Walter Family Place It has been too long since I was here. So there is a bit of news I want to pass along. First, Pat has found a place to live while in Arkansas. His furnishings were to be delivered last Monday. Haven't heard if this happened, butno news is good news. Mom called me last night and said that her new Kitchen cabinets had been installed. She is now waiting for her new sink to come in so the counter tops can be installed. Dad has had an interesting story about a riding lawn mower. Heather is busy as ever with her kids. Sandy and I went down to see them a couple of weekends ago. Heather and Duke are doing fine while the grandkids are growing faster than I can keep up with. Sandy is trying to kill me with all of the projects going on around here. With her kitchen completed, the dinning room and large family room have been painted, the fence repaired and we started to restain the fence. The good news is it is raining so I can get some rest, the bad news is she expects to complete the fence before we go on vacation next week. Next week we are going to Denver to see Sandy's sisters and her Dad. At the end of June we are headed to Mississippi for a week. I get to sit in on some meeting with Germans about a Spanish test stand.(I don't quite see the connection, but it pays the same) While I "work: Sandy will be seeing the great town of Philadelphia, MS. As you may recall, this is the town where three civil rights activists were murdered in the 60's (the movie and book "Mississippi Burning" was based on this incident). There are 7 traffic lights, no major restaraunts, no movie theater, there is Indian Gambling, no shopping malls, and no night life in this town (it is the county seat). Other than bugs, can't tell if there is any thing grown in the area. (I was there about a year ago so I have some idea of the town). I still need to get the pictures from Venice posted, just need to slowdown and take the time to do this. If I survive the sudden interest in getting the house work done I will get some pictures posted. Moreto follow. Mike

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).

Mike's Place Mike writes: We are now past the point of no return on the kitchen remodeling, but allow me to digress and explain how this started. When we moved into the new house we had to buy a new fridge since Sandy saw fit to "give" the old one (which was not that old) to the people who bought our house in California. So I measured the opening that the fridge had to fit into and off we went shopping. After getting Sandy to only look at fridges that would fit in the opening she settled on what she wanted. It was delivered a few days later and when I got home Sandy was beside herself. The fridge was narrow enough to fit in , but because the floor and been tiled and therefor rasied about an 1-1/2" it would not fit under the cabinet above it. Pat & I took the cabinet down and trimmed the top and bottom. Once it was re-inatalled the fridge was wedged under it. The only problem now was the freezer door was so close to the kitchen wall it would not open all the way. Now jump ahead 5 years. Sandy was still complaining about not being able to open the freezer door as wide as she wanted so I jokingly said (and here was my major mistake) "lets re-do the kitchen and move the fridge to the other wall! " Now, I love my wife very dearly, but she did not note the sarcasim in my voice (I'm sure she did not ignore it). The next day she was off looking at kitchen cabinets. I was not too concerned. I figured (this was my next mistake) that the cost of new cabinets and counters would discourage her. Next thing I know I am measureing the kitchen (my next mistake). Next thing I know I am paying for a contractor to raise the ceiling so the new cabinets will fit. The new cabinets are due to arrive on Tuesday, so today I had to take the rest of the cabinets out. It is now apparent that I will be installing a new floor. I have been looing at tile for backspplashes and now tile for the floor. Sandy is getting the two confused and wants everything to be a nuetral color. I keep explaining that we will not be walking on the walls so why does it all have to be the same? (my mistake here was to actual voice the question). So tonight I am patching holes in the walls and tomorrow I get the "honor "of painting the new ceiling. Monday should be nice relief since I get to go back to work.

Mike's Place From Mike: Hello! This site is so we can stay in touch and let all know what we are dong and find out what all are thinking about. Feel free to let us know what you have on your mind.