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!

Paris was fabulous!!!! In the beginning of January Seth and I went away to Paris for 3 1/2 days while Seth’s mom stayed with the boys.  When Jackson was 18 months old we went to Aruba for a couple of days (it was only an hour flight from Bogota so we couldn’t pass up the chance) and as hard as it was to leave him I promised myself I would make it a priority to have time with just Seth! It doesn’t happen often but when it does it is so worth it!

When we bid on Bern back in 2009  we talked about maybe getting to celebrate our 5 yr wedding Anniversary in a fun city like Paris. We never thought it would really work out! I think until the day we left it didn’t really feel like we were getting to go to Paris, just the two of us!!!

We ate our way through Paris. The meals were wonderful! We let Rick Steve’s guide us to the places the locals like so we didn’t have any particularly fru fru fancy meals but all were in unique little places that were jammed packed.  We had our first tastes of macaroons and enjoyed every chance to share a hot crepe with nutella and bananas.

We toured museums, walked the quaint streets, took an evening boat tour, went up the Eiffel Tower,  toured Notre Dame, shopped in Galleries Lafayette and just enjoyed being together.  Here are some of my favorite pictures. I am including some of the yummy food pictures for all of you foodies out there!

our hotel

macaroons

this is just to give you a laugh…we were waiting for a bus and I looked over and saw our shadows in the tree trunk. SO I told Seth to give me a kiss and snapped a shot! goofy I know!

Angelina’s

we didn’t get too many great shots of both of us because one of us was always taking it but here you can see us together with the Eiffel Tower in the background

on the train headed home after a great getaway!

In early December I was invited to go on a girl’s getaway to celebrate my dear friend Leigh’s 30th! She had invited a group of her friends from Germany and asked if I would come along. I was honored! We headed out on Friday afternoon and Seth graciously dove in as SuperDad and kept the boys until Sunday afternoon when he and the boys joined us! So I got to have Friday night, Saturday and most of Sunday just with the girls. We ate and chatted and ate some more, shopped a little at the Interlaken Christmas market, drank hot wine, ate some more! Each of us took on a meal and it was really fun because everyone got really into their meals. We ate like queens all weekend and I am confident my pants were tighter when we left the chalet. It was such a fun time of celebrating Leigh and getting to know her sweet friends!

I missed the memo about wearing skinny jeans and tall boots. I have since gotten with the program and got some skinny jeans to go with my boots! Sheesh, someone should have told me sooner!

Katy Jo unexpectedly got to tag along for the girls weekend and was such a pleasure! She was a great sleeper and such a sweetie!

this was the view of the mountain directly in from of our chalet. Stunning!

Bo, Leigh and Katy Jo.  We are enjoying every chance we can to hang out while we live so close!

The boys and Seth came up on Sunday night to join in on the fun. We stayed in the chalet until Tues morning when we headed back to Bern. Unfortunately, we had no idea that Owen had a double ear infection. He didn’t sleep more than 20 mins at a time the first night and the second he was up screaming ALL night! Despite the ear infection and sleepless nights we enjoyed being on our first getaway as a family of 4. We sat by the fire, sipped hot chocolate and champagne and enjoyed each others company. We hope to go back someday when everyone is healthy!

carpenters workbench in a little shop we went in

Well, I think I always anticipate us doing something super exciting on New Year’s Eve. To be honest I don’t think we have even been up to kiss at midnight in quite a few yrs. Last yr I was probably up at midnight but it was to feed a little Owen baby and it was for sure not for fireworks and champagne!

This year we spent the morning sledding and now have plans for a very mellow evening of fondue, molten lava chocolate cake and some champagne (which may or may not be consumed at midnight). It has been a fun day. Seth’s parents are in town so that makes it feel more like a holiday. Seth lit a party popper that was a canister full of party blowers and streamers and Jackson shrieked “Happy New Year” as it exploded. I made Jackson an ice cream snowball (vanilla ice cream rolled in coconut) and put a sparkler in the top. That my friends, is the extent of our New Year’s fun. And these days it feels like more than enough.

fondue! they may or may not have mouthfuls!

2010 has been a very good year in the Kolb house. We always have our fair share of drama related to our frequent moves and transitions but overall this has been the smoothest move in many ways and our little family is growing up! I love babies but I am loving even more watching the boys as they learn and grow! I am looking forward to this coming year and all that it will bring with a 3 1/2 to be 4 yr old and a 1 yr old heading into walking, talking and wrestling his big brother. I am excited to enjoy another yr of marriage to Seth and to grow together as a couple and as parents.  I have hopes that 4 yrs old will be kinder to Jackson than 3 and that Seth and I will gain wisdom as we continue to try to crack this code in parenting.

This past yr has been filled with fun cooking and baking projects and some DIY crafty things. I hope to keep that up. But I did get an email forwarded from Seth about enrolling in the Foreign Services long-distance German program. Blek. That may or may not be on the yr’s agenda. We are spoiled in Bern because nearly everyone speaks English and in Bern most don’t speak German they speak Swiss German so no matter how many hours I spend on High German, really it’s all about the Swiss German.  I know many of you think “oh how amazing it is that you all can learn so many languages”. I guarantee my brain is as old and as limited as yours and I have 2 kids to keep alive and well so it just doesn’t seem as glamorous as some may think. We’ll see.

First up on the agenda for 2011 is a getaway with Seth. Seth and I are heading to Paris to celebrate our 5 yr anniversary. I have never been to Paris. It will be cold I am sure and I don’t know how much touristy stuff we will be doing. We will mostly be sleeping in, eating yummy food and enjoying the fact that we can finish sentences without being interrupted by our little ones.