Wednesday was a part-day at work. Elisa and I went to the zoo with two coworkers. Elisa went sliding down the slide at the kids’ playground. I had to be the grown-up. 😉 You’ll have to imagine what that means for Chad.

• Emil Eklund’s photos of the zoo

Thursday I was off work for some Catholic holiday. We went with the Mascaros on a trip straight south to Genoa (or Genova), Italy. Genova itself was not that interesting. It’s kind of dirty, like a lot of Italy we’ve seen. We enjoyed the rats and the graffiti sight-seeing. We won’t mention the smell. (Don’t touch the subway walls). They have a great aquarium though. It’s one of Tony’s favorite areas. He served his mission there so he showed us around. We met some of their friends who still live in Genoa. Paulo brought us Italian chocolate. A warning to everyone else: you have to be either brave or stupid to give chocolates to someone who lives in Switzerland.

After Genoa we went down the coast to Santa Margarita. That’s where we got to play on the beach. The water was just barely warm enough to play in. The gelato is really good there. Santa Margarita is what I imagined when I thought of Italy. On our last day we went home through Como, Italy. Como is another of Tony’s favorite places. It’s on a lake in some mountains bordering Switzerland. No matter where we go, we never regret that we are going home to Switzerland because it is so incredibly beautiful here.

• Photos of Genoa

I got lots of comments on Elisa’s primary lesson today. She’s a superstar here. We’re learning the song about the golden plates being hidden so last night Chad and I made some golden plates. And then I had the kids write their favorite scripture stories in it. We hid the golden plates around the room while they played hotter-colder singing louder and softer to find it.