Sunday, July 20, 2008

Unforgettable Moments


“Unforgettable” is what's playing on OX’s iPod right now as I type. How fitting! Those moments were unforgettable.

I can’t believe that two weeks have passed already – not to mention the thousands of driven kilometers, hundreds of photos and short nights! My best friend, Christiane and her adorable husband Robert a.k.a. Bob are back at home with their two boys. We had an incredible time with them and I will be writing many posts about the time we spent together. But let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

We picked them up from Basel Airport Friday, July 4th and let them settle in. Once they had put their luggage in their room, we met on the terrace for a welcome drink and snacks. I was hoping they had been able to get a bit of shut-eye on the flight, but no such thing. Both were way too excited to sleep. They didn’t care. There would be enough time to catch up for the lack of sleep – so they thought ;) ! Only Bob went for a short nap before dinner (I’m sure the drinks helped) but Chris did manage to wake him up for a late dinner. OX prepared his chicken-strawberry salad and added a few chicken wings on the BBQ. Yummy!

We even had an extra guest: Buddy. Buddy is a hedgehog that has been visiting us regularly for the past 5-6 weeks, or so. We feed him small portions of dry cat food - we don't want him to stop hunting for his food- and plenty of water. He actually eats out of our hand and he brought friends, too, but he's the only "bold one" and lets us scratch his chin. Ain't he just the cutest little flea bag?? ;)

Once the bellies we filled, our friends were quite ready for a nap. That was a good thing, too, because we had invited Thomas and Nicole for dinner the next evening and our two travelers should be more or less fit.

On Saturday, we did a few groceries, and then we just hung around in our back yard and chatted until it was time to prepare the dinner. I marinated a nice pork filet for the grill while OX prepared his sate and Indonesian fried rice. Our guests arrived on time and Thomas was really happy to see Chris and Bob again. I think he hadn’t seen both together since 2000, or so. Thomas is my Ex, as most of you already know, and still we get along very well.


Nicole was immediately taken up into Chris and Bob's friends' circle. Later, we turned up some mood music and at some point, the iPod played salsa music to which Tom and Nicole just had to dance.


Later, between the two courses, we took a small break and Christiane sang for us. She has the voice of an angel. Now that’s what I call entertainment! First a dance show, then food, then music and then more food! It can’t get much better than that, now can it? Look at the proud husband!

It was a wonderful start to a great two weeks! More to come. I’ve already spent all afternoon editing photos and by no means all of them just yet, but I had to put something on the blog! Enjoy!

6 comments:

Shammickite said...

A pretty good start to a nice hiolday! I had no idea you even had an ex, let alone that he lived near you! Good to know that everyone is friends are there is no animosity.
MMMM chicken-strawberry salad - are you going to let us all have the recipe??

Unknown said...

wow - how much fun, I can just visualize everything... And being outside, what a dream!

CanadianSwiss said...

Ex-Sham: I'll have to ask Orange-X to write down the recipe. After all, it's his "creation" :)

ET: I'm sure you can :) We were also quite lucky with the weather and were outdoors a lot.

Ginnie Hart said...

I think everyone needs to be your best friends, CS and O-X, because you treat them like Kings and Queens! Even your Ex! That is saying a LOT about you. But we already knew that. :)

TorAa said...

What a lovely story. Hit my heart directly.
Why?
Friendship, even with your x. (I have the same: We are now "sister" and "brother" and share BD's, weekends etc with our kids and often without)-
And sweet Buddy. So adorable.

greetings from the Nordics
(We are 2 Norwegian families on Vacation in Sweden)

CanadianSwiss said...

Dearest Ginnie: Thank you so much for that special comment, my friend. I'll explain why in a separate e-mail :)

Toraa: Thank you for all the comments, also in the previous posts. I see you understand. Yes, friendship is something very special to me. WE are the lucky ones: To have been able to share part of your lives with someone, change, and still be able to share it; whether it's an ex or a school friend. Some, you let go of (partially, or totally, but then the're not worth it) and some you just can't. I would never want it any other way.