2012: The Beginning

Happy New Year everyone! We had a very nice, low key evening celebrating New Year's Eve at a friend's house, raclette style.  Raclette is a semi-firm, cow's milk cheese that is melted, served with slices of meat and boiled potatoes, and eaten with white wine.  I've only ever seen raclette served at restaurants using this table-side, electrical contraption: Little did I know that you can buy your own raclette for at home that looks like this: I think we finally know how we'll be spending the last of our wedding gift cards when we return to the U.S.!  Just think of the possibilities, roasting vegetables, cooking meats, melting chocolate!  Ooh-eee, we're already excited about owning our own raclette someday. We had a great start to 2012 yesterday.  We woke up thinking about our honeymoon in Thailand and missing the adventures we had there.  We decided to channel our Thai breakfast experiences by having an impromptu brunch alfresco, with "Thai omelets", mimosas, and fresh pineapple. Michael's back to work tomorrow, but only until Thursday when we're off to Amsterdam! We found a really cheap flight on RyanAir (45€ each) so we're heading out to spend a few days.  Although Michael's already been there several times, it will be my first trip to the Netherlands, so I'm pretty excited.  I'm working on putting together a post about Florence before we leave, so stay tuned.