It's all about my Girls

Seems every day my girls say and do things that brings me joy and I never have time to stop and share them here. Let's see if I can remember a few things to share.

Last week at school it seems that a teacher came in to Emily's third grade class to explain to them all about student council and wanted kids that were interested to volunteer their name to be voted on by their class. Emily thought student council sounded interesting and volunteered her name. Seems that her and a boy, Cody, in her class were voted into the student council! Wow.

During the day one of Emily's teachers called to let Gwen know that Emily was now on the student council and that the first meeting of the council was that same day after school for an hour. So Gwen had to wait til 4pm to go get Emily. Emily was excited and enjoyed the council meeting. They are planning on some activities that the students can do over the school year.
Then this week they had to report back to their class about what the student council talked about.

It goes without saying that Gwen and I are proud of Emily. We were surprised she volunteered to begin with but proud she did volunteer. She told us when she volunteered that she did not think she would get picked since she never gets picked for anything. But I am not sure that the opportunity to be picked has come up that much in her short school career. She is excited and seems to be enjoying doing this at school.
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Emily is also starting to get quite the sense of humor too. Yesterday morning when I was helping her get ready for school she was brushing her hair and looking for something to hold her hair up. As she was digging thru her box of hair things I thinking, "If I were you I would use a hair band." but it came out, "I would use a hair band." Without missing a beat and still looking down digging thru her box for some hair thingys she ever so calmly and dryly said, "I don't think you would look that good with a hair band Dad." Ouch! My own daughter nailed me with one of my typical comeback lines. She made me laugh. :)
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Now Elizabeth is just funny without knowing she is funny. The other day when we were eating a snack in the family room she had not quite finished her little chunks of cut cheese. While reclining in my Lazyboy I said to her several times Elizabeth, "Please finish your cheese" to which she did not do it. Finally I thought I would add to my request with some logic. So I said, "Elizabeth please finish your cheese so Dad does not want to have to throw it away."

She heard that and moved toward her plate and I thought she understood my logic...wow. She proceeded to pick up her plate and said, "I throw in trash" as she head toward the trash can! She decided that she would help her Dad out and throw it in the trash so Dad would not have to inconvenience himself and get up to throw it in the trash. :) We started laughing telling her ... no no. Guess we have to be careful with our words and be specific. ;)

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Now my last, but first, girl brought home a new bedroom set for our bedroom. It looks brand new and is beautiful. She picked it up as folks were delivering it to the VFW for a garage-like sale. I am amazed at the deal she got on it and how nice the bedroom set is.... Only Gwen would see it in the pick-up as they delivered it to the VFW then stop and ask how much they want for it. The folks never had to unload at the VFW...they just brought it straight to our house to unload it. I am actually pretty excited about it too.


Let's see it is college football gameday. UT-OU in the Cottonbowl. Undefeated Miz at Tech. Oh and of course for Tech ... last weeks last second victory over A&M is still buzzing. ;) Gotta love it. Tech is actually not very good this year as compared to previous years but it is still nice to beat A&M. Now if they could take out UT this year it would be nice.

We have to go get Emily this morning. She had a sleep over at the Schmidt's after we had dinner at their place. This is a long weekend due to Columbus Day. I really need them too. We are now about one month away from heading across the pond to Mother England. Guess we gotta start getting ready. :) I look forward to it and then I do not look forward to it. The traveling part I do not look forward to at all. With two kids and my legs it will be a long trip. But we will have the smiling faces of the Nolen's to look forward to though.

Well ALB is waking up and making noise. Guess I need to get her out of bed.

Defining "Meat" Pie in Oz-NZ

Interesting debate over just what defines meat and how much needs to be in a meat pie to be called a meat pie. Defining "Meat" Pies in Oz-NZ. If that does not make you pause before eating one of those knarley foods then I do not know what will.



Now back to Friday Night Light. TK said she thought it was pretty good and Kyle Chandler was good in it. I would agree that it looked like it was well made, which is not a surprise since Peter Berg is involved, and of course Kyle Chandler is good in pretty much anything he does. I miss the series Homefront and Early Edition which he was excellent in both. Peter Berg was in one of my favorite movies "Late For Dinner".

With that said I am not sure the content of the show is necessarily all that good or healthy. I thought the theater movie was a tad over the top about West Texas high school football as compared to what it is really like but the episode I watched tonight was way over the top compared to what really goes on. Again Beverly Hills 90210 comes to mind.

Now some of the scenes in this episode's content were unnecessary and pure hollywood at times and for a lack of a better word "nasty" and not a very good examples for our youth today. I hope this does not teach the youth today that those scenes were normal or healthy for young or old alike.

I was surprised and pleased they changed the plot so that the team is at Dillon HS and not Odessa Permian HS. Though they keep the white helmets with a dark stripe and a big P on the side. They made the dark color green instead of black. Interestingly enough I had not thought about the P on the Permian helmet being for Panthers which it could but I have always thought it meant Permian. I am not sure which word the P is for actually.

And was that Mac Brown playing a booster talking up his expectations for the season to coach, Kyle Chandler? Interesting if it was.... I can believe boosters talk like that to a coach. Thought I could not imagine Dad talking like that to the coach.

I have to admit I enough watching the scenes during the games. Interesting to see how close they play those and if they come close to how it feels and is.

Anyway, if the other episode are anything like this one then it saddens me that they are making an example out of Friday Night Lights on TV.

Friday Night Lights the TV show!?

I just saw a commercial for the new TV show Friday Night Lights. I just cannot believe this at all. Talk about now knowing how Beverly Hills folks might have felt when BH 90210...hope I got that
zip right...never really watched that show. How I felt watching the commercial for FNL was...well... ah.. the word embarrassed comes to mind.

I imagine that it has been common knowledge FNL was coming out as a TV show but since we do not watch the big three networks much at all anymore then I never saw it coming. Oh well. It was enough hard watching the movie since it brought back a lot of memories of playing West Texas high school football in the middle of that. Though the movie went over the top with a lot of it. I guess the TV show will go over the top way too much. The commercial was over the top. We can only hope it stays on the air for one season or less. :) I hate to think how it influence the kids today .... I pray not.



Well on a different note. The weather is getting chillier and chillier. We have had frost on the
ground for a couple of weeks. It tried to pill snow yesterday when we were heading out for dinner during a rainstorm. At this rate we may have snow for winter this year....yeah!

Let's see we have our tickets for England. I do not know the exact dates but it will be two weeks in the middle of November. Guess we better start getting ready since that time is coming upon us fast.

Well there is a lot of work to do today to get ready for the winter. I wonder how much I will feel like doing this weekend. :)

Just a good photo

Elizabeth has some interesting and funny sayings now. Just the other day while Gwen and Elizabeth were eating out there was a NFL football game on in the background where if you bothered looking over you could see the game. After awhile Gwen noticed that Elizabeth was looking at the game and saying, "Owy Owy Owy." Gwen looked over and saw that the QB Trent Green of the KC Chiefs was knocked out on the ground and Elizabeth was saying, "Owy Owy Owy." After that Elizabeth started calling football players "Owy Guys".

We change channels now and no matter how quickly we go by a football game she says "Owy Guys" almost immediately. She sorta draws the Owy on just a bit too.

Nifty Nines !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!! Happy 9th Birthday !!!!!!!!!!

Emily, Emmy, Em, or VarmintNo1

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We Love You, Emily !!!!!
Mom, Elizabeth, and Dad



And
Happy 15th Anniversary !!!!
I Love you Gwen.

Terrific Twos!

2nd Birthday cake. Yummy.

This went with sausage and taters which is one of Elizabeth's favorite meals.











Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street. Elmo is her favorite.











Oh boy and Indian doll just like Emmy's.
Thx Grandma and Grandpa Rado.










Everyone smile. This is Elizabeth's smile on demand. Looks painful but it is joyous.

Talk about pushing and pulling a stroller around the house all the time. No dolly is safe from rides in this stroller.

Thanks Grandma Texas and Aunt TK.






Recognize this Aunt TK. Emily decided to pass it on
down the line to Elizabeth. She likes it alot.












Look at that long drink of water. Nine next week. My how they grow.











Well that is all I can get up before going to Church. More later today if I get time.

A Little Face Paint

Emily and Elizabeth got to do a little face painting at the Santa Fe Childrens Museum this last weekend.

I put my standard tattoo on her face. She liked it so much she slept with it on.

Lately she has been mimicking a lot of what we say. The other day I said to Emily, "I'm sorry babe." And ALB went walking down the hallway with her stroller saying, "I surry babe" over and over.

She calls pineapple, "apele" and when she sees pictures on Aunt TK's website then she starts calling out, "baaby squrrels...baaby squrrels" in reference to the pictures of some baby squirrels.

New Car and Car Barn Door

Here is our new Saturn Relay and the new car barn door. The car is a good bit larger but it seats only two more people than the little Honda Passport did. It has a DVD player with remote and wireless head phones. It is the first brand new car Gwen and I have owned together. We have bought used cars til now. And it is the first automatic we have had too. But that is not surprising since sticks are getting harder and harder to find. If we find one in the future models then we will trade for one of those. :)

The garage door works smoothly and has Gwen ready for the winter and hopefully some snow this winter. :) They have to come back and replace the window modules since they are the wrong style to what we ordered.

Sunny Day ... Sweepin' The Clouds Away ...

on my way to where the air is sweet.

Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?____

Lazy Weekend

Well we didn't do much over the weekend so far. Two hightlights were when Mary Beth and Bob Stevens had Emily and Elizabeth over to play with their girls while Gwen and I went out to eat at the Blue Window. Turns out the newly reopened Blue Window is a breath of fresh air in Los Alamos for eating joints. The food was very good though the price is pretty steep. It was nice to get out without the kids every once in awhile.

Then on Sunday after church the Schmidt's and us went to Santa Fe to eat at Olive Garden and then we went to play at the Santa Fe Children's Museum.

One of the cool things was the soap bubble toys. Here is Will Schmidt showing us how to get stuck in a bubble. You can make a really tall bubble using this bubble toy. But you have to be quick because as you raise the bubble up it starts to collapse into the person making it. I think the rate it collapsed had to do with how much static electricity you were charged up with on your body.



Then Will really got stuck in a bubble and we were not sure he would get out. Luckily for Will those bubbles were pretty easy to pop.





It was a pretty interesting place. Emily and Emma both got to do a rock wall climb. Amazing how kids can climb like monkeys.



Here is a picture of our yard and street just so y'all can see just how wet it has been for the last two and a tad plus months. Amazingly green here.

Review: The Spiderwick Chronicles

The Spiderwick Chronicles by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black
A Five Book Series

Books:
1) The Field Guide
2) The Seeing Stone
3) Lucinda's Secret
4) The Ironwood Tree
5) The Wrath of Mulgrath


The premise of these books is an interesting one. The authors DiTerlizzi and Black start with writing a letter to the readers explaining how they come upon this bizarre story. They explain in their letter that they received a letter addressed directly to them from the Grace children, nine-year-old twins Simon and Jared and their thirteen- year-old sister Mallory. In this letter the Grace children tell about a book they have found that explains about faeries and ask the authors to publish it so that others will learn about faeries. The authors then wrote back to the Grace children and had the Grace children show up on their door step to tell the amazingly "true" stories that are now written down and illustrated in these books. So goes the story.

Turns out the stories are not only about faeries but about goblins, hobgoblins, brownies, boggarts, tolls, and many many more creatures which turn out to be humorous, intriguing, dangerous, and frightening. The books are not very long and are basically like serial stories with the next installment in each book.

I have read the books and each took about an hour to read even with kids interrupting me. Each book is like a chapter installation in a series. The stories are well written and engaging. They appear to be targeted to young readers in about second and third grade range. As a matter of fact, I first heard of these books from Emily. Her second grade teacher read them to the class. Emily was very excited about the the different creatures in the story.

Though they are almost well targeted to young readers, readers of all ages may find them an interesting. The authors put a lot of work into the books and do compliment these books with some excellent artwork that brings the books to life. In doing so the these little books are hard covered and illustrated beautifully. With that said the price of each book reflects this too....at about Ten bucks a pop. I bought the first book since I found one at the Otowi book store. But since then I plan to be using the library to read the other ones. Actually Emily checked out Book Two from her school library for me. :)

Now there are some things in these books that give me caution especially for young readers:

• The stories are scary.
  
• The creatures can be dangerous and cruel.
  
• There is some uncalled for and unnecessary Language.
  
• The humor is sometimes irreverent and deprecating.
  
• Disobedience to parents.
  
• Lies and lies of omission.
  

The stories can be very scary. This was illustrated by Emily saying that she did not want to read or hear the stories close to bedtime. She admits they are scary.

The creatures can be dangerous and cruel. They eat various animals (other's pets included) regularly as part of their diet. The Grace children are even worried they will eat children. One creature, a brownie, who is starting to become a boggart (notorious for being mean) secretly and cruelly freezes one of the twin's tadpoles in ice cubes in an ice tray. He did this in an attempt to get the other twin in trouble with the rest of the family.

There is some language in the book that just is not necessary, and uncalled for, to the stories. The language adds no value to the stories. There is the use of the word "crappiers" to describe the new house they move into. Or a hobgoblin who throws insults around like Dumbilina, Candy Butt, Jingle Brains, and several others. This was done in a way to be humorous..which leads to...

Many of the creature's humor is irreverent and deprecating much like the smart allicky kids portrayed in many of the movies and on TV shows these days.

The children at times lie through omission if not directly to their mother. They do things that they have been told not to do directly by the mother or they know that their mother would not approve. Of course I know that it is hard to have an adventure or fantasy when young by obeying the rules and being respectful of your parents. But we have to ask ourselves if the ends justify the means too.

With this said the books are interesting and well done. With a good bit of parental guidance then I can honestly say that I do not mind Emily reading them.


Spiderwick The Movie

On another note, I finished the first book in Pullman's Dark Material a few week ago and have meant to write my thoughts about it and about the research I have done about Pullman but just have not had time to finish it and post it. Hopefully soon.

Following the All-Blacks Ain't Easy. Emily Story.

Following the All-Blacks can be hard to do in this country. One would think with the way instant communication is going and that you can get anything on the satellite then it would be easy to follow the ABs. Well not really. At least not actually watching it live. Oh one can pay for it but the cost is not as simple as wanting to watch rugby only. I would have to get Dish or the like and then have the service to watch Fox Soccer Channel then payperview for the rugby tests.

Anyway, the best I can do is go to a NZ website and hope for an audio feed and text commentary at least. So that is what I do. I have found that www.nzoom.com has both that is pretty good. I pull up the text commentary just to see stats and so forth. But I also fireup an audio feed which is NZ biased as heck but then that is ok. Sorta like when I listen to a Cowboys game on the radio...it is usually biased Dallas announcers like ex-Cowboy Babe Laflenburger (spell).

So the audio feed has an email address where you can send in comments to the announcers. I usually send them one saying thanks and they read off my name and location. Sorta fun to send an email to the other side of the world and in a minute or less they read off your name. :)

Well, Emily was up with me Saturday morning listening to the AB vs SA and so I sent in an email from her. Within about 30 seconds there was text on the text commentary with Emily's name. Pretty cool! See out take from the 69th minute of the test below. Then in about a minute or so they read off her name on the audio. Of course she was upset with me for putting her in the public spotlight. Hopefully she has forgiven me.

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69 mins: Emily Adams, thanks for the support! I love the All Blacks too, hope you are enjoying my unbiased commentary. We waste another few minutes trying to set a Springbok scrum and the referee is getting frustrated, giving away a penalty to the home side.

68 mins: The All Blacks' line-out throw is a shocker and the Springboks steal it easily. du Preez clears past halfway with a huge touch-finder.

67 mins: The luck goes in favour of the ABs as the Springboks are called for a shepherd.
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Another fun thing is to listen to the Kiwis and their accents. Emily thinks they are funny. One of my favorite expressions of the Kiwis is the line in the 68th minute. Shocker! Imagine that with a strong Kiwi accent (or say Scottish or Welsh accent.) Usually means awful or surprising. A real shocker.

Anyway, it was fun to listen to the test Sat. morning even if Emily got upset with her Dad.

Oh and the ABs won 45 to 26. They are 5-0 in the Tri-Nations with one test to go against SA again.

Feels like summer is ending

Sorta strange around here. With the rains still coming and school already started it feels like falls. This morning it is cool and wet. I wondered if the heater was going to have to come on for the night time. Guess I need to get someone over to look at the furnaces in case some cold spells hit us early.

Well Elizabeth seems to have a bit of a cold. She has a runny nose and is a bit cranky. Clings to Mom a great bit. Gwen may have it now too.

Elizabeth has been fun to watch lately. She is starting to assert herself a bit. The other day the cat was in the window and got his claw stuck in the screen. I looked at him and said to stop it then went back to reading a book paying him no mind. In a minute I notice Elizabeth standing there as close to him as she could get and scolding him, "NooooTankU" over and over waving her arm at him. Sorta like saying bad kitty...stop it.

On another note the men in house are back up to equal numbers with the women. Emily and Elizabeth brought home a new beta fish name Rescue. They got him at WalMart where it seems many of the fish there were dead so they rescued him thus the name Rescue. We do not know if he has much life left in him but at least he might have nicer remaining days at our house. Rescue is sorta orangish with some albino looking features. So far so good.

Emily has started school off pretty good with doing well on her first spelling test. And made a 100% on her pre-test too. Looks like she may start off where she left second grade.

It looks like we will get a new carbarn door in a few weeks. We had the Overhead Door person here yesterday and have one on order. Yea. No more opening the heavy wood door with hail broke windows. :) And maybe a clean out the carbarn so a car can get into it for the up coming winter.

Let's see Tim Davenport went back to Tech last week for the start of his last year. He will be switching from Engineering-Physics to Computer Science as his major. Nate Limback started school here last week at UNM-LA and is on track to finish Dec 2007. He has had to change his schedule at least twice due to classes not making.

I am looking forward to the football season. I think the Cowboys and the Red Raiders will have very good years. I think Dallas' weaknesses are the offense line and QB. Of course again several Big 12 schools are picked over Tech like they are every year and Tech does better than picked. At least the last three or four years have been like. No respect. We will see how it goes.


Well I am fixin to turn on the audio over the internet and listen to the All-Blacks play South Africa in SA. Luckily it is in SA so the time change puts it on at a decent hour here. :)

All-Blacks Win!! Take Tri-Nations Cup!

Well after only playing four out of the six tests the All-Blacks have taken the Tri-Nations Cup. They beat Oz 34-27 in Auckland. They still have two tests left with South Africa in SA but they have enough wins and points to take the cup. They also took the Bledisloe Cup which is a prize that is between NZ and Oz only.

Life's Lessons - From 10yr olds

Here is an article from a Sport Illustrated writer. He coaches 10yr old Little Leaguers. I found the lessons interesting.
Just click on the post Title Above to go to that article.


The Lessons.
1. Free Yourself From Expectations.
2. Be wary of adults who don't smile around children.
3. Look out the airplane window and daydream.
4. Go Bowling.
5. Childhood passes quickly enough; don't rush it.
6. Cherish every moment.

Happening things

This first part is more for Steve and April. At church last week Luke Johnson and Devine Shunk got baptized. Luke is as tall as Chuck now and Devine is so much taller that Chuck asked him to kneel or something. Devine actually sat down on his bottom in the baptismal and was still sticking out of the water good enough for Chuck to baptize him. It was a fun moment. Devine is Kendras husband if you do not remember him. Both of them are very tall.

Elsewhere in the news...Gwen noticed that Metzger's gas station was not selling Krispy Kremes anymore and asked why not. Turns out that the Santa Fe Krispy Kremes went out of business! So Metzgers did not have a supplier anymore.

In White Rock, Rocky Mountain Automotive closed its doors. I am sure Ruth is not surprised and very satisfied after her ordeal with them and her car.

Noticed on the Weather channel last night that it has Los Alamos down for just over 14 inches of moisture for the month of August! Yikes. I might have believed 14 inches since the last week in June but not just for 13 days! That is our annual average moisture. Lee Ankeny said he would check the local weather machine webpage and see what it says. I will report back what they received.

We have had alot of rain since the end of June. This does not mean the drought has stopped since we only got one-quarter of an inch of moisture from October to the first day spring last winter. But the monsoons have gone on longer than normal and this is much more like when we arrived here in 98' and 99'.

Emily got to do some beginning of school shopping. School starts Wednesday here. Third grade it is for her. :)

Sir Donald (The Don) Bradman

Well, I know these types of posts may not be of interest to family and friends but in the spirit of broadening ones knowledge of culture I am posting this one. Also in the spirit of the Nolen's being in England then cricket is appropriate.


Donald Bradman (of Oz) is considered the greatest batsman in the history of Test Cricket. It is hard to compare the statistics of cricket to baseball. In cricket they do not have what I would call a batting average but they do have what is called a Career Test Batting Average which is the average number of runs hit in per Test. A century (100 runs) is very impressive for one Test in ones career and many batters collect a century or more off and on. But no one has a Career Test Batting Average that comes close to a century except for Donald Bradman. The Don has an average of 99.94 runs for his career (20 years) test batting average and most likely would have stayed over 100 runs if it were not for scoring a duck (or scoring zero) runs at his last at bat before retiring. To put Bradman's accomplishment into perspective then looking at the next closest batsman you will find an average of 60.97 runs. And this record stands still today even though Bradman retired in 1948.

While in NZ we heard alot about Bradman who was at the time still alive. He passed on in 2001. He was highly respected and universally liked. I once saw a picture taken of Bradman shaking Babe Ruth's hand in the stands of a Major League Baseball game. A very interesting contrast to say the least.

To follow and learn more about cricket then go here to Cricinfo.com.

Car Bed and other wonderful things. :)

Here is Elizabeth's first bed. Instead of the Emily's first bed Gwen decided to get one like this since ALB likes the truck shopping carts at Smiths so much. So Emily and her make a fort out of it and play in it for now.

We tried an ALB nap the other day but she got up and come back into the family room almost immediately. So the crib stays til she figures a way out of it regularly. :)


This one is for April. Recognize the dress April? It is so cute. Believe it or not ALB looked even cuter in it than this picture shows. She wore it to church and her first day of Childrens Church and Sunday School. No nursery for her anymore. She is a big girl now. Picture courtesy of Emily.










This is one atop the tram in Estes Park. Bob and the girls went to feed the chipmunks and squirrels. They got a good look around Estes Park from up there. See the Stanley Hotel below. Picture courtesy of Emily.






Emily took this one of Elizabeth and Grandpa Colorado. It is not totally in focus but it was very sweet.







Here is the picture of the Stanley in Estes Park, CO. It is a site to see when driving through the town. Of course legend has it that Stephen King based The Shining around the Stanley but he denies it in the beginning of the book. Picture courtesy of Emily.







This one is for Steve. I am sure he is needing a chile fix something bad. And Viola's is the place to go for that. We had lunch the other day with the Mallets here.

Greatest Game Ever Played

An incredible, but true, underdog story about a twenty year old amateur named Francis Ouimet and his ten year old caddie named Eddie Lowery at the 1913 U.S. Open. This poster was created using a real image of the two walking up one of the fairways at the 1913 U.S. Open. The image was selected as the logo for the USGA 's Centennial celebration.

"Mr." Ouimet won that Open beating Harry Vardon, whom many consider to be the greatest British golfer in history even today, in a playoff.

Ouimet and Lowery's stories were only beginning and are incredible in themselves.

Link to Francis Ouimet's story with links to all the other players found at this site. Please follow it and learn more about these incredible men.

All this was kick started by the Disney Movie called The Greatest Game Ever Played starring Shia LeBeouf of Even Stevens fame. Shia did a great job in this movie. The movie was is a good one to watch if you did not. Inspiring.


Well with all the rain stopping for a few days then I might be able to get the lawn mowed and the gutters clean. We will see how the weekend goes.

Gwen got in Colorado, thru Ebay, Elizabeth a cool car bed for when she no longer need the crib. Meaning when she no longer can be contained by her crib. Until then we do not need her coming to wake us up when she gets up. :) We will have to post a picture of the bed. Elizabeth loves it.

Emily had Emma Schmidt over for a sleepover and the two had a good time. Went swimming the next day. Tali will be coming over for a sleepover next Friday while Ruth and Rich are on a cruise to Alaska.

The girls can now go get their favorite cinnamon rolls again. After their friend Sam who owned Cafe Alegra closed shop they could not get those cinnamon rolls anymore. When Bryan and Patty Booth (of Coffee Booth fame) opened up a cafe on DP road Gwen asked Bryan to see if he could get the cinnamon rolls. Sure enough they serve breakfast and Bryan was able to get the cinnamon rolls.

The Booths are also going to try to serve Hot Meals for the LA school system. This is good news for Emily since she likes to eat hot food at school and they will try serve a Hot Meal every day at the schools. Good news for us since we run out of things to send her that are hot and will stay hot. Right now the Booths have contracts with three or four schools and are working on more. This will keep them busy. Bryan will not have time for working on cars anymore....we will have to find a new mechanic for our cars.

School starts this coming Wednesday the 16th. Hard to believe Emily is in third grade.

It is going to be a busy week coming up.

Kiwi Words

Ran into this list we had saved while living in NZ. Found it interesting and fun especially since the Nolen's are in the UK. I imagine many are similar to the UK. These are the ones we remember.

American - Kiwi:
College - University or Varsity
High School - College
Diaper - Nappies
Maxi-Pads - Napkins
Napkins - Serviettes
Apartment - Flat
Tire - Tyre (as in car tyre)
Tired - Buggered or Knackered (funnily Knackered sounded like Naked to me)
Cookie - Biscuit or Bickie (there is the Digestive type of Biscuit too)
Biscuit - Scone (loose translation since they did not have what I would call a biscuit.)
Dinner - Tea or Dinner (late afternoon meal)
French Fries - Chips
Powder Sugar - Icing sugar
Tea - Cuppa or Smoka
After Dinner snack or meal - Supper
Fanta Orange - Fanta (no other flavors I could find over there)
Lemonade - Lemon Squash (Orange Juice might have been similar)
7-Up (or the like) - Lemonade
Jello or Gelatin - Jelly
Jelly (or Jam or Preserves) - Jam
Shrimp - Prawn
Z- Zed
Scotchtape - Sellotape (not Cellotape though it is logical to spell it this way.)
Pitcher - Jug
Thanks - Cheers or Tah
Elevator - Lift
Pharmicist - Chemist
Hike - Tramp
field hockey - hockey
hockey - ice hockey
Kiwi - Kiwi Fruit
Kiwi (the person or bird) - Kiwi
Candy - Lolly
Cantelope - Rock Mellon (except much smaller)
Grill or Cookout - Barbaque (hamburgers, sausages, steaks and so on).
A line - A queue
To Go - Take Away (as in take out food)
Cat - Puss
Sweater - Jersey
Pickup - Ute (short for Utility)
Shopping Cart - Trolley or Trundler
Parking Lot - Car Park
Speed Bumps - Judder Bars or Dead Policeman
Wash Cloth - Face Cloth or Flannel
Shower - Shower Box
Band-Aid - Bandage or Plaster
House Plant - Pot Plant
Clothes Pins - Pegs
Bicycle - Push Bike
Wind Shield - Wind Screen
Car Trunk - Boot
Car Hood - Bonnet
Turn Signal or Blinker - Indicator
Autobody Shop - Panel Beater
Truck - Lorry
Gas(oline) - Petrol
Yard - Garden
Trash Can - Rubbish Bin
Trash - Rubbish
Rubber Boots (or Wellingtons) - Gumboots
Football - Grid Iron (not to be confused with soccer-football)
Rugby - Rugby or Football (note Rugby by default means Union not League)
VCR - Video
Apartment - Flat
To Move - To Shift
Dish Towel - Tea Towel
Lightbulb - Globe
Electric Plug - Power Point
Flash Light - Torch
Earser - Rubber
Junk Mail - Circulars
Shovel - Spade
Mailbox - Letterbox
Beets - Beet Root
Ice Cooler - Chilly Bin
Glass of Beer - Pint
Sale Ads (in the mail) - Catalogs
Tomato Paste - Tomato Purie
Ketchup - Tomato Sauce (not our ketchup, there was no ketchup I might add.)
Dollar Bills - Notes
Bathroom (or Restroom) - Toilet, Water Closet, or Loo (no tub and/or shower..what we call a half-bath)
"Non Toilet Restroom" - Bathroom (tub and/or shower only..... very in convenient I might add. Sorta the other half of a half-bath or the inverted half-bath)
Porta-Potty - Porta-Loo
Your Welcome or Sure - No Worries (loose translation since it can be used at the same place as a "your welcome.")
French Press - Coffee Plunger
Shot or Injection - Jab or Injection
Class - Paper (To take a class - To sit a paper)
Fix or Figure out - Suss or Sussed

Other Kiwi expressions:
Good as Gold
She'll Be Right
Wee Bit


On another note the girls are all back home safely. Very nice to have my family here again. Bob and Gale drove the down to Pueblo and we met at the Cracker Barrel. As usual I had a bowl of beans and cornbread. Yum. Thanks for bringing the family to me Bob and Gale. Love you.

It is raining again this morning. We need it but I cannot get the lawn mowed or anything.