Happy Birthday Anna

Once a year Maya decides to have a birthday for her favourite stuffed animal, her cat named Anna. Maya made all of the pony placemats and promised to help me with the cake. She requested a strawberry pony cake. Now everyone knows I have mad skills with cakes so this was going to be a real piece of cake! I went ahead and made a chocolate one because it is not strawberry season and chocolate cakes are the easiest to make anyway. I figured I would slap on the pink frosting, call it strawberry and we would be good as gold. Due to Maya's immense intelligence, she was able to infer from the dark colour of the batter that it was not strawberry. I told her I didn't have the ingredients for strawberry cake. She said "OHHH 'cause you don't have any strawberry cocoa huh mum?" Sigh. I didn't fell like going into the cocoa explanations so I just agreed. I know it is going to haunt me when she leaves home and ventures off to the store to find strawberry cocoa. OH well, I am sure her and her roomies will have a good laugh over it all. Maybe by writing this down I will remember to tell her. I was also lacking the appropriate food colouring but Maya was understanding about it seeing as to the girls were the ones that used up all the red the other day when they were busy putting fake blood (aka my red food colouring) all over themselves to fool Mac. I decided it was time to hand over the reigns and I let them decorate the cake all themselves. I know they are still a ways away from one of my creepy masterpieces but I did give them a start with the pastel. It won't be long now...

WOW-ZAH!

What more can I say? I had no idear that my last post would solicit so much interest. It was funny because when I first wrote it I really was speaking in general terms and mostly just venting some of my emotions. Unfortunately my vague terms proved to be my ultimate demise. What was supposed to be a fun, happy post progressed into some deeper thoughts that I chose to keep vague so as to not incriminate any one person or persons. Instead everyone's guilty consciences got the best of them and everyone seemed to think they were the guilty party. I guess maybe on some level we all have a little paranoia of things we have said or done.
Please understand I adore my family and they mean the world to me. They have been incredibly supportive and have put up with my rants-warranted or mostly not for many many years. That is one of the things that is special about families, no matter how much of a fool you make of yourself they will always be your family and they will continue to be your family. I did not mean to incriminate my family at all. After the post, I actually had not really talked to anyone. After some more slightly emotional postings on another site, is when the calls came flooding in. Everyone had a different interpretation of my post.
I was glad to hear from people because it really made me realize that yes, people that love us-friends or family or even the occasional foe will have advice for anyone. I am not the exception. I have often mocked and questioned other people's decisions as well. This has really made me look to myself and my own behaviour. I need to be better. My sensitivities were the result of my own actions. The funny thing is that both my family and my friends thought they were the instigators of the harassment. Just tonight I finally had the opportunity to catch up with some friends that I hadn't really had a chance to talk to since the post and turns out they were scared I was angry with them and had been going over the things they have said; my family had done the same thing.
Truth be told, I meant to incriminate neither party. I have had random people at my kids school ask me what the heck I am doing here and blah blah. Everyone gets that kind of thing. Everyone. My rant was me being sick of being another one of everyone. I am extremely stressed right now and not anywhere near my right frame of mind so I am sorry, very very sorry for any hurt that I may have caused. I have read everyone's comments and I am sorry for not replying to them all, but I have been a bit busy this weekend. So anyway, just because I did not want to leave on that last post, I decided to try to clear the air. Maybe I have made it worse because it is very late and I am tired but I figured it was worth a shot. Ed decided to do what he could to help save us in shipping and decided to ship himself via NZ post. Luckily I happen to have some good banana boxes with air vents... I love you all and I am sorry for the hurt, the grief, and the worry I may have caused you. Hopefully I will get thing more under control and I will get back to what I like doing on my blog-charming posts and taking pictures.

Is it a Bird? Is it a Plane?

It's the Bergs!!! The rumors are all true, the Bergs will be returning to America on August the 4th of this year. Things have been a bit crazy over here sorting everything out for the big move. Mark is still working on the last chapters of his dissertation even as I write this. We still have a few more interviews to do before we settle on where we will be exactly. We have applied to anything and everything from coast to coast and the best prospects have come from the east so if anyone tells you we didn't apply to the west you can call them liar brains. We put in many years in the west prior to leaving for NZ so we are excited to spend some time in the east. Everyone needs a little Berg and we are trying to spread our influence as best as we can.
It has been crazy organizing everything. It is funny to think back to when we first came here 5 years ago and now to be doing it all again in reverse plus two more kids is really strange. We arrived in NZ with 8 suitcases packed to the max, and a small pallet that would meet us in 6 weeks. In a way it will be easier because we know more about what is available in America. When we prepared to move out here we were excited to leave all we had and start fresh with new things. We thought shipping was so expensive we might as well just buy new. Umm yeah.
It only took us a few months to blow through all of our savings. Little did we know things that we thought would be like 10 dollars turned out to be 70. We did well on our cars but when you need everything from sheets to forks to beds for five it adds up quickly, too quickly. The freight charges that we originally thought to be outrageous turned out to be a real bargain that we should have taken advantage of. I was so happy when our tiny pallet of belongings from home arrived. It wasn't much but it was ours. Turns out all the stuff I really wanted to replace had more sentiment attached to it than I had thought. Now, it could have been the pregnancy hormones at the time, or it could have been being in a completely different place, but it was very sad for me to live somewhere that didn't feel like home and to realize that to make it feel like some sort of a home was going to send us to the poor house quickly.
For months the girls would ask for certain toys or a blanket they remembered. It was hard on me, how could it not have been for them? I remember driving around all of us crammed into a little rusty Toyota trying to buy things to keep us warm, to cook a meal or even to sleep on. It was a very stressful experience.
We learned a lesson that it wasn't so much just buying the things you need, it was having the things that made you feel like you were home. It almost felt like we had lost everything in a fire and I went through a bit of a mourning period. It sounds strange, I know and horribly materialistic but it was how we felt-how I felt. We also learned that small things quickly add up. This time around after looking into several options freighting is still the best way to go for us. I guess we just acquired too much stuff. We have been selling what we can but I as cheap as America is, the proceeds from a yard sale just won't cover the cost of replacing everything. I know this is a bit of a rant but it is how I am feeling right now.
I guess in the end I shouldn't care what people think, but the truth is, I do. I feel like I have to justify our decisions to people that really don't know what it is like. People that I have heard complain about how tired they are moving from one city to the next. Okay, family of SIX overseas people. Could we leave everything behind? Yes, but if we would break even what would be the point? Removing the kids from the only lifestyle and friends they have ever known isn't enough? I should abandon all their toys, books, clothes and whatever meager belongings they have as well? For years, the questions about when we would return were asked and now that we are returning there are only more questions and more doubt. Believe it or not, Mark and I do think about these things frequently and heavily before we do them. Our decisions are not made on a whim without regard to any research that we have done (and YES we do research all our options). We also do pray about our decisions and we feel good about them even if it doesn't make sense to others. Where would any of us be if things were only done that made sense to everybody? That in itself would not make sense. No one knows our goals or our exact situation so they can not fairly evaluate our decision for us. So far our decisions have made us grow into better, stronger people by challenging us to grow in ways far greater than we would have if we had stayed in our comfort zones. When have you last extended yourself and done something that really challenged you and helped you to find a strength within yourself that you never knew you had?

Crazy Eddie

Things have been pretty busy around these parts and I will have to give more of an update when things settle down a bit, hopefully before pigs start flying but no guarantees. In the meantime I have this quick little Eddie treat for you. For several years now this firetruck has basically sat in a storage bin. Every so often Mark and I would buy toys that would promote a gender neutral environment. Just having girls we figured girls may like to play with toys that were more suited to boys and we wanted to accomodate that. Nope. Pretty much fairies, princesses and pink no matter what. In any case, now that Master Edward has come along we have seen how these toys were meant to be enjoyed. I fired up the ol' firetruck with some fresh batteries and watched for Eddie's reaction. I got the camera after like 10 minutes so believe it or not his reaction is toned down a bit. I went ahead and took the liberty of uploading two because they are slightly different and I figure if you are bored enough to watch one...Enjoy.

Isn't it funny how little talking the two did in the first movie? The video is not blurry, Eddie really was moving that fast. In "real-life" he was moving so fast it was blurry. I think he burned off like a trillion calories or something. Hilarious.

Feast or Famine

Yah. Sometimes you will get a lot of berg and other times nada. ZILCH.

Trashy Town

Wednesdays are a must walk day for Maya, it is the day the world becomes Trashy Town. Before you go thinking she is terribly clever (although she is), it is from the children's book by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha. First line being: Mr. Gilly is a trashman. The book is repetitive and after each collection is the sing-song "Dump it in, smash it down, drive around the Trashy Town!"
Wednesdays are trashy town because that is rubbish collection day. Here in my town people are officially allocated one city bag a fortnight. They aren't even the large black bags, they are more like the white kitchen bag size. When Mark and I first moved here we were appalling. Our first month or so we marched out there with our 6 bags for the week, set them down and ran. Luckily the pile is shared with a few other houses so it isn't too obvious that we are the trash villians of our cul-de-sac, but I am fairly certain they all know it is us. Since then we have managed to cut it down to 2 rubbish bags a week, still 4 times the allocation but what are you going to do? We used to compost and that helped but once Ed started walking around and we noticed him walking around with moldy apple cores and the like we started to taper. We moved it into a small ice-cream container under the locked sink but while that was no longer convenient for Ed to eat scraps it was also not convenient for us laza-muffins so we returned to our trashy selves.
This all makes it more fun for Maya because we never know who will have a rubbish bag out one week or how many. She loves to run to each found rubbish bag and count them. Sometimes there will only be like 5 on a whole street. The whole fun is that the houses and numbers always change. The walk goes by pretty quick, especially if there are few rubbish bags out because she runs from one to the next. If any of you are wondering why I have so many quotes from Maya it is because of these kindi walks. I rather enjoy it because trying to talk to her while I am busy is quite draining but when I have nothing else to do but walk with her I rather enjoy the enlightenment she provides.

On this particular morning we went out "Jack Frost had a very busy night" because everything was covered in frost.

I Have Mine Do You Have Yours

I have installed the new Firefox 3.0 Browser-have you? I have fully loaded it with any and practically all add-ons. So far the ones that I am really enjoying are the PicLens and the Faviconize Tab. PicLens basically will turn any group of movies and photos into a 3D browser wall much like the ones seen on an Ipod Touch where the pictures are zooming all around and you can move in and out. So, if you do a search on amazon, youtube or smugmug the photos zoom all around and it is fast! I like my smugmug galleries but when I launch piclens the pictures are shooting around like starwars and it so easy to go through a bunch of pictures at once. Seriously like thousands all at once it is fantastic! Faviconize just makes it so my tabs are shrunk to the width of a favicon so now instead of fitting like 5 tabs at once, I can fit like 50? Not that I would do that. I have also added me.dium-iwhich basically enhances the facebook experience and you can surf pages with your friends via the internet and stumbleupon which will find other webpages that are of the same genre and sort them or something. I don't anticipate using the last two but I like to keep apprised of what is out there. There is also a cool add-on that you can synch your bookmarks with other computers and one that makes for a family-friendly surfing experience. Anyway piclens and faviconize are my pics and the firefox zoom in tool (already built-in) is awesome for magniying webpages. There is also a lds toolbar that you can add on that makes it easy to search the lds.org website you can toggle languages, look up a scripture or a lesson at the touch of a button. It is really cool because it has a dropdown menu for lds sites by category, geneology, canning, scrapbooking. For those of you that aren't using firefox-what are you thinking?! Just kidding, it was a change for me but I am telling you I have been using it for a couple of years now and it is pretty cool.

A Fine Book Review

Okay, so for those of you that plan on reading A Fine Balance you may not want to read this until you are done but I will try not to give any specifics away. I just finished reading it today and I have to admit I don't know if I should say, "Whew" or "Phew". It was a brilliant book but part of me is glad to be set free of it. It is pretty heavy and quite graphic at times so if you are not into that kind of thing-stay away. Once you get past a certain point it is hard to stop. I know it was a good book because I it built of momentum and started to take over in my life. I started to stay up later and later reading it. Then I started forgoing my 10 minute power naps to read it, then I started dragging it everywhere and trying to read it if I even had a minute I would be reading it. I can't say if it was the storyline alone or if it was me trying to get it done with but I absolutely felt compelled to read it. I passed it on to my friend today as soon as I read the last page on my way over to her house, and as I handed it to her I told her she had to be in a good space when she read it. I found that I often felt like I was on those streets, amidst the chaos and the turmoil. Reviews had said that it had humour in it and that is one of the reasons I went ahead reading it in spite of the heaviness that I knew existed between the cover. The funny banter between characters was lost on me because I always had a feeling that the happiness was a fleeting moment and I could tell disaster was on the horizon with a turn of a page. Of course politics played a heavy role in this novel. Politics aside, I am going to focus more on one thing that I took away from it as it relates to my life at the moment.
I have to admit that I am a nicknamer. I am most guilty when I first move into a ward. Because I don't know their names I have a tendency to pick out an attribute and attach that to them. Wrong I know, but I do it. Just the other day at the gym a guy rushed past me and I said to myself, "Fine Mr. Hurrypants go right ahead!" No really, I did, I actually labeled him as Mr. Hurrypants in my head. He actually wasn't doing anything different from what I do all the time. Often I rush past "slow walkers" another label I like to dispense quite liberally. The difference was Mr. Hurrypants was actually rushing to open the door for me and hold it open. I felt a little stink. That was where we differed. Back to the book.
It was a common theme to have someone be judged one way and then once their hardships or histories were discovered they were seen in another light and formed fantastic friendships. They had a tendency to befriend those that they dealt with on a daily basis. It made me reflect a bit on myself. I am the sort to avoid contact with others as much as possible. Mostly I think because I am afraid that I won't have anything to say, or that I will say something that will offend, or I am just unsure how to strike up an A1 conversations without seeming intrusive. Why shouldn't we know the people that we deal with on a regular basis? Our first fish and chip shop was special to us because it was run by a lady named "Nancy". I actually spent some time talking to her about her life and mine and it was nice. Every once in awhile she would throw in an extra fish or a hot dog, but there was a sense of friendship there and it was nice. It was fun to hear new stories from her. Thats one thing I love about the friends I have, there is always a new story or something from their past that I did not know. It is like in the A Fine Balance when one of the main characters learns to listen to stories and collects them in her mind to form a full history.
The book also emphasized the importance of having this relationship with others, connections we are able to form beyond our blood relatives. One of the things that Mark and I have really felt here is how many people we have met here that have essentially taken us into their lives like family. Often times we felt a bit more isolating from others in Utah because we had our family and they had theirs and you took care of your own for the most part. Granted we were in a newlywed ward but that is how it was. It is amazing to us how people here have their families and yet they let us in. There have been many times that we have received assistance, had our children cared for and been fed by others that took us in and have had an underlying sense that they loved us just as we did them. How often to we rely on ourselves and deny ourselves the privilege of getting to know others through the exposure of our own trials and shortcomings. I think that is when you really get to know and love others is when you are able to share your weaknesses and vulnerability and ask for some help. I find it has often been like that with my relationship with my Heavenly Father as well. My relationship is the strongest when I can acknowledge that I need His help. Reading this book also made me so grateful for the blessings I have been given in this life to know the truths that the gospel brings into my life.
I do think this author provided a real talent for making you feel a part of the story. I have to admit, I can't say that it is terribly uplifting and karma definitely never comes around either. Certainly you can leave with the feelings of creating new friendships or being thankful for living in a functional democracy but you also leave with a lot of other imagery that I am afraid may stick with me for quite awhile. Now, Candy Freak that was a funny book...

Bubbles n Bubs

Just to lighten the mood from my last post. Aida kindly blew some bubbles for the young'ns. Ed loved to lean into the bubbles and feel them explode on his little face. I will have to get video because his wee laugh was absolutely adorable and completely contagious. Having children is stressful and it is hard ie my last post, but then there are times like these that you learn from them the simple joys in life and you remember to laugh and to be happy just being.




I grabbed my camera and I was still on a bit of a high this day and my eye wasn't quite right yet so in short, I think I could have made them a lot better. At the time I thought I was doing certain things and lo and behold I wasn't. I even accused Mark and the girls of not singing Happy Birthday to me.

One Day at a Time

I have to warn you this post is more for me and my self-pity than for entertainment value, so it may be a bit heavier than my normal fare. I just felt it was important for me to record because this blog was meant to be a sort of account of what happens around here on a daily basis and the truth is life is not always as rosy as it is painted on a blog. It all started with a small splinter that Lucy had in her foot. It was to small to tweeze out and she didn't want us to dig so we figured it would push its own way out after a few days. Well a few days came and went and she even ran a few races on it but eventually it swelled to the size of an eye and running on it was no longer an option, let alone walking on it. Not only did it look like an eye it was starting to look a bit like a jaundiced eye and I decided to rush her to after hours care for a lancing. The doctor said it would push its way out on its own or just dissolve or pop in a fountain of puss glory and be right in a few weeks or we could traumatize her and lance it and it would come right in a week. "Hmm, yeah...I think I am going to have to go for the trauma and lance please." I got ready to hold her down and let him have at it but he was too wussy and I went home with a prescription for antibitiotics, "just in case it takes a turn for the worst" he says. Oh sure and in the meantime I am supposed to do what with my 7 year old that can't walk? Mark got home, I held her down and we lanced away all our woes. You know what? No trauma. She was glad we did it. Stupid doctor. Glad to have that stress removed I consented to have Aida's ears pierced.
Off we went with two of the neighbor kids, Aida, a hobbling Lucy, Ed in the pack and a whining Maya to the chemist to have the lobes pierced. All was going okay but I could not be there by Aida's side to hold her hand because I was distracted. When I looked down at Lucy I saw a SWARM, yes SWARM is that what you call a large gathering of lice? All piled up together like ants. For those of you that wonder if it is hard to see adult lice, no it is not. Especially when you let them go rampant for what turned out to be like 4 weeks. They were all over, I would say maybe 4 generations at least and some of them were beetle sized. Disgusting. I was a little annoyed at having to spend a couple of hours a day diligently combing through Lucy's hair which was tricky because I couldn't just shower her due to her large bloody crater on her foot from her blister. I got through it only to realize that yes indeed, the loving mother that I am that gave her cuddles only the day before also had nits. I wasn't going to admit this but it is true. I was grossed out and seriously debated shaving my head. It wouldn't take long to grow back and I could conceal my bald dome under a winter hat. Then I thought of church and away went all my hopes The nits were starting to get under control when Lucy showed us yet another "itchy spot" on her leg. She has these often so we weren't prepared to see a huge pussing wound. She had scratched what we thought at the time to be a sandfly bite, raw. It was infected and would need antibiotics. Poor Lucy we thought Her tummy hurt from the medicine, she was still limping but her head was itching a little less so we thought we would make it. Just a few days later Aida complained about something hurting her when she sat down. Turns out she had a large infected looking boil the size of a baseball on her bum. More medicine while we anxiously wait for it to pop and we had flashbacks back to Lucy's jaundiced foot eye. The time passed quickly as we realized that Aida also had nits. YEAH! A few days later we noticed that Ed had chicken pox. OHHHHHHH so Lucy didn't have infected sand fly bites they must have been infected pox. Great. Luckily Ed's pox weren't bad and he wasn't too upset. Aida's boil popped only to spread the the surrounding area and 3 new ones popped up. Still cleaning the newly pierced ears and watching all the other infections, the boils were really starting to get my goat. Drizzled in between we had our usual spurts of colds come and go but the boils are consistent. As soon as one popped there would be three to replace it much like a pot of boiling water-no pun intended. It really was like that. Maya returned from kindi and I looked down at her and surprise! A huge nit having a picnic in her fringe. Great! I am loving life at this point and it has been 6 weeks since Lucy's foot and it has been non stop ailments. I kid you not all of these were in complete succession. So at present Aida's boils have spread to her tummy and I have strep throat. BUT we mustn't forget about the lovely random allergic reaction I had that was so bad I thought that someone had stuck a horse in the air filter of my heat pump. I had taken so much sudafed that I could hardly stay awake but I couldn't waste my 150 dollar epi-pen on my eyes. So what if my breathing was laboured. I was nearly in shock. Just for fun I decided to repeat the whole thing the following day on my hands. They swelled up and I was minutes away from cutting them off. Really. I am just lucky that mark came home just before I was about to do the deed. Oh and somewhere in between nit combings and aida's twice a day showing and bandaging, I consented to have Lucy's ears pierced so I could clean those as well. To be fair I may have been on my painkillers at the time... After throwing up my birthday dinner, I feel much better today. Much better. My throat still really hurts and I am tired but the good news is that after so long, we decided to give Aida a blessing. Her boils finally look like they are diminishing in number and I think after her tummy they will be gone. It has been a rough road but I think there is a light shining somewhere and I just hope that I will be able to bask in the rays of good fortune soon. So there you have it.

Happy Birthday to Me

Mark made me a lovely old-fashioned chocolate fudge cake. The sauce was yummy and caramelly. Thank you Mark for all your effort and hard work! Unfortunately Ed was sleeping, but he woke up in time to partake of the yumminess.

Action Shot. I had to move my head all around to blow out all the candles. The girls thought it was hilarious and were amazed at my mad candle-blowing-out skills.

I turned the balloons into a canvas shot. The girls hung three on one side to represent the 10's and two on the other to represent the ones-hence 32 years. The sign in the middle unrolls to reveal "Happy 32end Birthday Mum".

Maya made me a special princess kite out of her favourite princess drawing paper. I can't wait to take it flying!

Maya also chose a special snowglobe of Christchurch for me.

After a few days of allergy attacks(posts to follow) and now a bout of strep throat, I was able to have a lovely birthday thanks to Neurofen with codeine. Unfortunately we missed out night with friends because I was so doped up on sudafed I could hardly see straight the night before. After a couple nights of rest and a long nap I awoke to a nice birthday celebration. The kids and Mark showered me with New Zealand souvenirs to take back to America with us. Here is a little collage showing some more of my special treasures. My family sure knows how to spoil me. Thank you thank you thank you. Love to all-Sara.

Lessons Learned

I meant to post this awhile ago so I could remember why she was apologizing but that time is gone and I have forgotten, anyway this lovely bouquet was from Lucy. As a side note, thanks must be given to our lovely neighbors that provided the flowers for Lucy to pick. Those of you that know Lucy will understand what a HUGE step this was for her. I must have gotten real upset at her to have her give such a sincere, unsolicited apology. Apologizing is something I have never excelled at and I still struggle with. As her parent, I am proud of her for taking the initiative to do something that is so hard, not just for children, but also for adults like her stubborn old mum. It is just one of many humbling experiences that children provide free of charge. She did make sure to let me know to water it everyday.

Laundry Days

One of the things I decided to do this year was to take more pictures of everyday things. It was after I saw some of the pix that the girls took that I realized that while I appreciate most any pictures of my children, looking back the ones that I hold the most fondness are the ones of us doing what we do. The mundane. We often don't take pictures of these things because we see them as everyday occurrences, ones that we don't consider worth remembering or they are so habitual that we will just use them as I remember whens.... Yet, when I see a picture of these mundane things I often look at those with more fondness than those that are of a singular event. I find that I will squint to see some of the background of an old house we lived in or I will smile when they are wearing their favourite t-shirt.
So, that being said, let me introduce the obvious. Laundry days. It was one of the first things Mark and I had to adjust to when we first moved her to New Zealand. Hanging out clothes outside to dry. I went through cycles of hating it then loving it then hating it then loving it... It is nice to get out into the sun, to see Ed running through the sheets, and to have that fresh breeze smell in our sheets and clothing. I learned to love those "permanent press" days full of wind and sunshine that would dry my sheets in 15 minutes and as an added bonus they looked freshly pressed. I also just had to post this because I love Ed's little bum just before he climbs into the basket. I still haven't found any redeeming quality about unloading the dishwasher other than that I didn't have to hand wash them. Have you any chores that you have learned to enjoy?

Maya's Ballet Skills

Those of you that are faithful Bergnewz blog readers will have read the sidebar regarding Maya's skills. For those of you that couldn't be bothered, Maya has skills. I asked her once how she ran so fast and she said it was because she had skills inside her body which she told me then she got from me. I know, surprise surprise-right? I asked her just the other day where you can buy skills and she replied quickly and with great enthusiasm, "THE WAREHOUSE". A kiwi would understand why I chuckled at that statement. When I asked her if she could give some skills to her Aunt Corinne, she said, "Course she can! She can have my crystal skills princess skills, purple skills..." on and on she went for the 15 minutes it took us to walk home from kindi. Who knew the girl had so many skills and so many to spare as well! Anyway these pix are ones that I took shortly after Maya introduced me to her concept of "skills". Here she is showing me her plaster that she got that fateful day when her skills made her go too fast to kindi and she fell and scraped her knee. It was worth it though because kindi has the special coloured plasters instead of the ghetto flesh coloured ones we have at home. After that she shelved her skills for awhile up high "where Ed-ay can't reach them". The skills have since been used again but here are her ballet skills in action with a nice close up of how clean we keep wounds around here. Sorry about the colouring, I was trying to figure out the best lighting setting for that dark church hall. My favourite is the one where she is having to suck her tummy in. That was my least favourite but most memorable part of my short stint with ballet lessons.

Cookies y Moss

I hope this won't gross any of you health nuts out, but after my gluttonous post yesterday I actually for some reason decided to make these today. One of the things I am going to miss about old NZ are some of the cookies I have come to know and love. For some reason, I really enjoy Griffins Hundreds of Thousands. I could eat a whole bag. I don't like the Arnotts ones which look like they should be comparable in taste, just square instead of round. They are not worth even one kilojoule in my book. I found out the reason why, Griffins obviously is more bad for you than Arnotts. I decided to try to bake this delicious morsels so that I wouldn't miss them when we have to return to America. Um, yeah, mine wound up tasting just like da da da daaaaa.....sugar cookies with pink frosting and sprinkles. They are really good sugar cookies. Too bad they cost me like 3 dollars in butter to make.
To make sure to instill in my children the good values of living a healthy lifestyle in spite of my f&c and chronic cookie baking habits I decided to take them to our local pool to watch the Olympic hopefuls at the Oceania Swim Finals held right here at Christchurch's QEII. It was fun to hang out with Aida and Lucy, just a little appetizer for tomorrow nights High School Musical Ice Tour. I know I can feel your jealousy already! Anyway, we got to see Moss Burmester in action. He took the gold whenever the Aussies weren't winning it. The swimmers were awesome to see in action. I have to admit the new "X-Men" swimming suits are actually pretty cool in "real life", don't go by how ugly they look in pictures. I am thinking of picking one up myself. We did have to leave a little early because the last event was the 1500 meter freestyle and we just couldn't wait the 10 whole minutes it was going to take them to swim it. Afterall, I had a blog I had to get home to! All in all good times, just wish I had brought my camera and some paper for autographs.

Satisfaction Guaranteed

Fish and Chips in All Their Greezy Splendor


I have to post this because I have not been such an unsatisfied customer since the "scrapper card incident of 2003". Some of you may know the story, most of you won't, just know that this scrapper was not pleased with Pebbles in My Pocket's frequent scrapper card. As a result certain things were said, cards were torn and maybe hurled at unsuspecting managers. Although I have slightly matured in the 5 years since, I still believe they were in the wrong.
Now, back to the case at hand. Tartare Sauce. Mark and I deeply relish our weekly fish and chips. We know it is a bad habit and blahdy blah blah but we enjoy it and figure we might as well because we are just trying to blend in with the locals. With our F and C as they are frequently called, we enjoy fish with equal part tartare sauce. When we first moved here we tried several jars until we found just the right one. Signature Range. Generic store brand, go figure, but it was the best THE BEST! We would even serve it up to our non tartare sauce consuming kiwi friends and they too would proclaim it a "great tasting tartare". Because it was generic it was only available in certain stores. We had no problem venuring away from pack and schlep to go and get some proper tartare sauce. To my absolute horror they stopped carrying it. I panicked what was I going to do? Then to my relief, it reappeared in a new improved squeezable jar. Rare is it that you can make something great better so I was pumped and couldn't wait to show Mark this great find when he got home. We doubled up on tartare sauce just so we could get to the new stuff.
Yah, the new stuff? SUCKS!!!!!! They changed the freakin recipe! YOU JUST CAN'T DO THAT!! It was too sugary. I love my sugar, but c'mon folks three words for ya- time-and-place. Mark and I deemed it inedible and there were several fish wasted that evening. We tried the mayo mix but no go. We thought about making our own but we don't have access to proper dill pickles ARGHH. Luckily through our first wave sampling we found a second choice, it isn't AS good and it is a bit more dear but Skipper's Choice it is. I felt so strongly about this that I rang them up and after waiting the obligatory 236487593587935.4587497 seconds on hold; told them that yes indeed, I was not 100% satisfied with their rubbish for tartare sauce and I would like my money back please. She didn't understand what I was talking about (blast my American accent) and asked to which household cleaning product I was referring to. I could repeat the whole conversation which was as equally unsatisfying as my tartare sauce but then this post would be like a kajillion miles long. In the end all she could do is "recommend strongly that you return the item as quickly as possible to the store of purchase". Yeah, thanks. I really feel bad for laughing at twin when she had to file a complaint with the makers of starburst or was it skittle in regards to the mints they tried to mainstream with the original flavours. C'mon everybody, consumer complaints have you got any?

Aida

I am in the middle of resorting my photos-AGAIN. I think I finally have a good system. As a result, I am coming across photos I meant to post and never got around to so now is the time for a little catchup. I came across some of my favourite Aida pix from yet another day at the park. One of the reasons I like this picture it is such a visual representation of Aida's place in our family. She is the oldest child and that coupled with her earnest, peace-maker temperament has made her quite the staple in our home. Lucy and Maya look up to her and often are trying to get her to help them or play with them. I think it is great how she is dangling in the air and the others are reaching for her. When I was posting this Maya got a big smile on her face and said, "that was when I was trying to reach Aida to give her cuddles". Yup, we all love and need Aida. Aida, thanks for all you do to make our family wonderful.

Meet Mrs. Pear

For the most part, I have my issues with balloons being about the house. For whatever reason, something possessed me to purchase one of those jumbo packs of balloons to bring home. All day there would be random POPS coming from the other room freaking me out. Issues or not, I have to say that I am loving Mrs. Pear earrings and all. Love you Lucy and thanks for making my day.

A Fine Balance Preread

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

It is rare that I ever read a book that the cover isn't comprised of flouresent colours and bold, white lettering for the title but on occasion there is the odd neutral cover and this is one. I had to go for it when I found it and it had a huge Joan the Book Fanatic sticker on it proclaiming, "UNPUTDOWNABLE". Just like that in all caps and everything. Jan says, "I can't believe there are still people out there that have not read this book. It is one of my all time favourites." Okay Joan, game on. I don't know Joan or why I should heed her advice but since I will basically read anything put in front of me I can't turn down the challenge and I absolutely do not want to be one of those heathens that have not read it. So, here I go...
Oh, I just saw it on amazon and it was an Oprah Book Club choice as well AND the cover in America is red and black. Maybe it is a good book. Colour requirement tick, Joan tick, and Oprah tick. Now I am really excited to read this masterpiece written by a genius writer.