Soup of the Week

I made a cooking challenge for myself at the start of autumn – making a homemade soup once a week. So far we’ve had mostly successes with just a few flops here and there. Nothing as bad as my first attempt at wild rice soup here in Switzerland though. To refresh your memory, that was my purple, gloppy mess that didn’t turn out due to a substitution of black rice for wild rice and my own attempt at making corn starch. For a picture of this, see the entries from November 2009. Our favorites thus far have been butternut squash, pumpkin, baked potato and good ol’ chicken noodle. The leeky broth with ravioli was also pretty good. Even Matt is contributing to the soup a week challenge. Last week he made a chicken tortilla soup with the jalapenos I brought back with me from the US.

Time with My Nieces

While I was in Minnesota I spent some quality time with my nieces, Rowan and Evie. Being away from them is one of the hardest parts of living in Switzerland. They are getting so big and I feel like I’m missing it even though we talk on the phone and occasionally Skype.

One of our first activities was a manicure. Rowan decided on lime green polish with sparkles. Evie went for purple polish with white polka dots. I guess I was the boring one with my French manicure.


I don’t have any photos of us rollerskating (at an actual rink with a disco ball and everything) but here’s one of Evie bowling. I think the girls liked the pink lemonade we had more than the actual bowling. Not to toot my own horn but I got a turkey (three strikes in a row) but I don’t think my nieces even noticed, as they were happily sipping away on their pink lemonades and not paying attention to the ball or pins.


I enjoyed ‘puzzing’ with Rowan. Puzzing is the verb used when one is making a jigsaw puzzle. I can’t remember which of my friends created the word but I love it. Anyway, Rowan is amazing at puzzles. At the age of five, she is putting together 1000 piece puzzles. I’m so glad she and her auntie share this hobby. Rowan taught me to say ‘Pa-ching’ when you get a piece to fit. I love that. I think it was really her father that came up with it. It sounds like something he’d say. I’ve abandoned my double-tap (tapping the piece twice to get others’ attention to let them know when you found one) for ‘pa-ching.’


Another highlight was carving pumpkins. The Ungermans get really fancy with their pumpkins – tracing and then carving out elaborate pictures. Rowan was in charge of designing mine. She wrote the word ‘boo’ on it. She’s just learning how to spell so she actually wrote, ‘bob.’ When I told her there was another ‘o’ in it, she squeezed it in there, so, yep, my jack o’ lantern said ‘boob.’ I carved it out just as she wrote it and then sent it home with them to put on their front step.

Visit to Minnesota

I had a week off of work in October so I took advantage of it and headed back to Minnesota for a visit. Matt and Millie stayed behind to hold down the fort. I packed a lot into my ten day visit, mostly consisting of time with family and friends, eating and shopping. Overall, it was a wonderful trip. I was pretty homesick when I left. It’s so hard to say those good-byes each time.

Matt stayed busy while I was away. He had the neighbor boys over a few times. One night consisted of eating chili, drinking beer and watching the movie, Zombieland. I’m glad I was in another country that evening.