Week 8

This time Daniel could enjoy an entire week without traveling anywhere! ;-) At least not outside Aalen. However, we did take him on small drives within Aalen. We first went to take a quick look at a night show of the Aalen kite festival on Saturday night. And on Sunday afternoon I played a concert with my band again for the first time after the pregnancy break, and the rest of the family came along to listen at least for a short while. Each of the trips was very short, though, since Daniel was getting impatient quickly and we made use of the "luxury" to just take him home after all the "emergency feedings" in the car and restaurants etc. during the last couple of weeks.

For the rest of the week, we took it easy, with "just" two visits from some of my university friends: On Thursday, Thea stopped by here quickly on her way back from a vacation, to get to know Daniel and to invite "him" ;-) for his "first" ice cream. On Saturday afternoon, Dana and Jürgen came to see us with their three children, giving us a taste of what we may be in for if we decide that Daniel is not keeping us busy enough yet. ;-) We had been living so close to them, but had only managed to meet them once in this entire year for a game of "Settlers of Catan", so it was great to finally see them again before we move to Aachen.

We enjoyed taking a break and having some quiet time at home. Though it was turning not quite so quiet towards the weekend, when the local city festival "Reichstädter Tage" started with some very loud music right in front of our apartment until past midnight. (Whereas it had not bothered us much last year, this time it was harder to take, partly for being closer to our apartment, louder, and more aggressive in style this time, and partly because we couldn't really find any corner of our apartment in which we could shield Daniel from the noise.) But except for that, we had plenty of time and leisure to cuddle Daniel, watch him grow, practicing his new smile, stretching and kicking, looking at us, and having some very serious discussions with his father about Obama's fight for health care and about tiramisu spots on clothes... ;-)