Carin - June 12, 2007

Greetings Grush Bunch,

So great to go to the mailbox and get something fun to read instead of all the junk mail that usually accumulates in the box!! However, it does seem to be taking a while for the letter to make it around. I had it exactly 5 days - lets see if we can't keep it moving a little better.

Everybody here is doing great. It's so fantastic to finally get outside and play in the evenings after being cooped up all winter long. I don't know about you guys, but I was really tired of playing with the same toys and reading the same books over and over and over again. Now I can just say, "We are heading outside" and Henry is in heaven. There are so many fun things to do outdoors. His latest fascination is with the hose. We drag the hose out every night and he sprays off out driveway and street. I have to say, we have the cleanest driveway of all the neighbors.!!

Monica, is sounds like you had a huge project on your hands. I can't imagine tackling something that big!! I'll bet you are glad to be done and just enjoy it now. We aren't doing anything on that scale, but we have had our share of home improvements projects lately. The house is ten years old and it is time to start replacing things like the carpet in the bedrooms, the bathroom fans, the front door, painting downstairs and my office the air conditioner (okay, we really didn't want to replace that one, but it died last week and you can't have a pregnant woman in a house with no air - its not pretty), the master bedroom bed (okay, we really didn't have to replace that one either, but I really wanted a king size bed and after giving Dan a sob story about how I needed more room to be able to sleep at night comfortably with my big belly, he agreed) and then some outside painting, some concrete work around the house to slope the rain away from the house so it doesn't leak into the basement, re-staining the deck, and putting a fence up in the backyard so Henry can run outside by himself and play. Its been a lot of little projects, kind of a pain, but nothing too serious I guess.

The funeral home has been really busy lately so Dan has been a little frazzled but his boss talks him into sneaking out of work and golfing in the afternoons as much as possible. Cour reporting is wonderful, almost too busy lately. I've been working on a construction case for the last year and they get together about once a month for an entire week to do depositions, which is quite a lot of transcripts for me to get done then. Next week we head to Minneapolis for another week of depositions, but perhaps I'll get some shopping in as well:)

Best close and get this out. Hope all of you are enjoying your summer and making lots of wonderful memories with your families.

Love - Dan, Carin, Henry and Baby Eckhoff