little town.  We thought it was deserted but then out pops the craziest looking man who told us that he lived there in the winter and then up in the hills as a shepherd in the summer and that yes, he indeed was crazy!  So to get to that town you had to park in our parking lot, walk through our town, through the forest for about 15 minutes.  Ella and I concluded that people here live VERY differently than we do!

You can see the town you start in through the trees.

Our little town

But the views!

I just thought his picture was cute.

The little town tucked in the trees

Such a big girl!

We finally got to have a fire pit.

Josie loves to play 'strings'.

Anywhere we find water we play Bombs Away!  (our family game where you toss a rock in the water near another person to get them wet.  We used to yell bombs away before we threw them but now its just an all out water fight!)

This picture reminds me of the rocky mountains.  

Luke and the kids jumped in to the freezing cold water.  I would've but I had to hold Josie ....

Isaac holding back the tears because he didn't want to jump but he did want to but he didn't but he did.  So he did.

Post jump warm up on the hot rocks

Our resident bee hives

Missing Canada

Luke and I went for a date in this little lake town near by and this woman grabbed Luke and started yelling at him in Italian.  Once they realized we spoke English she, through a lot of hand gestures, showed us that she wanted to take this huge magnolia bloom of the tree but was too short (as were the other two Italian men who stopped to help!  She needed a Dutchie I guess!).  Once he got it down for her she insisted that he get one for me too.  They were so beautiful!  And went perfectly with my cappuccino and croissant.  

I still can't get over the baby food here.  So here is my little photo montage of what Josie's choices are for food.

Choice of fish?  Cow?  Rabbit?

Milk and Chocolate?

How about processed cheese?  of ALL flavours

Milk and cookies?

And some tea to wash it down?  This one is for 24 months plus but I did see on in Slovenia that was for 4 months old. 

So now only 3 weeks left!  We have a few more days here (hoping to explore Milan tomorrow) then we start the trek back to Holland.  We are all excited to come home but also sad to see this chapter of our lives slowly winding down.  Luke and I both talked about how we are finding this time to be our new normal.  We've really adjusted to living in new places, unpacking, repacking, grocery shopping as a family etc.  I'm a little tired of it but not nearly what I thought I'd be.  But we miss our family and friends and are really looking forward to seeing you all again!