A good Basel weekend

I'm happy to report that I had a good weekend, despite staying in Basel the whole time. That may sound strange, but generally if we're in town (as opposed to traveling), and if we don't have visitors, it means Kirk will have to work at least one of the days, which means we don't usually have a whole lot going on around here. I've learned that I need to go into these Basel weekends with fairly low expectations so that I don't end up disappointed and annoyed that Kirk worked all weekend. After all, that's why we're here, because of Kirk's job, and that's what giving us all these wonderful opportunities! The highlight of the weekend, of course, was the Cinco de Mayo party. It was great to meet lots of new people and to drink some delicious (yet deadly) margaritas. I was a bit concerned that I might be feeling sort of "woe is me" yesterday while people around the world (at least in Switzerland and the US) were celebrating Mother's Day since this is the first year without my Mom, but I kept busy being a Super-Hausfrau (or a Power-Frau as my German teacher once said). I'm not sure what got into me, but after baking banana bread on Saturday I got on this baking kick and made 2 batches of cookies. I made chocolate chip (because Kirk likes those best) and snickerdoodles (because I like them best). I hadn't baked at all since moving to Basel, and now I may have totally maxed out in one weekend. Afterward, once Kirk came home from work, we had our friends Jeff and Marlis over and I grilled up a bunch of sausages and veggies for dinner. Unfortunately, it still wasn't quite warm enough to eat dinner outside on our new Ikea patio set, but summer has to be just around the corner.