Wednesday September 9, 2009

So for Colin’s birthday dinner last week my mom made German food. One of our family favorites. 🙂

Here is the table spread, with Grandpapa getting Gabriel seated for the meal.

The spaetzle in the serving bowl. Gotta love a close-up of this delicious stuff!

My dinner plate. 🙂 We also had some great German wine. Yummm.

And for dessert we had sort of a fudgy fondue, with lots of incredibly yummy goodies for dipping. 🙂 Even homemade marshmallows!! 🙂

Then my sweet Steven whisked me away for the Labor Day weekend ~ It was so wonderful! We missed our darling Gabriel like crazy. But he apparently had the time of his life. Was not disobedient. Learned new tricks. And all-in-all I think he’d like us to go away once a month! (Grandmama would too, haha!) As far as our getaway time, we really enjoyed ourselves. Even though it rained every day we were there. Thankfully we think gray, cold, rainy days are cozy & romantic instead of dull & depressing. 🙂

This was our lovely little hotel room.

This was the outside of the hotel.

This was on the wall in the hotel room, and it made me smile. 🙂

We walked around the cute little town a good bit, and window-shopped.
Actually, we bought one thing too. Our new favorite game, Bananagrams. We play it endlessly now!! 🙂

I love this town, it’s beautiful and quaint.

The first night we did our one fancy schmancy dinner. We actually both had veal jagerschnitzel and spaetzle (yes, yes; we love German food, okay?) with spiced red cabbage and rye bread.

For dessert I ordered a chocolate mousse “thing” that was just exquisite!! And Steven got a dessert port sampler. We shared a little, but not much. 🙂


On Sunday morning we visited a sister church of ours that was just wonderful! We were so blessed by the service, liturgy, preaching, and the people. So many people came up to introduce themselves. It was lovely. We kind of want to move there. 😉 So anyway… after that we went out to coffee with a young couple there we are friends with. It was great to catch up with them, and sip some warm drinks on a chilly day. Then we drove back, went walking and shopping, and bought pretzels for a snack.


That night, a bit later, we ate dinner at a really nifty little underground place, and got to sit in a cute little booth that’s supposed to feel like you’re sitting in a wine keg. I had fun playing with my camera and using the mirror next to us in the booth. 🙂

If I knew how to post video here I would; I got a great little video of the restaurant and the cute little old man who went from table to table playing the accordian! Oh well.
Instead, here’s a look at our sausages, mustard, fried potatoes & onions, and Steven’s “dunkel”.

The mist around the mountains was gorgeous.

Walking in the rain!!

We went to the local cheese shop and got some small samples of completely fabulous cheeses to enjoy for a bedtime snack. Wow. Simply incredible. One of them was soaked in whiskey. 🙂 Another was applewood smoked cheddar. And the middle one? It was creamy and mild, and I can’t recall what it actually was. 🙂

On Monday we couldn’t really go truly hiking because of the rain, but we went on a miniature jaunt right on the river. So pretty.


And that was that! Such a pleasant getaway, and a truly blessed retreat. I am so thankful my husband did that for us. He is a wise man. Sometimes when I don’t even know that I need a break from the grind (especially the emotional grind) at home, he can see it — so he whisks me away like this, and is truly the most wonderful husband in the world.
Maybe I can swipe some of my mom’s pictures of Gabriel’s visit in the country. She got some super cute pictures of him rolling down a grassy hill — one of his new tricks. He also has two new teeth popping through. And Grandpapa taught him to say thank you (signing).