Visiting the family

Today, Stella and I went to Tornesch for a little family reunion and also to celebrate the birthdays of my sister Elaine, my nephew Frederick, and myself.

My sister Jennifer and her friend Kai came up from Wuppertal yesterday evening and spent the night with us, then they took us to Pinneberg in their car for church this morning and then on to my family's house afterwards.

After church, I also had a little talk with Henning Eggers, about all sorts of things—from Esperanto (he had noticed a comment by my on an article in the eo Wikipedia) over the old user.picon.de system through which I had had my first ever private Internet connection and where I still kept receiving emails for several years after moving to Harburg, and which is now being disconnected.

My aunt Eva and uncle Helmut were also there; apparently, Ireen had tried to telephone uncle Wolfgang and aunt Heidelind to invite them but hadn't managed to reach them. Eva and Helmut also came to Tornesch with us afterwards for the dinner and general socialising.

When Eva and Helmut were about to leave, Kai asked us all to gather around in the living room. When he had our attention, he made his announcement: he had talked to Daddy earlier in the afternoon and the result of that talk was that he would be calling him "Daddy" from now on! He had asked my father for the hand of his daughter in marriage, and he had consented. So now Jennifer and Kai are engaged and will probably marry around next April. Whee!