A weekend full of fun!

This has been the first weekend that I've had BK home with me since the beginning of the month. It was a good one- did some entertaining, some relaxing, saw a show, enjoyed a couple new restaurants and are going to attempt to watch the Super Bowl.

We started the weekend off by hosting a Mexican fiesta for ten at our house. It wasn't actually so much of a fiesta, but more of a dinner party for BK's team. We all (spouses included) went out for dinner back in November and had a lot of fun. BK decided that instead of going out again, where it can be rather crowded and really loud, he wanted to have everyone over to our apartment for dinner after they made it through year-end in January.

It turned into a "fiesta" of sorts when I decided that I should try my hand at Tex-Mex cooking here in Switzerland. Don't get me wrong, as a Texan, I have cooked Tex-Mex many times before. The big questions here were: could I find the ingredients that I needed and would it taste the same? Since we have no grill, fajitas were out of the question, so I went with a salad with avocado and mango, chicken and spinach enchiladas, crunchy beef tacos and refried beans. We also did homemade salsa and BK made guacamole.

The hardest thing about the whole night was getting all of the ingredients, which required me to go to approximately four different stores. The problem was that each store carries something different, so for example, Globus had taco shells, cheddar cheese and refried beans, but no rotisserie chicken and limited veggies, Migros had the chicken and veggies, but doesn't sell alcohol, so it was off to Coop for that. Such is life here. Not to mention that I also had to bring it all home, which was actually done over two days of shopping. Here's what the tiny kitchen looked like after all that shopping:

Everything turned out great and we all had a really good time. Somehow I managed to get everything cooked and time it so that it was all ready around the same time. Our entry/living/dining area is great for entertaining. We were also really excited to be able to use our entire dining room table, pulling the leaves out to seat 10 comfortably. Unfortunately we forgot to take a picture!

In Switzerland it is customary to bring your hosts a small gift when you come to their home. Here's what everyone brought us:

Of course, our four-legged family members were not invited to the party (much to the disappointment of BK's team). So Saturday morning we slept late, BK got a much-needed haircut and tried a new place for lunch. Later we went and picked up the boys and just enjoyed a relaxing night at home.

The boys must have played hard with their dog friends, because they let us sleep in again this morning. I made homemade oatmeal (as in, not instant) for the first time ever. As a kid, I ate the non-instant stuff, but I haven't' ever made it for myself. It was good, especially when I added in brown sugar, cinnamon and half an apple. Yum!

The other thing we did today was go see the play/musical Shadowland. I'll just say upfront it was just a little too artsy for my taste. There was no dialogue and most of the show is the actors making shadows with their bodies. I think if you're not going to have any dialogue in a show, than at least have a storyline that's easy to follow. Not so much on this one. At some point the main actress turns into herself, but with a dog head. What? Yeah, I didn't get it either. The end was the most exciting part when they thanked Basel with some upbeat music and cool shadows. Not to mention that they bowed approximately 17 times, which I didn't understand either.

Anyway, after that BK and I tried another new restaurant then headed home to hang out for a bit before now attempting to stay awake until the Super Bowl comes on. We'll see how this goes…BK's already dosing off on the other side of the couch.