Geneva, Switzerland with McLean Family (September 24, 2025)

I haven’t seen my cousin Brent and his wife Nathalie for a very long time — something like eight or nine years if my math is correct. Which means, I first met Mateo when he was about a year old and I had never met Bastian Mclean. Some things are universal. When Violet and I saw the stash of Star Wars lightsabers, we were very excited.

“En garde” says Mateo with Violet on his heels and Bastian not far behind

While the sun was on its way down, Violet, Mateo, Bastian and I took the time to have a number of lightsaber duels. This is a universal fun and play activity where each of us had an opportunity to duel “to the death” — or at least until both arms were hit and no further dueling would be possible (until reset to the next round of dueling).

After running around, we enjoyed a lasagne made by Nathalie and after dinner, we had a surprise music concert from Mateo. For context, Mateo is 10 years old and Bastian just turned 7. I asked Mateo if he could play one of my favorite songs from Green Day, “Time of Your Life”:

And after this wonderful song, Violet asked if Mateo would play “Enemy” from Imagine Dragons. Well, Mateo’s face lit up as he’s memorized about 50 songs form Imagine Dragons as they are his favorite band. So OF COURSE he’d be happy to play this theme song from Arcane (one of Violet’s favorite shows and where she first heard the name Violet).

Turns out both Brent and Mateo have been collaborating and decided to write some songs together. Here is the first one that they have created together and shared with Violet and me.

How cool. It’s one thing to reconnect with family you haven’t seen in about a decade, but entirely another to have an impromptu concert to serenade you. Violet and I loved it and enjoyed listening. After that, we saw a number of balloons that were left over from Bastian’s 7th birthday party. Time to play a bit of “Monkey in the middle.”

Bastian wants to play balloon and it turns into a “Monkey in the Middle” game

So let’s recap. Lightsaber duels, lasagne, musical serenade, balloon game, and I neglected to share what we all did earlier this afternoon. Brent took Violet and me to pick up Mateo and Bastian from school where we hung out a bit to play in the playground together.

As we wrapped up and got ready for bed, Violet and I had one final surprise from Mateo and Bastian — stuffed animals! Violet had three cats on her bed and I had a tiger on mine:

Feeling like home with a borrowed stuffed animal on our beds

Wonderful day together with family. So happy to be here in Geneva and feeling like an extension of the McLean family. Overall, Geneva is a wonderful town and very tight knit. Witnessing Brent pick up his children from the local school was a great way to see how plugged in he is to the local community. Seeing all the dads and moms picking up their kids you could see how easy it would be striking up a conversation with neighbors waiting to pick up their kids.

I love witnessing all of this. It’s great to be here in Geneva and even better to be reconnecting with our extended family. We’re truly enjoying our time here and excited to see Elena in Italy in just a few more days.