Walter Family Place - Finally made it home. Italy was nice food was great, and the traffic around Venice is a mess. The good thing was is that I only spent two days in Venice before heading to the country side. Venice was really neat to visit. I did get pictures (I will post some as soon as I get them developed) of canals, boats, canals, churches, canals, and the Walter Hotel, all inside Venice. The people were friendly and where very willing to help me get around. There plazas everywhere there was a church. Most of the places selling food had places to eat outside so you could people watch. And most of the people seemed to be tourists watching other tourists watching other tourists. The weather was cool but sunny and the hotel I was in was across the street from the train station so getting into Venice was easy. I do not recommend staying in Venice proper. The train, bus and cars all stop on the edge of the area and you walk from that point on. All of the bridges have steps to go up and down and the sidewalks are not very wide or very smooth. Driving to the work site was easy once I got away from the Venice area. The truck traffic was unreal. The main highway is the route from the Croatia and Serbia and all trucks bringing in goods travel past Venice to get to the rest of Italy and towards France. Everyone said that I would get lost heading for the work site, they were wrong. I did miss one turn, but saw the signs as I drove past, so I did a quick u-turn and went back. The little town of Aviano is little. The wine was good and cheaper than water, so I drank a lot of cheap wine that was better than most of the wines I get here in Utah (no real surpise there). I can see why the US Air Force has a base in this area. The mountains just north of town were towering high above the city and snow capped, quite pretty. I now have road maps to Italy, Germany, and Greece, so if you need to figure out how to get around in one of these places let me know and I will get a map to you. Mom and Dad are here and the kitchen is close to being done. Dad and I have worked on getting the sink, dishwasher, and ice maker hooked up and operational. I think (I hope I hope I hope) that the sink water lines will not leak. Mom and Sandy have been using the dishwasher to wash everything before it gets put away and Dad and I have been enjoying the ice cubes in our dinks. Like I mentioned, once I get the pictures of Venice back I will get some posted (especially of the Walter Hotel).

From Treir, Germany. As I sit here typing, Sandy is home dealing with the kitchen remodel. I am now offically in trouble with my wife. A hint to all of the guys out there "DON'T LEAVE HOME AND LEAVE YOUR WIFE TO HANDLE THE CONTRACTORS!". Sandy is pretty good and normally pretty level headed. But with Pat leaving a few days earlier for Arkansas and them my leaving for Europe and the kitchen remodeling not completed, the stress level was WAY up there. I am hoping that by now she has regained her senses and the kitchen is just about done. I will find out when I call home is a little while. Germany is a nice place to visit. The peopple here in Trier (near the Luxemborg border) are very freindly and the food and wine are very good. It is a little on the cold side (near zero F at night and near 40 for a high durng the day). Have now been snowed on in three foreign countries (Greece, Turkey, and Germany). Snow is snow, white and cold. The autobahn is fun to drive. Speed may not matter in some places, but with the roads being two lanes each direction (divided) passing slower vehicles can be interesting as they decide to pull out around the slower moving trucks. More to follow as I have time.

The kitchen saga continues: The tile work took longer than expected (surprise surprise!!) I did the grout work tonight. Now, I did not replace the whole floor, just installed "a few tile". While installing the few tiles I found that the tiles were not laid straight to start with. That means, yes, that the new tiles did not fit! I trimmed and cut, and rearranged, and cut some more. After 8 hours I did manage to get 13 tiles laid. It took another 6 hours to get the last 8 laid. The "fun" part is still to come. The tile I grouted tonight are with brown grout (had to match the bathroom grout in the basement - don't know why, but it had to). The rest of the kitchen (and dinning room) has grey grout. So, I will eventually be changing the grout in the rest of the kitchen. Don't ask when, but it will all become brown grout. The new cabinets are to be installed on Thursday and Friday. Sandy has been taking pictures as we go, so once I get back from Italy in two weeks or so I will post a few so we can see what I have been rambling on about.

Well, we are growing! Right now, everyone who is shown as a member has administrative rights. By going to www.blogger.com and logging in, click on CHANGE SETTINGS, click on MEMBERS, click on ADD TEAM MEMBERS and enter the email addresses, you can invite other family members. I don't have too many of the e-mails (I have been one of those who ran "outside" the family for a number of years) so I will need all the help I can get to let the family know about this blog. Thanks to everyone (especially Tom for the pictures) who has signed up. Now on to what we are up to: Sandy is still stressing over the kitchen make over. We pushed back the cabinet installation so I can get the floor taken care. All of the plastering and painting is done. The new lighting is and looks great, so Sandy was about to calm down; then I dropped the bombshell that I leaving the country for two weeks this month. Pat has been home for a couple of weeks and is leaving for Little Rock 5 days before I head for Germany. So her stress level just went up. If we ever get the kitchen done it should look great! (see previous blog for details as to what NOT say to your wife in jest).