20150414 - Far Away Friends

20150414 - Up, Work, Home, Board of review for Scouts.  Got a photo from some of my friends in Holland today.  Their little boys are getting big and they DID purchase a video system for their car.  I told her one day she would and Gwen fought me on it...   ;-)

20110921 - Fun then back to work

20110921 - Up in the morning and coffee all around for everyone.  Then the fam filtered off to school.  I chatted with Arno and Gwen and soon they had to go.  It was a nice visit and we packed a lot in, but I am ever so very happy they finally came to visit and that my family met some more friends that I have had for years that they really never knew.  I hope they come back again, and soon.

Now for the disappointing part of their visit...  Our boys were good...  I mean exceptionally, rare, oddly they were good...  Not that this was a bad thing, but it was not a 'True' experience for the soon parents to be...  Well I guess they will have to get that experience on their own...  and they will ;-)

20110920 - Bullets and Funnel Cakes

20110920 - Up in the morning and D&J to school and L in to work.  G&I headed out with Arno and Gwen to run some errands.  We stopped at Meijer where G got some handcuffs and Gwen picked up some gifts for family back home.  We grabbed some coffee and some lunch at McD's.  A stop a Wal-Mart for X-Large flipflops for Arno. A stop at the garage door store, where G dropped a lock display on his head and Arno and G played with an automatic door.  I got my parts and we headed home and we fixed the garage door.  Pretty soon the big boys got done with school and made there way home and we piled in our huge gas guzzling car and headed north to the Farm. 

Gma&paW had nice spread at the Farmhouse and we snacked, gave the full tour and out to the barn to visit the animal, ponies, cats and GUNS!  Everyone got to shoot.  It was Arno and Gwen
s first time shooting and they did pretty good (Gwen did better ;-)  We were shooting 22s and had a lot of fun.  One last shot for Arno, a 9mm Ruger pistol  !!!BANG!!!  that was LOUD!  Arno got a swing on the rope in the barn and then we headed out for dinner.


Dinner was not at any old restaurant...  no way....  We hit the Ashland County Fair!  This was a new true American experience for our friends.  We saw every kind of animal possible and some new ones.  We talked to to the horses and we ate one of everything there!  We swung by the Farm on the way home and then headed down the road.

Back home all boys to bed and we stayed up having very good adult conversations we don't normally have the chance to...  After lots of beer and many hours of idea discussion we hit the hay.

20110919 - Wooden Shoe Friends

20110919 - Up and at the desk all day and as I was finishing my dear friend Arno & Gwen arrived, and I can now officially announce after many weeks of silence, that Gwen is pregnant! It is a great pleasure to see after many years of trying to persuade them that they would be fabulous parents and hiding toys at there house (old Indian legend) that they are finally going to be parents. What better place to experience being a parent that in our house... We sat and chatted and the boys all worked with them on the gifts they had brought them (like our boys needed more stuff)...


We had a nice dinner and then to get them even more acclimated to the craziness that come with kids we rushed off to Cub Scouts. I introduced our guests and drew a map of the world and tried to get the boys to understand from how far away they had come. Arno explained a bit of their homeland and Gwen translated some sentences the to Dutch the boys threw at them. I think the best connection came with my explanation that try were from the country of the guys that were always chasing Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies... Arno and Gwen were very impressed with the boys saying the Pledge of Allegiance and other patriotic thongs we were doing. Gwen even jumped in and helped with the crafts.


Back home, all boys to bed (after behaving exceptionally and unexpectedly well for a change) and we sat around and had some beers (not Gwen) and talked for hours. Very nice!

081001 - Anniversary

081001 - Up in the morning and tooka cab to work as it was raining. Had a pretty full day. Took a lunch break and the guys conceeded to have Burger King for the American. I checked www.wingercam.com to see if anyone was around yet. There was Lori having her breakfast all by herself so I gave her a call. Dylan was off at school, Jack was wacthing cartoons and Grant was still sleeping and we had a nice chat. Today is our 14th wedding anniversary, and the first time in those 14 years we have not been together on that day. I am so far away, but so lucky to have her.
After work I was picked by Arno and we headed into Almere to meet Niall for dinner. The food was great, but the two Europeans grilled me for two hours about how for the sake of the rest of the world I had to vote for Obama in 5 weeks. The also debated why I would own a gun, drive a big car and anything else they generally could think of that was considered American. But I am use to defending the USA whe I am abroad and it was a stimulating conversation. I was able to ask them how it felt to be unemployed and worth millions of dollars, as yesterday was their last day working for the company they started nearly 20 years ago and had recently sold. Neither seemed too excited and they asked ME to buy dinner! Cheap rich idiots! Hahahaha
We said goodnight and I walked back to the hotel. I called Lori to finish my day.
I love you Lori, wish I was home with you!

070814 - In SJC

070814 - Up way to early and off to the airport. Landed in SJC & off to work. Had a couple hour of good work and the a LONG walk home w/ Arno. Off to Applebee's for dinner. The boys made it home and had a BLAST w/ Gma & pa W today. All home safe and sound.

20050411 - Way to San Jose

20050411 - Up early and headed to the airport for a week in San Jose. Got there and had an extremely fast and busy week mapping the process for Motorola. We also found out this week that we won the HP business!