We’ve been dancing ourselves lately - our Northwestern Wildcats have 8 wins so far this season.  That includes winning at Michigan this weekend for only the second time since 1960.  Go Cats!

Other than avoiding campaign commercials, we spent a good couple of weekends over the past month getting our back yard spruced up a bit.  Caleb’s parents came into town for a weekend and helped to install a new paver walkway and a set of new steps for the back porch.  Nancy’s dad made a spontaneous weekend visit in November and lent a hand in getting rid of the last of the debris from the yard.  Overall, the yard is (slowly) undergoing a transformation - giving us hope for the rest of the house =).

The Joker is due to arrive on the scene sometime within the next six weeks - the home stretch.  You can count down with us (or close to it) every time you hear the number of shopping days until Christmas.  Our due date is December 28.

Enjoy the newly updated pictures … we’ll be back in a bit.

The rest of us- those of us not officially involved in politics- are residents of “The District.”  We may or may not be employed by the federal government, and we may or may not enjoy discussing our political views.  We are, however, the most through-and-through Democratic (non) state in the country.  In the 2004 presidential election, 89.2% of us gave our votes to John Kerry.  In the 2008 presidential primary, Obama received 85,534 votes (75%) to Hilary Clinton’s 27,326 (24%).  By comparison, John McCain won the Republican primary with 3,929 votes (68%).  Wow.  Needless to say, McCain-Palin doesn’t have a prayer here. . . but they do have one lonely yard sign.

We also took a weekend trip to South Carolina earlier this month.  The main lures to Upstate SC were a visit with Caleb’s cousins, Abbi and Travis, and a chance to see Tante Linda, Oma, and Opa.  Linda has worked as the event director for Euphoria, a “world-class” wine, food, and music festival in Greenville for the past three years, so we thought it high time to check out the event.  It certainly was fancy and fun, and in exchange for “volunteering” by driving chefs around in BMWs and manning the wine sales table one afternoon, we got all-access passes to attend the dinners, wine tastings, cooking demonstrations, brunch, concerts, and a VIP party.  Oh, and Oma and Opa gladly provided free Simona care.  We both were surprised and excited to have an unexpected weekend getaway!

We are back to the “real world” now, enjoying the cooler fall weather and trying to enjoy the final days of the Nats season.  Soon enough, leaves will be changing, and the “real world” question will become. . . does Simona get to trick-or-treat this year??

Not-so-local highlights have included a weekend in Iowa to visit family and- for Nancy and Caleb only- a twenty-four hour trip to Chicago to attend a friend’s wedding.  Simona stayed behind for one night with Tante KK, which, I’m told, was completely tranquil and uneventful for all parties involved.

Tante KK is only in town for one more week, and we will be quite sad to see her go.  Fortunately, we go to Georgia in mid-August and will spend one more weekend with her (and other family) before she heads back up to school in New York.

We hope you’re all enjoying your summers, too!

Enjoy!

- Germany (9 days): riding bikes along the dykes, swimming at the Fortuna Bad, playing on the beach on the North Sea, attending Doris & Karl-Heinz’s wedding, seeing family & friends (including Mickey!), watching Simona learn LOTS of German (including a song “auf Platt”- in the Low German dialect), and eating plenty of good food!

- Sweden (7 days): touring Stockholm, eating “glass” (ice cream), crossing the Oresund Bridge (which connects Sweden & Denmark),  driving through the countryside, skipping the trip to Gotland, camping and hiking along the Vannern lake, and spending one night in a nice hotel!

- USA (the rest of the time):  Tanke KK moving to DC for the summer,  celebrating Simona’s 2nd birthday, buying an air conditioner (first summer since 2004 with A/C!), cheering on Germany in the European Cup soccer tournament (the finals are this Sunday!), catching up with friends, and announcing that we’re expecting another baby!
Hope you’re all well- pictures from our trip to come soon, along with another update, I hope!

Nancy got her practice by running (running!) the Boston Marathon in April. It was a long-time dream - kind of the granddaddy of marathons - so it was great for her to (1) qualify and (2) get to run it. Our good friend Carolyn from Northwestern is finishing dental school in Boston, so they got to spend the long weekend together. Reinhard also came to run the race with Nancy (what is it with these Ketsches?).

Caleb and Simona took the race weekend as an opportunity to slip back to Iowa for a weekend to see Grandpa, Grandma, Uncles Seth and Wyatt, Great Grandpa Brenneman, and Great Grandpa and Grandma Neil. Simona traveled like an angel (sleeping mostly) and Caleb fulfilled his role as the “Simona Delivery Service” =). It was a great chance to see the family and get some fresh Iowa air.

So that little weekend was a preview for our upcoming adventures. At the end of May, we’re traveling to Germany and Sweden for two-and-a-half weeks. We’ll spend one week of that exploring Sweden and the rest of the time in Germany with family.

After we get back from Europe, we have another trip to Iowa and a whole slew of weddings coming up this summer. And those are just the trips that we would need to fly to. Throw in a trip to the beach, maybe a couple to see some Grandparents, hanging out with Karen (who will be in DC for the summer!), and visiting a friend or two on the East coast, all before Labor Day, and we’re starting to get a little vertigo starting up the cliff … in a good way =).

PS - Oh! And April also gave us a chance to see our friends the Sacketts who were back in town (from Wichita) for almost a week. Sam had some work to get done in DC, so Sarah and Eliana came along. Eliana and Simona were nearly inseparable … not that we would have expected anything else.

PPS - New pictures are up, as always =).

It also was a harbinger of what was to come in our marriage.  One of our main shared interests is the good old “national pasttime.”  I grew up “doing the chop” at Fulton County Stadium, while Caleb caught as many Cards games as he possibly could at the old Busch stadium. Thus, we were both thrilled to learn that the (former) Expos, now known as the Nationals, were moving to Washington in April 2005. Most spring, summer, and early fall nights in our household incorporate the voices of Charlie and Dave, the Nats radio hosts, as background noise, and many a train of thought has been derailed by the words, “way back. . . going, going, and gone!  Goodbye!”

(For the record: We’ve agreed that, though our first loyalties will remain to our respective teams, we will raise Simona a Nats fan and cheer for them when they don’t play (or otherwise affect) our Braves or Cardinals.)

Thus, we were THRILLED to get two tickets to Opening Day in 2008. Not only was it each of our first Opening Day, it also was the opening of the new baseball stadium in Washington DC. President Bush threw out the first pitch, which marked our first sighting of him since living in this city. I even agreed to cheer for the Nationals over the Braves for this one select occasion (though I wore my Braves t-shirt under my Nats shirt, did a few Tomahawk Chops, and was secretly glad that Chipper hit the first homer in the new park. . .) Anyway, the Nats won with a walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth, and, despite the forty-degree weather, the night was unforgettable. I took WAY too many pictures, but we’ve included just a few on the pictures page.

Here’s to wishing you and yours a great baseball season!

• Moving back into our house- with MANY thanks to Laryn, Janel, and Alleia for letting us stay with them!
• Getting our lead clearance from the contractors (we’re still awaiting the clearance from the city. . .)
• Celebrating Caleb’s and Mary Ruth’s birthdays with a French-themed brunch.
• Celebrating Caleb’s birthday again with dinner at a new local restaurant and again with cupcakes at home.
• Celebrating Mary Ruth’s birthday again on February 29th– it merits a lot of celebrating since it only comes around once every four years!
• Watching New York beat the Patriots- not that we’re fans of either, but we deemed the Giants the lesser of two evils.
• Meeting new friends at the library’s story hour.

And the lows:

• Seeing our friends Sam, Sarah, and Eliana move to Kansas- especially hard for Simona, though she’s saying Eliana’s name less and less.
• Being sick- all three of us caught a flu bug that was not pleasant!
• Training for a marathon in 18 degree weather!
• Mija (our cat) bringing a dead bird into the house. Yuck!

New pictures are up, including one of the house facade post-lead abatement. The pictures of Simona putting her pink rabbit in the toaster oven are ironic, as Haeschen had a little “incident” in which she was damaged (but not destroyed) by a burner. Thank goodness she was saved– I don’t know what we’d do without her.

“Upgrading?” you ask. “Had enough of city living?” you think. “Another rung up the ladder of the American dream?” you suspect.

But nope, actually, none of these is the cause of our move. You see, ours is only a temporary, forced relocation, courtesy of the District government. (Brace yourself- yet another ode to DC governmental bureaucracy coming. . .) Here’s the long version:
Back in April, Simona’s (”capillary”) blood test revealed an elevated lead level. Our doctor referred us to a lab for a second, more accurate (”veinous”) blood test. Sure enough, she had lead poisoning (defined as a reading of 10 or higher- hers was 20). Our doctor advised us to modify her diet, wash her hands frequently, and take other preventive steps to minimize her exposure. He also referred us to a non-profit organization that helps families deal with lead poisoning.

We spent the next several weeks meeting with them, determining the likely source of lead exposure, and taking corrective measures. These included spending countless hours doing home repair work (you may remember pictures of our windows. . .) while friends graciously baby-sat Simona. We also cleaned the entire house top-to-bottom (including wet-mopping the ceilings and walls, washing each toy, wiping down every single book, etc.). It was a LOT of work, costing us many hours of labor and several hundred dollars of supplies. We completed the work in late May, confident that we had eliminated any risk to Simona’s health.

At Simona’s next check-up, just after her first birthday, her blood tested at the same level as before. Our doctor assured us that this was to be expected, as it can take several months to come down again. We remained confident that we had minimized her lead exposure.

About a week or two after her second test, we received a phone call from the DC Department of Health. They were calling to “make us aware” of Simona’s elevated lead level and to offer their assistance. Sensing that we were about to be ensnared in a quagmire of District government “services,” Caleb tried to deflect their attention. We explained that we had taken care of the problem, that we were monitoring her closely, and that we would be retesting her frequently. Unfortunately, refusing their “help” would mean being referred to Child and Family Services, which certainly did not interest us. So, grudgingly, we allowed the DOH to come into our home and repeat the same tests the non-profit had performed previously.

As expected, there were still “hot” spots that evidenced lead present in our home. Not surprising, since every house built before 1978 likely has lead-based paint in it. So, in spite of the fact that Simona’s third veinous lead test came back at seven, we were required to allow a tester from the DC Department of the Environment to use X-ray equipment to test the indoors and outdoors for lead. We begged them to exempt us from this test, since any remaining lead clearly was not significant enough to impact Simona’s or our health, but it was to no avail. In late September, the tester came for a full inspection.

We heard nothing from the government for several months. Caleb began making radiator covers, as the paint on our radiators is in poor condition. It was the only spot about which we as parents were still concerned, so Caleb took it upon himself to build covers that would prevent Simona from touching the radiators. (You’ll see pictures in the photo update.)

Shortly before the holidays, however, the wheels of DC bureaucracy began turning once again. We received a “Notice of Violation” from the DC Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, citing us for having lead in our home. The notice informed us that we had fourteen days to abate the lead or face thousands of dollars in fines and jail time. Clearly, the best interests of our child were no longer at stake, as imprisoning us would most likely NOT benefit her physical or mental health.

We were able to obtain an extension until January 26, 2008. In the meantime, Simona’s 18-month check-up allowed us to obtain another physician referral for a veinous lead test. Her level was a six, and, as her second consecutive test under 10, allowed the DOH to close her file. Since, however, the presence of lead in our home is now “known” to us and the government, we are required by law to abate it.

Which brings us to this “move.” In order for the lead abatement process to be safe, we (including the cat) are required to move out while work is being performed. We will not be allowed back into the house until it is cleared by a certified contractor distinct from the one who performed the work. We were able to receive another extension, and our contractor begins work on Monday morning. He hopes to complete the work by next Friday.

In spite of the frustration that accompanies having to spend thousands of dollars correcting a mistake that was made years before I was even born, we have been quite blessed during this time. We are fortunate to have friends who will let us stay with them for the week, another friend who is willing to cat-sit for the week, and the financial resources to make the requisite repairs within the allotted time frame. We’ll let you know how it all turns out once we’ve moved back in!