annikas und christians sicht der dinge

We are uncle, aunt and cousin now: Jakob Lewin is born. Congratulations to Daniela and Karsten.

Everybody complaints that recession really hits the tourism. I don’t know what they are talking about. We definitely can’t complain about not enough bookings. From the middle of December until the middle of January we had 12 people staying with us for 17 nights in total.
1. my brother Björn and his fiancé Christin (the perfect christmas presents delivery service)
2. Janet & Colin, Anna’s parents (they couldn’t fit them into their house, so they stayed a few days over Christmas)
3. Oliver, Dominic and Janet (see 2.) (they had a one night sleep over while their little sister Hazel Amelia was born)

4. Andrea & Flo (they just had to meet our lovely Aimee before they spent a few days in London)
5. Conny, Malte and Phil (Conny and Malte helped us with the move to York nearly 3 years ago and we were delighted to finally meet their awesome 16 months old son Phil. Especially Aimee loved having a big brother in the house.)

24/12
Christmas Eve in York means for the Nowratys to play with Aimee, set up the Christmas tree, play with Aimee, feed Aimee, cook Christmas dinner (ham in cherry coke), looking at the snow, singing Christmas carols, being on skype with the familiy in Germany, unwrapping presents with the familiy watching over the internet, unwrapping more presents and then going to bed early. It was great.
25/12
We went to church to a lovely service where all kids brought their most favourite present, the adults did a nativity scene, lots of carols and a few mince pies. After that we had a propper English Christmas lunch with everything from turkey to brussles sprouts. Anna and Richard invited us over and it was lovely.
26/12
Boxing day was with a few families from church und a lot of left overs from Christmas. It was really a relaxed gathering and a wonderful finish of a very special Christmas.

Last Sunday we had the Bickersteths over for lunch. We had a fun time with guitar lesson, den building and popcorn. We really enjoyed the time and fellowship like this is always very special to us, because we are not able to do it too often due to Christian’s working hours.

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We are just back from Germany. We had a really nice time. We went to see both pairs of grandparents and even aimee’s great-grandparents. And with her smile she won them all over – no surprise to us.

In Malente even uncle Torben was around, because of a broken jaw. First we had the golden wedding anniversary of my grandparents followed by the wedding of my schoolfriends Nina & Ole. It was a lovely day and being the maid of honour made it even more special. After all that we were quite glad to be back in York to get some rest.

Christian was off today so we made a daytrip with the whole family. We made the best out off the good weather and went to Knaresborough. It was quite an adventure because we had to lift Aimee a lot of stairs up and down (she lay comfortly in her push chair). She really enjoyed it – it was ok for us. We went to see Mother Shipton’s cave. It’s a cave and a petrifying well. If you put a teddy bear into the water it will be petrified within three month. If you do like teddy bears it looks a bit cruel to be fair. At the museum you could even see a petrified hut of John Wayne.

We got the call yesterday morning: we’re staying for another year in our house. Our landlord is willing to renew our contract and he does not even increase the rent. Now we can start thinking again about putting some curtains up in the livingroon, maybe.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Yesterday we went to London to get a passport for Aimee. We got up at 5am and took the train to London. Everything went really well. When we arrived at the embassy we were slightly shocked. Most council offices look more attracktive. We had to wait over 2 hours and then it took 5 minutes to get a passport.
In the afternoon we met with Anne our friend from Belfast. We had a picknick in the grass outside the tate modern. It was great to spend some time with Anne just to catch up. After dinner we took the train home. It has been a good day, but we were really exhausted. Aimee was so tired that she slept all night. Let’s see if she will do this more often from now on.

Since Thursday the grandparents from Malente are with us and it seems as having a deja-vu: nobody really seems to be interested in us. Somebody else is the focus of all attention. But that’s ok and so we are enjoying some daughter-free hours.

Since a few days we have Christian’s parents with us and if we are honest: they are not really interested in us. Somehow is their focus totally on our daughter. But who can blame them, she is just such a cutie and we can hardly take our eys of her ourselves. Next week there will be the grandparents adventure part 2 with my parents coming. Hopefully Aimee will not be totally spoilt afterwards.

Last night Aimee and I have been out for the first time: Ladies night. It was my baby shower. Together with Helen, Katie and Becky our church has blessed us with prayers and presents. I really enjoyed the night, but Aimee and I still need to optimize our feeding in public – but I’m sure it will be without any problems pretty soon.

And the winner is…….. Lydia, Christin and Daniela. Lydia and Christin both got the first name (Lydia even with the right spelling) and Daniela dreamt a few weeks ago that we are going to call our little girl Johanna. And she was right. Within the next weeks we will send out some lovely prizes to the lucky winners. Congratulations!!