A Feast of Magnificent Proportions

We hope that all you fathers out there had a wonderful Father’s Day and felt truly appreciated. We here at the Gruetzmacher household managed somehow to really enjoy our day.
The day could be summed up by saying that it was full of really good food. It started out with Kara making pancakes for us, and they were delicious. Then as the day progressed, the rest of Kara’s immediate family came over for an enormous cook out. Despite the fact that there were only six of us (plus Kasia), we had enough food to feed sixteen. It was amazing. Steaks. Pork loin. Rice. Peas. Corn on the cob. Watermelon. Mashed potatoes. Rolls. Cantaloupe. And the thing was that it was all incredibly delicious. The steaks were cooked to perfection. The pork was perfect. Corn... perfect. You couldn’t have asked for a better meal. And then while the fathers all went and relaxed on the couch, the ladies cleaned up. Now if you could tell me there was anything better for a Father’s Day gift than that, then I don’t know what it is.
After dinner, Kasia and Chatam went outside to play with some bubbles. I think they both had a great time. I know I got some great pictures of them playing, except that Kasia constantly has that pacifier in her mouth. I would take it out, but then she just picks up rocks and chews on them. So if I had to make a choice between the two, I’d rather her chew on the semi-sanitized alternative. Maybe one day she’ll give it up. Or maybe she’ll become like her Grandpa and just start chewing toothpicks. Or she’ll become like her father and chew on straws. Anyway you look at it, it doesn’t like it’s going away anytime soon.

A Memorable Memorial Day

What a weekend. First, we would like to thank Karlie and Bryan for allowing us to stay at their place over the weekend. Thanks to Karen for her generous hospitality as well, and of course to the little people out there who made our weekend so much fun.
For the longest time we’ve been meaning to drive on down to the Philips’ new beach house and see what they’ve done with the place. Unfortunately with our own move preoccupying our time, we haven’t had the chance. Well, no more excuses. Over the Memorial Day weekend we decided to drive on down and see what our fellow North Carolinians are up to. First off, they have a beautiful house. What I really like is that it’s easy to find. From our house we exit our neighborhood, turn right, then drive all the way down until we pull into their driveway. You couldn’t ask for easier directions.
So went down for a visit and spent some serious time on the beach. The last time Kasia was down there was last labor day, and I don’t think she had that great of a time. She couldn’t walk, couldn’t crawl, couldn’t play, couldn’t do nothin’. It must have been really boring. This time around though all that has changed. She had a blast playing in the sand and digging little holes. She discovered what sand tastes like, and she must like it because she kept sticking her sandy fingers in her mouth.
Then somewhere on day two, she finally got brave enough and discovered the ocean. Keep in mind that this girl hates taking a bath. If you put her in a nice tub full of warm water and toys, she screams like she’s getting her toe nails ripped off. Yet, allow her to walk into the ice cold ocean, and she can’t seem to get enough. We’d carry her back to the chairs and she’d immediately go wandering back to the water. This has led me to believe that maybe bath time will go smoother if we just use really cold water. (On a side note, I discovered that she’s not as bad if you use the “frying a frog” method. You know the saying about how if you throw a frog on a frying pan, it’ll immediately jump out, but if you put it on a cold pan and then heat it up, it doesn’t do anything? Well, I’ve never tried it with a frog, but with Kasia and a bath it seems to work. Put her in an empty tub and she’s fine. Fill it with water, and she’s fine. But try to put her into a tub that’s already full, and she goes ballistic).
But I digress. The beach was perfect and we couldn’t have asked for better weather. Kasey and her kids were also down for the weekend and added to the fun. The only sad part was that it eventually had to end and we had to make our way home. On the bright side, we discovered that it’s only an hour and a half to get down there, so we’ll probably be making the journey a few more times this summer. That is if Karlie lets us, and if not... then I guess we’ll just have to pick the lock and let ourselves in. One way or the other we’re getting our fill of the beach.

Mother's Day and Beyond

Kasia surprised her mother on Mother’s Day by getting up super early and screaming. If either Kara or myself spoke baby, we would be able to understand that she was shouting, “HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY, MOM!! YOU ARE THE GREATEST!!” Unfortunately, to our untrained ears, it sounded just like “WAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!” Once Kasia builds up her vocabulary, we’ll be better off.
Being that it was Mother’s Day, I got up and let Kara sleep in. We would have surprised her with breakfast in bed, but that would have meant waking her up, and I didn’t want to risk that. So we waited for her to wake up on her own and served her breakfast in the kitchen, at a table.
The rest of the day was spent up in Virginia Beach as we visited Kara’s aunts and uncles. There was food and fun, yet shockingly no music. No, wait, there was music. For some reason, Sandy decided to blast Barbara Streisand really (really) loud, and then she left the room. Maybe she didn’t like it as much as she thought she did.
As far as our house is concerned, not much has changed. We have worked some on the yard and hopefully within a couple of years we’ll have some decent grass. We were also able to clean up the garage enough that we can now actually park a car in it. I never thought that parking a car in a garage would count as an accomplishment, but it really is.
Kasia is still growing like a weed. Actually, I think she isn’t growing as much, but her hair is. There is so much hair on the top of that girl’s head that she’s beginning to rival her mother. She’s also getting a lot more teeth. Her molars are now coming in and she’s not feeling too good about it. Why do baby’s think that just because they have new teeth cutting holes through their gums, that it gives them the right to act cranky? I just can’t understand it.

Where to Begin?

Suffice it to say, we’ve had a pretty busy month. So let’s skip the small talk and get right down to it.
We bought a house. We moved into the house. We will never again move to a new house... at least we won’t move our stuff by ourselves. My body simply can’t handle another weekend like that again.
It all started on Friday the 27th. We closed in the morning and quickly got to work on the move. Granny Kathy kept Kasia all day so that we could move fast and without interruption. We spent the next several hours loading up small boxes into our cars, along with miscellaneous thing that didn’t get packed. The more we accomplished on Friday, the less work we’d have to do on Saturday.
For Saturday, we rented a 24’ U-Haul which is supposed to be for moving a four bedroom house. As we looked at it, we thought that it might be a little too much, but it’s all they had left. Thank God we got it. Despite taking down several loads the day before, we still managed to completely fill the truck. After we unloaded everything, we also discovered that somehow, we were able to stuff a one bedroom apartment with four bedroom’s worth of stuff. Our new house was full already.
It was a long and tiring day. They don’t make pain killers strong enough to make me feel better after that day. But on the plus side, we did get to meet our neighbors. In fact, we have met more of our new neighbors in the first two days than we did in two years at our apartment. Our next door neighbor even brought us dinner (stuffed shells in cheese and red sauce). Who does that? I didn’t know that neighbors still did things like that anymore. Well, I’m glad to say that they do.
Now that we’re here, I suppose we’ll have to start getting all the normal things that a house demands. Apartment furniture just doesn’t cut it here. We’ll also need a dining table because eating on dinner trays just doesn’t work in a house. And don’t even get me started on all the lawn care stuff we’ll need to get. At least we have the patio furniture for the front porch. We’re all set in that category.
In other news, Kasia is officially a walker. It’s not just something she does from time to time anymore. She has abandoned crawling and will now just walk. The only time she crawls is when she is going up or down steps (which she absolutely loves) but that’s mainly because we make her. If it was up to her, she’d probably want to walk up and down those as well. We’ve also noticed that she sleeps a lot better in the house. Her naps are longer and she now sleeps later in the morning. I’m not sure why that is, but you definitely won’t be hearing us complain about it.
We are now unpacked, for the most part, and are trying to figure out where we go from here. We want to paint, but we’re not sure which colors. We want to replace the carpet, but we don’t know with what. Fortunately we opted to not get cable at the house, so we’ll have more free time to discuss it. We do have a pair of rabbit ears for the TV, and we can actually get in a couple of stations pretty well. Fortunately, one of those stations is FOX, which seems to be all we watch anymore.
Slowly but surely, we’re beginning to feel at home. The place already feels like home, and in the coming months that feeling will only continue. So if you’re in the neighborhood, please stop by. If you need to spend the night, that’s fine. We have a guest room now.
By the way, our new address is:
195 Green View Rd
Moyock, NC 27958

Gruetzmacher. Kara Gruetzmacher

It’s official. Kara Smith is no more. She is now Mrs. Kara Gruetzmacher.
After we got married, we held off on changing the name since we were moving soon and would have to change all of our stuff to North Carolina anyway. Well, now that we’re move, we went and had her name changed. As a lifetime Gruetzmacher, I just want to say how thrilled we all are to have her on our team now. Sure there are drawbacks (like having to spell your last name for everyone), but you never have to worry about somebody else in the room having the same name.
I also went and got my North Carolina driver’s license. For the first time, I have a license from a state other than Illinois. And for the first time in eight years, I actually have an updated picture of myself. I am now, officially, a resident of North Carolina.
After all, if I’m going to live in Carolina, at least it’s NORTH Carolina!

Another Easter, Another Egg Dye

Can you believe that it has come to the point already where we are beginning to repeat holidays? Kasia has now celebrated her second Easter, and I believe that she had a lot more fun with this one than she did with last years.
Now, because she’s only one, the Easter Bunny was very nice to her and didn’t hide her Easter basket too hard. In fact, it was kind of hard to miss. It was filled with candies and plastic eggs and lots of easter grass. Boy, was it ever filled with easter grass. Kasia too quite a shine to the plastic strands of Eastery goodness. Soon we found out that we had a floor that was made of easter grass along with the couch and parts of different chairs. The stuff gets everywhere. It makes me wonder why they use the most annoying stuff for these children’s holidays? Easter has the fake grass that gets everywhere, and Christmas has the fake snow that is equally as annoying.
For dinner, we went over to Aunt Judy and Uncle Darrell’s house. It was very nice and the food was all wonderful. Kasia of course enjoyed the stairs. That girl is a climber, and anything she can climb, she will climb. The one bit of relief that I have is that she is also good at coming down from the things she climbs. She knows that she has to turn around and lower herself down the same way she went up. I think that’s a lesson she learned after many hard landings from doing it the wrong way.
We hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter and that when you’re in town, you come and visit us at our new house in Moyock, NC. We haven’t moved in yet, but it’s only a week away. I can’t begin to describe just how excited we are. And if you happen to be in town April 28, please feel free to come help us move. We’d greatly appreciate it.

First Blood: Part II

I had sent my men to get my revenge for having blood drawn on me. I hired a couple of ex-Soviet thugs to do their worst. Their mission was simple: get Kasia to apologize for making me bleed.
The storm outside was picking up in ferocity as my men went to work. Kasia was in her rocking chair, her head drooped down in exhaustion. It could all be over, whenever she wanted. All she had to do was talk into the microphone and apologize. Nothing fancy. Nothing too tough.
As the lightning flashed through the windows, her eyes were lit with a flash of fury. She grabbed the microphone in her sweaty palms and leaned into it. In a voice barely above a whisper, she began to speak.
“Daddy.... Daddy, I’m coming for you!”
I’m not sure what happened after that, but she must have had outside help. Both of my Soviet thugs were found dead the next day, and Kasia once again came after me.
Well, she did it again. Though not as dramatically as all that, she was able to once again pierce my skin and draw blood. This time though it was almost a little more vicious than the last time. Somehow she had found a broken stick that had at one time been a part of a puppet she has. The end had broken off and was rather sharp, so I decided that it was best if she didn’t play with it. As I went down to take it from her, she moved like a ninja. With one swift stroke, she jabbed my hand with her new found spear before crawling back to reestablish her fighting stance.
I glanced down as my palm and noticed that once again, I was bleeding. The little booger. That’s twice now that she’s gotten me. She even got her mother the other night by clawing her lip and drawing blood. This is getting out of hand.
So the tally is now up to three. Three times she has drawn the blood from her parents, and we have yet to get revenge. The question I now ask is, where do I find more ex-Soviet thugs?