About 3 years ago I met a neat, but very quiet, woman named Barbara. She had relocated to Pagosa from Switzerland as her husband, Jody, is orginally from this area. At that point, they had a baby boy and we would push our strollers around the neighborhood together about once a week. I always enjoyed our walks, but wasn't quite sure how to get to know her since she was so quiet. After some contemplation, I figured I could talk enough for both of us and if I drove her crazy, well, she'd just stop calling for walk times! Thankfully, my theory paid off and she never stopped calling and eventually, I guess she got sick of hearing me yammer all the while and finally started adding her own two cents. Around the same time, Barbara decided to join a local fitness club and I volunteered to watch Dominic who was about a year at that time. I fell in love with their sweet boy and started watching him quite a bit. About a 18 months ago, they were blessed with a sweet little girl named Tamara and now I have partial custody of two adorable Swiss children! In the midst of all this, our husbands have gotten to know each other and have become very good friends as well. Jody is very outdoorsy and has gotten Chris quite interested in mountain biking. As a thank you, Chris got Jody hooked on rock crawling and they are now shopping for a big Bronco! It seems a bit unfair as mountain biking is a relatively cheap hobby and rock crawling is not cheap. :)
Anyhoo, back to National Swiss Day. Jody planned a surprise party for Barbara on Friday to celebrate her heritage. He ordered some Swiss brats and sausage and from there, Sherry and I took the party planning ball and ran with it. For those who don't know Sherry, she is my partner in crime. We do pretty much everything together and are known for being the party planners for the entire neighborhood. After a little time with Google to familarize ourselves with some traditions, we started by making the children paper lanterns to carry as we walked to the party. Unfortunately, Jody's not the best fibber in the world, so Barbara caught onto our plans and it wasn't a complete surprise, but she was thrilled none the less.
Noah, Tamara, Dominic, Caden, Brendon, and Alyssa
Sherry and Asia, myself, and Barbara
The guys: Chris, Brock, JD, and Jody
My other two children
Dinner began with a lovely tray of delicious Swiss sausages and cheeses. I'm not a huge cheese person, but those sausages were uber-yummy! Jody grilled the brats which were phenomenal as well. Swiss brats are made with veal and holy monkeys, was that a good time with some saurerkraut! Sherry made a beer bread and I tried my hand at "roesti". Roesti is basically shredded potatoes cooked like a pancake in butter. It was all wonderful and for dessert, Sherry made a kick ass tiramasu. I normally don't like coffee stuff, but as usual, she out-did herself and it was oh so yummy! After letting dinner settle a bit, we ended our evening at our house with a bonfire. During the battle for Switzerland's freedom, bonfires were used for signals. It was a really fun night and although I felt like the stereo-typical homeschool mom using any excuse for an educational moment, it was a great time for the kids to learn a little bit about another country's culture. It was really cute, when it came time for dessert, we put some birthday candles on the tiramasu and sang Happy Birthday to Switzerland per Dominic's request! It was a hoot and now it's another celebration to add to our summer plans every year. :)
