Congratulations Jason & Jessica!

Gabe and I are an Uncle and Aunt again. This time to my sister’s first baby. Luke Steven Gschwend was born yesterday (7/1/08) at 5:59 pm. He was 7lbs. 13oz and 20 inches long. Jessica ended up having a C-section but everyone is doing fine. All of Luke’s pre-natal kidney problems appear to have self-corrected themselves so Jessica and Luke will be going home on Friday morning. My dad is headed down to KY to help out with his first grandson. So now we just wait for his second grandson to be born. I definitely can’t wait to hold my baby in my arms. See how our children try our patience before they are even born, ha ha!! I just wanted to let everyone know the good news. Here are a few pics of the little guy with his proud daddy and mama.

Happy Birthday to Marion and Victoria !!!

Yesterday Marion and Victoria celebrated their birthdays. While I will not disclose Marion’s age, Victoria had a wonderful party to celebrate her 5th birthday. Friends from the Appleton, Milwaukee, and Sheboygan areas all helped her celebrate a “beach bash” in the backyard, complete with a sandcastle cake. It was a great day. Here are some of the moments that we would like to share with you. Can you guess who the tone deaf one is singing in the video?

A Special Day

Yesterday was my 31st birthday and it was a great day. I started my day with the sounds of my daughter’s singing me “Happy Birthday”, and Ellie got so excited that halfway through the song she switched gears and starting singing her “ABC’s.” It went something like, “Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday dear Daddy, F, G, H, I, J, K….” Very cute.

We all celebrated in the morning with a birthday donuts. Later, when I got home from work, Victoria showed me a special message that she wrote on our front steps. Here is a picture.

We had a nice dinner at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants in town and then went for ice cream. Here is a video of Ellie doing a dance at the restaurant.

The day was packed with birthday wishes from many friends and family and I thank you all for making it special. I am truly blessed. To top the night off I came home and was pleasantly surprised by a beautiful song left on my voice mail from my sister Amy. It had me cracking up so much that I have to share it with all of you. Click on the play button below to share in the experience. I love you all.

Amy’s Birthday Wishes - Hilarious

Peace.

Gabe

Victoria’s Preschool

Victoria has now finished preschool and will be headed off to Kindergarten in the Fall. Wow, where does the time go?

Here are some of our favorite pictures of her at school this year.

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures

Well pictures are a great thing, but managing them can sometimes be a nightmare. With the new website we decided to start placing all of our pictures, starting in 2008, on Flickr. This allows us to easily place our photos on the site and to have some flexibility with organizing them. If you are interested in seeing all of our pictures (there are a lot) take a look:

Maentz 2008 Pictures on Flickr

We are still keeping our 2003-2007 pictures around on the old site, so you can take a peek at those if you are interested.

Maentz 2003-2007 Pictures

If you have any picture galleries out there for us to view, please let us know. We would love to put a link to them on the site.

Jay and Jody’s Wedding

We had a great time at Jay and Jody’s wedding in Cameron, WI back in April. Jay has worked with Gabe for the last five years and it is great to see him end up with such an awesome gal. We wish them many happy years together.

The girls loved dancing, hanging out with friends, and drinking root beer. Here are some of the pictures.

Pittsburgh/Memorial Day Pictures

Memorial Day weekend in Pittsburgh

This weekend the Maentz family headed to Pittsburgh to celebrate Jessica’s baby shower and Memorial day. It is always great to see family, especially when you live so far away. The girls were excellent travelers despite the 13 hour drive. Here are some videos of the Memorial Day Parade. We are in the process of getting the pictures edited and will be posting them soon.

A quick message from Ellie

Maentz Family Website Makeover

Well, it has been a while since we have done anything with our family website. We have still been taking a lot of pictures, but are never finding the time to post them and share them with everyone. (I should take that back, Marion has been doing an excellent job of taking and editing the pictures, but dad has not been posting them.) Hopefully this new website and its “blog” friendly format will make it a little easier to share with you what is going on in our part of the world. Peace and blessings.

-The Maentz’s