That Ben and Jerry’s isn’t only in the US?  In fact, it is very popular in Switzerland.

They even have some flavors that we don’t have (or at least I have never seen.)

Fairly Nuts:  Caramel ice cream with a praline almond cluster and caramel swirls

Coconutterfly fair:  Chocolate ice cream with a coconut caramel swirl and chocolaty covered coconut caramel crunch pieces

Baked Alaska:  Vanilla ice cream with marshmallow swirls and white chocolaty polar bears (I really want to try this one!!!)

Did you know… that McDonalds in Switzerland are cooler than in the US.  Some, like this one, have separate coffee and espresso bars inside.

With special treats, like cupcakes, brownies, carrot cake…

Even macaroons!

Som also have automated kiosks for easy ordering, so you can get exactly what you want and don’t have to stand in line.

They also have different kinds of menu offerings that we don’t have in the US, like a shrimp and avocado wrap, an order of shrimp, chicken wings, McZuri (a veal burger) and a McGrillSchnagg (sausage made from Swiss pork).

Did you know…

Whenever you order a coffee in Switzerland, it comes with a little sweet?  Either a chocolate or a cookie… it’s a wonderful partner to your hot drink.

Did you know…

You’re never too old to play in the snow?

And nature can make a wonderful freezer, especially for homemade black forest cake.

Until your never-too-old-to-play-in-the-snow husband attacks it with a fork during a playtime refueling.

Ok, so in Switzerland they don’t celebrate Boxing day.  But since my Dad is from England, and hence a lot of my family members live there, we grew up recognizing the day and even though I haven’t been to England to celebrate it in many years, I always think of December 26th as Boxing Day.  In a way, that makes it happy rather than the more depressing way to think of it – the day after Christmas.  It’s a whole new holiday!

This year on Boxing day, we had a special “lunch” with all of S’s extended family at a restaurant in the Lötschental valley.  Before I go into details about the “lunch”, I have to explain what a Swiss “lunch” is and why I have it in parenthesis.

A Swiss “lunch” lasts for hours.  A Swiss “lunch” is not over until… well, pretty much until it is time for dinner.  And a Swiss “lunch” actually does not entail much eating.  There is a lunch, for sure, and it is the usual courses (soup, salad, etc.) but overall it is more about the talking and the people.  And the drinking.  There is a LOT of drinking, mainly wine but also beers, champagne, and the hard stuff.

This particular Swiss lunch started at noon.  Sounds good so far, right?  For the first hour, we stood, enjoyed appetizers, and welcomed everyone.

At 1pm, we finally sat down at the table.   There were beautiful decorations, including this angel made from materials right here in the valley.

Some gifts were shared, including beautiful scarves and handmade cookies.

Finally, at around 1:45 pm, the first course was served.  Smoked salmon, my favorite! 

Along with some freshly baked bread.

Finish salmon.  Plates cleared.  Wait.  Wait some more.  Talk, then wait.

S’s brother, Nick.

A half hour later?  Soup course!  Pumpkin soup.

Between the soup and the salmon, plus munching on the appetizers and the cookies that were given to me, I was actually starting to fill up a little bit.

Not to worry, the next course (the main course) didn’t arrive until over an hour later.  Plenty of time to make room.

I was so hungry, in fact, that I forgot to take a picture before I devoured my chicken.  Oh well, here’s what my vegetables and potatoes looked like.

After this, plus the drinks that were constantly a-flowing, I was pretty full.  It was about 3:45pm.

So…. more waiting!  One of my favorite things to do while waiting was look at Missy.  She is Stephen’s uncle’s dog and is very old.  She is the sweetest thing, and comes with them everywhere.  She is always very well-behaved under the table.

4:20 or so, dessert was served.  A yogurt and chocolate panna cotta type dessert (I can’t remember the Swiss German name for all of these things), sorbet on a butter cookie with crème underneath, and caramel sauce on the side.

There’s always room for dessert.

Finally, at about 4:45pm, we ended our meal in the traditional Swiss way – with a cup of coffee.

Always served with something sweet.  Second third dessert!

So… that’s a Swiss lunch for you. We left around 5pm, ready to make our way back to the house (most likely to start cooking dinner).

Although I’m not exactly a fan of the 5-hour Swiss lunch, I am a fan of getting to see all of the family and friends, and I appreciate the fact that they truly take the time to sit, talk, and enjoy each other.

S and his Grandmother.  This is what it’s all about.

Since moving to California 6 years ago, I have not had any white Christmases.

Last year, we were in sunny San Diego.

The year before, it was San Luis Obispo.

Well, this year I am definitely having my white Christmas.

We are in Switzerland, spending the holiday with S’s family.  Right now, we are in their house in the Lötschental valley.  Remember our hike there last year?  Well… it was a different kind of hiking today. 

But first let me rewind to last night.  On Christmas Eve, we watched the Steelers game!  It started at 7pm here in Switzerland, and we watched it streaming online.  S was SO excited to watch it.  Since we were also about to eat dinner, S’s parents graciously allowed us to set up the computer on the table.

A few minutes into the game, however, jetlag hit!

Don’t worry, it was just a quick blink.  When he realized he had fallen asleep he was very upset to have missed a few minutes of the first quarter.  From that moment on, the head stayed up off the table!

Although I have not been imbibing in the typical cheese and alcohol smorgasbord that usually occupies my time and my stomach when I am in Switzerland, I am making up for it tenfold with CHOCOLATE!

These are my new ones, beautiful chocolates with the Matterhorn on them!  S’s grandmother gave them to me.  They just *might* be too pretty to eat… 

So back to our Christmas day in the Lötschental.

We went snow shoeing!

Although I was born in Colorado and grew up in Pennsylvania, I have only been skiing one time in my whole life.  I did enjoy it, but have just never had the opportunity (or the drive) to go again.  It always seems like so much effort to get to a ski resort, get all bundled up, rent skis, boots, and any other required equipment, etc.  Plus, I’m not the biggest fan of the cold.  However, when I found out we were going to Switzerland in the dead of winter and that there would be a lot of snow in the valley, I did think it would be pretty cool to try snow shoeing.  Amazingly, since Stephen’s family has their house there, they have equipment for pretty much any type of snow sport you could dream of, so they just pulled out a pair of snowshoes and poles for S and I (as well as snow pants and boots!)

It still required the major bundling up, which was a hassle.  But it was totally worth it once we got out there and started moving!

It was a relatively flat route, but it did have some ups and downs.  Walking in show shoes in deep snow is HARD!  I definitely got a workout today.  I could tell I was using totally different muscles than I usually do in running or my other activities.

I was bundled up to the hilt, but my face was freezing!!

It was a beautiful hike.  We started in the village of Blatten, and ended in Kuhmad by the chapel. 

I am guessing it was a little over a mile each way? 

On the way back, the sun was shining on us brightly and I actually got too hot.  Overall, it was tough!  I was pretty exhausted by the time we got back to the car.  I couldn’t wait to get back to the house for some lunch and some time by the fire!

As for the rest of the day, it will just involve relaxing, eating, and enjoying this time off.  I hope that everyone has a wonderful holiday!

It’s no secret that S and I are big Pittsburgh Steelers fans.  Last week, we got the opportunity to go to our first EVER live game!!  Neither of us have ever been to a live football game (NFL), let alone a Steeler’s game.  My friend Tim (who, by the way, just PRed at CIM in the beginning of December!!!!) was kind enough to give us two of his season tickets.  To say we were excited was an understatement.

Truth be told, we weren’t sure exactly what to expect.  We heard the stadium gets coooolllld, so we packed tons of layers and blankets.  It was a Monday night game that started at 5:30 so we left work early as we heard there was going to be a huge crowd for this game.  And good thing that we did… it was packed!

S had brought all of our stuff in his backpack… but then they wouldn’t let him take it in.  They are no longer allowing backpacks or bags, unless they are those clear ones that you can see through (that look like they belong to a two-year-old running around in the back yard with jelly shoes and slap bracelets on.)  So we had to check his backpack in their free “bag check” and carry all of our stuff in.

We got in before 5pm, plenty of time to find our seats for pregame!  We got a fair bit of heckling on the way to our seats, but we didn’t mind, we knew we were entering into enemy territory

I was wearing a long-sleeved tshirt, a sweatshirt, my winter coat and my jersey on TOP of my coat.

They had rolled out the giant 49ers helmet and were about to begin the pregame festivities when, all of a sudden, the power went out!

At first we thought it was part of the show… but then…  they didn’t come back on!  Almost a half hour later, we were still in the dark.  Everybody kept saying… “I don’t think this was supposed to happen…”

Finally, the lights came back on.  Due to the delay, there was no pregame show so they just started the national anthem, with some awesome pyrotechnics!

Then it was time for the game.  I didn’t take any pictures during the game, because I spent most of it wishing that our team would get their act in gear and start WINNING!  Which they didn’t.

We did the stadium food thing, with hot dogs and other goodies.  It was cold, but not as cold as I was afraid of.

Overall, it was an AWESOME time!  We will definitely be going to more games in the future.  The only thing that would have made it better was if we had actually won! 

Thanks so much, Tim, for giving us the tickets.  I owe you one, big time!! 

It has been a whirlwind pre-holiday week, with parties, treats, and celebrations all around. 

The highlights at work included a white elephant party, and my team’s bowling party.

This was actually the first time I had participated in a white elephant party. 

They did have one at work last year, but I didn’t attend because it was during the week I took vacation while my mom was visiting for my birthday.  So… with my first white elephant at work, and my first white elephant EVER, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect.  The gift was supposed to be under $20, so I bought a cute mug french press and a bag of coffee.  Pretty good gift to give, right?

One of my immediate team members actually ended up getting it (out of a hundred people or so in my org) and she was happy, which made me happy!

The gift I ended up getting, on the other hand, wasn’t so great.

I got…

Wait for it…

Unicorn meat.

What is unicorn meat, you ask?  Well, apparently it has a lot of calories.  But 100% of your daily value of Giggles, 200% of Rainbows, and 1000% of Superglue?!?!

I thought maybe somebody stuck a gift card or something in this container, so I opened it up.  Nope, no such luck…  It really was Unicorn Meat.

My coworkers found it funny.  At the end of the game, we somehow had an extra gift left over.  Maybe somebody had to leave partway through and didn’t pick one?  Anyhow, everybody voted on the person who got the worst gift, and they got the last one.  Guess who won the vote, out of my whole org?  ME!

I eagerly opened up the last gift to find:

A Chicago record.

Bah Humbug.

The next day my coworkers jokingly called me “Chicago” and asked me how I liked my new record.  I told them that I tried to play it in my DVD player but it didn’t work… it must be broken!!

Oh well, better luck next year in the white elephant!

One of the other highlights of the week was my team’s bowling party.  It was at a cool bowling alley in the South Bay that was actually a little upscale – with LED lights, a bar, and good food.

A fun time was had by all!

Back soon with hopefully some more interesting updates about life in our household!  PS:  The laminate floor is still not done and the house is still a mess… 

Tis the holiday (and birthday!) season, and there are TREATS everywhere I look!

Some I can’t help but pick up:

Others are picked up for me, as a special surprise.

PS:  See those snowmen doughnuts?  They do NOT have crème inside.  Big disappointment, Krispy Kreme. 

Some treats even come in the mail.

Did you know Luna made chapstick?  Me neither!

And yes, there are a few treats that aren’t food-related.  And in some cases, those are the best ones.

I really felt like I had a LOT to celebrate this year for my birthday. 

1. My mother’s recovery from her brain surgery, which is going GREAT!
2. My first birthday as a married woman!
3. My last birthday in my 20’s – next year is the big 3-0!!!! 

And maybe a few other things

What better way to celebrate then with two parties– one on each coast!  Although my actual birthday is December 9th, we started with an early celebration on December 6th in Pittsburgh since I would be going back to California on the 8th. 

The house was decorated!

It was my Mom and Rick, plus my sister Sarah with her boyfriend, Matt.  They were totally psyched.

We ordered Chinese food for dinner – no pictures, but it was delicious Chinese takeout.  I got shrimp with broccoli, a california roll, egg drop soup and chicken dumplings.  Yes, I was hungry!

The best thing about having chinese takeout at home for your birthday is that you can eat it in your pajama pants!  No unbuttoning jeans necessary for me.

Then it was time for cake.  My mom had gotten me a Coldstone cake – it was red velvet cake with cake batter ice cream (my fave!).

And LOTS of sprinkles!

Enough with the pictures, let’s cut this cake!

The five of us DOMINATED that cake.

Then of course there were presents.  I got lots of goodies from the family, including a flameless candle, Amazon gift certificates (can’t beat ‘em), hand lotions, a beautiful necklace, and more.  I am a lucky girl!

Fast forward a few days later.  I was back in California, and it was my real birthday!

I walked in…

And was instantly crowned with a tiara and a pink boa!

Plus lots of decorations, gifts, balloons, and a red velvet cake!

This was all courtesy of S.

Now what, you may ask, is going on in our house?  In case you didn’t notice anything unusual in the above picture, that is our stove that the birthday gifts and cake are sitting on.  And the stove is in the middle of our dining room.  Which you will notice no longer has any carpeting.  If I showed you the rest of our dining room, you would see the fridge and dishwasher in there as well.  And if I showed you the living room, well…

You would see basically everything else from the first floor of our house stacked up in various piles.  Including a piano, a china cabinet, tables and chairs, kitchen appliances…

When I left for Pittsburgh, S was determined to put wood laminate flooring into the first floor of our house while I was gone.  I was skeptical, since I knew it was a big job and I was going to be gone for only 1 week.  But he ASSURED me that it would be completed before I got home.

Let me tell you… when I walked into our house upon our return, this is what it looked like.  No more carpet… just concrete floors, uprooted furniture and appliances, and not a single piece of wood laminate put into place.  I was a little bit upset.

After my birthday surprise, I have tried to calm down and put it into perspective – my loving, dear husband just severely underestimated the time and effort this job requires (or severely overestimated his ability… not sure which.)

Ah well.  A test in patience.  It will be done in time… or else I will hire a professional to make it done!

It’s COOOOOLLLD out there!  It’s been in the high 30’s/low 40’s for the past two days, plus it has been rainy and overcast.  Yuck!

My mom’s cats have the right idea – curling up by the heater!  Meet the other cat – Pasha.

As for me, I’m keeping warm with something that isn’t usually on my food repertoire but I am now realizing that it should be.  Chili!

My mom made a delicious chili when I came.  It has kidney beans, garbanzo beans, tomatoes, red peppers, and ground turkey (plus all the spices and some tomato paste). It doesn’t have the typical chili taste, but I am loving it!  I have had a bowl along with all of my meals.  I will definitely be trying to recreate this when I get home.

I have spent the majority of the time at my mom’s house, since I really want to take this trip to spend time with her and help her as much as possible while she heals.  She is doing great, though.  On Monday, she got the staples taken out of her head!    She also had an MRI and the doctors said she is looking good.

One place where I ALWAYS have to go when I make a trip back to Pittsburgh is Dunkin Donuts!  We headed there yesterday.  The Dunkin Donuts in my mom’s town is really nice.  It has comfy couches, a fireplace with a flat screen TV, and even bookshelves with books you can read while you enjoy your doughnuts!

Rick got two doughnuts and a coffee.

He was really excited that I wanted to go to Dunkin Donuts with him, because my mom never wants to go. She eats really healthily and stays away from sugar and things like donuts.  Poor girl, she is really missing out! 

I got a doughnut and some munchkins, because I couldn’t decide on what I wanted!

In the evening, I headed over to my Dad’s house to have dinner with my Dad and Deborah.  More cookie baking ensued.  Deborah is a pastor at a local church, and they are having an open house next weekend.  So far we have baked over 9 dozen cookies!  Today, we made oreo truffles with both regular and golden oreos.  Then I made some crinkle cookies. 

Aren’t they pretty?  The recipe said to bake them on parchment paper, but we didn’t have any so I just did them on the regular cookie sheet.  I was worried they wouldn’t turn out, but they turned out perfectly!

My sister came over for dinner too.  She is still in school so she had lots of homework to work on as I was baking the cookies.

Deborah also broke out some fudge from my favorite place.  It was chocolate cheesecake!

Melt-in-your mouth good.

I love frozen fudge.  It’s really difficult to cut, but tastes soo good when it is cold.  In fact, I love most desserts frozen – cookies, cake, etc.  Is that weird?

Group pictures before we left.  My sister, me and Deborah.  Do you think my sister and I look alike?

Me and my dad.

Love being with my family, especially around the holiday times.  Hopefully the weather will warm up a little for my last few days here!  (Doubt it.)

It was a cookie baking kind of night!

I headed to my Dad and stepmom, Deborah’s, house today to spend some time with them while I was in town.  They got all suited up for the occasion:

And we got set baking!  First we made classic chocolate peanut butter blossoms (LOVE these!!) using the recipe right off the Hershey’s kiss bag.

Then I found this recipe for white chocolate chip cranberry oatmeal cookies.  These were delicious!  I am keeping this recipe around for the future.

Then good old chocolate chip.  Don’t mind if I do!  Once again, we used the recipe right off of the chocolate chip bag. 

We also made two other kinds of cookies – chocolate crinkle cookies, and peppermint roll-ups – but both required chilling the dough overnight so my dad and Deborah will be finishing them off tomorrow.  It was so fun baking with our aprons on and Christmas carols on in the background!

And speaking of baking, lest you forget, it is almost my birthday!  Less than a week to go, let the countdown begin.  Today  my mother asked me what kind of cake I wanted for my Pittsburgh celebration and I said:

Funfetti!  She was pushing me towards the Cold Stone ice cream cake, but the truth is it was about 40 degrees outside and I was freezing so ice cream didn’t exactly sound appealing at that specific moment in time.  I think she might still convince me to get one though… so we might have two cakes?? 

Today I also went for another run, this time with my mom’s man, Rick.  We had a great run, a little over 4 miles on the same route I did yesterday.  I will learn to once again conquer Pittsburgh hills!

I leave you with a picture of Mitsy.  Recognize the cat bed?

After our cats fell in love with this bed, I bought the same one for my mom’s cats.  And they love it too!

Greetings from the east coast!  I am in Pittsburgh, PA visiting my family. 

My mom has two cats, one of which looks just like my little Mendy except that she has green eyes while Mendy has blue.

Remember her, the cat who eats Kashi?

Well, she sits on wrapping paper as well.

My mother’s house is all decked out for Chrismukkah.

I bought her this gel decal which I thought was pretty cool?

In my last post, I mentioned how we had a bit of a family emergency.  My mother had to have emergency brain surgery.  Back in September, she had a bike accident in which she hit her head and injured her knee and leg.  Due to the injury to her leg, she actually was not aware of the significant injury to her head.  8 weeks later, when her leg had healed, she began having strange symptoms such as headaches and nausea, and difficulty with some simple motor skills.  After a few weeks, it had gotten so bad that she was having trouble doing even every-day tasks and so she (thankfully) went to the hospital.  After doing several tests they found that she had dual subdural hematomas – two bleeds in her brain – and she needed to have surgery.  The surgery was successful, and she is now at home recovering.

I was a little afraid of what I would arrive to see when I came to Pittsburgh, seeing as how this was such a serious injury and treatment.  However, now – less than two short weeks after the surgery – she is doing SO WELL.  She is able to walk around all over the place, and last night we even went out for dinner!  Her motor skills are returning to normal, too.  At first she had a lot of trouble typing and with precise moves, but now she is zipping along almost just like before this all happened.  I am so happy and so proud of my strong, healthy, mother!

My mother was in incredible shape when this happened.  She is a regular gym-goer, biker and walker, and can kick my butt in weight training any day of the week.  I am 100% sure that her being in such good shape and good health was a big part of the reason she has been able to recuperate so quickly from this.

Also – it once again reinforced to me how important it is to WEAR YOUR BIKE HELMET.  My mother was wearing her helmet and still had a concussion and dual subdural hematomas.  If she hadn’t have been wearing it, she could have easily been killed.

I also can’t believe how many friends and loved ones that my mother has.  Even now, two weeks after the surgery, the flowers and gifts keep pouring in.

Her house looks so beautiful and alive! 

There has been homemade soup, cookies and cakes.  And my personal favorite:

An edible arrangement!

Love my momma.

I went running this morning, too.  I almost forgot just how much I love those Pittsburgh hills:

4.7 miles in the hilly cold?  Not too shabby.

I am also taking some time to visit my dad and my stepmom while I am in Pittsburgh.  I am thankful that although my parents are still divorced, they both still live in the same city so I am able to see them both when I come to the east coast.  This afternoon I am headed to go visit them.