Julian Graduates from the Kuekengruppe

 

Today was Burli's last day at Die Rasselbande before going into summer break. Papa dropped him off and we took this picture at the front gate of the school's new location. it sure is a nice place that new school, large open classrooms and a huge green grassy area out front. the kids really seem to love that.

at noon there was the year end picnic and our whole family came. the kids played sackhuepfen, jumped in the hupfburg, and had some nice potluck lunch. on the weekend J, K, D & E came to visit and we had lots of fun. Sunday was a gorgeous but hot day and we divided our time between the Y, in the house and outside next to the garage (the only place we have shade).

Skunkwork

Yes, it now happened to us, too. the neighborhood skunk entered our house and enjoyed a midnight snack while diego looked on. roshkie did not even bother to check him out, suggesting that they already knew each other. chris had found some strange poop next to the washer/dryer the other day but was not sure where it had come from, now we know. after the skunk had left around 1 am he decided to come back for a second helping, though this time he had trouble leaving since i had one-way locked the kitty door, though not the way i had intended. the door was open for everyone and their brother to come in but not to leave, duh! even Julian woke up and Gma and Chris were frightened as they expected the skunk to get scared and spray in the house. luckily, this did not happen and we were able to open to backdoor so he could get out. from now on the kitty door remains locked (both ways!) during night time hours!

Gma turned Plumber

Gma trying to figure out whay the sinks won't drain

My plan of starting to post again were rendered void by ongoing house problems. instead of enjoying our new son Samuel, Gma and i are trying to figure out the kitchen sink plumbing. the fact that the neighbor's beautiful ficus tree was cut down last wednesday did not exactly help with either activity, rather, it was pretty upsetting:

Anyhow, the good news there is that the ficus (my boss called their roots WMDs) will not buckle our driveway any more or enter the other neighbor's sewer lines or try to break through the foundation of the owner's house. no picture of the what it looks a the moment yet, but this one shows the tree almost gone:

The other good news is that after 3 intense evenings of plumbing analysis (with the help of uncle Mike and his plumber friends in Berne), adding secondary venting, and replacing the whole kitchen sink piping and properly connecting the dishwasher drain to the garbage disposal we now have a set of 2 draining sinks! it took 2 trips to home depot, during which i spent about $120 on plumbing supplies, most of which i will be a

ble to return. i estimate that i n the end materials were probably $20 for a couple of PVC pipes and ABS pipes and a trap. just don't try to start adding up labor!

one year later

a lot of time has gone by since my last post, and a lot has happened since then! we bought a house and and our family has grown! our most recent addition is shown here, born Sunday June 7 2009 at 10:49am. it took us a couple of days to to settle on his name, among our favorites were: Simon, Lawrence, Daniel, Theodor, and JT had been calling the baby Justin for the longest time until he switched to calling him with his great grandpa's first name (his grandma's dad). we thought that we would honor our grandparents so we went with grandma's dad's as the first name and opa's dad as the middle name.

here is JT holding his baby brother, i think he'll be a great big brother.