Season Celebration and Family Traditions

How I love seasonal change and special occasions. Now that our first baby is coming, I find myself being so excited about everything including, planning season and holiday celebrations. I love making special memories. My husband and I talk a lot about our little family and we promise to do our best to give our child the best childhood memory. And when we say childhood memory, we mean being together as a family, being in the nature, doing family activities and so on. Family traditions aren’t just fun, they actually make families happier and healthier. It reinforces a family’s identity, togetherness, teaches family values and provides comfort and security.

Lately, I’ve been listing some family traditions that will teach our child to love nature. We would love to play in the snow in a perfect winter day, visit different flower fields in the arrival of spring, visit castles and pick strawberries in the summer, visit a local patch to see beautiful and colourful huge pumpkins then carve one or maybe two and just enjoy a harvest feast in the fall. And there are sooo many more activities that I could think for my family (daily, weekly, monthly and yearly) We know commitments are hard but every time we think of our child, we just want to try and do our best to imprint something beautiful and unforgettable in her heart and mind that will make her a good and positive person in the future (who wouldn’t right?). 

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Wandering the Road Between Spiez and Geneva Switzerland

Travel opens me up to see the world in a different way, from a fresh perspective, and new light. I am so drawn to it, that all of my senses heightened, brightened, and exposed. It gets me out of my homebody comfort zone in so many ways, holding space for growth amidst the sea of all that is new and unfamiliar. But strangely enough, one of my favorite parts of traveling is in the unraveling once returned. In gathering all that i have learned, observed, taken in, and have become inspired by, and to then take mindful steps to weave each thread into our roots here that we are watering as family. Travel makes me feel lighter and more aware, and to reawaken that presence in our home is probably the best gift it gives me. It reminds me how to see.

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2 Classic German Apple Cake Recipe For Fall

Moist Apple Cake with Whipped Cream

Ingredients

• 150 g of butter or margarine
• 125 g of sugar
• 5 egg (s)
• 125 g hazelnuts (ground)
• 50 g of flour
• 2 teaspoons of baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 700 g of grated apples
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1 lemon (s)
• 2 tablespoons of custard powder (vanilla flavor)
• 2 cups of whipped cream
• Cocoa powder for toppings

Working time: approx. 30 min.

Preparation:

• Make a batter from butter, 125 g sugar, 3 eggs, nuts, flour, baking powder and cinnamon and bake in the oven  at 160 ° C for approx. 30 min.
• Bring the grated apples with the sugar, eggs, lemon and custard powder to a boil while stirring constantly. Allow to cool slightly, and then spread on the floor in a spring form. Then Refrigerate.
• Spread the whipped cream on the cake until smooth. Sift some cocoa powder over it.

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Classic German Apple Crumble Pie

Ingredients:

• 500 grams of flour
• 250 grams of butter
• 200 grams of sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 packet of vanilla sugar
• 1 packet of baking soda
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 2 - 3 large apples or 1 glass of applesauce

Preparation:

• Lay a sheet of baking paper over the bottom of the springform pan
• Peel apples, remove seeds and then cut into slices.
• Cut butter into small pieces.
• Preheat the oven to 180 ° C (top / bottom heat).

For the Dough:

• Put flour, pieces of butter (the butter should be cold), sugar, 1 egg, 1 packet of vanilla sugar & 1 packet of baking powder in a large mixing bowl and then knead with the mixer (dough hook) or your hands until the mixture is crumbly.

For the Apple Pie:  

• Put about ⅔ of the sprinkled dough into the springform pan and press a little.
• The apple slices (here alternatively simply 1 glass of apple sauce can be used) evenly distributed on the crumbly dough and then sprinkle with 2 tablespoons sugar.
• Sprinkle the remaining dough as a crumble on the apple slices.

Bake the apple pie in a preheated oven at 180 ° C for 45 - 50 minutes until the cake is golden brown and the crumble is crispy. Let  the cake cool down completely on a wire rack. Best served with a whipped cream & enjoy when it’s still warm 😉

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All apples are freshly picked from the local farm. :)

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Mountain Breeze in Le Barroux, France

None of your knowledge, your reading, your connections will be of any use here: two legs suffice, and big eyes to see with. Walk alone, across mountains or through forests. You are nobody to the hills or the thick boughs heavy with greenery. You are no longer a role, or a status, not even an individual, but a body, a body that feels sharp stones on the paths, the caress of long grass and the freshness of the wind. When you walk, the world has neither present nor future: nothing but the cycle of mornings and evenings. Always the same thing to do all day: walk. But the walker who marvels at the blue of the rocks in a July evening light, the silvery green of olive leaves at noon, the violet morning hills, has no past, no plans, no experience. He has within him the eternal child. While walking I am but a simple gaze.

-Frédéric Gros, A Philosophy of Walking

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Signs of Autumn: Apple Picking 2018

My anticipation for Fall is pretty strong over here lately and my dreams are filled of our little baby, warm and growing inside my belly. Every September, my husband and i heads off to a fruit farm not far from home and we go apple picking then bring them back to share, giving our family a first taste of fall! My heart is just so excited to do this traditon every year with our little one. She'll arrive in exactly 8 weeks! Our sweet little autumn baby girl... definitely the apple of our eyes!

You have no  idea how happy you make me Papi! :)

Swollen and very pregnant Mami! Not feeling bad about it :)

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