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8/7/2000 1:10:00 AM
Boulder Creek, CA
In the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Redwood Forrest

July 2000

July is always nice starting with a long 4th of July weekend, and since there are not too many extended weekends in the American calendar

Hallo you all!

Well, both boys are still sleeping and I already managed to write my German report, and cannot believe that I still have time to translate it for you and are very grateful for this peaceful house and time. I was just reading through my last 2 months report and hope that this one doesn't get as long. I hope you don't mind that sometimes I get very much into detail and stories that might not be of interest to you, but since I also use these reports for my/our personal documentation I like to include things that could be fun for us and the kids to read later on. I also send this to you so that we will not loose contact at all, but honestly would  not be upset or offended if some of you would like to be taken off the mailing list, just tell me before you get enjoyed receiving them.

Anyways, back to the actual report. July is always nice starting with a long 4th of July weekend, and since there are not too many extended weekends in the American calendar we cherish those specially! Saturday, Sunday we fiddled in and around the house and on Monday we visited our friends Hemma and Christoph and spent a couple of days with them. Monday Hemma and I took a long shopping trip to the Stanford Mall and in the evening we all cherished a fine dinner at a restaurant. We took advantage of their au-pair girl still being there and our babysitter, so both could take care of the 4 children. We had a really nice evening and since we do not get to go out alone so often (the 1 hour drive for "just" a dinner out is too long) it was even more special. The 4th we pretty much relaxed and stayed at their house, also because Benjamin had real trouble teething and all day long a fever of 103. Nevertheless we had a little BBQ party in the afternoon and later on went to an open air concert of the San Francisco Symphonic  Orchestra and fireworks (like the year before). The boys had great fun and were impressed (specially Lucas) with the fireworks.

The weekend after we had friends visiting from Seattle. Scott, who has his own company, used to work a lot with Robert on different projects and became good friends, so it got time to visit each other. Danielle and Scott had a baby girl (Abigail) 5 months ago and after the few month of getting acquainted, they took the initiative to come and see us first. On Saturday we all went to Lucas's 4th birthday party and afterwards they had a summer party. Christoph, Hemma and the kids left a few days later for their 2 months trip to Austria and therefore planned a big get-together. The kids had great fun with all the birthday activities and specially with the jumping air castle. Sunday we took it easy and stayed at home, taking a long walk through the woods. Afterwards Robert took Scott and family back to the airport, while I got dinner ready for our next visitors...

Yes, right afterwards my friend Maria (the "angel" that stayed with us last year when Benjamin was born), her husband Jeff and their kids Kimberly (9) and Christopher (7) came from San Jose. They all stayed one night and on Monday Jeff and Maria took off for a 3 day get away to Carmel. It was my birthday present to watch the kids, but since Christopher plays so nicely with Sebastian and Kimberly is already such a great baby and dog sitter, it was no work at all! We kept ourselves quite busy with lots of activities, so it never got really bored "just being at home". Maria came back on Wednesday and stayed on until Friday, which gave us some great quality/chatting time.

The weekend after Benjamin was a bit sick (constant runny nose and very cranky) and we had a very relaxed and quiet weekend at home. Robert worked hard on his new idea - a web page for the TV show "Big Brother", that recently had started here. Most of you probably received his e-mail already, but for those who haven't and you have time and are interested here is the address www.bigbrotherbook.com I think it is quite funny and definitely worth checking out, Robert had over 3000 visitors already and looks forward to many more!

The weeks were always quite busy with Sebastian's 3-week summer pre-school program, swim and gym lessons and many other activities. August he only goes swimming and we look forward to some more relaxed days, were we can just do different little day trips. The last weekend in July our friends Terry, Jeff, Mike - also 3 1/2 years - and Sheryl - 8 months (who lived in our old neighborhood) came to see us. They stayed at a hotel next town but we kept ourselves busy together. Saturday we spent at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk (a little amusement park right at the beach) and the boys had a blast riding tons of different Mary Go Rounds, trains, etc. Sunday Jeff helped Robert  put up a trampoline, that we had bought a couple of weeks back at a garage sale, and the boys loved it, even Broesel! We had hoped that once she had been on it, she would be afraid but NO she is hard to keep off! We start to wonder whether she really is a dog...? (Which reminds be to add a note to the picture below:" Yes she can see behind all that hair over her eyes...!")

Even though their were not many plans for the summer  the month of  July has passed very quickly and quite busy. Sebastian is so used to it that his first question in the morning is:" Where are we going today?" "Who is coming to visit?". First he is quite upset if their is not much going on one day, but at the end also has a good time being "alone" and playing with his toys - without sharing,  jumping the trampoline - without watching out for others, riding his (only) bike - without fighting for it,... August started quite hectic already and therefore I am quite proud that I managed to send a 1 month report, so what has happened the last days and the ones to come you'll get to know within the next 4 weeks.

We hope you all have wonderful summertime and look forward to hear your stories and adventures. Today we send our dear greetings, hugs and kisses

The 4 Schmids and Broesel

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