mystery fruit

tastes nicer than it looks in the photo - honest ... (it'll be no mystery if you read the comments section in 'guess that tree')

guess that tree...

this tree is in our garden ... any guesses?

Josh got mail

We've had an exciting week of things turning up in the email, post box and parcels by the door! Thanks everyone...

the sunflower in one week...

Day one:

day three:
day five:
day seven:

little pumpkins!

these are so cute ... yummy too, although they make very cute displays and i wonder if that is what they are mostly used for ...

It rained ...

...on my washing when I forgot all about the lawn sprinklers on timer!

We went exploring this afternoon, Chris has spent three weeks in a row at work so on our first explore as a family out of Los Banos we went over Pacheco Pass (according to GPS was 374m high), which seemed a lot higher to our poor ears after a summer cold ...

On the other side a town called Gilroy with lots of outlet stores to roam ... after some new summer clothes for Bethany, jeans for Josh, some interesting books, and a lead on a TV that might work in NZ too ... we needed food ... and found a whole heap of fun at Chuck E Cheese !!!

It's sort of a cross between lollipops and time zone and a restaurant ... there is a playground tube slide to play in, and games and rides which are all one token each - you also win tickets by playing the games that can be redeemed for prizes ... one pizza and two and a half hours later three happy tired kids, two plastic scorpions, and one ring with pink plastic jewel...

Oh, and if you happen to go while there is a birthday party on you can see Chuck E Cheese ... don't forget your earmuffs it gets pretty loud...

hot enough to fry an egg?

nope, but, it sure did feel like it ought to! - the butter melted and sizzled :-)

Dinosaur Grass

Josh loves dinosaurs at the moment ... go on, use your imagination, this is green dinosaur grass, it is, honest! Josh is EIGHT! Happy Birthday Josh :-)

well, ok, so its green cream cheese icing mmmm...

I was just testing it ...

... the final touches ...

All Done!

ice cream...

vending machine we found outside the Home Depot store

Josh is feeling blue

tomato truck!

ok, so we have a new game ... its called spot the tomato truck ... we haven't done heaps of driving around, but, nearly every time we wait at this set of lights going through town we'll see at least one tomato truck drive through full of tomatoes!

pictures of our USA home

Note the drying rack I have out the back - there is no washing line, I knew there wouldn't be but it is still amazing to me ... I'll get one strung up soon ... meanwhile this wee rack is great and a tee-shirt will dry in half and hour in the middle of the day ...the only reason to use the dryer would be if I didn't want to get too hot hanging out the washing - although I have been known to load up the drying rack inside and shove it quickly out the door!

I'm imaging that we will get used to the heat... it is after all a 'nice' heat iykwim - dry like up in the Mackenzie ... and already we are turning the air conditioning up so we don't feel too cold inside, so we must be adjusting already ... apparently it doesn't go to low temperatures in the winter either, although by then perhaps 10dC will feel cold ...

more box play - forts

So what do you do with those empty boxes?

You build a hut of course ...

And use all the extra large packing paper as a great drawing canvas (this is a picture of me btw!)

new rooms

boxes to unpack!

Picnic time

We spent a bit of time hanging out at the (empty) house one morning, waiting on the truck of rental furniture - this is us having our first meal here ... a picnic breakfast by the front window trying to stay cool at about 8am ...

Another morning we tried to find a playground while it was still cool enough to run about outside ... unfortunately while first finding somewhere to pickup some morning-tea and drinks to take with us the temperature rose really fast and by 11ish the metal playground equipment was too hot to touch! so we ate (some) of our picnic in the shade of the tree and then bettled back to the hotel for a swim instead!! When i say some, i'm talking about the pink bun that you can see in the photo - Bethany loved the look of it, but, so sweet she didn't want to actually eat it ... Josh's choice was more successful and the little nibble he shared was so yummy ... Ben chose a plain bread roll and from all reports very similar to a french stick from our home-town supermarket ... its the closest we've gotten to a nice (to us) bread as the bread here is very very sweet ...

Movies!

Toy Story 3, in 3D - lots of fun!! We went for a drive while staying in the hotel one day ... looking for something inside and found the movies ...

The driving, now that was weird coming off a divided-multi laned highway (where it is easy to forget you're driving on the right-hand side of the road), and to see a big-rig coming up the two-way ramp towards you ... just repeat after me: stay to the right, stay to the right, you're in the right place on the road, stay to the right ... :-)

the Wiki Waka

One evening it was so hot we decided to sit outside in the courtyard of this resturant as it had neat water drizzling down over the whole area to cool it down

Just as we got there though it turned itself off as the drizzling water wasn't evaporating immediately - must have gotten too cool!

The kids menus came with wiki sticks ... Ben made a Maori waka, and Bethany made a person...

Our first evening out...

While we are staying in the hotel waiting for the house to be ready, and our things to get here from NZ we did a lot of eating out - we did ultimately get sick of needing to head out of the hotel every day in search of food ... but, i did not miss cooking as much as i thought i might :-) ... and yes, there are a lot of drinks - its tough staying hydrated in this heat (about 30-40dC every day) ...