I was waiting for Pat to write about his trip to Washington DC with Yerik but I can probably wait till next year.

Oh well, I will start by giving you a much needed update on our lives and hope that Pat will write something in the near future as well.

 

Pat and Yerik have been very busy with SAT's, TOEFL and College Applications, while I don't do anything that excited, just keep working for Durhamn911.

We are very proud of Yerik; he's done very well on his SAT's and more than well on his TOEFL. This is a test required by US Colleges/Universities for foreign students and

are hopeful that he will be accepted to one of the colleges for which he put in an application.

 

You won't believe it but we're nearly ready to move back into our house!!! This coming week we'll know when the final inspection will be done. Our new bedroom is painted, tomorrow Theron, our "personal housepainter" will start on our walk-in closet. After that he'll move on to the guest suite. Part of which is already done (bathroom and toilet), so he still will have to paint the room proper and the walk-in closet. I'll go shopping for some nice shower curtains for that bathroom since we have had our old original clawfoot bathtub refinished and installed, but that one needs curtains at least if you want to use it as a shower!

 

Light fixtures are all in place in the bathrooms and fans installed in the both of the upstairs rooms and landing.

 

The new floors upstairs and in the kitchen are now really finished and it all looks great!

 

I was very lucky that my 5days off started the Friday befor X-mas and we decided to take a roadtrip to New Bern, the first capital of North Carolina. We visited Tryon Palace and had lunch in a quaint tearoom and had a wonderful day which we ended by having dinner at Tylers. The weather was warm, aproxemately 68, for the Europeans not used to Farenheit, that means 20 degrees Celsius!!

 

We gladly had accepted an invitation to spend X-mas day with our friens Luis and Shari and X-mas morning we set out for Winston-Salem where we met up with other old friends Bert and Fran Gordan and their son Michael. The latter is a senior at Davidson and had invited Yerik to come over to see it's campus and spend the night. That happened somewhere at the beginning of December, so those two knew each other as well. Yerik was very impressed by Davidson and it is one of the colleges to which he applied. Btw fans of Kay Scarpetta novels, its writer went to Davidson as well.

We were served a superb dinner, did some games and talked ....a lot! We were sad to say goodbye later that evening, but Pat had to work the following day and we didn't want to get home too late. Yerik, the lucky one, didn't have to go to school until Thursday. He went over to friend's house Wednesday evening and came home at I don't know what time. Pat and I were already in bed when he called us not to worry, they were about to start watching a movie and he would catch a ride home!

As you can see, he's really "at home" here.

 

Unfortunately I had to work New Year's Eve and it was what we had all expected...mayhem!!! Pat and Yerik went to play pool and had dinner at a Mexican restaurant. January 1st I was off and could relax at home with a nice fire, good food and drinks.

 

And yes that was the way we rolled into 2008. The beginning of this year would be very special for us, because we were expecting our 3rd grandchild and ofcourse the house! We would be moving in and make the new upstairs nice and cozy, or as the Dutch say "gezellig".

 

On Thursday January 10 I called my son Nono and it was if I had "smelled" it, because our second grandson had been born 40minutes earlier!!  A healthy boy who will by the name of Lucas. Now we have Lucas, born on the 10th, Isabel born on the 15 and Noah, our big boy, born on the 25th. Nono and Brigitte have some thing with the number "5" I think!

 

Well one big evet for 2008 down, one more to go: the house.

 

We will keep you updated about that one too, so stay alert for an email from Durham for the rest of the Mizes' house saga.