Rothenburg ob der Tauber

With Emily here, & it being a 3 day weekend, we decided to do some major sight seeing.  On Saturday, we visited one of my very favorite German villages: 

Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

This medieval city that started in about 950 AD.  (It's OLD.)  It's a beautiful city that still has it's original wall surrounding it, the castle gates & tower still standing, & the homes built centuries ago still completely in-tact.  It's GORGEOUS.

Lorien & Taya stayed home with the boys (the 3 hour drive each way didn't appeal to them.) so it was just the four of us (Trek, Emily, Cadence, & me).

We climbed to the top of the city tower which was a little scary at times, but gave us amazing views of the entire city.

The cathedral in Rothenburg is beautiful too.

The plönlein is one of the most photographed places in Europe.  It's just a small yellow home that divides the road at a fork leading to the two castle gates.

One of my favorite things to do in the city is follow the wall.  We climbed up the wall & walked around the entire city.  It's beautiful from the top.

We ate a delicious German lunch at a small restaurant there.  We had brats, fries, schnitzel, & spätzle.

Rothenburg is known for their Schneeballen (snowballs).  I'm not even entirely sure what these are, but they are DELICIOUS & I still crave them.  Their taste is SO unique that even 10 years after I had my last schneeballen I could taste them in my mouth when I saw them in the store windows.  We got SEVERAL.  They are like puff pastry that's been formed into a ball & fried & then rolled around in flavour or nuts or chocolate.  They are incredible.

We also found a fun little bakery where we ate rasberry tarte, cheesecake, & other yummy treats.

After driving 3 hours to get there, then spending several hours walking around the city, it was time to drive the 3 hours home.  The girls were out within 5 minutes of getting in the car.

It was a wonderful day.  I love Rothenburg.  It's a MUST SEE when in Germany.

SURPRISE!!!

Cadence's best friend Emily & I have been planning the most epic surprise ever for over 7 months!  When we first moved to Germany last summer, Emily's mom contacted me & told me Emily had saved up enough money to fly to Germany to spend a week with us.  We found a weekend that worked with school schedules & booked the tickets.  For 7 long months we kept silent about it.

On Valentine's Day, I put the kids on the bus for school then drove straight to the Frankfurt airport to pick Emily up.  I drove her back to our area & took her to lunch at a fun little German restaurant where she ate schnitzel, bratkartoffeln, brotchen, & pretzels.

After that we went German grocery shopping where she got a lesson on German recycling,

Got Euros to spend during the week she'd be staying with us,

recyled all our plastic bottles, 

and bought a feast in the candy & chocolate aisles.

She even got to fill up our milk bottles at the fresh milk station.

But the best part of the entire day, was when the kids FINALLY arrived home from school!  Emily snuck out the back door as the kids were coming inside, then ran around the house & rang our doorbell.  Cadence answered the door & SURPRISE!!!

Link to the SURPRISE video with LOTS of tears.

For dinner that night, we took Emily to our favorite Turkish place & got pizza, Döner, & kroketten.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day from the Potter house.

Opa & Oma sent a cute Valentine's card to each of the kids with some spending money inside.  Then I bought each of the kids a cute card with a package of candy to surprise them.  Oh, & my friend Nancy sent each of the kids either some candy or some new shoes (girls) to wear on Valentine's.

For my dear, sweetheart, I got him a card & a large log of Niederegger Marzipan (his favorite).  I also found a bunch of marzipan hearts for him as well.  I love that man of mine.

I honestly should have taken more pictures.  I get so caught up enjoying those small moments with my kids, that my phone goes down & I don't get as many pictures, but I sure do cherish those moments.  

It was a lovely little Valentine's Day this year.

Lorien's Winter Orchestra Concert

WOW!  It's April 1st!  And I haven't blogged since the first week of February.  This Corona Virus lockdown has us completely shut off from everything . . . & thanks to the craziness of virtual school, I rarely have a minute to sit down & do things for myself on the computer because every computer in our house is being taken over by my 6 "students" doing school with their teachers online.

But I have a few open minutes today so let's catch up!

Lorien had an amazing opportunity to perform her winter orchestra concert in Waldmohr, a cute little village here in Germany.  It was SO fun to sit in the audience with all the local Germans.  They were SO excited to watch our little high school's orchestra perform.  I hope they do more concerts like this.  It was my favorite one so far.

Lorien did a fabulous job too.  After this concert, her orchestra had chair auditions & Lorien was awarded first chair cello for the 2nd Semester of school.  (lead cello).  We are so proud of her.

Spring

Oboe Concerto in D Minor

Oboe Concerto Movement 2

Divertimento No. 3

Viola Concerto

Viola Concerto Movement 2

Symphony No. 1

Jupiter

Pizzicati

Lamplighter's Reel

I always love her orchestra concerts (being a string player myself).  They're always so beautiful.  Lorien is such a beautiful cellist.  We are so very proud of her.