Emily: Happy Big Ten Look Where You've Been.

!!!!!!!!!! HAPPY 10TH BIRTHDAY !!!!!!!

Emily between ages One and Three (Three being Elizabeth's age now). Seems like yesterday.








Nine years ago:
Em (1), Daniel, and John









Em (2+) and Tali (not even one yet.)










Gwen and Emily sharing pigtails. :)











Left: Em (3+) wading in the Llano River (2000).
Right: ALB and Em at the same spot (2006).















Left: Em (3+) at Cedar Hill School (2000).
Right: ALB and Em at same spot (2006).














Em (2+) and CandyCane the day he was brought home.
Jan 2000.











Em dressed to carry the British Flag on international day at church.











Em (3) eating a donut.

Happy Birthday Emily From Aunt TK!!!!

Happy Birthday From Aunt TK

Security: Amazing It Works !

Three Mexican nationals arrest trying to get a LANL badge.

I am surprised.

Cool Bible Translation

He mea hanga na te atua i te timatanga te rangi me te whenua.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Māori Translation

Some Birthday Presents

Opening cards









"Ohhh...I love it"
Dolly named "Elizabeth Ray"











"Ohh...I love it"
Tea set








This will be great on rainy and snowy days for
both girls.










Zoo Polar Bear named "its name is Elizabeth"










Thanks Grandmas (Rado and Texas), Grandpa, and Aunt TK.

RWC: NZ 76 - Italy 14

The All-Blacks locked this one up btw 11-17 mins with the score being 38-0 at minute 17 or theres abouts. Italy has recently shown very good form but today they just did not show up in the beginning and the ABs took advantage of that in a way that only the ABs could.

Rubgy World Cup (RWC) Begun! Upset already

The 2007 Ruby World Cup has begun! And one of the favorites, host side France, has lost a bit of a shocker to Argentina! Argentina 17 - France 12.

Argentina is my second favorite test side behind the All-Blacks. They are usually a tough side that can surprise you as they did France. Wow.

Tomorrow is three tests...one is NZ vs Italy. I look forward to it.

Aunt TK's present to ALB

Cuz

Cuz Sheila with her husband Mark and their two kids Cole and Isabella. They unfortunately live in Okieland but we will overlook that fact. I hope I remembered all their names. :)







Cole looks to be heading to school. I gather it is pre-K time. He has really grown up fast. He will be five this year.










Isabella is only a couple months old and looks to be a bit of a ham by making faces. Well that is what it looks like anyway. What a cutie.

Cool Sentences

At school Emily had to use some spelling words in sentences. Here is two cool sentences that she brought home:

My sister is very belligerent.

I vanquished my fear.


I particularly like the last sentence. Very cool.

Elizabeth: Happy 3rd Birthday !!!!!

!!!!!! Happy 3rd Birthday !!!!!!!

We Love You,
A Little Bit !!!!!

Love
Emily, Mom, and Dad

CandyCane Loves You Too!!!!!

Josh's Barbecue in Santa Fe (* * *)

Location: Santa Fe down Cerrillos Road in the San Isidro Plaza across from a Lowe's Home Center and adjacent to the new Regal Cinema 14.

Style BBQ: Southwest (Oklahoma and Texas) with a bit of New Mexican flavor.

Meats: Polish Sausage, Hot Links, Brisket, Turkey, Ribs, Pulled Pork

Sides: Tater salad, Green Chile Corn Bread, Cowboy beans, cole slaw, corn on the cob, baked tater

Today a friend at work, knowing that I love good BBQ especially Texas style, told me about Josh's. He said he thought the brisket was as good as it gets in New Mexico. So I could not stand it and called Gwen and arranged for us to have dinner down in Santa Fe.

The place smelled of a wood fire BBQ pit. You can order the meat by the half pound or they have one meat and two meat plates or family style. Between the four of us we got the brisket, polish sausage, and hot links. Sides were tater salad, green chile cornbread, corn on the cob, baked potato, and cowboy beans. And I got ice tea. :)

Of all this the most notable was the brisket and cornbread. Both were good. The brisket was definitely moist and had a good yet weak flavor. I think they did not have a good rub on it if at all. Gwen enjoyed it too. I think Rudy's is as good...not as moist but stronger flavor.

The cornbread was very good. It was a sweet cornbread but with green chiles in it but not overwhelming. Actually a nice combo but why does everything in NM have to have chiles in it? Chiles are not THAT good. Good for variety but terrible when overwhelming everything else.

The most disappointing was the iced tea, polish sausage, and tater salad. The iced tea was a flavored one like a cross between a weak Earl Grey and prickly-pear flavor. It was NOT sweet and it was NOT plain ole iced tea. I switched to pop after I finished that glass.

The polish sausage was a huge disappointment. Gwen and I both were not impressed. Gwen said it tasted like a grilled hot dog. That should sum it up. Even Bodacious Bob's sausage is better and that ain't saying much. Rudy's has a huge advantage.

For my personal tastes the tater salad was a disappointment. But with that said I have to say that for its type of tater salad it was good. It was a mayonnaise based salad with taters and celery. I forget what else was in it. It was good for what it was but I just have a strong preference to a yellow mustard based salad. Gwen on the other hand liked it a lot saying it reminded her of her mom' s tater salad.

This all does not mention the BBQ sauces. They had three on the table.... seasonal, traditional mild, and traditional hot. The seasonal was nice but it was not really a BBQ sauce...it had a strong taste of bourbon or something. The other two were not what I think of for BBQ sauce.
So be warned.

All in all I would say this is a place to visit every now and then. NM is not strong on BBQ food in the first place. It cannot replace Rudy's right now as my NM BBQ place to head for. But I can give it 3 stars. It is a order at the window and sit down to be served kind of place. Not as much atmosphere as Rudy's at all.

We still have not visited the Whole Hog BBQ which is a Arkansas BBQ style. But then again I am not a big fan of pulled pork.

Here is a review I found on the web at Gil's Thrilling Web Site.

Labor Day Weekend - ABQ Zoo

Yesterday, along with a lot of Los Alamos, we went to the Albuquerque to visit the Zoo. When Elizabeth found out we were going to the zoo she let out a shrill that sounded more like she was hurt than happy. Her favorite part of the zoo was the elephants as she has repeatedly told us since then.



Emily self-portrait. She is just pensive.









Bird woman. Gwen spent almost her whole time with the birds trying to get one to crawl out on her arm. :)








Emily was just tall enough to feed the birds easily. Lorikeets from Oz if I remember correctly.










Hard to see the seal swimming behind Elizabeth. Just a shadow behind her head.












Looking at the giraffes.










Riding the train through the park. Turns out to be one of the few reliefs from the heat yesterday. I know it was not real hot but hot enough to keep me thirsty and sweating. Maybe 100F at best. The train ride was nice.





Elizabeth was so excited to see the polar bears that she went to the zoo store and bought a stuffed one. On the way home she asked us if it was ok to name a bear "Elizabeth?" We thought it was a great name and said yes. :)






We have a job perfect for Joe Schmidt. He will not even need a new uniform. :)

"What Just Happened?"

Yesterday, I took Emily and Elizabeth to the playground at Emily's school. This play ground has a small spinning pole game where you can stand on it and hug the pole and spin around. The foot platform works just right as a seat for Elizabeth to sit, straddle and hug the pole. I told her to hold on tight and I would spin her. I did not think I spun the pole very fast but as she is spinning I she her face looks a bit scared or something akin to that.

I stop the spinning and Elizabeth is sorta hanging on sideways and not moving much. So I grab her and try to set her standing on the ground but her legs would not work and were like rubber. I just snatched her up and held her until the dizziness settled. She was wild eyed and totally out of it. She was looking around like she could not see anything straight. She did not say a thing and just was in a trance it looked like. I turned her to face Emily on the playground and she finally spoke.

In a shaky, shocked, pitiful , but yet inquisitive voice she asked, "What just happened?" :)

I was very relieved to hear her speak and laughed out loud as did Emily. I guess she had not ever been really dizzy before and was a bit surprised by the experience. Her reaction to it all surprised me and made my heart skip a beat or two.

WhiteBait .... Yum

Not!
Left is a whitebait fisherman. I guess the pickings are slim this whitebait season. This seemed to be a very Kiwi thing while we lived there. A fritter full of whitebait is an acquired taste.

There are grittles fired up outside stores and other places where they would be selling whitebait fritters sorta how we sell hotdogs or what not.

Photo by JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/The Press

I could not find many pictures of whitebait or a fritter. But I did find this website by a Kiwi photographer. Since I could not download or link to images without breaking copy-right then here are links to the pages with some examples.

Whitebait by David Wall

Fritter by David Wall


David has some great pictures of NZ at his website. Very cool.

New Zealand Rugby - Texas Football

Only New Zealand's love of rugby comes close to Texan's love of football. The Rugby World Cup starts next week in France. NZ won the inaugural World Cup in 1987. Since then they have been favorites ever Cup (91', 95', 99', & 03') but have not brought home the Webb trophy since 1987. They are a Cup starved country for twenty years but again this year the All-Blacks are favorites .... and are looking good over the last four years.

The picture (by JOHN SELKIRK/Dominion Post) shows Richie McCaw (captain) holding a capsule that is filled with dirt from the rugby grounds of every All-Black ever. Turns out there are 1071 capped All-Blacks. I am not positive but I think each All-Black going France this year was presented with a small capsule while the captain received a larger one.

Talk about crazed fans and country. Expectations are high and NZ will not easily accept less than the Webb trophy this time.

Andrew Gilbert now in Oz

This is Leaf and Andrew in New Zealand. They are engaged, at least when I last checked since they maybe married by now.

Andrew is a good friend from New Zealand who also is part of the Wildbunch from Massey. He was the young pup of the group.

Andrew is now working at ANU in Canberra with Peter Gill.

Adamson Family in New Zealand

Sharon, Ross, and Nathan (two yrs) Adamson.

Ross is a good friend from New Zealand (one of the Wildbunch from Massey) though we have not seen each other in about ten years now. At least he writes. ;)


The Adamsons live in Wellington.

The Day Of The Fairies

Audrey Nolen had her birthday party yesterday and the theme was Fairies. So April set it up so they could make wings and wands.


Audrey enjoying her cake and goodies.

The reviews from Audrey were wonderful. Sounds like she had the best time ever.





Here is Elizabeth with her Fairie wings from the party.

A Kiwi Night

Yesterday evening we had a passel of Kiwi's over to visit and pizza.

The whole Burrell family (Tony, Margret, Jack, and Erin). Paul Plieger, a former Tony PD, who is now a Lecturer at Massey University and one of his students Karl. Also a couple (Mark and Michelle) from Wellington who have been living here for three months but are off to Washington state for three more months.

It was good to see everyone, especially the Burrells who have been gone most of the summer.

It was nice to catch up and find out what Paul and Isabelle have been up to since moving back to NZ They have a place to live up near Atawhai where Peter and Elizabeth lived when we first moved to NZ. Paul is working on proton sponges and doing research on Beryllium. He is using that "G" code which he bought but I encouraged him to get a demo of Q-Chem and if it can do what he wants then switch on principle. ;) Also told him of Banned By Gaussian. Here is a recent article on the issue.














On another note: Mark and Michelle are very nice. Too bad we just met them before they moved away. They just bought a 1989 Dodge ute (Pickup) for their trip to Washington state. It seems Michelle has always wanted a pickup for some reason. They got a pretty good deal since it only had around 75,000 miles and is 17 yrs old. I pray it works out well for them.

It was a nice evening.

The Wild Bunch From Massey University

Massey University
Theoretical Chemistry Group
Circa 1996






Back: (L-R) Jeremy Dombroski & Andrew Gilbert.
Front:(L-R) Ross Adamson, Peter Gill, & Terry Adams
Missing is Phillip Stewart

Grandma Texas in Red River, NM

Grandma TX, Aunt TK, and Marcia come to
Red River every summer they get a chance.
We went to visit them in July.



Grandma TX and the girls.

A Little Bit First Bed

A Little Bit's first night in her big girl bed





Elizabeth at 9:40pm
in the evening.





Elizabeth at 4:40am
later in the morning.

These Boots Are Made For Walking

Guess Dad's shoes are bigger to fill than they thought.

Back Online!

Our main computer got hosed for the internet connection. We had to move to a
spare machine. Thanks Mom. :)

All is better for now.

Haka

Bless you. :)

NO I mean the Haka. A New Zealand Maori dance so to speak that is an absolute must to see when performed by the All-Blacks. They perform this before every test (game) in front of the opposing side (team).

HAKA

Have a look at some of the video clips.

First Day Of School

Emily was off to her first day of fourth grade. Wow. Seems just like
yesterday I was lamenting her getting on the bus and going to kindergarten.

Elizabeth says she will soon be a big girl and go to school too. :)

Emily got the teacher she wanted and a class full of kids she knows pretty well. So it should be a good start to a great year. :)

Both of the girls are a bit sickly though. Emily has a sore throat and Elizabeth a runny nose. First day of school and they both get sick on cue.

Well for me it is only a few more weeks til the Rugby World Cup starts in France. The All-Blacks still look strong but not quite as strong as over the last two years. They really need a dominant form to pull the Cup out. It is a tough tournament.

Big Ben Silenced!

Emily will a bit sad to find out they are going to stop the bell Big Ben from ringing for a month. But at least it is for maintenance.

Big Ben Story

Elizabeth Ray

Elizabeth Ray
Summer of 2005
At Gabriel's during
Peter and Elizabeth Gill's visit









Elizabeth Ray
Summer of 2007









It has been two fast years since Peter and Elizabeth were here to visit. And Elizabeth and Emily have grown so much.

And we miss the Gill's so much too.