a visit to see uncle bryan and aunt carissa

if you have been reading gianna's blog you know that a trip to the zoo made for a thrilling experience watching the anaconda. last week i took maya with me to visit grandma and grandpa kordatzky. we had an extra day to spend so grandpa played taxi and took us to visit aunt ruhama's house for lunch and then to aunt carissa and uncle bryan's house for supper. for those of you who don't know about bryan's second job well let me tell ya. bryan is and entrepreneur. ha, so that doesn't tell you much. well if you don't know then too bad. lets just say they have a few snakes at their house. okay, so when we walked in the door one of the first things that maya said was "can i hold one of your snakes."

now this is a big deal to gianna since she will not even look at the snakes that are in the marsh house. they have a special room and gianna refuses to even be on the same level of the house as the snake room. so when i told gianna about maya holding a snake she was a bit shocked. alright maybe a bit mortified as well. so to make sure we had proof of the dirty deed, here are a few pics of the grand event.






p.s. we didn't show maya the blood on bryan's hand from the snake that had just bit him. notice the glove on his hand in the last pic.

STRESS!! -- ain't life a pain

as most of you know the basement became a swimming pool a few weeks ago. okay, a minor problem, but i can handle it. many things were working in my favor. day off, soapy water, lots of help, blah blah blah. anyway so that was a wonderfully stressful day. this past weekend gianna and i ran away to the Embassy Suites for a night. what fun!! well it was nice to get away, but due to a sinus cold, the insane forced air and the remodeling two floors down, sleep was at a premium. (yawn) and again a little more stress, due to lack of sleep. sunday night we got the basement somewhat put back together just in time to watch the game. yea! some stress is going away. then are you ready for this... i don't think you are ready. dum-de-dum-de-dum. okay, now you are ready, or at least you should be. on monday i opened an odd looking letter that came in the mail over the weekend. to my surprise it was a letter from some agency telling me that the !@#!#&* school has cancelled my loans!! STRESS!!! ANXIETY!!! PANIC!!! what a rotten week this is turning out to be.

and the winner is . . .

okay, so maybe i complain about school. i might even dread the thought of driving down to class two times a day. hey and i am not even close to being thrilled about being in debt again. oh wait. i never got out of debt. well, now that the first semester is over i have had a chance to view how i came out at the end of one semester. and the verdict is in!!!! i still got it!!! three classes equals three A's. yep you read that correctly. i got strait A's!!

fine, i will quit bragging. yes the classes were easy. it helps that i took a biology class where the prof was not returning after this semester. he was a nice guy (interesting) but he didn't like the dept. micromanaging his time. can't really blame him. i wouldn't like someone looking over my shoulder at every turn. so for that class it was pretty easy to get an A as long as you went to class and actually listened to the lecture instead of playing around on facebook. as for my other science class all i had to do was go to class. seriously, there were no books to buy, no tests to take, and no really big projects to accomplish. just show up, teach a little lesson and go home with an A. the primary grade class actually did require me to do work. i had to read a book, do silly little assignments, and create a two week unit. it took some brain power.

so with one semester down i got one to go and a little bit of summer school to get out of the way. hopefully i will be able to maintain my stellar grades.

a shrinking family

six years ago i brought home a surprise gift for gianna. it was a budgie, or for those who do not purchase birds, a parakeet. it was a small yellow bird, rather unassuming. soon after that an explosion of animals in our home occurred. at one point we had two rabbits, five birds, and a large tank of fish. over time we have had birds and fish die. the rabbits have a new home, and once my pleko died the fish tank was simply too much work. so now we are back to having one bird. sundrop. who would have thought that we would come full circle and be back to where we all started. strange.
francis

smokey and sundrop

carmel

duster

azul

out of date

okay, so school has started, and i don't think i have to worry about looking like the old man on campus. unfortunately there is one thing that will make me stand out. i do not have a laptop. if i was a full time student then i would be issued a laptop as part of the tuition package, but i am not full time. i have been told that i don't need to have one as long as i have access to the internet. just the same i don't like being the odd man out.
being back in class is hard, but the anxiety of projects, paper, and tests isn't really the same. yes it does seem to loom on the horizon, but seeings that i have already been there and done that i am not really stressed out. as i was sitting in biology today there were people sitting around me talking about how they need to drop the class because it is too hard. gee whiz, it is only the second class and the first one was simply an intro!! oh well, it is kinda nice to not be panicked about what is to come.

school

well the ball is finally rolling for my return to that dreaded place that sucks up all the money a person owns. college. bleh.

i don't really want to go back. i guess i am in a catch 22. you see i don't really want to go back to school, but at the same time i have to go back to school if i want to pursue a job that interests me. okay so there are a few jobs out there that don't require me to go back to school, but i don't have the resources to go out and buy a 15,000 dollar fishing boat and start a guide service. tho it would be nice. and no andrew, i wouldn't hit the fish with a hammer, i would use my fish bat :)

aaaaaaanyway,

it looks like i will be attending Concordia University in St. Paul this fall. I have to make an appointment with an admissions counselor to get everything straightened out, but that shouldn't be too hard. then i get to deal with the juggling of schedules: school, work, family, me time. that will take some work. if i am lucky i can be done in a year. we will see. from then on the sky is the limit. will we stay or will be go, that is the million dollar question. shoot if i can get a job somewhere in the north woods of WI, then i can be a fishing guide in the summer.

yeah! that sounds good.

HEY!

i can dream can't i!!

ugh! i have to run to menards again!

so lately our home has been filled with these many phrases:
"look at my tree house!"
"ur building my tree house"
"i need to go up there"
"this is my slide"
"that's my tree house."

about three and a half weeks ago i received all the lumber from the marsh play house. as it sat in my garage i was excited to get moving on my project for two reasons:
1. i really wanted to build a tree house
2. i needed to get my garage back!!
so for the last few weeks i have slowly been constructing maya's (and someday brin's) tree house. i didn't get any plans to follow. i haven't drawn out any sketches. i simply got an idea in my head and started. so far things are moving along well, granted i haven't gotten to the roof just yet. so due to inquisitive minds and people who simply have a hard time visualizing my project i will give you some pics to show you what has been accomplished thus far.