hoi poli

Richard and I ventured out the other night to one of his collegues from works place for a fundraiser function for Bill Richardson the New Mexican Govenor. It was an interesting evening they have a lovely house and there was a good mariachi band playing and the food was good. Some of Richard's other collegues were there and it was good to meet them too. We didn't go and shake the govn'rs hand, he can speak well (as you'd hope really) and it was a crowd of old friends and public service people so the speech was directed at what they had achieved in the last term and the goal for the current election. Richard's suit got an airing which it hasn't had since we've been here.

Oh for a quite life.

Why do I do this to myself. We have had teacher problems at school. Our new teacher and our old one don't seem able to communicate with each other. So muggins is trying to mediate and see if they can work together or if we should let the new teacher resign after less than a month.
It's very frustrating because I feel like the children are missing out on the talents avaliable in the new teacher because they can't figure out how to work together.

Up, up and away

There were plenty of beautiful balloon options avaliable at the Special Shapes Rodeo Mass accention which we went to this morning. It involved a 5am start so that we could drive to Alburquerque by dawn but it was fanatastic to see the Dawn patrol balloons going up as the sky started to light up.
By about 8am an amazing array of shapes had lifted off and floated by. Highlights were the cow, the horse and chillis, the space shuttle was pretty spectacular too.
The weather today was perfect, clear blue sky and almost no wind, so the balloons lifted up flew around the park and landed, some back in the place they started from. Following the rodeo event was a prize grab where the ballonists flew from a mile away to collect a tag from the ground and fly off. Great to watch as the huge array of colours flew in dropped and lifted and landed near by. There were balloons all over Albuquereque.

We had thought of going down on sunday and started out early but it was spittling and the rain got heavier so it was cancelled. I'm glad really 'cause I'd forgotten my camera. Today I took 235 picutres ( I won't bee posting them all) so should you NEED a picture of hot air balloons I might have just what you're after.

A picture

From hat

Madeline got a new hat in a parcel from Canada

These boots ...

Madeline got a parcel of clothes from friends here and we shopped for the boots - we think Aunty Megan might like to be allocated this gift. They are very popular. 

Sprinkles?

Madeline and her firends shared a jar of sprinkles at her party. The main activity was icing cupcakes with tubes of icing and decorating with sprinkles. 

Language Lessons

Liam's friend has decided he's going to teach us "English" it's making for some amusing conversations. Last night he started with "dinner" I happened to have said tea is ready. This morning trousers are "pants". I know he and Liam have had some other conversations related to this.

A Day trip

Last weekend we stayed in Santa Fe because Richard was leaving for a work trip in Sunday morning (before the crack of dawn). So we went with friends four adults, three fve year olds and two almost two's, to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks which is about an hours drive south from here.

It was a spectacular day after the grey weather and storms of the week, and being south of here the temperature was warmer. (Almost as soon as you leave Santa Fe you drop down off the Plateau and loose a thousand feet) We took Mac 'n' cheese to make for lunch on the hike and tea. Since we were taking the stove. We rather flabergassted the rest of the group with this one pair had a 'cliff bar' and the others a couple of sandwiches. We had planned on enough for everyone, and all enjoyed.

Tent Rocks is dramatic landscape, like the pinicles in the Wairarapa in style but larger, some of the peaks have HUGE boulders perched on top of them. The walk is gentle and we did the loop to the cave dwelling and about 2/3rd's of the canyon trail. It's one of those slot canyons which wind through the rock. There is a lookout at the far end which we didn't get to. Only one of the two year olds had a backpack to be carried in, so we were taking turns, but they had got to the point where they both needed to sleep.

Our seven seater car got a test, and it worked well From the front seat you can hardly hear the loudness of two boys in the boot.

Another Monumental Weekend

The weekend after the fair we went to Chaco Culture National Monument. It's in the North West of New Mexico and there isn't much else out there. We left here after school and got to Chaco about 6.30pm. Having eaten a homemade pie on the way.

Friday night there was a ranger talk at the visitor center which we attended, it was interesting, he showed other areas where there are pueblo ruins near Chaco. The children got a little restless but we were mostly there because after the talk had four large telescopes out. With the remote location and a moonless night the view of the stars and planets was very clear. I haven't really looked at the stars in Santa Fe but we saw Jupiter and scorpio and the operators (astoronomers I suppose) were interested in showing clusters so we saw tight clusters and loose clusters, and a binary star. Liam really enjoyed the telescopes. Especially the very large one which they have set in obsevatory.

We spent saturday looking at the great house and great kiva ruins and completeing the junior ranger program. This one was a bit advanced for Liam but he was able to answer the questions when the ranger went through it with him. There was a what don't we stand on question which he came up with ' criptobiotic' for, thy were after 'walls' but knew what he was talking about.

It's a lovely place and the buildings are dramatic. It got very cold at night, the kids had plenty of stuff but I had only 1 jearsy each for Richard and I, still coats kept out the wind and we got into the tent early.

Sunday we drove home via a scenic route, had lunch in the Santa Fe National Forest by Cuba and drove back past the Caldera and Los Alamos.

The old woman in the shoe

Here's a link to the La Casita pictures from the pet parade.

Time for singlets

In our family as many of you know, when there is snow on the Tararuas you have to wear your singlet.

Today as I drove Liam to school I looked at the mountain in front of us ( I think Murray may have walked up it) and there glistening in the sun was a heavy icing sugar dusting of snow. The nights have definately cooled off, in fact I think we've had a frost or two, but the days have still been warm. Today there is a slight nip to the air despite the glorious sunshine.

Liam and I discussed the tree leaves and how they were starting to turn yellow, he had been finding some trees at school yesterday and matchingthem with pictures, we talked about evergreens and deciduous trees too. He probably didn't need to go to school after that.

Both days our new teacher has been visiting she's had Liam engaged in an activity of some kind. Today they were labeling the new recycle bins and putting "TRASH" labels on the rubbish bins. Liam helped write labels and stick them on and then at meeting he stood up the front and did a presentation on the new system - it was delightful, very detailed and showed ALL the bins.

Madeline had been playing with three other little girls who are only slightly older than her. She initiated several of the activities they did, they all had flowers and crowns on from the dress up area and they feed Coco the rabbit carrot tops. She losses interest during meeting time, thou she's initally keen to sit up with everyone, just then she started taking her clothes off!

You need this at the fair.

Last week the state fair was on in Albuquerque so Richard took thursday off and we all went down. It's like a really good A&P show but we happened to be there on law enforcement day so there were armoured vechiles, tanks and officers of various sorts all over the place.

There was an Indian Pueblo village where we watched some Aztec dancers. Their costumes were bright with fabulous feathers.

We looked at animals and the kids did a McDonalds Farm activity in which they were farmers who havested, drove tractors collected eggs, milked a cow, sold their wares and got an ice block for their rewards. 

Who started school?

Some how school seems to have taken over MY life, not just Liams. I've been helping out with the after care as our after care teacher is doing the main sessions since our new teacher resigned before school started. The board seems to be raising lots of issues in emails and we are trying to find, interview and appoint a new teacher which adds a few more emails. Our ideal person will partner with Lynn and have a desire to become the director of the school over the next couple of years, allowing Lynn to retire. Obviously they'll maintain the schools missions and philosphy but bring their own strengths and talents. Oh and we're a non profit so they won't want much money for this either! We have someone to interview tomorrow so hopefully they fit.

Today I participated (as well) and made scones from memory, and trying to make allowances for altitude. Several of the children helped, it was good. The scones were slightly soda-y but not too bad. They all got eaten anyway but maybe that was the jam.

I did my clean up and left as soon after 12.30 as I could knowing I need to be back for 2.30

Desfile de Los Ninos (Pet Parade)

Yesterday was Pet Parade in the Santa Fe Fiestas. La Casita had a float which was the Old woman who lived in the shoe (she had so many childern but she KNEW what to do) Several of the dads and some others built a fabulous shoe which Lynn, our teacher rode in and the children and parents pulled along. Liam was a very enthusiasitc puller. He also wanted to tie his rope onto himself and all sorts of other things.
There were heaps of people watching the parade and many of them called out to Lynn, one mother called out saying this was (I can't remember the boys name) and he went to La Casita and now he's second year in college. Lynn was delighted. Hopefully we'll get some photos but I left my camera behind.

Banishing old man gloom

It's Festas here this weekend. It kicks off tonight with Zozobra.
We thought about going.
Most people said we should.
But its pouring with rain so standing (or sitting) around outside to watch the burning of old man gloom doesn't fill me with enthusiasm.
The Santa Feans wouldn't be gloomy though they have to comment on how good the weather has been lately, all this rain!

In fact today they are putting rainbow trout in the Santa Fe River, they have been releasing water from the reservoir so that the dam's don't fail. Usually there is no water in the Santa Fe river so I hope all the trout get caught before they get to the end of the river, or it dries up again.

Tested

This morning Liam had a check up at the pediatric center here so they could look at him and say it was/ is OK for him to go to school. I booked this about three weeks ago and today was the first appointment I could get. So we headed over there for our 8.30 appointment, arriving early because it was his first visit and we needed to do paperwork first. I got there early with insurance cards but I'd forgotten his plunket book, with his immunisation record in it and the form the school wants signed, still I know know he is 38 pounds ( Madeline is 30) and 40 3/4 inches tall. His eye sight is 20/30 in both eyes and his hearing is perfect. He's had a couple of extra vacines which are standard here but not in NZ.

So when he's loud he really is just shouting at you! He can hear a pin drop.

So, late on his first day at school Madeline and I dropped him off with not a backward look. Getting Madeline to leave is harder.

Now they work on cornering

Liam currently looks at things and runs into them. today he did this to his sister as well (she's OK but is avoiding himon his bike).

Today he got much better on corners 

This is a boy whose pleased with himself!

Richard and Liam have been riding around the block for a week or two and yesterday they took Liam's training wheels of and went for a ride at the school. Liam was off by himself from the first run. 

Eat peaches!

We have a lovely peach tree in our yard it has been covered with peaches since we moved into the house. We had moments of concern when the thunderstorms lead to large hail stones, and people mentioned previously lossing tomato crops to golf ball sized hail. Over the last few weeks they have ALL become ripe so we are eating a lot of peaches. It's hard to complain about peaches which are ripe and sweet and warm from the sun. But if your nearby do pop in for a bag as there are still more on the tree and the fridge and freezer are full. It was peach muffins today. I'm thinking of peach salsa with pork for tomorrow. Getting peaches into the main meal is something I haven't achieved so far.

Humm...and Rambings

So recently we decided to rebuild my PC, it was not performing as well as it could and it was full of old stuff of Richard's. So first we went for reloading it with win2k that it was already running, seemed better but there were a few things I wanted which would be better with XP. Since it was all backed up already we decided to go ahead and move it on up.

It was all going quite nicely until yesterday when my hard disk died!

Not sure where we'll go from here - today I've stollen Richard's machine since he's out (in pouring rain and thunderstorms) playing with those new carbonfibre shafts he purchased last week.
Last weekend we went away again, our current plan is to keep heading northward's while it's warm and as it cools we'll go to some places to the south. So we went to Capulin Volcano National Moument. There has been so much rain lately that the place looks more like Taranaki than a desert, especially around Capulin where it's a volcano field. We walked around the rim, Liam and Richard went into the crater, I didn't feel like walking up again so I skipped it. It's much like most of the Auckland volcanoes craters so I don't feel I missed much. We did the junior ranger program, so Liam has another badge for his hat.

We camped by a very pretty lake, yet again there was a canyon so 'they' had to dam it. It's reputed to be very good fishing, we weren't fishing, and there are dinosaur tracks which were exposed after they dug the spillway for the dam.
Unfortunately for us a group of loud teenagers turned up about 11 and decided to camp next to us. Liam and Madeline slept on fine and I think Richard slept most of the time but I was awake a lot. I'm pretty convinced NZ and US teenagers are much the same, I recognised the music there were no astonishing conversation topics, they threw stones at things, all I noticed as different was the size of their vechiles. Even kids have enormous pick up trucks.

We were backtracking to head home on sunday so I saw less of the plains but I woke up before we got to Kiowa National Grassland in Harding county. We visited the Canadian River Canyon which has some interesting history. I had fun with two cameras taking pictures of the ruins of the buildings. The new camera came with an 18 - 55mm lens so when I put it onto my old camera it give a really wide angle - quite fun. I have black and white film in it currently, hopefully I'll get some arty results. It is nice to have the instant results of the digital, thou I haven't downloaded it yet( thankfully with the hard disk having died ) so you can't see any pic's.

We had our own car back for the trip which was nice it's taken about two weeks to chevy to get the parts and panel work done after someone drove into the rear wheel when Richard was driving round town. We've been driving a red ford explorer, Liam really likes cars with extra seats in the rear, he sat in the very back and got into the car through the boot.

Liam's excitement for the weekend was a yard sale across the road had bunk beds for sale, we saw them as we went to LLL on friday and they were still there when we came back, we had to run over because someone else was aproaching the yard sale and Liam was concerned they'd get the beds before us. Charles needs to be aware the bottom bed has been alocated as his. (too bad if Madeline decides she wants her own bed before then). The people were really nice to and delivered and set the beds up. So now Liam sleeps all night in his own bed. Except tonight when he's staying at Alex's place.

He went to play this morning and so Madeline and I went to the outlet mall, we returned successfully with underwear, shoes and books.