Une Raclette

Leo and I (and the kids) were treated to a Alpine tradition the other day. It was absolutely delicious!!! We had une raclette. All of us ate and ate and ate; even Ana with her perpetual dislike of all foods that aren't beans and rice had nothing bad to say. This is raclette cheese. I think if I had the money I would easily convert to buying fancy, imported cheeses. It just tastes so, so much better. This Christmas Leo and I were at Whole Foods quite by accident and ate almost a whole tray full of different imported cheeses ourselves. (Silly store for having no one by their sample trays to shoo us away!)
This is basically the meal we had, boiled potatoes with grilled raclette cheese on top. Words fail me on how such a simple meal can be so good.
We didn't have one of these, but this is the device they use in Europe to melt the cheese. It's kind of like fondue, everyone has their own little pan to melt cheese on. My brother-in-law, Brett, went on his mission to Switzerland and he said this was the meal the elders always hoped they'd be served.



In other news, I'm sick. Blah. I hate how being sick slows you down. Leo was sick all last week and recovered the day I started to get sick. He goes back to work tomorrow, but at least he was around to baby me one day. My honey is the sweetest man around--I swear!

I just love how Elena's growing up now. She's so fun!!! She pulls me and Leo by our hands all the time to dance around and play ring-around-the-rosies. She loves to dance whenever music is on (mostly be twirling around in a circle till she's dizzy.) And Ana has been doing really good too. Well, besides issues on Saturday where I had a total out-of-body experience and thought I was my mother when Ana was cleaning the bathroom and I ran my fingers around the bathtub to check if she had cleaned it all and then making her re-clean the bathroom three more times before I was satisfied. Wow. It's so weird how quickly that hits you. I remember so vividly being on Ana's end of things and thinking how demanding and irrational my mother was. (I guess it did hit extremely suddenly in our case though!) She did give a great FHE lesson tonight and helped Dad make mashed potatoes. We spent quite a while convincing her that they are called mashed potatoes. She was determined that they are called smashed potatoes. Hee. Hee. She is also adjusting to the new rule that she has to answer Leo in Spanish. Always before Leo would speak to her in Spanish and she'd answer back in English. Now, we decided to change that and make her practice speaking Spanish more. I kind of *secretly* dislike it though, then I can't understand as much. I guess I really better buckle down and start learning Spanish.

Now I have to share one more amusing story (at least to me) that I just thought of. At the adult stake conference this past weekend a speaker had a heavy Spanish accent, and so Leo and were guessing throughout his talk where he was from. (We were listening too!) Anyway, Leo started out by guessing that if he was from Mexico, it had to be southern Mexico. And then he said, well, maybe he's from Spain. Which I disagreed with because he didn't sound at all like our friend Azucena and her lispy accent. Anyway, we went up to him afterwards and asked him where he was from, and yep, he was from Colombia! Hee. Hee. I laughed so hard at Leo for not recognizing his accent. Granted, he was from southern Colombia, a place called Popayan. Him and his wife are both doctors and were very nice. He gave a very impressive talk about faith, by the way.