After the big day yesterday, we decided to celebrate the mid-point of our trip with a more low-key, relaxed day.  I slept in until noon and awoke to finish my coffee just in the nick of time before cremant was poured and lunch began.  Apparently we lucked out and have had warm sunny weather most of the time we have been here; today, we took advantage of it to enjoy our lunch out on the deck.

Santé!

We were visited by Roger’s mother, the original Marie Gensbittel.  Later in the afternoon, Jean and Claudine came over as well.  Lunch was barbecued pork chops and prawns.

All in all, it was a leisurely afternoon full of easy chatting.

Three generations of Gensbittel!

Old pictures were pulled out and family resemblances were made.  Jean gave my father a pretty sweet French hat:

A few of us took a break to go try and find a geocache, as I have a travel coin that I really wanted to drop off at a cache in France. Geocaching, for those who are not in the know, is basically an internet-assisted global treasure hunt that has become a somewhat popular hobby.  When I mentioned it to the people here, no one had heard of it before… even though there are a ton of caches out here.

So we set out, map in hand, to try to find a box hidden along the river Doller.

The Doller River, complete with dam and fish ladder.

Unfortunately, we spent an hour just doing this:

"Is it over there maybe?"

We eventually gave up.  I think maybe someone had stolen the cache, as we found the place where it should have been, but it was nowhere to be seen.  It was a bit disappointing, but at least we got a nice hike and a view of a beautiful river out of it.

Later in the evening, we dropped the elder Marie Gensbittel off back at home.  She was very excited to show me a lot of her photos and decorations.  She lives on the old family farm in Burnhaupt, so I took the opportunity to take a few pictures of the farm as well as the church across the street, which she used to help caretake.

I am so grateful for faucets!

The Burnhaupt church, newly renovated.

Upon our return, we had a nice light dinner and a cheese plate out on the deck.

Voila!

Later on, Heidi taught the girls how to bake her cookie recipe, and I lounged for a bit.

Warm cookies fresh out of the oven was the perfect way to end the night.

A few bad hands of Uno later, and I was ready for bed.