Per established tradition, for my birthday this year I got to cook whatever I wanted to eat and no one was allowed to complain about how gross it was. I made a new dish that I got introduced to by my friend, Jenna. It has orzo, chicken, and feta cheese in it, to name a few of the ingredients. It is delicious, hot or cold. In fact, it's so good, that even though I knew no one else in the family really liked it, I still made enough to feed all of them, and proceeded to eat it myself for the next 6 meals. Might have to do that again next year. Mhhhhmmmm. Let's see, what was I talking about? Oh yes, my birthday.
Another birthday tradition is that Nicholas and Chris always bake my birthday cake. I choose the cake mix (the only cake in our house that ever gets made from a mix) and they do the dirty work. This year I chose a russian cheesecake. Instead of cream cheese, it called for butter and marscarpone, and it had a chocolate cookie-like crust. Also supremely divine. The kids all loved it, and they normally hate regular cheesecake.
That afternoon, the aforementioned Jenna came over with a big bouquet of sunflowers for me. She stayed and chatted with me while I worked on finishing up Sarah's baptism dress and our girls played together. It was a great birthday, but the best was yet to come.
This year the higher ups at Warner Bros. studios decided to do me a solid and released "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" a day before my birthday. So kind of them to think of little old me. :) We got our neighbor, Jennifer, to come watch the younger kids, and Nicholas, Chris, and I headed off to the movies. I had told Nicholas a few weeks previously that if he finally finished reading the 6th book he could come see it with us. He normally breezes through books in a day or two, but he was struggling with this one. I think because of all the emphasis on relationships and romance, things he has absolutely zero interest in. (Yippee!) Anyway, that was enough encouragement for him to knuckle down and finish that thing in about 4 days. We weren't sure if he would be allowed to see it, since they are very strict about movie ratings here in Switzerland. Often Disney movies that are rated for all audiences in the States have an age restriction of 6 and over here. But surprisingly, this movie was given not a 12 and up rating like we feared, but a 6 and up rating. So he was able to join us no problem.
In case you are wondering, yes, we did watch the film in English, with German and French subtitles. The theater had quite a few German speakers, as I could hear them talking to each other while we were waiting for the show to start, but their English must have been good enough to want to watch the film in the original English. It was a great movie, although I personally was hoping for a little more emphasis on the relationship between Harry and Ginny. And I felt absolutely cheated and ripped off at the absence of a final battle scene. (I think the movie has been out long enough now I can post information like that.) Chris came home and said he needed to watch something funny and lighthearted before going to bed to help him forget "that sad and depressing movie".
I can't wait for next year…