Ore-some

I like to keep apprised of the happenings in good ol' NZ. Here is a little gem of a tale from stuff.co.nz. I like the way the author is loose with his quotations and oh so subtly captures the humor of the situation. I tried to colorize the funny bits but I really find amusement at the whole thing-too many candy corns I guess.

Water rat attacks woman in bed

By BLAIR ENSOR - The Marlborough Express

A vicious rodent attack at a Marlborough holiday park yesterday morning forced a woman to seek hospital treatment.

Despite the presence of her dog and three-legged cat, Lynne Henderson was attacked by a large water rat while lying in bed in her motor home at Spring Creek Holiday Park.

"I'm going to starve them now," she said of her animals' inability to catch the rodent.

Mrs Henderson, who lives permanently at the park in a motor home about 10 metres from the river, remembers feeling an animal, which she assumed was her cat, jump onto her bed.

When it was near her neck, she extended a hand to give it a pat. The startled rodent then latched onto her upper lip.

After hearing his wife screaming, Neil Henderson turned on the light to see a rat, which relinquished its grip and took off into the couple's bathroom.

"It was about nine inches long, very round and cuddly ... well, violent, actually," said Mr Henderson.

A large piece of plywood was used to board up the bathroom while he went to retrieve an air rifle from a friend at the park.

He could not get close to it because it was "bouncing off the walls and ripped the toilet holder clean off".

Too terrified to approach the rat on his return, he prodded it to move it from behind a toilet to get a clear shot.

He fired one shot into the "tummy" of the rat, which "made a hell of a squeal" and ran out the door and up a nearby tree. It has not been seen since.

Mrs Henderson said the rat bite had pierced her upper lip, which bled quite badly at the time.

Because rats are "infectious rodents", she made a trip to the hospital, where bemused hospital staff gave her a tetanus injection and a course of antibiotics.

The couple suspected the rat had found its way inside through a cat door.

"It's funny now, but wasn't at the time," she said.

"It scared the living s..t out of me."

I don't know if I would EVER find it "funny" when I looked back on a 9-inch long viscious water rat clamped down on my mouth. Never ever ever! Must not have been a "top ten" holiday park. Oh me oh my!

The Answer

I heard a few of you were a bit squeamish about naming a price online because you couldn't tell if I was joking about the value or not. What if I were to tell you that it went for 1250.00 USD? It is true-a lady in Germany purchased it. Someone did offer me early on 500 but LUCKILY I had nothing to lose and curiousity got the best of me and I left it up for auction. I am left pondering whether or not I could have gotten more-but is there a point where it would just be greedy? Nah.

Thank Stein

Don't you just LOVE it?

Ah look at those adorable little toothums. :)

Shortly after Mark and I moved in we found a few treasures in the attic. I meant to post them awhile ago but... well I didn't. Today I would like to cover the treasure that we found known as a beer stein. Mark and I decided it seemed valuable and we would keep it to sell when the economy picked up so as to insure we would get the most out of it. One of the first things we liked to show people when they came over was our treasured stein. "Check this out" we would say "we are going to sell this one day!" they would nod their heads and not really say much. It was almost as if a small part of them thought it was a crazy thing for us to think we would get anything out of it. About a week ago I decided that it was time for the stein to find a home going back to school supply needs were mounting and with Oktoberfest approaching I thought the timing would be great. Plus, if you are the sort to collect steins of this caliber don't you have more money than Cameron Diaz? Just for kicks, would anyone like to take a stab at how much it would sell for? Comments from those who KNOW the answer may not participate-you now who you are.

Recipe for the Best B-Day Party Ever

I am not one for birthday parties. They make me nervous-even when I was a kid they made me nervous. I am too worried about whether people are going to have a good time or not. Will the activities planned be deemed "lame" and if no activities are planned will boredom prevail? Aida on the other hand does not shy from a party. So, I put aside my own insecurities and planned away. She wanted quite a big group of girls and I didn't want to deal with a sleepover so we did a movie night from 5-10 and watched the premiere of Wizards of Waverly Place the movie. The night went absolutely perfect! I am actually going to go as far as saying that I had fun as well. It was the perfect balance of the 10-year olds having some space but me still being present. Here is a breakdown of the party-you know in case any of you would like to throw the most talked about party of the year.

I printed out these faux movie tickets on business cards I had lying around and we mailed them out.

From 5-6:15pm Guests arrived and we made personal sized homemade pizzas. The kids loved 'em. I made and prebaked the crusts the night before as well as the sauce so it was easy.
From 6:15-7pm We had set up the front room to be a disco with a mini laser and lights. I cleaned up the pizza mess-which wasn't too bad since the messy stuff was done before.
7-7:15pm Aida opened her presents.
7:15-7:30 Ahhh THE cake. Also had the kids decorate their own goody bags for their sushi and any snacks they buy during the movie. EASY!
7:30-7:50 I set up our kitchen island with Sushi ingredients. Kids made sushi while i cleaned up the cake mess from the table.
7:50-8:00pm Kids bought concessions and entered the cinema for the movie at 8pm.

I know you are all speechless. "But Sara" you say- "Where is the pastel?" Thank goodness for the good folks at wilton that sell decorator icing that fits your metal cake tips! The "popcorn" is actually formed from marshmallows. After YEARS of making cakes that only left a creepy mark in peoples minds, I finally made one that impressed albeit 10-year old girls. They were all AMAZED. That's me amazing.

Proof that the above cake was mine and not pulled off the internet. Oh and Aida is cute too.

Candy sushi-kids loved doing this. The ones with the "groovy" fruit roll-ups were really cute.

The snack station. When the kids handed their tickets over to Lucy to enter the cinema she handed them each 10 "puppy bucks" to spend on snacks. We had popcorn, a huge bag of those mini candybars, and sodas. They decided how to spend their money and yet were still limited to how much candy they could have-genious right?
We hung up a sheet to make a "big screen" for our cinema. Also we closed the curtains when I wasn't taking pictures. :)


Lucy got to be in charge of selling the goods. She LOVED doing it and it kept her involved with the party but gave Aida some space with her friends. They bought stuff on commercials.

--------------------------------FIN---------------------------------------

Happy Birthday Aida

I know this is late, but this is one of those "special birthdays" for Aida. It is hard for me to believe that I have a daughter that is in the "double-digits", a daughter that seems to be moments away from being taller than me-a daughter that is immensely talented in so many ways. I could go on and on about all the ways that she amazes me but I have written many of those to her in my yearly letter to her. Mostly I am proud of the person I see her well on her way to becoming. A girl that is not only smart, beautiful, and talented-but a girl that has an incredible amount of compassion for others, empathy and patience. I have seen her voice her opinion and stand up for what she believes in-a higher "good" and decency that I am not accustomed to in my own personality. It never ceases to amaze my how much we can still learn from our children. It started out with a great humbling that now, at times just becomes a sort of jaw-dropping awe. I love you Aida and here is to being 10 and moving on to the next phase of life as you enter middle school. Here is a bit of Aida through the years. Keep a look out for pix of her ROCKING Party!


Aida at 2 months in her blessing dress made by her Grandma Penney. I can still remember all that hair-it just kept growing and growing. Aida looked like a little doll and was an inspiration to many to have their own children-she was THAT cute.

One Year Old
Still cute-one of the dresses I stressed over making for her. Look at those cheeks!

Two Years Old
Aida always loves the beach. Here she is learning "muddy mountain" building from her cuzzies.

Three Years Old

4 Years Old
The year we moved to New Zealand and had Maya. What a big help Aida was!

5 Years Old
Full of Idears.

6 Years Old

8 Years Old

7 Years Old
Finally got her nerve up to hold one of our butterflies.

9 Years Old
Aida was into monkey bars in NZ BIG TIME at this age.

The Big One-O
Celebrating her actual birthday with family.

Aida's Picture

Aida birthday post to come...

NH Post #1: Baby Pete & Windsor, VT

Lucy with Pete

Cute Picture of Pete

Ed and Pete Just Before Ed Tried to Chuck him back to Mark.

Aida and Pete

This time when we went to NH we were able to swing by ol' Windsor, VT to see baby Pete. This is the first baby for a couple I will call Mikris just for kicks. Baby Pete really is one of the cutest babies I have ever seen-tiny and perfect in every way. He has a great disposition and was a real champ when the kids all had a turn holding him and unwrapping him to see his little feetsies. He didn't even make a peep when he went for a swim with his pah-pah.
Of course it was fun to see his parents as well who do not at all seem like first time parents. They look too fit and are much to active hiking around, seeing movies and concerts to be new parents. I guess some people just figure it out faster than others and by others I mean me. It took me four kids to get to that sort of level! They took us to see a beautiful little river with several cool little rock towers.
I decided to post a picture of Ed so you can see how manly he was at the river throwing rocks in his sisters rainbow snoopy shirt. He loves that shirt-but again he was throwing rocks for sometime just like any other manly boy.
We really did have a great time and the girls miss baby Pete already-so Mike and Chris if you are ever looking for somebody to take him...
We also went swimming and Maya did some very impressive...leaps and pirouettes off the diving board. I would have and probably should have taken some pictures but they wouldn't have turned out so well since I usually had to squeeze my eyes shut, wince and turn my head away every time she jumped. It was only a matter of time before her luck ran out and that 1/4cm clearance she had wouldn't be quite enough to clear the board. So, thank you Mikris for the good times and hopefully we will see you again before baby Pete is Toddler Pete.

Scroll Away

I had to put a post after this post and the next post so if you don't want to miss anything terribly awesome keep scrolling until you get to a post you have seen before. I would explain further but Mak is breathing down my neck with that carpet cleaner! Whoa nelly that is hot on my heels-literally!