I have been away from this blog far too long. Lately we have been pretty busy. In addition to our busyness, Jachen has become sick and has been missing a weeks worth of work. It has been enjoyable with him home with me, but I would prefer him not sick. He has been laying around and sleeping while I have been babysitting him. This last Friday evening I went to a Relief Society summer kick off BBQ which was fun. I talked to one of the sister missionaries almost the whole time, she is from Germany originally but has lived in Helsinki, Finland for the last couple years. Her and I have much in common and when she is off her mission soon I will travel a bit with her. The weather has gotten HOT HOT, but luckily our house stays nice and cool.
Another delicious loaf of bread Jachen's Grandmother made for us. It was as delicious as it looks.
We took a drive to Germany. I will post more about that another time.
Jachen finally axing down a huge shelving unit we don't want in the house and is too big to throw out intact.
I have been working on art a lot lately.
Some beautiful drives, any drive here is beautiful really.
Found somethings I needed at a great store that has become a new favorite.
While eating lunch at Jachen's dads, he asked us what kitchenware we needed from this little magazine. We pointed to one, but then he ended up buying us all this. So nice! I guess I need to learn how to cook meals that go in these.
Jachen came downstairs wearing these silk pants. Oh la la. They were up in the attic. There are some real treasures up there.
I got one of these Bamboo tablets. LOVE IT. It helps a lot. I have been wanting one forever and Jachen wanted to get me one so can't argue with that. Photo courtesy of Jachen.
If I had more skills I wouldn't have had to post three separate videos for this, I would combine them. But, not skilled in the video department. Enjoy these pretty silly videos of me talking about the decorating I did in our bedroom. I think I sound pretty lame, but regardless it had to be done. I even used the expression "and we're back" at the beginning of part 2. dork. {I probably always sound like this really} I have been taking videos around the house and these three are all ready for you. I am pretty happy about what I came up with so I wanted to share, and you can finally see the big map I bought at the flea market last month. Get excited!
I have a lot of pictures of the food we eat. I don't know why I take them, I guess because you don't get to come over and see what we eat. Oh, and because I have had questions as to what we eat. Every two weeks we go "big grocery shopping"...as I call it. I plan out our dinners for the following two weeks and some other breakfast and lunch items then on the "big grocery shopping" evening we take a trip down the mountain to shop. It is so easy having meals planned out because I know exactly what to shop for and I don't have to buy things we wont eat or wander around thinking of meals. I can't imagine doing it any other way. Of course we throw in a few extras, but mostly we stick to my list. We often have the same meals, we got our favs, but this past shopping I threw in some new meals...BLTA's, steak sandwich{jachen's idea} and french toast. We are fancy. Our newest FAVORITE thing to eat is homemade guacamole. OH.MY.WORD...either I make it REAL good or I have forgotten how good this stuff is. Come over and have dinner with us already!
Smoothies! Jachen modeling the smoothie real well. This night we had pizza, salad and an all fruit smoothie.
This is actually a lunch I had one day. YUMMY Vanilla Rhubarb{my FAV} yogurt with meat, cheese and crackers.
Jachen's Grossmutter(grandma) has made us bread the last few weeks. She lives next door, literally so she just rings the bell and hands us some homemade bread. YES, thanks.
This is a Swiss meal...Rosti, sausage and salad. Seriously delicious. YOU have NOT had sausage till you eat a Swiss sausage.
The ever amazing BLTA. Oh man it was huge and AMAZING.
Jachen and the BLTA goodness...nice spit strand on that last pic.
This was our dinner one night last week because we ate a big lunch at Jachen's Dad's house and we wanted something light. {i hate that it is only letting me center this caption}
The steak sandwich we tried out. We didn't eat anything else with it because we knew it would fill us and it sure did.
Today I went with Jachen's Grandma{Grossmutter}to the Minor Chocolate Factory{Fabrik}. She mentioned to Jachen last week that if I ever wanted to go she would take me. So yesterday, I decided I wanted to go. So since Grossmutter lives next door, she rang my doorbell at 1:30 and we were on our way. His Grossmutter knows english pretty well so the drive wasn't in silence...or in German incase you were wondering. I had been to that Fabrik with Jachen before, but I am always up for a Fabrik....and chocolate. Today however, there was actually people working down in the Fabrik where as when Jachen and I went it was near closing so all the chocolate workers were gone. The room where you look down to them smells of sweet chocolate. They should make room fragrances out of that smell. There is a chocolate store there that has less expensive chocolate so that is the real reason for going. We wandered around and plopped things into our baskets. The ladybugs, I ate at them at the family's I nannied for last year, it is such delicious chocolate and I had been craving some lately so that was for sure on my list. Then I thought, why not some mice too? Grossmutter paid for mine and hers chocolate and then we were on our way. Then on our drive home she invited me over for tea with her and Grossvater(grandfather). And that was my afternoon.
I got this book to help me start learning Deutsch till I can take a class. It has page after page of exciting pictures and words to learn. Basically a kids book, but since I am starting at the beginning I need pictures and simple words. It also comes mit(with) a cd! I actually really love this book and get really excited when I open it up. Sometimes I think I will memorize every word...but then I remember that probably won't happen. Luckily, I studied French for many years so I understand how things work and a lot of German words have a French accent. So I have that going for me. Aren't those photos great?
Last week I went with my friends up to the top of the Santis. SOOO MUCH FUN. You can read about the Santis, HERE. It is the tallest mountain in this region of Switzerland and it is just a hop, skip and a few switchbacks up a mountain away from our house. We rode a lift up to the peak and that was divine. There was a little part at the end that you feel like you might plummet to your death...but other than that I think my jaw was dropped in awe the whole time. It was a tad cloudy that day, but that was okay...I LOVE clouds. However, I would like to go back when its clear. Switzerland is a very beautiful country and no pictures can capture it.
Uri walking on top of the snow...right before he fell through.
It was quite funny...Claudia trying to hold him while Daniela dried off his snowy shoe.
After the ride up to the Santis, we went to lunch in Appenzell(to remind you, Appenzell is one of my favorite villiages) and then went to the Appenzeller Cheese(Kase) factory. I have been here once before with Jachen, but I LOVE factories and was excited to go again. I learned a lot more about the cheese this time around, my friend Daniela knows her stuff. I tell ya, Switzerland has got it going on in the cheese department. You have not had cheese until you have had Swiss cheese(and not "swiss" cheese...that is fake). I can't wait till you come to Switzerland, I will have already a fridge full of cheese waiting for you to try. A bit about cheese...the longer the cheese sits the stronger the flavor. While I was there a lady gave us a sample of 4month, 5month and 6month aged cheese. sooo delicious, but the 6month was too strong for me, but i tell ya, that 4month is cheese goodness.
See the above? I was standing in the middle of those two pictures above. To my left was a large group of kids having a tour and then all of a sudden to my right a LARGE group of older people came flooding in to see this amazing cheese. It was a funny sight and a joy to be in the middle of it. Literally. ALSO, in the corner of the above picture you can see the cheese stacked up on shelves...I don't know why I didnt take pictures of it, but there they sit till they are ready to move on.
MY FAVORITE ad that is around Switzerland is the Appenzeller Cheese ads. The "thing" about this cheese is that it is a secret recipe...so the ads for this cheese talks about the secrecy and about how people want the secret recipe. The ads have these old men wearing traditional Appenzell clothing and they are SO GREAT. I LOVE these pictures, they are so funny...and cool. Don't you agree? I wish I was friends with those men.
Thanks to Rick Steves you can get your history lesson on Appenzell. AND it makes me sooo excited when he talks about the voting of the men raising their swords...because when we went a few weeks ago, I think I mentioned this on the post about it, we happened to go to Appenzell the day they had their meeting...with the swords. You gotta watch this video. He talks about Appenzell till about 3:30. AND if you want to see more about the Appenzell farmers tradition of bringing their cows up into the mountain, go HERE.
