My beautiful daughter is 4 years old today. She bought herself a nice barbie doll and some other stuff from ToysRus over the weekend with some birthday money that she received from her Grandparents and her great Opa und Oma in Deutschland.

Today she got a Barbie CD player with her 1st CD, beach chair, a dress, and a set of various dressup play shoes.

We also visited the new playground mentioned earlier. Rebecca and Patrick really enjoyed it! Heike made a new video. The pictures and choice of background music are nice. You can view it here. Note: This uses a Sharegear connection off of her computer. So availability of it is based off of when she has the computer on. She normally has it on during the day and turns it off at night.

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The new playground, not far from us, has been completed. It looks great and the children are really looking forward to trying it out. Soon other park amenities like ballfields, bathrooms, concession stand, etc. will be built. More information on it’s construction in the local newspaper, Topsail Voice.

I gave Vongo an ample test drive. I’ve had them for about 3 months. The service from Starz /Encore gives you a library of videos that you can download for 9.99/month. It sounds like a pretty good deal, but it quickly becomes old news.

The videos are not the latest and greatest, and although sometimes they offer some semi-new releases. Those are considered, PPV, and you have to pay extra for them. They say that they release new entrees into the library every Friday, as they expire others. But most of them are such lame entrees that it didn’t interest us at all.

Also, we found the quality of the videos slightly jerky and not as ‘fluid’ as movies we downloaded from MovieLink and Cinemanow to be of a much higher quality.

So today I cancelled the service. Great concept, perhaps in time Vongo will improve or another service will become available that offers better variety and quality.

- Tim

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Wow, what a difference! Really, I was kind of hoping for a dramatic difference but was sort of skeptical that the difference between hard and soft water would be so evident. But immediately after the technician finished putting in the system. We tried the difference. The water tastes better, and it really felt light and clean.

We don’t have the reverse osmosis system for the kitchen sink which can take out even more impurities for drinking, but the water softener itself still cleans the water alot more than the Whirlpool refrigerator filter. In fact, the installer said we no longer need to use a filter in the refrigerator. I believe it.

This whole house system does take care of alot of issues. It removes the calcium and other impurities. The tall filter in the picture removes the chlorine. Hopefully we’ll soon see cleaner clothes without the chlorine creating spots. Also, we’re looking for foward to our dishes cleaning without calcium residue left behind. Along with the coffee machine operating smoother, no calcium stains being left in the refrigerator water dispensor, the benefits are numerous.

Because these impurities can cause alot of damage to our plumbing and appliances we consider this purchase more of an investment, than just something nice to have. Believe me, if I had a choice, I could of found better ways to spend my tax refund than on this – if this weren’t such a necessity.

- Tim

We do love our new home and living minutes from the ocean. But since living here we’ve noticed some things about the water in our home.

• It doesn’t taste that great at all.
• Dishes are foggy, film is on glasses, silverware, cooking pots, and even on refrigerator’s filtered water dispensor.
• Calcium buildup on faucets and showerhead.
• Lots of clothes, ruined by discoloration.
• Dry, itchy skin.
• Hearing about neighbors, Water Heater’s giving out.
• Our pet dispensing kidney/bladder stones in our yard.

So that’s just to name a few things that made us decide that we urgently need to do something. I researched the Internet, spoke to a few neighbors, and finally decided that Kinetico seemed to have one of the better systems. The primary expense going forward is replenishing it with new salt about once a month.

It’s non-electric, and is continuous in softwater delivery. So this Monday, the technician will install a whole-house system. This should help alleviate most of the issues in my bullet-list above. But it’s not cheap, thankfully our tax refund will cover the costs. – Tim

Patrick is getting a puppy named Leah, we can pick her up in about 3 weeks in Cary. It will be his pet, as it is his turn to be the primary owner. However, like Gerda, it will still be a family pet, and he’ll have to let his brother and sister share in the joy.

This picture was emailed to us from the seller. We haven’t met Leah yet, and will first meet her when we drive there to pick her up.

Hopefully Gerda (now 11 years old), takes up to the new puppy. – Tim