Our 2017

February

We decided to take the opportunity to fly to the Philippines to visit Marita’s relatives. Marita last saw them in 1997, and Dave (although he has learned a lot about Filipino culture and especially food) had never been.

We flew to Manilla and then travelled onto San Carlos, in the province of Pangasinan, where Marita’s mother is from and stayed there with Marita’s uncle Boots. Trying to explain jet lag to a 9 months old was very hard, and Dave struggled with the heat but all in all we had an unforgettable holiday.

April

Marita and Bastian flew for three weeks to Germany over Easter to spend some time with her family. Dave flew out for the Easter week. Marita’s sister came back for a holiday from Tanzania with her daughter Adele, so that the two cousins could play together.

May

May was a month of big change in our household.

Firstly Bastian turned 1, and his grandmother Luz flew over from Germany to celebrate with him. We had a little birthday party with close family.

Marita returned back to work, but she was able to negotiate with her employer that she only went back for three days a week. We are fortunate that Dave’s work has a subsidised nursery on his grounds, so that Bastian can go to work with Dave and return with him at the end of the day. Bastian took to nursery very well, and never cried or showed any signs of  separation anxiety.

May brought another change – Bastian gained another cousin: Dave’s brother Paul and his fiance Claire became parents to a little boy called Noah on the 24th of May.

June

In June Bastian had an operation to correct his urinary reflux which had caused him to have urinary tract infections, the first of which saw him hospitalised when he was only 7 weeks old. Although we could manage the condition with a daily dose of antibiotics, it was decided that a small operation was the best option.  It was a bit traumatic for the parents but thankfully Bastian could not really remember the operation the next day and recovered very well.

September

We flew for a late summer holiday to the Algave in Portugal. We rented a car and set up base in a town called Tavira. We had a great time exploring the region; and Bastian took great pleasure in visiting the beach (every day!). Even though he has been to the beach on other occasions he was finally able to really appreciate it.

October

October was a busy month for us. In the first weekend we flew to Copenhagen to visit Marita’s sister, Lisa, who is studying for a Master’s there.

Then at the end of the month we flew for another long weekend to Germany for the event that Dave had been training for the last four months: the Frankfurt marathon. As you may remember Dave had run the Frankfurt marathon before in 2013. This time he beat him previous time of 03:06 hr by 5 min. With his time of 03:01 he does qualify for good for age for the London Marathon in 2019 which was is initial goal.

December

Our year ended with a highlight. We became a family of four – with the arrival of our little Johann (Hannes)  who arrived via a planned Cesarean on the 12th of December.

Marita’s parents came over Christmas and New Year to help with the new transition.

This year we celebrated Christmas Eve at home in Sunbury on Thames and Christmas day was spent in Reading with some of Dave’s Family.