NIC Mission's Conference

Our 2nd Annual Missions Conference is coming soon! 

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving again this year....even if we did celebrate a little late on Saturday! We wanted our friends to be able to come and Thursday is not a holiday in Germany,  which is mildly shocking considering just about every other day is...see post here for more about that!

I went with a more modern eclectic table setting this year that sprung off my new 9.00 Euro teal Ikea tablecloth. It was on sale and I couldn't resist the stripes and the material is nice and durable. The mustard color is actually really pretty too...maybe next time! 

GLÄNTA tablecloth from Ikea

A while back I visited a local park and picked up some large bark pieces and decided to incorporate those in as well. I dried them in the oven and then added some gold paint to lighten the wood and add some interest. With candles we had and some orange lanterns (real branches given to me by our landlord) I think it turned out okay.

This year I simplified the menu a little, but it was less stressful and to tell you the truth Germans have no idea what you normally eat on thanksgiving so they didn't miss the sweat potatoes or green bean casserole. I decided on a new spanjer favorite "roasted broccoli" and then just stuck to the classics including homemade cranberry sauce  which is really easy to make and tastes way better than the canned version. We used Alton Brown's brining and turkey cooking recipe thanks to my parents suggestion and it turned out great! I think an improvement from last year and a lot shorter cooking time.

Stephen did the honors of cutting our little bird to pieces

and we finished the night off watching Men In Black 3. It was a fun night of friends, family, and lots of eating! Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving! 

Design Miami: Basel 2012

THE GLOBAL FORUM FOR DESIGN

Hall 5, Messe Basel, Switzerland

 June 11-17, 2012

 Maria Pergay/Demisch Demant Gallery (Picture from Design Miami Website) 

Gallery Seomi (Picture from Design Miami Website)

(Picture from Design Miami Website)

Hoping to talk Stephen into taking me to this...wish me luck!

Our first Thanksgiving

I will save you the details of how hard it was to find all the ingedients and move straight to the main event.

The Turkey: We managed to find a 12 pound turkey in a nearby city and thankfully it fit in our oven...it is very small in case you were wondering. It was a true eye opener for me having to clean it out and seperate the skin from the meat to season (I read that on the internet since I had no idea how to cook a turkey). I rubbed herb butter in between and added some salt to the skin to make it crispy. Please let me know if there is a better way to do this. 

"Oh help me please, my hand is in a turkey!"

After hours of cooking and a near drop of the turkey, it was finished. We let it rest and then Stephen got to carving.

The first Spanjer turkey...."can you tell I have been in that sweat box of a kitchen for a awhile?"

I decided to make all the traditional dishes (at least traditional to my family), and am pretty pleased with the outcome.

We had sweet potato casserole....this was probably my least favorite dish, but not too bad. The topping lacked a little sweetness, but it was one of our friend's favorite dishes. I guess I tend to have a sweet tooth.

I made the traditional southern dish, Green Bean Casserole and it turned out great. We unfortunately don't have the fried onion things to put on top, but Ritz crackers were not a bad substitute.

The stuffing was not too bad either, bread, cornbread, veggies...you get the idea.

Since you cannot buy the cranberry sauce over here I had to make it from scratch. It was actually incredibly easy and turned out way better than the can version. The recipe I used called for fresh cranberries, orange juice, and brown sugar. It was one of my favorites from the meal.

Traditional mashed potatoes...not much to say about them.

 And the ever fattening, yet delicious, deviled eggs!

We had four friends over and ate until we could not fit another bite.

 Well there you have it, an American Thanksgiving in Germany. Hope you all had a nice holiday as well!

Swiss Indoor Championship!

Last weekend we had the pleasure of attending the Swiss Indoors Tennis Championship in Basel, Switzerland (a 25 minute drive). I am not sure you can call the qualifying tournament an actual part of the championship, but it is much easier to get tickets to and a lot less strain on the pocket book so I am counting it!

Sorry we are looking a tad....greasy, it was a saturday is my only excuse.

Some of our close friends Ralf Widmann and his wife Margitt (you may remember them from the wedding) were headed their to watch Stefane Bohli play and we could not pass up the opportunity! I know what you are thinking, "I have always wanted to see Stefane Bohli (Swiss competitor currently ranked #233 on the ATP Tour, who has in the past hit with Roger Federer) play tennis!" 

Stefane Bohli

My exact thoughts! Okay, but lets be serious, no one has ever heard of this guy including myself, until last year when I found out that he is Margitt's first cousin. All of a sudden I was very interested.....I mean we are basically related, how can I not go and watch him play, right? So that is what Stephen and I did. He was playing the qualifying tournament to get a spot in the main draw so we took a Saturday afternoon off and headed to cheer on our "almost cousin"!

It was a great match and he defeated a higher ranked American player (I know a little sad, but we couldn't root against our "almost cousin").

Stefane's Opponent

Altogether it was a nice day and now we are great friends with our "almost cousins" father...even if we didn't get to meet up the Stefane, maybe next time. 

Spring Rolls that almost made up for their ridiculous price tag.

We ate some delicious Spring Rolls and finished the tournament off by watching a not so exciting upset between another low ranking Swiss player and a decent Uzbekistan player.

"I love Spring Rolls!"

And just a little bit more proof of how famous our "almost cousin" is, we basically know Roger Federer!

Stefane and Roger Federer

Royal Overnight!

It all started with a little visit from one of Stephen's oldest friends Eric Person. We had the great pleasure of having Eric be our first visitor in Germany about a month ago. He was Stephen's baseball coach at Nyack College (in New York) and each summer would bring players to Europe to work with Athletes in Action. Eventually that turned into what became WBOI and expanded the Atomics Baseball Club! (It is a bit longer than that, but I will spare you the details). Needless to say Eric is very dear to many of our German friends and has a special place in the hearts of Stephen and Rob. Eric is also the God-Father (they are a big deal here in Germany) of Tamara Steck who is the daughter of one of the Atomic Club Founders (Hardy Steck). 

Eric and Stephen Sunday morning before church.

Alright now that that is out of the way I can get back to us being royal! So, Eric was here in Germany for a couple days to see the "Confirmation" (also a very big deal here in Germany where kids complete a church course around the age of 14 and are then "confirmed" in their local church) of Tamara his God-Daughter. After the church service most families will have large parties to celebrate their child's accomplishment and lucky for us we were invited! 

Ralf, Stephen, and me at the Confirmation Celebration.

It was a wonderful afternoon of nonstop eating. Literally, we never stopped eating! We started the festivities outside with orange juice or mimosas accompanied with strudel and then moved inside for the serious eating. Lunch began with a soup course, then a large salad with Salmon, then scallop potatoes with beef and vegetables, then desert consisting of icecream with homemade chocolate and raspberry sauce, and if that was not enough about an hour later we had cake and coffee time. There were 8 cakes to choose from and you could eat as many pieces of as many cakes as you wanted. I am tired just thinking about all the chewing I did.

During the party I got to know Tamara and her friends. They are all really sweet and remind me of when I was in junior high and everything was soooo dramatic! (I will never forget you Avril!) 

We had a nice time talking/me waving my hands in the air to explain things in English and I think I made four new fans. They were all just standing around me smiling and kept saying things like "your eyes are awesome," "you are so pretty,"......"bahahaa, Thanks?!?" (I did not tell them my hair was completely frizzy and in a ponytail because I still did not own a blowdryer.)

Talia, Sophia, Tamara, and Julia.

So, now to being royal. As Stephen and I were leaving the party we were saying our goodbyes when 4 lovely teenage girls ran up to us and said "can we get a picture with you, we think you look like Prince William and Kate!" I must admit I had been thinking that....we look completely royal and finally someone noticed! hahaha, yeah right, we both started laughing and gave our most dignified smile as not to disappoint. 

So there you have it, WE ARE ROYAL! Here are some look alike pictures! 

Personally I think Stephen is way cuter than Prince William, but I may be biased! 

If only I could make my hair look like that.....oh so royal!

this is more my style, a little less perfect and yet she is still effortlessly royal!

I would say our crowns have an uncanny similarity here...Don't you think?!