Two Weeks

Two weeks from today we will be heading to France for two weeks. A bit of a family reunion. We are all really excited! Except for maybe Claire, who says she hates France, but she is just afraid to admit how great it really is.

We have a lot to prepare before we go. I need to finish up a woodworking job. Making good progress, but there is still quite a bit to wrap up. Today we will get the backyard cleaned up because it is will be sunny and in the 70s. Perfect weather. There was a snowflake on my phone for later this week though. How is that possible?

Our little tomatoes sprouted nicely. I think we will plant another round today as well. The seeds are doing better than I expected. I also fixed up my mountain bike, so maybe I can take that for a ride today...

A walk in the woods can be more fun than a playground.

Weird brown slime in the water.

Naomi discovered some bugs in our Japanese maple...

Sunshine

The sun came out yesterday and the day before. It was warm enough to be outside without a jacket. Even turned off the heat yesterday. What a treat! We planted some tomato seeds, and they all sprouted very quickly. Thanks Dad!

The girls have been enjoying their new bikes a lot. We rode to the hardware store yesterday. I also was able to finish up two of the four storage benches and deliver them on Wednesday. Happened to get a base for an outdoor table from the clients. Should be pretty easy to put together a top!

I will try to get as far as I can with the next two storage benches. Aiming to finish them before we go to France. We are leaving in three weeks!

Two storage benches down, two to go.

Springtime at the castle.

Putting the new bikes to good use.

New Bikes

The girls have outgrown their bikes, so Naomi was able to find them some new ones. Pink! Yikes. They love them though, and we managed it so they didn't even fight over who got which one. Whew. They ride a whole lot faster on them, so I hope we aren't in for any big crashes. They spent an hour and a half riding around yesterday, and today we will take them to the Bosrand.

I picked up a bit of a cold, but am still able to get some stuff done. Annoying. I am busy with making some storage benches for a client. I lost some motivation to develop questions for our math book publisher. I submitted ten questions and they only accepted two. They said they were too much like practical assignments, and they wanted test questions instead. Not sure if I want to put the energy into adjusting them right now or not as I have plenty of other stuff going on...

I had a meeting at school about my job for next year because I asked the management what I should be doing. I am happy with the outcome. We agreed that I would focus on developing the math program in the first three years together with another teacher that I like to work with. I will also be a kind of consultant/coach for the project based learning program which I think sounds like fun. Good to be back on track with school.

Still need to get the middle drawer built, but these six work great!

New bikes!

Frogs

This morning we saw the frogs waking up for the second time this winter. They tried it in January, but that was a bit too early. Soon we will have a pond full of frog eggs once again. Their timing is pretty good, because this miserable week of wind and rain is almost over, and the sun in meant to come out once again.

My energy levels seem to have returned to normal. I made a good start on the storage bench this week  but ran into some trouble with the drawers in the bathroom cabinet. I tried out some soft-close drawer slides. Very expensive. Terrible choice. You have to pull so hard just to get them open that cheap drawer slides would work a lot better. I will try taking the damper out of one side to see if that works. Maybe this afternoon.

On Thursday we went to Utrecht to get my eyes tested for the laser surgery. They said my eyes aren't right for it. Maybe in a couple years the machines will be better, but I will have to wait until the technology improves. We had a nice lunch though!

The new floor for the storage cabinet.

They got mail!  A card from Auntie Caryn and some presents from Auntie Claire. Lucky girls!

Energy Levels

Mine have been worryingly low this week. The past two days have gone well, but before those, my threshold has been way too low. On a relatively normal/easy day I have been getting headaches and feeling exhausted for no apparent reason. Can't quite figure it out.

Hopefully things are getting back to normal now as I have a lot of work coming up. Just took on a new project for my business, a pine storage bench in four parts. The timing was good as I just wrapped up six of the drawers for the bathroom cabinet yesterday, so now they just need to be finished and installed. Also, I got a side job developing some material for the publisher of our math book, so that is taking some time and energy too.

The weather has been pretty terrible, rainy and grey, and there is not much more in the forecast. That doesn't help. I got almost half of the wood chopped up from that tree, and it has been fun, but it is hard to find a time to work on that when it is dry outside!

The girls have really been enjoying their new classes. We separated them, but their rooms are right next to each other. Full classes - around 30 kids it seems. Great that they can have their own experiences and make their own friends. We think it is really good for their development, and now they start to have even more fun playing together at home.

Plans for the storage bench.

The girls had lunch at the indoor play land while I was working on the drawers yesterday.

Treeless

Our backyard looks rather empty now. Strange be able to see the other houses behind ours. Once the leaves come out it won't be so bad, but it is nice to be able to see more of the sky and to feel like we have more space in the backyard. It was impressive to see how it was taken out. Made a cool time lapse video of it.

Now we have lots of firewood and even some pieces that I can make boards out of. I will use them to practice for the dome by making a new trellis because our old one is rotting out. We are all pretty wiped out from yesterday. It was a lot of work!

This week has definitely been a catchup week. Caught up on lots of things we have been putting off for a while. Naomi starts teaching again tomorrow, so she wanted to feel like her to do list is not too long. I also caught up on some rest, but didn't work at all on the bathroom cabinet. Oh well. Would be nice to have more energy, but it just isn't there.

Visiting Naomi's Grandma.

Picnicking by Alies's old house.

We took the girls to a small indoor waterpark (a 7-min walk from our house) and if you look closely you can see Amélie feeding Abigail an apple.

Taking the branches off as he climbed the tree.

The last branch.

Hauling the branches away.

Making some boards.

Firewood.

Boards.

Seeing the Sun

The weather has been extraordinary for this time of the year. A welcome surprise to be able to enjoy sunshine outside with only a sweatshirt on. Even got a chance to wash the car. I think the mountain bike will need to come out of the shed this week!

Things went better at school this past week as well. I got approved for a promotion, so that is nice to hear. They said it will take 6-12 months for a spot to open up though. If this land deal works out, we can definitely use the extra money!

I even got to have a nice dinner in Zutphen on Thursday with some colleagues. Fun to do something with them outside of school. Feeling much better about staying there now, in spite of all the chaos.

Winter is over.

Carwash in February?!

Springtime at the castle.

Dinner spot in Zutphen.