'Tis the Season

Wow! Where has the time gone. Christmas is almost upon us again, and it seems like the last time I posted anything was.... last April. Oops. I guess I missed a thing or two. Kasia has finished pre-school and started kindergarten. She has lost two teeth, and gained two new ones. And now she can ride her bike without any training wheels. What's next on her to-do list? Get a job. Oh wait. That's my list (for her!).
Anyway, I posted a whole bunch of new pictures, and some that aren't so new. No matter how old they are, they're still cute! Merry Christmas everyone.

A Man of My Word

So I said back in January that I probably wouldn't be updating my blog all that often, and I have kept my word. In case you missed it, here are the highlights of what has happened since January:

1. I went back to school to get an MBA

2. Kasia learned how to spell and write both her first and last name

3. Kasia turned 5

4. Kara got even more beautiful

I did however just upload some new photos, so have a gander at those. It seems like the older Kasia gets, the fewer pictures I'm taking of her. She's still really cute though (in case you didn't know that).

New Pictures

And a Happy New Year

 

I know, it’s been forever since I put up a post, right?  I guess I was so intimidated by my Swiper pumpkin that I just didn’t feel like I could top it in any way.  So what has the little angel been up to since the last post?  Really, too much to talk about.  But here’s a brief synopsis:

Pumpkin patch and hayride field trip with her class, and that was followed up with Halloween (she was a cowgirl).  Following Halloween comes Thanksgiving, and her grandparents drove in from Chicago to come be thankful with us.  They weren’t thankful though that their car broke down while they were here and so they had to spend a few extra days hanging out with us.  We really loved having them.

Then we started getting ready for Christmas.  The tree was up, the lights and decorations were all looking lovely and festive.  We went to the Chesapeake Christmas parade and Kasia got to meet Santa.  Then she met him a week later at her schools breakfast with Santa.  She and the other kids put on a show for the adults with songs and costumes (Kasia was dressed as a Christmas tree ornament and sang “I’m a Little Ornament”).   Kasia couldn’t wait until Santa came to visit, and then visit he did.  We had a wonderful Christmas filled with presents, love and family (and bread pudding).  The day after Christmas we got a nice surprise in the form of a blizzard which dumped over a foot of snow on us.  Even more surprisingly was that it was the second big snow storm of our winter.  If this keeps up, I’m going to have to invest in a snow shovel.  So while Christmas wasn’t very white, the day after Christmas was extremely white. 

Then New Years came and went without much fanfare and Kasia went back to school.  Come to think of it, a lot has happened since October.  Kara and I both had grandparents pass away.  My grandfather passed away in early December and her grandmother passed a few days ago.  Both had been suffering for a long time and can now finally rest.

So what’s up next for us?  Well, I go back to school at the end of January.  I’m excited/anxious for that.  Kasia is doing well in school and is learning a lot.  She’s working on learning to write her last name right now, and hopefully by the time she’s a teenager she’ll have it down.

And if you’re wondering if my New Year’s resolution was to update this site more often, it isn’t.  I’d like to say that I will, but chances are I won’t.  But I’ll try to do it more than once every three months.  It’s just that the holidays are so busy.  You understand, right?  But I will try to put up new pictures soon.

Swiper No Swiping!

The whole week before Halloween, Nick Jr. kept showing little "How To" videos on carving creative pumpkins. One of the pumpkins they kept showing was a Swiper pumpkin, and naturally Kasia fell in love with it. So when we got our pumpkins the first thing she wanted to do was to car a Swiper pumpkin, and what with me being the wonderful dad that I am, I did my best to make the Swiper jack-o-lantern of her dreams.
I think that it turned out pretty good.

The Infamous Double Rainbow

It’s rare, but it does happen.  The Double Rainbow is a neat thing to see, and the other day we happened to have one.  I took a quick video of it, with sound effects and everything.  The second rainbow is very faint in the video, but it’s just a little bit above the one that’s easy to see.  And as a bonus, if you wish upon a double rainbow, your wish is guaranteed to come true.  So be prepared to bow down before me as I’m crowned King of the World (eat it James Cameron!).

Sick as a Dog (or a four year old girl)

 

Not everything was great with Kasia’s first field trip.  When she came, she became noticeably ill.  After she took a brief nap (which she never does) it was obvious that something was wrong.  We took her to the doctor that night, and sure enough, she was struck down with the dreaded pink eye.

The whole next week turned in to a slew of other illnesses.  Her pink eye cleared up, but she then caught a cold. That kept her out of school for a few more days, and then she had something else wrong with her.  So again, we went to the doctor, and this time she had an ear infection.  So we got some medicine for that, and that cleared up as well.  Finally.  After a week of being sick, Kasia finally got healthy again.

And then Kara got sick.  And then I got sick.  Eventually, we’re all going to get better and our house will be the very model of health.  Hopefully that will happen sometime before Christmas.

Apple Picking Field Trip

Kasia went on her first ever field trip with her pre-school in September. The whole class went out to Knotts Island to go apple picking. Suffice it to say, Kasia had a great time wandering in between the various apple trees and picking everything and anything that slightly resembled an apple. Kasia was initially going with the philosophy of "quantity over quality." We quickly had to correct this view and had her picking some high quality apples in no time. And pick them she did. We left with a bag over-flowing with apples of all kinds, and despite the fact that Kasia won't eat them, she had a great time picking them. Kara was able to turn the pile of apples in to two very delicious apple pies (which I enjoyed very much).

Kasia's pre-school and her teacher Miss Debbie

After the apple picking was finished, the class then took the ferry back home. We really lucked out in that the weather was absolutely perfect for a field trip and ferry ride. It was sunny, warm (but not too warm), with low humidity. You could not have asked for better weather for being outdoors. Kasia loved the ferry ride almost as much as picking apples. She and her friends were able to run amok around the ferry, and just have a great time.

It was the first of many field trips that she's going to be going on this year, and this one certainly set the bar pretty high.

Hurricane Earl Ruins Our Day

So there's this hurricane churning out in the ocean that is coming our way, and it has completely ruined our day. The schools are closed today, and probably tomorrow, because of this thing, and that means Kasia doesn't have pre-school today. Now, the little girl who was screaming and crying on her first day because she was at school and just wanted to go home was no at home and screaming and crying because she couldn't go to school. Over and over she just kept crying "I WANT TO GO TO SCHOOL TODAY!!!" It's amazing what a few days can do.

Now, instead of doing all the stuff I had planned for the day, I instead have to move all our lovely patio furniture in to the garage so that it doesn't blow away. And the sad part is that we're probably not going to get all that much of a storm anyway. I may be wrong, but this isn't the first storm that they have hyped as being the big one that's going to get us all. A few years ago, tropical storm Hanna was supposed to be the big one. That one ended without it even raining here, and the worst damage I had was a shingle blew off my roof. And I spent that day moving my neighbor's patio furniture because I didn't have any of my own.

So we'll see how it all turns out. It's supposed to be at its closest late tonight. We'll probably get a good breeze and some nice kite flying weather, but I don't anticipate anything bad. The really bad thing is that apparently since the state of North Carolina is in a state of emergency, the sale of alcohol is prohibited. Now how am I going to throw a hurricane party if I can't buy beer and margaritas?

Kasia's First Day of Pre-School

Kasia today went to her first day of pre-school. A little girl could not be more excited for a day to arrive, outside of Christmas that is. She has been looking forward to going to school since we first signed her up last spring. She was ready to go. She had her backpack all ready. She had all her school supplies ready to go. This girl was ready for school. That is, until we got to school.

Today has been a day of mixed emotions. First there was excitement (as seen in the picture above). Kasia was skipping all the way to the car as we were getting ready to go. Her friends were all going to be at her new school, and she was all ready to play. We got to the school and she was all excited. She hopped out of the car and ran up the stairs. Then suddenly, after we walked in, fear fell over her and she was no longer excited.
It's a little hard to tell from the picture (and I didn't want to take too many pictures of her not having fun), but Kasia was not feeling good about school. She was clinging to Mom and Dad with a death grip. In fact, at one time, she was holding on to me so hard she would have made an NFL coach proud. There were tears, lots of tears. She didn't want to take her backpack off. Her friends were there waiting to play, but she didn't care. We tried to calm her down and get her relaxed so she could have some fun, but it just wasn't happening. Then the teacher asked Kasia if she wanted to go see a puppy that they had in the next room. Kasia said yes, and away we went. Hopefully she'd have a better time when we were gone.

Apparently that worked. The teacher called us about five minutes later to say that Kasia was all smiles and playing great. I guess they went to see the puppy, and Kasia started talking about how she has a dog named Michelle. And then she kept on talking about dogs and puppies and what her dog likes to do. The teacher asked if she wanted to go play with her friends, and Kasia said yes and away she went. She never even asked where we went. She never noticed that Mom and Dad had left.
When I went to pick her up, Kasia was all smiles. I walked in the door, and she was bouncy and smiling. She came running over to me as happy as a clam and showed me all the wonderful crafts they had made that day. This was not the same little girl that I had dropped off just a few hours earlier. She was going on and on about about everything they did and how much fun it all was. She told me that she was extremely excited to go back to school tomorrow.

So while the day was a mixed bag of emotions, at least it ended with some happy ones. Kasia had fun and is looking forward to going back. We couldn't ask for anything more.

Two Peas in a Pod

When our neighbors across the street moved and rented out their house, I told them that the new occupants needed to have 1) a four year old child 2) preferably a girl and 3) a stay at home dad. Well, they tried their hardest, and they got two out of the three. A couple weeks ago, Kasia's newest friend moved in across the street, and the two have been inseparable ever since. Kasia's first thought in the morning is now what the fastest way is to get ready so that she can go out and play with Kalina.

The great thing is just how similar the two of them are. Their personalities compliment each other so well that they end up playing for hours and hours at a time without so much as a fuss. They love to play the same things. They get along great. It's awesome. And they both have a sixth sense about when the ice cream truck is coming through the neighborhood. The other day, they both came running through the house screaming "ICE CREAM MAN! THE ICE CREAM MAN IS COMING!!!" Kasia was tearing through drawers looking for money to buy some ice cream. I went outside with her and listened for that familiar music. All I heard was silence. Occasionally I could hear the faint sound of wind chimes from a neighbor's house, but nothing else. Then about thirty minutes later, sure enough, here comes the ice cream truck. I was floored. How did they do that? It reminded me of Radar from MASH. I'm not sure how these kids know, but they know.

Our Little Beach Bum

At the beginning of the summer, I was really looking forward to going to the beach with Kasia this year, because she is now finally old enough to really enjoy the beach. Now, while the crashing waves of the ocean are still a little too much for her, she is definitely enjoying playing in the sand a lot more than she was last year.

Earlier this month, we made a trip down to Salvo to visit Karlie, Bryan, and the girls again. We always have such a great time when we go down there that it's a shame we don't do it more often. Sadly, we haven't actually gone to the beach all that much this summer. But now that school is starting and the crowds down in the Outer Banks are thinning (and the water is warming up) we are probably going to head down a few more times in the up coming weeks. We were just down there this past weekend, and it was absolutely perfect. The weather was not too hot and the water was not too cold. Kara and Kasia walked the beach looking for seashells, and then Kasia and I built sand castles together (or rather, I built and Kasia stomped on).

Now we just need to teach Kasia to surf, and all will be good with the beach.

A Barbie Princess Party!

On August 14, Kasia went to a "Barbie Princess Birthday Party" for the birthday of a girl she knows from story time at the library. The girls were all decked out in various forms of princess costumes, and everyone had their Barbies for play time. Kasia was feeling a little shy though, and she had a hard time getting really comfortable around the other kids and having a good time. It's too bad, because as much as Kasia enjoys her "girl time," this party was all girl.

The most impressive thing in my opinion was the birthday cake (pictured above). This girl's mom baked a cake in the shape of Barbie's dress. She was up all night making the thing look perfect. That kind of made us feel bad because we just go to the grocery store and let Kasia pick out her own birthday cake. But since Kasia only eats the frosting off the cake, I don't see the point in putting that much effort in to a cake.

The World Cup

In case you've been wondering what I've been doing since I last posted in the beginning of June, the answer is "Watching the World Cup." Every four years my life gets consumed by the greatest sporting event on the planet, and this year was no exception.

It's hard work keeping up with this tournament. For a couple weeks, I had to watch three games a day and then squeeze in the rest of my life between matches. It was pretty rough.

And while I am a Netherlands fan, and was thrilled that they went to the final, it was nice to see Spain win it all. They deserved it. Though, on a sad note, our air conditioner broke down during the final game between Netherlands and Spain. So while I thought I was just getting hotter because of the excitement on the field, it turns out that I was actually just getting hotter. I also discovered that it's no fun having your air conditioner go out when it's 90 and humid outside.

My God. It's Full of Stars!

Is there anything more wonderful to a child than the magical realm known as Chuck E. Cheese? According to Kasia, the answer is no. We were able to go there to celebrate Noah's 5th birthday, and Kasia was in a dream world. Now, she had the idea of Chuck E. Cheese in her head and hyped up by her cousins, but until we were actually there, I don't think she knew quite what to expect.

As soon as we walked in the door, and she saw the games buzzing and the lights flashing, her brain went in to an overloaded state of excitement. She stood there. Staring. Her eyes were wide as she took it all in. Her tiny hands were trembling from excitement. It was too funny. She was so excited about what she saw that her body was literally shaking. Then it was off to the races.

Now, Kasia is maybe just a little too young to play most of the games at Chuck E. Cheese, but she is not to young to know that getting more tickets is a good thing, and that after you get a lot of tickets, you can get a toy.

So I helped get as many tickets as possible. I discovered the secrets to Street Basketball and raked in nine tickets for every token spent. Kara spent a lot of time with Kasia and helped her to enjoy the games and rides that were just right for her. I think everyone had a great time.

And then when it came time to decide what to get with all those tickets, Kasia must have spent thirty minutes trying to pick something out. On the one hand, she wanted the same things that her cousins were getting. On the other hand, she didn't want all those "boy things" and wanted something more girly. In the end, she was happy.

And Then To Wisconsin

We were truly some traveling fools when we went up to Chicago. We left North Carolina on thursday, and drove all day until we got to Dayton, Ohio. On friday, we drove all day to my parents' house. Saturday we then drove up to Wisconsin. On sunday, we then drove back down to Chicago. Finally, on monday, I said enough is enough and let the car sit all day in the driveway.

The main reason we were going up to Chicago though (aside from seeing my parents and Rick, Susan, and the boys of course) was for a little family reunion we were having up in Wisconsin. At one time, all of us cousins were spread out all over the country. Now everyone has moved to Wisconsin with the exception of Rick and me. So it was nice that we could all get together and head up to Schumacher Island in Shawano for a great cookout and get together. It had been a long time since we had all seen each other, and so even though we live in a world of Facebook and email, it was nice to catch up with them and find out they've been up to (mainly because I'm horrible at keeping in touch, and don't use Facebook very often).

It also let us get this great family portrait.

The kids had a great time playing together and swimming in the lake. And the real excitement came when Noah went fishing for his first time. A few minutes in to it, he caught himself a 17" bass. Not too shabby. Sadly though, I feel bad for him because fishing from now on is probably only going to be disappointing. He peaked too early, just like Orson Welles (hopefully Noah won't get as fat as Welles did though).

On sunday we went to visit my grandpa who is currently in a nursing home and isn't doing so well. He was looking better than I thought he would, but still a far cry from the robust man and farmer that I knew while growing up. And while he always seemed "old" to me (I mean, I remember him at 64... an old man) it seems that his age has finally caught up with him. But it was great to see both he and my grandma while we were up there.

Then on the way back home, we stopped off at the Mars Cheese Castle for a taste of real Wisconsin goodness (aka, cheddar cheese and summer sausage). Once we got home, my good friends Chris and Jessica came over for a visit that was unfortunately shorter than I would have liked. But the last time we saw them, Kasia was an infant, and Chris and Jess managed to have two beautiful daughters. It's great that they now live in the Chicago area, so we can get together again the next time we go home to visit.

A Trip To Chicago

Ah, Chicago. The land of my youth. Around once a year, we like to make a pilgrimage back to the Mother Country to see how the locals are fairing up north. So, at the end of the June, we loaded up the old Family Truckster and made the journey once again. Now, people often ask me, "Brad, why is it that you always drive to Chicago? Why not fly? I mean, how long does that take you anyway?"

Well, the answers I could give vary anywhere from "It's cheaper for us to drive, and deep down, we're very frugal people," to "It's Gruetzmacher family tradition to always drive on long trips." The truth though is much simpler. We love the American highway system. This beautiful engineering phenomenon allows us travel great distances in very little time while at once being able to see the majesty of this country. We're not like some pretentious Northeastern snobs who refer to the Mid-West as "fly-over country." No. We call that Driving-through country. The wonders of Charleston, West Virginia. The dazzle of Dayton, Ohio. They are all simply breathtaking. It's so wonderful, that we take what would normally be a 16 hour trip and break it up in to two days worth of driving just so we can take it all in. That way we see everything we wouldn't have seen had we flown. Did you know that there was some awesome wind turbine farms just north of Indianapolis? No, because you flew right over it.

This was also our first long trip with a child who is now potty trained. That makes it a completely different kind of trip entirely. We're working on teaching her that if she needs to use the potty, she needs to give us a warning instead of just blurting out, "I NEED TO GO POTTY NOW!!!!!" Though, because of this, we saw some small, out of the way towns along the way that we probably wouldn't have seen otherwise.

It was also our first trip in which Kasia discovered the phrase, "Are we there yet?" We weren't more than three hours out before Kasia started up with this phrase. And she would use it over, and over again, as I'm sure any parent is well familiar with. I feel like we can now be let in to the Car Club With Kids. It was driving me to the point where I almost thought that we should fly from now on.

Tree Hugging Hippy

My daughter has turned in to a tree hugger. Literally.

I blame TV. Every show seems to have an environmental slant to it these days. I bet that if GI Joe were on today, Duke and Hawk would be having discussions about to recycle all those blown up Dragonflies, and that they need to carpool to the base to reduce their carbon footprint.

And the Rest of the Time?

And what else have we been doing? In one word: Weddings. Kara and I had three weddings to go to in May. They ranged from extremely casual, to pretty darn formal. They were all fantastic and a lot of fun. Congratulations to all the newly married couples out there. We're wishing you the best.

And in a related note, my parents just celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary. I guess getting married on D-Day wasn't such a bad omen after all.

That's a Whole Lot of Gruetzmachers

On May 11, my brother and his family flew in from Serbia to come and visit us. I picked them up at the Raleigh airport after their flight was slightly delayed (darn you Icelandic ash cloud!). They came and stayed with us for about ten days and it was a great time. The weather however was not so great. When we were building the deck, the goal was to have it done before they arrived, and we beat that goal with just two days to spare. However, after the Gruetzmachers arrived, the weather turned south and we had a lot of cold/rainy days. Regardless, we had a great time.

The main highlight for Kasia was Aunt Susan. Despite the fact that Kasia spends every day with me, she has somehow turned out to be all girl. She loves painting her nails, playing dress up, and setting up Barbie's dollhouse. Needless to say, these are all things that I tolerate, but far from enjoy. So when Susan showed up and actually WANTED to play these things with her, Kasia was amazed. The Girls Only Club was immediately formed. This was followed up with the Purple Nails Club, and a slew of others.

While the girls were busy with that, we boys had a good time playing some video games and other, more boy things. Alex and Noah proved they are both very adept at the Nintendo, and by the end of the week, Noah was a pro at MarioKart and giving me a run for my money.

Then just as quickly as they arrived, they had to leave. Fortunately, we'll be seeing them in a couple of weeks when we make the long journey up to Chicago for a quick visit.