Technology for Treasure hunting

Today Liam and Richard went on an adventure. They downloaded some geocache sites into the GPS and went off to find them. The sites were all within about 1/2 a km of our place, near the boat pond and beach at the end of the road. They came back having found two of the three they set out looking for. One of the favorite instructions was to watch out for muggles (ordinary folk, not looking for geocaches) and not disclose the cache to them.

Out and about

We had our first Victoria gymnastics today. It's quite different from the ones in Santa Fe with lots more kids on Liam's age group. I think it will be better for him as he has a group of boys to do gym with rather than mostly girls. They have several male coaches too, which Liam has one of. Liam didn't seem to get so much attention when he was being distracting which was good.
Madeline found it a bit strange having me doing the assisting her bit. She had also not had a sleep so wasn't focusing very well either. She was asleep on the way home.
Earlier in the day we ventured out and found a Safeway which was definitely a cheaper grocery option than the Thrifty at the end of the street. The milk company is having a promotion of chocolate milk, as a healthy alternative to soda, and similar to juice, both kids got hats, which are quite nice. The product lines in the supermarket are much more like New Zealand than Santa Fe, less variety in tortillas and chilli and more french breads, ciabatta and the like.

Around and about

Today was Grey and overcast till late afternoon, but at that point the kids and I went out for a walk in the neighborhood. We found a playground about a block from here which I'm sure we'll visit again.
The people in the horse and carriage rides which go past our window had blankets on their knees today. Yesterday they had little canopies, they might have had those this morning too but there aren't so many in the mornings.
I've arranged gym and dance for Liam and Madeline. Madeline hasn't done dance before but she's been very keen. Her Gym will be the biggest challenge as its a parent assist class, still I remember helping Liam with Madeline in a backpack. First class is on friday.

We made it

We are in Victoria, the house is nice, big enough but not too big, clean and not too many things for the kids to break. We couldn't get more downtown. Yesterday we took a bit of a drive around Victoria it's very green and holds tightly to it's English heritage, lots of Street names which are familiar, pubs, tea shops, fish and chips, and even pies - with meat in them!
Madeline is enjoying having her room.
She was rather upset by us taking the beds down in Santa Fe and has spent much of the trip here asking to go home. Thou she also wanted to camp again last night. She's a rather well traveled two and a bit, She is heading for her third birthday in her third country.
Liam enjoyed having his Junior Ranger hat in the car with us and wore it to receive several of the badges he gained on the trip.
After we left Denver which seemed to take a while (we stopped at REI and got Richard a GPS for his birthday, had lunch, ...) we headed into Rocky Mountain NP our first night camping, from there we went to a State Park in Wyoming, there were heaps of bugs and we couldn't find the bug spray! Not on the way but South Dakota was our next stop, we visited Wind Cave and Liam got his first badge for the trip, camping gas was hard to find in South Dakota, but we did and then camped in the Black hills before visiting Mt Rushmore NP, Minuteman Missle NM, and Badlands NP. We had thought of camping there but decided we'd better get back on track and so headed west planning to camp near Devils Tower. It was raining thou so we stayed in a motel in Sundance.
We visited Devils Tower NM the next day and had lunch there before driving on to Yellowstone NP we camped in Norris Campground here for two nights then moved to the John D Rockerfeller Jr. Parkway where we camped two more nights. We had a look around both Yellowstone and Grand Teton NP's but I think the kids enjoyed the hot pools by the river in the Parkway area almost as much.
Time for another hotel night to get some washing done, we stayed in Grand Falls, Montana then headed to Glacier NP. We couldn't drive through the Going to the sun road with the trailer but camped on the East side and drove over and back in the afternoon and took a boat trip on St Mary's lake in the morning. Before driving around the south side of the park and ending up driving into Canada that afternoon.
Richard pleased to get the Boarder crossing over with since his situation is a little strange, he was here till this morning and is now back in Santa Fe for the week. But he'll be working here and his work visa is not sorted out. Still we had no problems and spent the night in a Hotel in Grand Forks BC since we knew we had lots of driving to cover.
Liam was disappointed that this motel had no pool. His swimming is getting very confident with the pools in the last two hotels. Still we got to Vancouver and stayed in a hotel with a pool and they swum that afternoon and in the morning. It was a long weekend this weekend so the BCferries were fairly busy so we had an hour or two waiting for the ferry but we were in Victoria by three.
So yesterday we sorted stuff out and did our drive before having fish and chips for dinner and this morning we put Richard on the plane back to the Southwest again! It's a holiday today so tomorrow we'll figure out gym and dance etc

We're off again

We packed and cleaned and now we're on the road. These pictures are in Denver with a collegue of Richards's.
Liam and Miles are having a great time and Madeline loves all the attention, she and Fern took Patch for a walk.
Everything we're taking to Victoria is in the UHAUL, so Liam has been counting the UHAULS on the road, 32 between Santa Fe and Denver.

Catch up

Today we farewelled what I can fairly confidently say are our last visitors in Santa Fe. Merewyn and Josh have spent the last couple of weeks camping in our playroom and joined us last weekend for a trip to Great Sand Dunes National Park. Signs around the park warn of 140 degree F sand temperatures, we had more trouble with rain and thunder storms. It's a lovely park and we had a good weekend. Liam, Richard, Merewyn and Josh climbed to the top of the Dunes while Madeline and I slept.
Madeline and Liam both completed their Junior Ranger badges.
There were bear boxes to keep your food in at the campground which Liam and Madeline thought made great hiding places.
We have 16 more days in Santa Fe of packing and sorting before we head northward to Victoria in BC (yes Canada) for a few months, so having found a midwife I like in Santa Fe I've now also found a Midwife I hope I like in Victoria. We haven't found a house yet but I'm working on it. I'm undecided about what we'll do for schooling for Liam. hummm

Our last trip was to Aztec Ruins and Durango, Aztec was our last New Mexican Park, Durango was for the bakery which makes great bread.

Our next trip is the two weeks we plan to take driving from here to Victoria, hitting as many of the sights as we can handle.

Concentration

From Madelines fir...

Madeline had her first gymnastics class on Thursday. She was keen to go back as soon as we left.

Miss M

This girl's just had her first visit to a hairdresser. Charles (as favored by Liam) trimmed the ends and cut her bangs. He also hot curled the back. Thou she looked very serious to start with I think she was getting into it by the end.

Off with a bang!

Santa Fe along with the rest of the country celebrated 4th of July with a fireworks display. otherwise we spent the day tidying the house and rebuilding the computers. There was rain earlier in the evening and we wondered if the fireworks would be rained off, but it all cleared up before the event started.

Madeline had a day at La Casita this Thursday, she had a lovely time from all reports. I had a haircut and brought some sandals. I could have done so much more. I'd forgotten how much you can get done by yourself! But it was strange not to have at least one little companion with me.

We had a La Leche League Leaders meeting at my place on Friday, so Liam stayed home to play with some friends, we had twelve children here, and they had a great time and required very little supervision. Ages from 15 years - 18mths. We even managed to talk about some LLL stuff in between all the catching up and other important stuff.

Richard returned from his trip on Friday night so Saturday we packed a picnic and headed back to Peco's National Monument. We went here on one of our first weekends in New Mexico but we hadn't really looked around the ruins of the pueblo.
Sunday we went to a Greek festival, they had food, music and dancing Madeline really enjoyed the dancing.

the other weekends that I haven't mentioned

We have been away every weekend since memorial day, I mentioned the Villanueva trip on memorial weekend, the weekend after we left Santa Fe on friday night and headed for Elephant Butte Lake, like heading to Taupo really, large lake in the middle of the state. Lots of people were there camping and preparing for fishing/waterskiing type activities.

We drove in about 8.30pm and left early next morning - it was hot here and exposed. We were heading west to Gila National Monument, it was about another two or three hours drive from here. It's an old mining area and there are little towns which still have one or two shops operating, thou mostly as cafes now.

The National Monument is within a National forest so there's heaps of camping around about. The monument is based on some cliff dwellings from the Mogollon culture. Naturally we completed the Junior ranger program, but this place is different, they have a junior, junior ranger program, so Madeline did that and got a badge too.
The campground was nice and there was a fifteen minute walk to another cliff dwelling just behind it so we did that in the morning after we'd packed up. We had quite a drive to get home but we broke it up with a stop at a campground which Liam was able to find some bouldering to do so the kids got a good leg stretch after several hours in the car and with several more to come. We drove through the very large array and took some pictures and read the signs but didn't go to the visitor centre. We stopped in Socorro and got chocolate and ice creams, for some time Madeline had been asking for chocolate but otherwise was bored and pretty well behaved. Liam was asleep. Our trip was something like this.

Last weekend we camped much closer to home in the Hyde State Park about 20min drive towards the ski basin from Santa Fe. We went with friends from school and so had a collection of kids who played in the river near where we camped they built a dam (naturally) and floated various things from the bridge upstream down to the dam. We walked up to a waterfall nearby which was pretty and had water in it which is not always the case in these parts. In the evening we had a spectacular thunder and hail storm, but the state parks in NM have these really nice shelters so we were able to watch and stay dry.
We'd noticed a blocked inlet and an outlet pipe into the area we'd put our tents up and in the morning when I found a map we discovered we'd camped in the ice skating pond!

Big and small

I have this email that comes to me once a week and reminds me that I'm pregnant (they think they're telling me about each week but...) somedays I have these oh thats right I am pregnant moments. So apparently they caculate me to be twenty four weeks and the baby is 21cm long. I'm feeling lots of wriggling from in there but mostly people don't pick that
I'm pregnant but none of my clothes fit, and I have let out the adjustment on my preggy jeans severl times now.
This weekend, husbandless, the rest of the family went to a picnic that my midwife hosts at a park once a year. Liam and Madeline played really hard for three hours with the other kids and I got to talk to some adults some of whom had very small babies. We had a nice picnic and I collected some maternity tops and newborn clothing from the swap pile. I had nothing to contribute having already passed anything we are not using or expecting to need next winter.
I do now feel like there are a couple of options on what to dress this baby in when it arrives. I'm glad I collected up woolen things when we were in NZ 'cause there don't seem to be the same sorts of things here.

Sunday needed an activity, the day always proceeds smoother with a bit of a plan or direction. Liam was keen to visit 'Stan' and although initailly reluctant to drive to Alberquerque again (we took Richard to the airport yesterday) it wasn't a bad choice of activity. Madeline was also into a dino-saur visit and we had some dynatheatre passes we could use to see one of their films. So we loaded up and headed down to Alberquerque, we had lunch at the museum cafe, bith kids demolished their pizza which weren't small and I had a delicious chicken and green chille baked potato with guacamole, it had cheese it it and whipped butter yum! Then it was on to see 'Stan' in his central position in the museum atrium. We continued though the walk through time backwards, then forwards and finished up with a trip down the Nile river in Mystery of the Nile in the dynatheatre. We emberged into a very warm afternoon with the car saying it was 103 F but I think it reads a little high. The water I had left in the car would have made an acceptably temperatured cup of tea. Santa Fe wasa much more pleasant 90 F when we returned. Were forecast 90 F (about 32 C) for most of this week.

Another canyon

We arrived in New Mexico a year ago on the 18th so we've had two memorial days here now. We had the school picnic on Saturday this weekend at which we drew the raffles school has been using for fund raising. I now need a child minder so I can have the haircut and go out for dinner. I have some lovely new red glass earrings and a voucher for $100 worth of cosmetics.

We then left town Sunday morning and headed to Villanueva State park, not to far away but a nice canyon with a very full Pecos River running through it.

It was good to get our camping gear all together again and remember what it is we always forget (pillows again). The park had ramada's at each site which are built to look Spanish colonial, so they were more substantial than the usual roof on four poles which was nice when it rained and thundered for a bit in the afternoon. I didn't find the mats as comfortable as usual but my pelvis is not in as gooder shape as it has been.

We walked up to the canyon rim and along getting views over the Pecos Valley. This area is very fertile and well irrigated (thanks to the river) and a lot of the produce for the Santa Fe Farmers Market comes from around here. It's also very popular with fishers but with the level being very high and the water quite muddy the few we spoke to hadn't had a lot of bites.

We think we might manage a 10 day trip soonish but we're trying to decide where. Maybe Texas? or Utah?

The other project seems to be coming along, I can feel lots of movement and I met with my midwife on Friday and heard the heartbeat for the first time. Madeline was a bit unsure about the noise coming from my tummy, but told the midwife there was a baby in her tummy too.

Now I'll be clever for ever and ever

So Liam is six.
He's had rather an eventful time in the last week or two. It's then end of year for everything, so we've had a gymnastics display and a dance performance, a pizza party for his class and a school picnic for everyone. So slipped in there last Sunday was Liam's party. Saturday was his birthday but with the dance recital in the evening we thought he'd enjoy both more if the party was the next day.
I've had several people tell me me stole the show at the dance recital He and his class (four in total) were butterflies and their piece was called 'improvisations'. Much as you'd expect from creative dance for 5-6 year olds they leaped and danced around the stage together and apart. Liam's costume has black tights and t shirt with butterfly wings of cream satin with black wing markings and scarves tied around his body and over his face (this one was see though orange) but part way though the scarves around his middle started to slip and slid down to his feet, so he (at the back of the stage) wriggled back into them, this and his status as the only boy in the school made him quite memorable.

His party the following afternoon was at home, a collection of about 12 children had fruit salad and juice (Liam's picks) and mini hot dogs and cake, shaped like a sun, to go with the yellow and orange cups, plates and table cloth.

In the swim

Last Thursday the kids and I set out to Albuquerque with some shopping tasks to complete. Liam need ed new sandals and I needed some cooler maternity tops, and a swimsuit.

We headed first for Kohl's where we've had success on shoes for Liam before. He found some sandals he likes and that fit, we found some tops for me and as an extra some sun dresses for Madeline. These are a complete hit and she won't wear anything else. She changes from one to another mid day. Several of them have bandanna/headscarf's with them, and these must be worn with the correct dress.
The swimsuit shopping was a success as well and the price was a pleasant surprise after my memory of a similar purchase in NZ being about $100.

Now that I have a swimsuit Liam decided it would be nice for us to go swimming on mothers day, so I could use my new togs. It was easier before they could head in opposite directions in the pool.

For the birds

La Casita had a field trip last time it was our turn to participate. We went to a cafe in the rural area around Sante Fe which had wonderful cinamon rolls and LOTS of birds, which is what Liam's class is looking at at the moment. This emu was especially keen on grapes.

Spring snow?

Friday was spent baking up a storm as Saturday was the school yard sale and Cinco de Mayo Feista. I forgot (again) that it's a bad idea to bake spongy type cakes. Still the Lime sponge loaves tasted OK, they were just concave on top. The millionaires slice worked a treat and my muffins worked well too.
Saturday was FREEEZING! We had rain and wind and snow. Still there was a steady stream of people and the sale made ~$700
Richard was jetting off too so we spent the afternoon in Albuquerque before his plane. I got to go to some scrapbooking shops I was curious about and Richard visited the model shop.
We arrived back in Santa Fe to more snow, which was quite steady for about 2 hours. Today there are some large clouds around but the sun is shining.

Lemon

Today we made Lemonade.
It was supposed to happen on Tuesday, we went out and brought our lemons and got them home before realizing that a citrus juicer hasn't featured on the needed utensil list till now.
So we headed to the shop which I could get the coffee cups we needed from, thinking they'd have a lemon juicer too.
I successfully purchased the coffee cups, but we could ream lemons or have fancy press things, but no ordinary juicer, the man was very helpful and knew what I was after and that they normally had stainless steel ones. But had none for me.
So today we headed back to the supermarket where I'd get the lemons from and brought a Lemon juicer.
The rest of the lemonade making was quite straight forward, I made the sugar syrup and Liam and Madeline juiced Lemons.
Very tasty result.

Off we go again

We head back to Santa Fe today, having not been sure when we would leave suddenly on friday it was all go and we fly tonight! ( Monday)
So we're all packed up again and ready to fly. It's been a nice visit but it will be good to get Liam back into school and all our other activities.
Besides it's starting to get cold here now so we need to get into summer.

Adaptation

Well we've been in Wellington for a while now it feels. I'm discovering I've adapted to some things American more than I thought. I keep trying to pay for my petrol at the pump before I pump, and I get a fright from the number! I expect to be able to swipe my eftpos card before they have finished scanning the items.

I go to the wrong side of the car to get in, but have been fine once driving. Light switches are fine for me now thou.

People seem to think Liam has some American acent, but he's already swapped back to a zed from a zee.

I think the Southwest will look dry and barren again when we return the view as I drive over the Wainuiomata hill is rather more lush than we've been seeing.

I'm seventeen weeks pregant so I guess these more adapting still to come and some American experiences I hadn't expected.