April Highs and Lows 2017

This has been a busy but good month. I finished my most recent Integrationskurs and my students took their test (results not in yet), M and I had a mini-vacation, and then my dad arrived. It's a lot of fun to cook for him because there's almost nothing he doesn't like, and he is very appreciative of our efforts in the kitchen.

On with it. Here are my highs and lows for April:

HIGHS

• meeting several of my students for two extra review sessions before their Deutschtest für Zuwanderer. I offered to spend some extra time with them during the free week between the end of our class and their test, and a handful came!

• three days with M at the Engel wellness hotel in the Schwarzwald, delicious food, relaxation, saunas...

venison

• participating in another Asian Kochkurs, this time with sushi. Admittedly not my thing, but I tried quite a few! This was our ninth Kochkurs.

sushi

fish Vorspeise

anrichten - I take my jobs very seriously

• our first Spargel überbacken of the season, and driving to the Spargelhof to get the white asparagus

• lamb stew for Easter

• my dad's arrival. He's spending several weeks with us while attending classes at the Hermann-Hesse-Kolleg because he wants to improve his German! He has been working really hard and asking great questions. He's in an A1 class, but I taught him adjective endings this week just for fun.
  My mom will come over in mid-May for a few weeks of fun and travel, and they'll fly home together the day before M and I fly to Scotland.


• my daughter spending a day at the Rolex Three-Day event in Lexington, Kentucky, where local boy Michael Jung and his horse fischerRocana are competing. She attended the cross country day, and snapped this amazing photo of the two of them!

Michi und fischerRocana

• today M and I made Maultaschen from scratch. It's quite an undertaking - we started at about 15:30 (having made the pasta dough earlier so it could rest) and ate around 19:00 with only one 10-minute break for a Feierabend glass of wine. After learning a few things at our Swabian Kochkurs more than a year ago, we have fixed almost all the mistakes I made in that first attempt from 2013. My dad took some photos, so perhaps I can write another updated post about the Herrgotts-B'scheißerle.

LOWS

• April weather. Frost. Snow. Just...No. My tulips and I protest!

"No, no, Mother Nature. Go ahead. We'll just be sad."

• uh...ten minutes ago I discovered a crack in my fake tooth (crown, I guess). It's one of my two front teeth, and it's a holiday weekend. I can only hope it won't get worse before I can get my dentist to look at it!

ACTIVITIES WITH MY DAD

dinner at the home of a hunter friend
That's Tyrolean mountain goat with Spätzle and Rotkohl.

On his first day of class I gave him a Schültüte
filled with treats, an eraser, a pocket notebook, etc.

Spargel dinner at Straub's Krone - with breaded pork tenderloin

Dad and I went for a walk yesterday to photograph the Rapsfelder
(rapeseed fields)

It's my dad's turn to sit and have a glass of wine
while someone else grills the tenderloin!

This morning we drove into the Schwarzwald
and walked the short but interesting Lotharpfad.

at the lookout platform on the Lotharpfad,
looking over the Schwarzwald toward France

sharing a laugh about any number of things...
We're having a good time!

I hope your April was awesome as well, despite the weather!