You think you have all the answers about the origin of the universe? Well think again, here is Mia with everything you need to know.

My faculty orientation at Tabor has started. Things are going well, pretty much I’m sitting in meeting for the next week or so. I’m looking forward to when the students come and I can actually begin teaching. Of course I am very nervous about that too.

Mindy’s world is full of work and driving. She is going to be in an all girls fantasy football league soon, you’ll have to get her to blog about that. Oh and our Jetta is in the shop. The fuel injection pump was spewing diesel everywhere so we are having a shop repair it. It should be Y2K compliant when I get it back Supposedly the new ULSD fuel is not so good on these pumps if you have run a lot of bio. Oh well, I saved a lot of money on that bio fuel, I guess I can afford a new injection pump.

Other news, Carmen is basically crawling. She isn’t fast yet, but she can get around. We also have a rabbit now named Clifford. (no he isn’t red, but he is pretty big)

Mindy started work this week full time. She had her first day with students yesterday and today is her first day with a normal schedule and students. That means time to assign homework! I on the other hand have been working on the siding project. I have 3 sides of the house finished and the back side yet to be started. Of course, that is the side that all the storms come from so I need to get on that soon. My hands couldn’t take anymore today though. Siding gives the work cuts on the back of your knuckles. I will try to put up some pictures soon, but until then, happy surfing of the internet. Just for fun you should surf over to Mindy’s parent’s blog to check out their travels in Europe.  http://bassanodelbergkamp.blogspot.com

Carmen is officially six months old. Time is flying so fast with these little (Mia not so little anymore) girls. Here are a few photos to keep you updated. There is another photo on my other camera I will post soon that displays a habit that Carmen has picked up that is similar to something a couple of her cousins did back in their early years. 400 points if you guess what the photo will show Carmen doing.

Big sis and “small monkey” hanging out

Snoozing on the living room carpet

The Hillsboro pool rocks! Especially when it is triple digits outside (over 37 for the Euro folk).

Here are a bunch of pictures from our new house and the first few weeks of projects.

First project, painting, or so we thought.

As I started to paint the house, we found that the siding is not in too great of shape. Rather than having to paint it every 5-6 years, we have decided to just reside the house. We are waiting on some people to come out and give us quotes. Then we are going to have to decide to hire it done, or try to do it ourselves.

So rather than continue painting the house, I moved to the shed and have been making good progress on that. The great thing here is that there is little to no scraping needed!

Today’s project was to put some jacks under our house. The support beams in one end of the house has sagged somewhat over the past few years. We got a couple of house jacks and jacked it back up about 1 inch. The hall does not sag nearly as bad, but it does need to go up a bit more. This however will require a bit more lumber and some different jacks, these were a bit longer than I wanted.

Check out our door. Before we jacked the house, there was no gap at the top of the door. Now we can see how much they have shaved off the door over the past years.

Mia helped me replant my banana plant. It was doing very well, but was getting a bit root bound. Hopefully I will get banana next year!

As we planted my tomato plants that Great Granny started for us, we found this little guy eating his heart out. We quickly disposed of him and his friend, and my tomatoes are much happier.

And for the last project this week, we put in a new faucet in the girls bathroom. The old one was very leaky. It took some new soldering as there were no shut off values and Tim wanted to put them in. After a few leaks and resoldering, everything turned out great.

Tim is enjoying having a house to work on again and we are really enjoying the new house. We have lots of things we are wanting to do, but we are not in a big hurry. In Champaign we knew we were leaving and needed to get it done. Here we have the luxury of doing it when we have time and not rushing. We have both gotten all of our stuff moved into our offices and are going to start having to get ready for school soon. But until then, may the projects continue.

I have now been back in the US a little over a week. We got quite a bit accomplished in this past week. We started to paint the siding and then realized that is no use and we will have to reside the house. Cha-ching!
We cleaned out our shed and “barn” and realized we have major termite problems back there. Cha-ching!
The girls both got a weird throat soar fever sickness, but we held out and didn’t have to take them to the doctor to save a little money. They are all better now.
We discovered our yard is completely infested with chiggers, ticks, and fleas, so we are in the process of taking care of that. Got a new mailbox installed. Cut down a bunch of brush and limbs around the house and shed to prepare for the painting/residing jobs. And just yesterday we spent the day with Liz and Jay and bought a used car, a brand new LCD TV, and made a bunch of firewood from a large hedge tree that Jay cut down.

For 350 points, I test drove two cars yesterday and bought one of them, what were they? Honda Civic, Saturn SL, Ford Aspire, Toyota Corolla, Chevy Prism, or Hyundai Excel.

And for your enjoyment, a great video captured by Mindy while I was back in Belgium of the girls playing.