Charmey Désalpes

Getting ready to attend the Désalpes in Charmey, Ryan makes cow shaped pancakes for breakfast!!

The Désalpes happen every fall.  After the cows and caretakers have spent the summer grazing on fresh mountain grass they make a big parade and "harvest" festival to include their mountain cheeses.  The BEST cow of the year gets to wear the enormous headdress of flowers and lead the parade.  Really not sure how they manage the headdress and the bell!

This is only the 2nd best cow.

And the rest just have to wear the enormous bells!

Then there are the cow bell bands.  It's quite a ruckus.  Not sure how they survive the parade through town without earplugs.  They bounce the bells off their knees and occasionally send them up over their shoulders (still holding on, of course).

Nate tried to lift it to imagine how far he could carry it.

Various stalls of handcrafts were set up from soaps to wood carvings to pottery and cow bells.  Knowing we have 3 active boys, Dan suggested they each pick their favorite scent, hoping that might encourage their use of the soap :)

Lots of food stalls, too.  The cheese pies were amazing--I'm sure it was Gruyere cheese but don't tell the boys, they don't think they like it.  We also tried the Tresses (Zopf), caramels and Alpkäse.

Cute little chalet in Charmey.

Heading back to our car after fighting through the crowds.  Little did we know we were right behind another cow parade so it took quite a while to make it back down the mountain.

Being so close to Caillier chocolate factory we had to stop for the tour and chocolate samples.  We bought enough of our own to do a blind taste test of our favorites.  Grandpa is bringing a Hershey's bar, too, so we can see how it rates with our swiss ones.  In addition, Kent and Dad were having an iPod/Blackberry face off.  Kent, then Dan, would name something to do and they would race to see who got the quickest response.

Kent's device won, hands down!!  Dan said, "picture of Hoku"  Kent responded, "video of Hoku."  We proceeded to watch her Farewell video, so Dan conceded, with a tear in his eye.

On our way home from there we stopped at IKEA to pick up some glasses for our kitchen (we were down to 2 glass, glasses and wanted to have something glass for my dad when he arrives next week, not to mention for our family).  After spending a few hours in Sweden and paying $10 for 3 candy bars at 7-Eleven, I have no idea how IKEA sells their products so cheaply.  Even is Switzerland, it is considerably cheaper to buy products there than any other store.