Meet Winnie

This is Winston. He moved from Ohio to North Carolina this weekend and he's being very brave. He misses his old family, the Rudys. But he's having a great time here and he has been doing a lot of fun things. He's a good boy!

Here's his favorite new toy, the olive pillow.

He likes his new neighborhood. We are going to go on lots of walks around here.

Jumping for peanut butter. Yum.

Isabella in NC

On Sunday Gina's parents, sister, and niece Isabella came to visit.

Isabella and a pile of freshly baked "Thomas cakes" She was excited to try them
But she hated them

Rudys at the zoo

On Saturday we went to the zoo with Monica, John, Clara, and Nicholas. You have to walk a lot there, and the kids did great. We made it all the way through Africa!
These elephants were splashing around and swimming in the water. The big one went completely under.

96...97...98....99....
Mandarin duck

Rudy Visit - what we did today

Clara loves to garden, and she can lift a really heavy watering can.
Thomas and Clara taking a break in the backyard
Nicholas
Playing petanque
Settlers. John won!

Trip to the zoo

Fingers crossed

We have high hopes for our garden this year. We were inspired by Freya to start all our plants from seeds. We got lots of baby seedlings, but most of them died because Gina forgot to water them. The few brave ones who survived got new homes in the raised bed yesterday. This summer, we are living off of the land. No veggies from the store!

The new raised beds. Thomas built them in about 10 minutes, but it took a lot longer to set them in the ground and make them level.
Radishes - we hear they are easy to grow.
Baby pepper plant
Baby caterpillar

More wii

Gina's mama and her adorable Oma came for a quick visit this weekend. They loved the Wii and both were able to play really well right away. Oma is great at Wii! We think she should get a Wii of her own. We had so much fun and we're sad that Daniel left and took the wii away.

Gina bowling a strike. Boom!

93-year old Oma made par on her first hole of golf.



And she was good at bowling too.

Daniel's new Wii

Daniel's early birthday present was a Wii. He and Thomas got in to it right away and they are pretty good at it already. Tennis
Bowling
Baseball
Fun