Well I have started a couple of posts since the last one but the life has continued to happen and here we are. It’s been a while! This will be a quick catch up post! I will try not to bore you!

Last Sunday we took a drive to Thun with Nana. It was quite chilly and a bit cloudy but she enjoyed seeing the castle and getting out along the lake. In the afternoon we came home and made rootbeer floats…I had saved a couple of root beers in the secret stash and knew it was one of Nana’s favorite treats. The boys had never had a float so they loved it too! (turns out we can now get root beer in our store…only it’s sold in the beer section!)

Our other big outing of last week, pre-Thanksgiving was Ikea! I needed a few things and thought it might be a bit nutty with my trio but everyone was antsy to get out and I needed to get it done. We got some of the things we needed.  And following someone banging on the car door to tell us to turn the car off while it warmed Nana while I ran in for bread, an EPIC tantrum from Owen and my blood pressure being dangerously high we headed home…and I cried. I promised myself I will never go to Ikea with my toddlers..and grandmother. Ikea is meant to be savored!

On Tuesday of last week my cousin Nathan arrived with these…

Nathan was taking an R&R from his work in South Sudan. He was visiting France and decided to pop on over. We loved having him here and hated to see him go!  He was able to stay for Thanksgiving which was so fun! He is a great cook so I lucked out and had a chef in the kitchen for the holiday….did I mention he was craving Thai food so made a feast for us on the night before Thanksgiving. I contributed spring rolls but he did the rest! We were happy to offer him something other than boiled goat.  Thanks for sharing your R&R with us Nathan!

Two posts in one day folks, here comes Thanksgiving!!!

On Friday night Seth and I hosted a dinner party…a fondue party at that. I shouldn’t even call it a party because it was super low key. Just low lighting, 2 pots of cheese, lots of dippers and good company. With the craziness of last week Seth decided to come home a bit early on Friday which allowed me to sneak out on a “date” with Jackson to the grocery store for our dipping bread. Jackson had been in a funk all day so I thought it might be good for him to get out. When he zipped his coat he said “mom, I think I am wearing the same shirt I slept in last night”. Poor kid. We had had a home day with lots of cleaning and prepping for our visitor so I had let him stay in his sweats. He was a little self conscious but I reassured him that no one would know he had slept in his baseball shirt. Bad mom, I know.

Before we left home Jackson caught on to the fun of the fondue party plans and actually started to cry that he wasn’t invited. This wasn’t like him to be so disappointed. I remembered that the store sells little individual tubs of fondue and I asked if he wanted to have his very own fondue pot for dinner. He was thrilled. So, we got him his own little “Gerber” pot of fondue. He proudly dipped and enjoyed. He’s such a character.

When the fondue pots were scraped clean and the house got quiet we started hearing Jackson coughing. Poor kid hadn’t been able to sleep well and was wide awake and coughing up a lung. Seth had to go out to a friend’s in the middle of the night to get medicine because there wasn’t a 24 hour (or even after 8pm) place near our home. Don’t get me started….I get grumpy when I get talking about conveniences that they just don’t get here. I was happy to have a friend we could call! Anyhow, seems the crying for a pot of fondue may have been linked to being sick which we only learned later! My mom used to make us chicken rice soup or poached eggs on toast when we were feeling sick…much more sensible than a tub of cheese!! But he loved it!

…whatever you call it in your part of the world, it’s yummy! If you have never tried it it’s the perfect season to brew some up!

I had my first vino caliente in Bogota a few years ago. It was so yummy and hit the spot on those cold rainy evenings. When we arrived in Switzerland we met our friends Bo and Leigh in Basel for Herbstmesse and Leigh introduced me to the European version, Gluwein. It’s basically hot, yummy, mulled red wine. I am not usually a red girl but with the doctoring it is super cozy. I think here in Switzerland it seems sweeter to me but maybe I just can’t remember well enough. In Bogota if you ordered it at a restaurant they often sugared the rim of the glass!

There are many different methods for making Gluwein and everyone has their own fav. You can buy it already mixed or you can make it easily at home.

This is how I make it…

grab a bottle of dry red wine

A cup of apple juice  or cider (to sweeten it up a bit)

A few cloves, cinnamon, etc!

A couple of slices of orange and apple!

If you like it nice and sweet dissolve 1/2 cup to 1 cup sugar in the mix

Last year I discovered that they now sell tea bag type things with mulling spices!! So no more floating stuff in the gluwein! Just the bag of goodness!

Pop it on the stove and simmer on low for 30-45 minutes, but don’t boil it!! Just get it good and steamy hot.

If you don’t have a group to help you with your pot-o-wine and just want a glass it’s super easy to just play around with the ingredients and get it how you like it!   This probably goes without saying but if you don’t drink alcohol and still want to try it you can obviously cook it longer and hotter and burn off the alcohol!

And for those of you that are like, “um, that isn’t really a recipe” and would feel more comfortable trying something more official here are a few links for “real recipes”! Enjoy!

Gluwein

Vino Caliente

Try this out for Thanksgiving or Christmas gatherings!!

We finally got around to getting our pumpkins this year. I must admit that I missed the hay ride and hoopla involved in getting pumpkins in the US…next year you will find us at Cox Farms or the like! This year we found a cute farm stand.

We are throwing a pumpkin carving party on Saturday night. It will be the UN of pumpkin parties with a Swiss family, a German family, an Italian/American family and a Hungarian/American family!  It will be a fun group of kids and parents and we are hoping for a really fun night….very messy but fun. I will post pics after the fun!

this is the pumpkin pie that Seth was wishing he had gotten to eat. We delivered it to my friend on our way out to get pumpkins…she is German but had lived in Canada and was missing pumpkin pie. It happened to be her birthday so we surprised her and took over a hot pie! Again, Seth is still jealous!

Happy Fall Y’all!

ps-I made these cookies that I mentioned last week. They were SO good. Like pumpkin spice snickerdoodles!! They were so good that I send almost the whole  batch to work with Seth so I wouldn’t have any!