This clever girl

Izabel's first attempt at sitting in a high chair occured on monday when we visited the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

We decided to catch the Clipper over to Seattle on Sunday afternoon for a couple of days and see Richard, since he could come to us and it was looking like at least ten days before he'd be able to get the documents sorted to enter Canada. As an extra hoop to just through I needed a letter from Richard to say I could travel with the children without him. but we managed it, and had a nice visit to Seattle area. Tuesday the kids and I went by bus, the monorail to The Children's museum in the Seattle Centre. which occupied us for most of the day.

We're back home now having been allowed into Canada with not much in the way of trouble. It's very hard to travel with three children and not have too much hand luggage.

Last weekend Victoria Tourism had a 'Tourist in your hometown' promotion, it started on wednesday and ended sunday, so thursday the kids and I visited the undersea garden and the wax works museum, saturday, Richard and Liam went to the Maritime museum and Madeline and I went on a bus tour and to the Miniture world. I found the undersea gardens a bit dated, the glass area was like small submarine windows, thou the anemones were huge. Richard was off to the US for work on sunday afternoon so we took him to the airport. Never a favourite activity with us, the kids like to take him, but don't really want him to get on the plane and go. Several times this week when Madeline saw seaplanes over the harbour she thought dad was on it.
The usual round of dance, gym and sportball happened. Liam's doing gym twice a week as we have some makeup classes from when we were away, he's enjoying that and it's at an earlier time, so I think his concentration is a bit better. Liam and I went for a walk on Ross Bay Beach while Madeline had Sportball and we all had a spring nature walk and play in Beacon Hill Park. The kids enjoy telling me what they want pictures of, this trip it was all spring flowers.

Last night we collected Richard from the airport, thou Canadian Immigration wanted to see him again this morning as they weren't happy with his paperwork, so he walked down to see them at the wharf and was denied entry. So today we went to the airport again to put him on a plane back to Seattle. We're still figuring out where it's best for 'us' (me and the kids) to be. Really depends how long it's going to take for Richard's ducks to line up.

Here we are

It's the tail end of what has been a fun Christmas day at Foxton Beach. The weather though not frightful has not been the balmy backyard summer day weather that I imagine from a southern hemisphere Christmas. We've have opened presents and eaten, and eaten and eaten as expected. The children don't seem sure on their time zone, but having been awake since 7.30am they are looking tired. they've had heaps of fun digging up Grandad's yard and playing with their toys and each other. Madeline was worried when the cousins left, but was reasured she'll see them again tomorrow.

Foxton for Christmas

Two days ago we were in the snow in Santa Fe and the cloudy skies outside keep me thinking of the snowy weather. It is a huge contrast being back by the sea in green New Zealand. We manouvered our collection of baggage through Alberquerque San Francisco and Auckland to leave a couple of items on the plane in Wellington nothing major thou and we'll collect them from the airport after Boxing day. Izabel has caused some entertainment on the trip, we have to fill in different potions of the forms for our Canadian, and the gate staff at SFO insited on seeing her outbound itinerary before she could board the flight. But we're all here and are looking forward to a few less airline meals over the next couple of weeks.

So Merry Christmas to you all!! We have several more Christmas events to come, hopefully we'll get some NZ summer in the next couple of weeks.

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

So Since we got home, in the snow, we have had snow delays for school but no snow days and today as I type we're expecting 60 F - Last week we had 40 highs.

We have maintained our weekend trips and have visited Petroglyph NM near, almost in Alberquerque, Fort Union NM just north of Las Vegas (New Mexico) and White sands and Carlsbad Caverns our furthest venture south.
White Sands was amazing, but not in its usual sense. A guide book we had said White sands was great for people who like the beach but not the water. There has been ALOT of snow all over New Mexico and ths has resulted in Lakes all over White Sands, like the one Liam is paddling in. So those people better not go to White Sands at the moment.

We had warm days but frosty nights while we camped we drove through a little town called Cloudcliff which has one of the only outdoor ice skating rinks in New Mexico.

Calsbad Caverns were impressive, the scale is so different from any other caves I've been to. We walked in through the natural entrance it very developed with paved walkways and rail all the way, but then there is an elevator too. The amount of carparking around suggested it can get very busy there in high season. We ment the only kiwi Park Ranger, which was interesting he's been working for the Park's service here for about 10 years.

The last few weekends have been in Santa Fe doing ordinary things like garden maintance and school activites.

Looks like our next venture might be a bit further afield involvoing several plane flights and a huge time zone change. Richard is mid ticket organisation and its looks like we could turn up on a Southern hemisphere door step soon rather than later. We intend to be there over Spring break (here) the Easter holidays (there)

Tyres

So we had had some tyre excitement prior to entering Joshua Tree, I've never hear a tyre actually burst before. In fact the tyre "issues" started with a flat tyre in Williams, in the motel carpark. The local tire (sic) guy wasn't that keen to repair it becuase it was so worn, but did, so we left the brand new spare in it's place (tyre 1). Then on the way into Las Vegas a different tyre delaminated and made a strange thuking noise. So one new tyre in Las Vegas (tyre 2). At Indio, after Joshua tree we purchasing two more tyres(tyres 3 and 4). The intention was to replace the exploded tyre and the very worn spare but the final tyre on the car showed very serious cracks on the inside wall, the same area of failure of it's partner the exploded tyre. Tyre prices seem to get considereably cheaper the closer to the coast you are, these ones were $20 less per tyre than the one in Vegas, which we'd thought was a good price.

So we left Indio, Date capital without the requiste date shake, but with four shiny new tyres on the car, and the bodgy patched tyre from Williams still as a spare.

We were in the swing of camping after the past few nights so found a site near the Anza Borrego Sate Park, a camp fire and cards, the usual evenings entertainment. This campground was a step up from the others it had showers! We were glad of this with a hotel in San Diego being the destination for the next night.

So Bright lights and big city beconed and we headed down the 'I' to San Diego, took a look at the water and checked into the hotel. Apprently the coldest weather for some time.

We had tour guides for the next day, our itinerary featured Seaworld. We had a behind the scenes look, featuring flamingo, Manatees and the hospital area. We petted dolphins and saw the Shamu show. favourites were the manatees, especially feeding them, commersons dolphins which are really little and the beluga whales. I went on my first roller coaster here, Journey to Atlantis, I think it had the longest drop of all the rides we were to do over the next few days.

More of the vacation meander

We had a great time in Moab, Merewyn and Josh's climbing sparked a theme for Liam and Charles which continued most of the trip. Arches National Park was spectacular and Junior Ranger badges were completed. While the weather was clear there was dfineately ice in the wind when we went for a short walk to view some of the arches. Mostly we looked from the warmth of the car.
We visited one of the areas of Canyonlands NP and viewed the canyon created by the Green River the climbing the day before was on the Colorado River, I've found this on the web which is of geological interest.
Many National Parks have campgounds and they are mostly in very scenic locations, Canyonlands one was nice, we had lunch there, in the snow.

Our initial plan was to camp in Valley of the Gods, but we revised this plan and found a motel in Bluff (mentioned in a book by Tony Hilleman I discovered in when I read that far in Tucson on the way home.) We used their hot tub and noticed that when the water splashed on the ground, as it does with small boys in a full hot tub, it froze.

We drove though Valley of the Gods the next day awand also saw Goosenecks state park and Monument Valley, another lunch picnic in snow provided the boys with a sledding oportunity on a found mirror. It was funny picnicing in snow in the campground which we had needed our mats because the ground was so hot.

Big drive to Williams foor Grand Canyon, we decided to walk down one of the paths into the Canyon, Cedar Ridge,which was excellent, and gave quite a different perspective. Liam walked all the way there and back, doing math squences with Aunty Mere on the way up.

Spent another night in Williams and went driving around back roads before managing our firsts night camping. We had a campfire and enormous steaks for dinner,then Josh managed two enthisiastic boys and prickly pear roasting, Madeline was very keen on eating the results, hard to describe really, kinda slimey not much flavour.

Next morning involved dropping Merewyn and Josh off for their return trip to the north. Madeline was not impressed about loosing her travelling companions, but slept most of the way to Las Vegas, waking at the Hoover dam.


We stayed on 'the strip' in Las Vegas and had two nights in the city before heading for Beatty on our way into Death Valley. our first stop in Death Valley was Scotty's Castle where the boys played in the spring and Liam managed to fall in!

Off on the Adventure

It sort feels like cheating to be writting this having arrived back in Santa Fe, but anyway on the 27 of December our troup set off for an adventure. Our first destiation was Durango and a steam train ride to return Santa to the north pole. We sang carols, had hot chocolate and nougat chocolates on the train and santa gave all the children a bell. There was plenty of snow on the ground in Durango but it was the next day, after finding a wonderful french bakery, an indestructable coffee pot and some hiking boots, that we encountered our first snow storm. We were driving down the hill from Mesa Verde where we'd had a picnic lunch (discovered just how good that bakery was) and visited the Spruce Treehouse for a Ranger talk when the snow hit, and the sunset, a slow drive down the hill. We were heading for Moab Utah that night so assumed we'd be later than we thought but we out drove the storm and found our house in Moab without any trouble.