Goats and pirates

OK, so we didn't have goats and pirates in our garden, but mom did manage to carve the cat i asked for:
not bad for a first attempt, mom.

I wasn't too convinced about the nasty green faced witch we saw on our preschool trip to the pumpkin patch in Southlands. she was a bit horrid. poor ollie got very wet in the backpack as it was pouring with rain, so he wasn't very happy either. in fact the whole trip - not a great success.

singing

we sing a LOT at preschool. like EVERY day. i particularly like slippery fish, and three little speckled frogs. mom took a video of me performing twinkle, twinkle little star on the stage at the aquarium the other day. my audience of two (mom and ollie) looked suitably impressed by my rendition of the first and last lines.

even more impressive was my adaptation of five little monkeys which i sang whilst sitting on my bed today. equipped with my thomas magnet book: five little trains went down the track, one fell off (dropped through the slats of my bed base) and bumped his head and there were four little trains going down the track......

hobbes is a very willing audience when i sing slippery fish to him at bedtime. it helps him go to sleep, i think.

90 days later

the strike is over.......
no more sneaking dirty nappies into dumpsters after dark
no more parked bobcats to climb on
no more 'curious george' to listen to at bed time
no more excuses for not raking the leaves or mowing the lawn
i guess all the people on strike realised it was going to start getting pretty cold and wet soon - not much fun sitting on the picket line in the rain, eh?

and even after three months, mom and dad never did get around to watching the two Sharpe dvds they got out of the library for a week back in july.

Conkers? bonkers!

when mom suggested a trip out on my bike to look for conkers i imagined something like a treasure hunt: looking up trees, under leaves, behind plants........

i don't think either of us thought there'd be so many conkers i couldn't even ride my bike!

Science World

After months (years?) of hearing about the fun i have at science world with Rox and Trina, finally mom and dad took ollie and i for a visit. There was a special free day for the Thanksgiving weekend, so it was pretty busy, but we went early and battled our way through the crowds at mcdonalds afterwards too.



The quality of catering greatly improved the following day when we went for Thanksgiving lunch at the Harringtons. i quite liked the turkey and sweet potatoes, (especially the marshmallows on top) but the best bit of lunch by far was the chocolate cake. dad got to have some worky conversation with andy and mark, and mom had so much adult conversation in one day that she couldn't sleep that night. even ollie had a good time being doted on and played with, although it was a bit too exciting for him to have a nap, too.
it was a bit disappointing that it was too wet to jump on the trampoline in the back garden, but i'm sure we'll go back. i told dad on the way home that i liked that house and i liked those people. i asked if they could all come to joel's house upstairs and play soccer and football and basketball.

new windows

after some debate about what sizes and types of window to get: whether they crank open, or push, or slide, or even don't open at all - our new windows arrived today. it all happened remarkably quickly really. a few hefty blows of the hammer and the old windows came out, and not long afterwards the new ones were installed. fortunately it was a nice day so all our stuff didn't get rained on.


i helped the guys by getting them iced water from the fridge at regular intervals, and offering them my tools to use, but they had quite a few decent ones of their own.

On strike

summer's arrived and when the sun's shining there's nothing better than splashing in the waterpark, reading a book on the beach, watching the diggers doing road construction or going for a swim in Kits pool. obviously the city workers think so too, since they've all gone on strike. except they've obviously not thought it through too well - they may not be emptying our bins or digging the roads but while the libraries, pools and parks are shut they won't be able to have much fun either.

so now instead of going to the library we go looking for an unlocked commercial dumpster to throw away our smelly diapers. not exactly the summer entertainment we've been looking forward to since christmas :(

Andrew's fixing his motorbike ...... again

a friend of dad's is returning home to south africa soon, but rather than flying, he's going to ride his motorbike there instead. given how many pieces his motorbike is currently in, this is rather worrying.

andrew's staying in our basement at the moment fixing his bike on a daily basis, whilst waiting for his travelling partner to be ready to leave. or maybe he's waiting until his bike is fixed. who knows? i've decided my tricycle needs fixing too, so now i keep a wrench and a pair of pliers in the seat compartment ready for a daily tune up.

in the meantime we had our first ever yard sale. andrew needed to sell the last of his stuff- not much space on a motorbike for a clothes dryer, kitchen equipment or office stuff. we dragged out some of our stuff from the store room to bolster his offerings. despite the fact we had a load more stuff, he made a lot more money. seems no one else liked the light fixtures we took down either.


we had some fun though, we met some more of the neighbours and i got my bubble machine out to attract more passers by. we even got to wash the front steps while trade was slow.

you can follow andrew's travels online at http://www.homeinafrica.net