1st floor (mens wear)

That's a quote from are you being served and it's said by mr Humphries, ah well, you should have seen the episode to know that is was quite funny. Anyway, the beams for the 1st floor are in position and I guess next the outer walls will be made. Here is a 180 degrees panorama.

Furthermore, today dad went to see Nils's teacher at school and she told him dad Nils is performing very good in school, one test he made was exeptionally well done! There are ony small things to look at such as that he is destracted easily and the way he solves an argument by taking maters in his own hand... Something we have to work on.. But besides these small issues, he is very interested in what he does and likes to read and write. He even can wite is own name already!

All ground level windows are now positioned

The ground floor windows are now at the right places and monday the builders will start with putting the steel beams up.

That means that more of the wall which keeps us still dry and relatively warm inside, will have to go.. Let's hope summer is early this year..

Nils and Wende love to play with the trainset and the cars race track.

Work in Progress (with the capital P)

Again things have changed, click here for a 360 degrees tour

View from the garden

View from inside

Finally we see things building upwards instead of seeing things disapear...

The builders are now laying bricks and next, the windows will be set at their position.

My favorite picture

This is one of the favorite pictures of dad, with his daughter Wende after a nice warm bath getting ready for bed.

Ground level

Today (friday) the workers poored cement onto the lining of iron reinforcement. Charly our cat ofcourse escaped and went for the wet cement.. One of the guys "repaired" the surface again and just as he was finished, zooom there was charly again, passing this guy who was... welll, not amused...

D'r staat een kraan in de tuin, jalaláááá kraan in de tuin

The title is taken from a populair song by a dutch comedian singing about a horse in the hallway.. I changed it a bit, it is now about a crane in the front garden... There is a huge crane right outside!! What will be next?

Winter in Holland

Finally after years of sloppy winters, we now can skate on the canals and rivers! A lot of fun for the kids and cold feet for the parents. This also means that the rebuilding of the house is stopped until temperatures are above 0 Celcius but hey, when will we be able to have such skating weather again??

On saturday, Diny (were Nils and Wende are staying before and after school) and her husband put a disco stand on the ice.

Christmas 2008

Christmas was here again and the usual mass migration of families took place. First we went to see Lisette's parents where we also saw Martin, Judith, Thymen, Davina and Mathijs. The second Christmas day was spent in Hulst with my (wouter's ) parents where we noticed that there were al lot of presents under the christmas tree!! (Sinterklaas was not celebrated with the Leusden's this year so Christmas was celebrated a bit more with presents). A truck load of children toy's was taken back home with us... The 28th was my (dad's) birthday and it was a special one this time. Nils and Wende woke me up and gave me a self made birthday card and other marvellous presents such as a italian cookbook (the silver spoon) which is very famous and contains over 2000 recipes!

Old year new year at the Smaals

To celebrate the new year and to see our friends in France again, we went to Nogent just below Paris. There we were staying with Arthur, Lisa, Jack and Emma. We also met with Martine and Lisa's other son and his girlfriend. They flew all the way over from the states to celebrate the new year in Paris. We had a great time and we look forward to the spring or summer when we will see them again but then we will be able to take care of them at our place after the rebuild is finished. During a cooking session Lisa was talking to her mother and I learned that she also frequently visits our weblog so HI Lisa's mom! Our best wishes for the year 2009 from us all!