Switzerland’s birthday, simply called “erste August” or First of August, was on Sunday. But since we don’t really do a crazy amount for this holiday, it didn’t hamper our celebrations any. We went to church like normal, not wearing the Swiss ties and t-shirts I wanted to get for the whole family. Some people were too embarrassed by the mere thought of doing that, so I spared them the humiliation. 🙂
After church, though, I busted out the face paints and got us all more in the proper spirit of things.
We took a walk through the fields, enjoying the gorgeous weather and showing off our patriotism. (I got a Swiss flag as well, painted it by looking in the mirror.)
At first, we had only planned to go to the chickens and back, so I turned down the pot of boiling noodles to very low, and off we went. It was so nice outside, and everyone was enjoying themselves so well, we just kept on walking. Finally, as we were headed back, I remembered the lunch burning away on the stove. Ack! Slightly panicked, I sent Nicholas ahead to turn it off. He enjoys running and is pretty quick, too. So I wasn’t too worried about it after that. We got home and I realized I had forgotten to tell him to take the pot off the hot burner, not just turn the burner off. Oops. There was a nice layer of burnt noodles on the bottom of the pan, but there were still enough undamaged ones for us to eat our fill.
Since it was Swiss day, we had to eat something very traditional. I made Alplermaggrone (Swiss mac and cheese) and roasted sausages in the oven. That is a delicious combination. 🙂 The kids wanted to stay up and watch the fireworks that inevitably pop up all over town, but they always start soooo late. And our kids don’t sleep in much, no matter how late they go to bed, so we try and discourage that kind of behavior. Instead, we let them get ready for bed at the usual time and then stay up a bit later to go outside and light sparklers in their pajamas.
In years past, they have always been too scared of the big fireworks for us to even bother with them.
But as we were passing out the sparklers and snappers, they seemed disappointed there wasn’t anything a bit louder. We did have some twirly-noise making thingees, but nothing that went up into the air and exploded. We promised them that next year we would get real fireworks, now that they were ready.
Of course, not everyone was ready. Sarah tried two sparklers, then got scared she would get burned by everyone else dancing around with their sparklers, and ran to take cover.
She watched the rest of the festivities from the safety of the lawn over the garage.
Our sweet little neighbor girl, Amelie, watched from the distance as well. She finally worked up enough nerve to come over to us, but by that time, all the sparklers were used up. 🙁 I felt bad we didn’t have more to share with her. We really must be better stocked next year.
After all the smoked had cleared, we showed proper Swiss behavior and picked up every scrap of burnt paper on the ground and stuffed it into a bag to be thrown away upstairs. Responsible partying, you know. 🙂
Like I said, it was a quiet celebration, but we all had fun and enjoyed it. Happy birthday, Switzerland!