Only in Europe...

I was at the mall doing a little shopping today and noticed the following chair.


See anything interesting????

That's right, the arms of the chair have slots, as most do, but on the left arm it is not the standard round slot for a can of pop, it has a rectangle shaped slot that is the perfect size for a pack of cigarettes.

Only in Europe.

I stole this from a friends blog who stole it from another friends blog...

I started to laugh when I read this on Lisa's blog so I thought some of you might get a kick out of this too. I am not trying to take the spotlight off of Chris' really cool table and chairs though so don't forget to check those out below. And I am sorry, but you will have to come and visit us if you want to try out how great the chairs are too. Our family is a little hard on furniture, so who knows if they will come back to the US with us (if and when, that is:))

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car) – Gwen (I have no car, so you can compare my cool rock star name to Madonna's)
2. YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fav ice cream flavor, favorite cookie) - Chocolate Monster
3. YOUR “FLY GIRL” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name) - KPEC
4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) – Yellow Skunk (only Duane and Kevin will understand...)
5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born) - Lee LaGrande
6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first) - Peckr
7. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite drink, put “The”) - Green Milkshake
8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers) - Ralph Kenneth
9. STRIPPER NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne, favorite candy)- Dewberry Snickers
10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names ) - Eileen Duane

Chairs to go with our table

A while ago I finished our new kitchen table, here is a picture as a reminder.

A table does little or no good without chairs so I have recently been working on building the 6-8 chairs I need. So far I have finished 2 of them. It is a simple, yet sturdy design and considering I only have basic hand tools, I think they turned out rather well.


Some have asked how I get the wood home since I do not currently have a car. Well, to those that have wondered, here is your answer, a little at a time.

A slightly painful weekend

My right shoulder has been giving me pain every once in a while. While I was an electrician I hurt it somehow and since then it gets a 'dead' pain or it hurts to throw a ball or stuff like that. In the beginning of August I went to Young Men's camp and we played a game of British Bulldog. Basically one person stands in the middle of a field while everyone else tries to run from side to side without being tackled and lifted off the ground. If you do get caught, you join in the middle trying to tackle other people until the last person remains and tries to get past the mob of people in the center. One time, I tackled someone about as big as myself and be both went down hard onto my left shoulder. It did not hurt at first but that night, I felt the pain start.

It has now been a month since that happened and my left shoulder has been feeling a bit better. On Friday, I went to a joint YM/YM activity in Den Bosch and we played British Bulldog again. This time it was indoors in a gym so I decided I would not tackle anyone to the ground so I should not get hurt again. There I was in the middle attacking people, lifting them until it got down to just a few people, most of which were adult men. I decided it was time for one guy to go down so I set me sits on him ready to stop him in his path. He ran towards me and I stood my ground. When he got up to me I wrapped my arms around him and help tight ready to stop him. Unfortunatly, he had momentum on his side and after a very quick fight, he ripped out of my arms. The crazy part about this is as he broke free, everything seemed to go fuzzy and dark for a split second. That's shock for ya, I didn't realize it at the time because my adrenalin(??? like I can spell) was going but that sent a shock up my arms and right into my already injured shoulders. Since that time, I have been in pain. Not bad pain, just really annoying pain. I think I am done with field sports for awhile.

Sunday, we had a young couple over for dinner. They just moved here from Utah with their 3 year old and 11 month old boys. He is working as an IT person for a startup company here in Holland. I guess his company purchased this company and that lead to his position here. It is kind of cool talking to Americans every once in a while, especially if they are Republicans. Europeans, generally, lean so far to the left they have forgotten completely about their right side and pretend it is not there (the image of the man with one very strong arm and one very weak arm in the movie 'The Lady in the Water' comes to mind). This blame this mostly on the media as they lean very one-sided in their reporting. Anyway, it is nice to have a conversation with someone that knows the whole story on all candidates.

Hannahs Spring Recital

On June 29th Hannah had her recital for Noes Fiolet Studios. We just received the DVD for this so I ripped the dances she was in and uploaded them to YouTube. Check them out, in some you only see Hannah here and there but she is a main dancer in "Russian Power" so be sure to especially watch that one out. Click on the title of each video to download the AVI file (about 68MB each) which you can save forever or just watch the video from YouTube. NOTE: In Internet Explorer, in order to download the file, you may have to right-click the title of each video and select "Save Target As...". Here you go:

"Loneliness"


"The Cutie Shakers"


"All of Us"


"Russian Power"


Finally, here is Noes recognizing Hannah, as well as others, as they prepare to leave the Noes Fiolet Studios for other adventures. Hannah and 2 other girls from the studio started school at Codarts hogeschool voor de kunsten (School of the Arts) last week.

First day of school

Monday, September 1st was the first day of school. Isaac, Abby and Alex went off to the Montessori School and Hannah to Codarts. Actually, Hannah went off to go on a 3-day field trip as a get-to-know-you for all the 1st years at Codarts. She will have to write about that and post pictures herself on her blog.

Finally...A nice weekend

A week ago we had our first nice weekend that we have had for a long time. In city center, just a few minutes walk from our home, there was a carnival set up that we decided to visit.







This is Hannah's friend DeDe that was staying at our home over the weekend. They met at Young Womens camp and have been spending a lot of time together since then.





A few weeks ago I took down our pool but now that we have a very warm day, I set it back up. The boys could not wait until it was full to get wet.
Some neighbors had the same thing in mind and set up a big pool in the parking lot. Another neighbor went to Praxis and got 10 big water guns. The result, a very large waterfight involving all everyone, whether they wanted to join in or not. It was a lot of fun and we got to know our neighbors better which was a great experience for all of us.

My parents destroyed my childhood

When I was very young my parents went out for the evening. While they were gone, I found a very interesting and important TV program that was a behind-the-scenes of the making of the Superman movies. The end of a segment came and a commercial was about to start when the voice-over announced "when we return, find out how we made Superman fly". Just then, my parents entered the house and demanded that the TV go off and that we go directly to bed because it was too late to be up. After much begging and one-sided discussion, I lost and retired to my bed discouraged, frustrated and most important disappointed. In the years following that incident, I searched to gain the knowledge that I failed to obtain that dreadful evening. It was only many years later that I stumbled across the truth of the magic of film making and special effects. Those long years wasted, without the truth. How would things be different today if I would have continued to watch and learn? No one will ever know. The one thing that I do know is that my life would be different and I would have had a much happier and successful childhood.

This is not a joke, this is a true story. I am sure that Wendy and Keri can remember and relate to all of you this truly horrible experience that has haunted me for so long. I just hope that I will not make this same mistake with my children. I try my hardest to ensure that the Television is on at all times so my children will not miss something that could be life saving or changing for them. To everyone out there, please think about how you, as a parent, can destroy your childrens lives and set them on a path of destruction simply by turning off the TV.

We're so proud of our little princess

From temp

My bike is finally broke in...

According to my odometer and guesstimation prior to me installing the odometer, my bike and I have traveled about 2200 kilometers. This calculates to 1367 miles. Tomorrow I am taking it in to replace my rear tire (for the second time) and also have some work done on my rear brake (for the second time also). This will be the 3rd time in the shop in 10 months due to wear and tear. I bought the bike new but it is on the cheaper end (only paid 300 Euros compared to around 500 Euros average for a new bike) but I really tend to beat up things like this.

Neighborhood Party

On Saturday, August 23rd, we had a big neighborhood party that 2 guys plan each year. We had fun hanging out with and getting to know those that live around us. Hannah was not there, she was too busy hanging out with a friend to be part of all the 'fun'.

They set up a big jumpy thing for all the kids. There are not many playing on it now but at times there were 3-4 times more kids than this all trying jump at the same time.

The kids also got to get their face painted:

Here is Kristal and Abby waiting in line to get some food.

Cool tool for those of you using iGoogle

You can add a small gadget to your homepage which will show the latest post titles from this blog. Here is an example:This way you will always know when we have new posts. To enable this, scroll down and find the following on the right side of this page:

"SUBSCRIBE TO THIS BLOG"

- Click on the 'Posts' button
- Select 'Add to Google'
- Click the button 'Add to Google homepage'

It will then take you to your iGoogle homepage which will now have The Peck Family gadget.

Not using iGoogle? Why the heck not! Totally customizable with gadgets that can be added that will monitor your Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail email accounts, view the weather, news including local and many other cool things. The kids like to have little game gadgets and slideshows on their homepages. Find our more at:

http://www.google.com/ig

Flight of the Conchords

So, I found this on my cousin Jake's blog and thought it was worthy of putting on ours. I thought that it was hilarious but you must watch at your own risk as it is a tad irreverent:)