Below my friends is a picture of the first Valentine’s day dinner that Seth cooked for me after we got married. I remember him seeing the recipe in my Southern Living magazine and saying “I’ll make that for Valentine’s day”. I will be honest my concern was more that it seemed like a funny thing to eat for a romantic dinner but had I been a little smarter I would have been more concerned about how he was going to accomplish it. The poor guy had hardly cooked pasta and was quickly spoiled as a married man with a personal chef. He enthusiastically prepared Chicken fried steak and nearly burned the whole apartment complex down.  He literally had to run to the front door with the hot skillet to dump out smoking char, which accidentally landed on and burned small spots in our carpet. All of this was followed by a really good laugh. You would have thought we would have ordered a pizza after the fiasco but if I remember right we were too cheap to do that. So here it is, V-day dinner 2006.

notice I ate everything on the plate but the chicken fried steak

But this, this is what Seth cooked on Saturday night. He planned an early V-day dinner since our friends were coming to town on the actual day.

(sorry my pictures are a little blurry but I do like the coloring better with no flash…still learning with this camera)

He researched and made the menu and whipped up London broil with herb butter, browned butter green beans and garlic bread. It was amazing! I was so impressed and decided that he will be cooking MUCH more often!

And did I mention that he did all of the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen! It was the best gift ever!  thanks, Seth!

During the late summer months when we arrived Bern was hopping with Saturday festivals. It was a great way for us to get down to the city and to get acclimated with the city and it’s culture. The winter months have been grey and cold and it seems the festival folks have been waiting for warmer days to come back.

A couple of weeks ago there was a Winter Grillfest held in downtown Bern.  It was really just an opportunity for the meat farmers of Switzerland to sell us on their amazing local meat. We still can’t afford their meat at the store here (which is why we drive 6 1/2 hours every 3 months to get meat) but it was fun to try some of their goodness.   They had meat plates with all kinds of sausage, beef and pork. A dream come true for Seth. They had cozy benches set up with sheep’s wool blankets and a bonfire where kids could roast free sausages. Much to the kids delight they also had big crates of apples around for people to grab. Jackson chomped one as we found our way around and Owen got to try his first whole apple! He loved getting to hold it all by himself. This was Jackson’s first time to roast anything over a fire and he made sure we knew he had seen George do it on Curious George. He talked about wanting to do it again when he gets to go camping with Daddy when he’s bigger.  We ate, drank some Gluwein, stayed warm around the fires and enjoyed running into friends.

enjoying an apple while watching daddy and Jackson by the fire!

enjoying the fruit of his labor!

Thankful for a festival mid winter! Looking forward to things picking up again in the Spring!

the atrium is now no longer Jackson’s “safe zone”. He got adventurous last week and I looked out to find him climbing the tree

Seth is gone this week for the Davos economic conference. It’s a big deal and huge honor for him to be in the posse. He is assigned to Geithner (sp?), the US Secretary of Treasury. He will be rubbing shoulders with some pretty impressive people. He is enjoying the work so far (he left at the crack of dawn Sunday) and will be there until sometime Friday or Saturday. I am so glad for him but really missing him too!

I got spoiled for the last couple of days because my friend Leigh came in from Germany to keep me company! She and Jackson baked a cake for me for my birthday today. Now that she is gone I am trying so hard to keep my mood in check and stay on top of these boys. I am worn out because Seth helps with SO much.

This morning Jackson came in well before wake up time and told me he was having a hard time sleeping. I went in and tried to get him back to bed. He laid on the floor and began a fit. None of my reasoning helped so finally I blurted out “it’s my birthday, I need you to wait in bed until your bunny clock says it is time to get up and then I need you to come find me and sing to me.” Silence, then he quietly climbed back into bed and whispered excitedly, “okay mom, goodnight”. When his clock went off he busted out his door and met me in the hallway. He broke out into a boisterous “Happy Birthday” tune. Made my day!