Thanksgiving Dinner With the Johnsons!!!

Well, the day is not complete without a great dinner! Since Switzerland doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving as a holiday, Andrew did have to go to work. Wah wah. But lucky us, Bishop and Sister Johnson invited us to share Thanksgiving dinner at their home!!!! It was literally going to be dinner, not the 3pm "lunch," which meant that Sister Johnson and I had a lot of time to prepare a feast!!!!
I took the train out to their village, Genthod, which is about 1 minutes away from where we live. It is beautiful!

Vineyards

Tree-lined Gardens with Chateau at the End

More Vineyards

Yes, it is a beautiful vineyard-encrusted village!!! Love it.  Gonna have to come back and paint this beauty.

After walking around for a little bit, Susan and I went back to her home and begun the dinner preparations. I was in charge of the French Apple Pie.....never made one before. But she had an amazing recipe that was pretty fool-proof. It was just a crumbled topping, whew! But I think cutting apples and mixing them with cinnamon and sugar is one of my new favorite smells. Nothing quite like it. What I really loved was talking with Susan. What an amazing woman she is! We shared all kinds of stories about our lives with each other, talked about our traditions and collections, and we switched off between laughing and crying. You know that line from Steel Magnolias, "Laughter and tears is my favorite emotion!"? Yes, I felt like that is how our day was. She has given me such a warm welcome to Geneva. It was nice to be able to relate to someone so well and feel like someone was relating with me. Being new expats is exciting, but I have had moments where I feel like a fish out of water, even among Americans. It was just nice to talk with her, to get advice, and to get to know each other better. Plus, we are making delicious food!!!!! Amazing! In leiu of a Turkey (hard to find a good economical turkey here), we made chicken and stuffing rollups. Basically, you hammer out chicken breasts and spread stuffing and butter on them, roll them up, and top 'em with gravy! Really yummy! Didn't really miss Turkey actually.

Wonder Woman Susan!

the Chicken prep

French Apple Pie!!!

Me rollin up the chicken

We then commenced with mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, and candied yams and pretzel jello. Never thought I would like pretzel jello, but it is one of my new favorite dishes! Looking back, Susan had already done a lot of this prep, so I just helped get it on the buffet table. The Thanksgiving dinner was complete! Now, ambience! I learned from Susan that you want to have all of the prep dishes cleaned up and put away to further add to the magical and comfortable Thanksgiving atmosphere. You don't want to see dirty dishes whilst you are eating!

Z Pies!

Z Table!

Z Gathering Place After We Stuff Ourselves Full of Food!

The Men got home around 6:30, as well as Barbra, one of Bishop's Co-workers who was in town from Atlanta. So glad she got to join us! We all loaded up our plates, said a prayer, and began the feasting!!!! Oh this combination of food is soooooooooooo good! One of the highlights of dinner was Barbra tasting the pretzel jello. For full effect, take into account that Barbra is an African American southern woman with great flair! "Whoa....this is interesting." Is it gross, we asked? "No, it's good, there is just a lot going on in this!" It was awesome! She told us some of her crazy travel stories. Something epic always happens when this woman travels! She was also a great story teller, which made dinner conversation a lot of fun.

After getting seconds and thirds, we all made our way into the living room where Susan passed around question cards. We just went around the circle answering one another's questions, which was hilarious!!! Bishop and Andy are pretty much the same person, so it was funny to listen to their accountant responses. loved it!

We had a beautiful evening! So blessed to know this wonderful couple! Much to be grateful for on this day!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!



"Let's get a cute couple picture like them Paul!"
Meet the Johnsons!