Zipping up the year...

Happy New Year to all our friends. It has been an interesting one filled with love, adventure, happiness ,and some sad bits. An admission at the end of the year...bedtime became quite a bit easier his past week as fiona started sleeping in a tent set up in her room. This tent to be exact. We look forward to 2011 and all the fun times ahead.

Love
Louise

fiona loves you (typed by Fiona herself)

The Visit

Here is Fiona once again shirking the knee, but nonetheless stoked at an opportunity to vouch for her recent behaviour. The thing she has asked for this year is a crib for her baby horse, made of wood (still needing assembly at this time). Hopefully santa will provide... hopefully there will not be a run on coal. Hopefully five will be easier than four.

Beach Bums

We are back from our travels. We spent a good chunk of November visiting family in Australia. Fiona visited with her 5 uncles, wonderful aunties, three cousins, Nanna and Grand-dad, as well as her Great Grandmother in a whirlwind three city extravaganza. We Loved staying with family and fiona has once again proved to be a great traveler. Jet lag once in Australia took her about a week to shift through and our first night back in our own beds had only one wake up at 11PM for a snack for her.

Thanks to everyone who took care of us in Sydney Brisbane and SA. Can't wait to return the favour.
Love
Louise

Uncle Jonathon in a Bookshop

At Nicks new studio with a Fiona Original

What you do to make a tired Kid eat

Flowers in Sydney

Feeding a Kangaroo

Helping Nanna Jane

WHat do you do on your vacation?

Brisbane crowd.

Kapunda Scene with uncle Chris

Spring Harvest

With Grand Dad Ken

Great Grandmother Beryl

At Uncle Nick's exhibit with Auntie Nikki: Fiona took this one

Halloween Song

Here is Fiona singing her newest song from preschool...in spanish of course.
Enjoy!
Louise

Sweet things

Sweet things that Fiona did for me while I've been sick this week:

• Brought me water to drink... so what if it was in a toy from the bath, it was still water... Hydration Hydration
  

• Took my temperature

• Covered me with a blanket.

• Cut out a picture of a pony for me to hold because that helps.

• Took my temperature again.

• Compared my temperature to hers and declared that I have "a hot bug."

• Suggested to me that I need sleep and love. "lots of love"

I think that she'll make a wonderful animal rescuer one day.

Pumpkins

Down jacket and sandals, santa cruz chic!

Fiona as pumpkin

We visited the pumpkin patch today. A storm is brewing tonight, Lucky to be warm and comfy inside. We picked out a modest pumpkin and will post a pic of the finished product after it is carved.
Thanks fro coming back to check the blog after so long.
Love always,
Louise

Back again... more to follow

After having complete computer breakdown followed by weeks of apathy and a hectic schedule we are back on line. I unplugged everything in a tiff, dragged our decrepit old computer down to the fix-it-guy, brought it home and plugged it back in and VOILA! we're back online.
I have so much to share including pictures of Mexico and Rio and Fiona. So Thanks for tuning back in!

Love
Louise

Rio

Two pics of Rio and the family because you cant get Fiona and him to look at the camera at the same time

Hi All,
Well the chaos of our summer subsided for a few days after Violetta went home to mexico and so, feeling like the house was a bit empty, we decided to get a puppy while reroofing and getting ready to paint the house.

As you can see we are all OK but our camera is still lost (maybe on the boat) and our computer is still broken(powersource?), hence the lack in recent posts, but we are happy nonetheless.

Rio is a buy, 8 weeks old yellow lab, and so we are working on the housebreaking and chewing/biting things at the moment. Fiona is happy to have a puppy around of course. I've never dealt with a male dog before, but true to form he spent the morning humping his pillow. He cries in the night a bit but we're hoping that settles after he adjusts to a new place.

Fiona is starting her final year of preschool and is one of the big kids there now...time flies. They have a new teacher there who speaks spanish. Fiona, having spent the summer speaking spanglish, feels confident with the new curriculum. She talks a lot about wanting to go to "Big Girl School" next year when she is five. Where did my little baby go?

Our autumn looks busy already and as we mourn the passing of summer we are looking forward to a trip to Mexico and a visit to Australia.

For now though you can find us puppy training and finishing our big house projects which also includes dealing with a new influx of rodents. I try to keep it in perspective and think about people through time who have designed their houses/kitchens/etc to try to outsmart mice...we still have some learning to do and indeed my latest plan is a motion sensor lazer mousetrap that vapourizes the mouse in an instant leaving a small easily wiped up pile of ash. I might need the venture capatilists involved and have yet to work out the energy karma.

Thanks for being devoted enough to check in on the blog after such a long hiatus.
Love Louise

Louise took the girls for a walk in the forest, both dressed as faeries of course!

Mountains Without Kayaks or Snowboards!

Super Sequoia (note handful of garbage)

So with a little persuading Devon agreed to going to the Sierras with no kayak or snowboard (ask him about the skateboard when his elbow and back feel better).

We took off out of the santa cruz fog for the weekend as we had forgotten what the sun felt like and headed to a place that one could kayak but instead camped sedately and lounged by Dinkey Creek in the Sierra National Forest, about 4 hours drive east of us.

It was beautiful and relaxing and most of all sunny. Fiona enjoyed camping including cooking on a little stove, sleeping in the back of the truck(we decided against the tent out of lazyness), and most of all playing in cool mountain streams and climbing granite.

We enjoyed the time away from real life. We all slept well. We saw amazing things like giant Sequoias more than 2000 years old and people-including children-who litter deliberately in our forests and rivers. We remembered old skills like openning wine bottles with a knife and unbogging a truck from fine sand in a remote location. It's great to pull out our skills again after so long around the house.

Driving back and forth was marred on the way there by our search for a fuel canister for our backpacking stove in Fresno where people are not so inclined, and on the way back with fionas' busy bladder. Lots of stops. But what can you do?

Beside the road in the valley

Sleeping in the truck

Fiona eating dinner al fresco

Above: Joy de Creek. and below: on granite.

The Sharing Report

We are about three weeks into the sharing experiment, and still no blood has been shed. There are good days and bad days as Fiona and Violetta try their best to share things bilingually. This morning there was a tiff over the who had which napkin at the breakfast table and who had the horse costume. All in all, its good.The girls play well together and the parents are getting used to a few more tantrums than they would prefer. Here is some photographic evidence of the good behaviour:


Both helping to blow out candles of devon's cupcakes, decorated of course by both

Both making cookies
and both pushing the stroller

A Friend to Stay

We have houseguests again! A friend Ana (from Columbia/Mexico: its compicated) and her almost four year old daughter Violetta have moved in for a month or two. We have been working on preparing Fiona for the obvious sharing situations that arise with two fours trying to negotiate the use of limited hobby horse resources. No bloodshed yet. Violetta is attending preschool with Fiona while she is here and we are doing our best to avoid too much chaos on the other days.

They are learning spanish and english and tolerance from eachother. It seems that giggles cross language and culture well.

Not in the porch

We have been caring for a friend's three baby chicks. They have pooped a bit in our front porch as chickens sometimes do. Fiona, who has a bad relationship with poo states that the chickens are naughty. I, in embracing bodily functions as normal for all animals say, it's not naughty to poo..Fiona digresses, "well it is naughty to poo in the porch!"

Our Favourite Room

The deck devon built is wonderful... warm inthe sunshine, soft and smooth on the feet, Fiona eats three meals a day out there and has just now settled in for her first nap there. She said before she went to sleep, "if I don't have a sleep how will I be able to watch something.?"

RIP Pio

Adding to Fiona's concept of life and death, Pio Passed away yesterday. Here is the picture she made for Vicki to remember him by.

Fiona has been taking her swimming lessons again this month, here is fiona playing after class with her small class in a kayak.

I think summer is upon us,
Yay.

Withered Old Fairy

Here are the words in case you want to sing along:

Snakes and Hammers

Fiona working on the deck in her PJs (and yes there are a lot of bad parenting signs here).

Hi All, Sorry for the long delay between posts. We have been busy with life again, swimming, school , work, housework, playing, building, taking apart, and enjoying a strange wet and windy spring.

We were lucky enough to go snake hunting with our old friend Jeff up in Pescadero. The last time was in 2007. Here are some pics of that, and the long awaited deck between our two back doors, Luna would have loved it. As you can see its a family project.

Love
Louise

Mudpies!

Louise and Fiona and a harmless ringneck snake.

Answering fiona's question...is is a boy or a girl?

Checking a trap together

Our own piece of paradise