Goodbye Eliot

We barely saw him after recently finishing his finals for his junior year of university - we're not bitter, truly we aren't - and now he is off to NZ for the summer winter.  Brrrr I hope for your sake it's a mild winter Eliot.

Here are a few snaps of the way Eliot prepares for a long haul trip.   He likes to spread things out.

Mmmm, still looking pretty chaotic there Eliot.  Departure time is getting closer. 

 Phew; starting to look a little more orderly.  Even so, it's surprising what one college student can collect in a dorm room.  If you stop by and you happen to be feeling weary while you are in our garage, there is a lovely soft couch there along with plenty of other paraphernalia. 

 Ron, we're taking the Ford, not the Subaru.  Just because both cars are black doesn't give you the excuse not to know the difference between them!  Only Stella and I do that.

Yes we are sad too but I'm happy you are taking that banana full of potassium.  Your body will thank you for it.  It's probably the one piece of fruit you'll have had in this last semester.  See you in August.

Did you know it's rude not to share a joke?  I figured it out anyway - you're going to toss the banana.  I wasn't born yesterday, guys. 

Future Jazz Musician

Troy had expressed an interest in taking saxophone lessons for quite some time so when we decided it was not just a whim, we thought a birthday saxophone and some lessons would go down well and so it has; gone down well, that is.   

Here's Troy taking a call mid practice.  Let's hope it's not a secret admirer; after all he's only thirteen, way too young to be talking to girls. 

The saxophone is an incredibly loud instrument.  It's just as well we have an acre of land and don't live close to our neighbours otherwise we would probably have to be mindful of practice times.  It's unbelievable how much noise comes out of that piece of metal. 

Birthday bash

Troy's official party selection was Dadd's Extreme Indoor Sports which we duly headed for today with 6 rambunctious boys in tow.  Unfortunately two boys couldn't make it.  When we arrived we were met with a boarded up complex in spite of having been there only several weeks ago.  There were no sports to be had, let alone any extreme sports. 

Here are the boys expressing their disappointment at not being able to GoKart.   Everybody managed to pull a pseudo sad face upon request except the birthday boy. 

Okay, well maybe they weren't that disappointed since Laser Tag was the substitute. 

 Ron was hard pressed not to join the teens.  If only he hadn't injured his ankle last year.  I daresay he will be heavily influencing Troy's choice of birthday party location next time and be sure to join them.  My handbag badly needed tidying so unfortunately I couldn't join the boys. 

Spring haircut

An arborist came scouting the neighbourhood with his crew for some yard work and noticed residual storm damage in a couple of our large trees.  The marketing terminology is widow makers;a  partially broken branch can cause serious injuries when cascading onto an unsuspecting person walking underneath.  He only got the job because he caught Ron at home rather than me - I had a couple of bad experiences with shady contractors when we first moved to the U.S - although I will admit the trees look much better and it's not a job I would have liked to do.  Considering the height of the taller sycamore which at a wild guess is about 100ft (33m), necessitating a significant climb up into the tree, my thoughts last year of tackling that very task were completely unrealistic.

 This picture doesn't even give you the perspective of how high up the tree climbing/chain-sawing fella was.  In fact, looking out of my bedroom window which is a second storey window, I had to peer upwards to find him among the branches.  This shows him pretty far out from the main trunk.

  One would want to be confident about the quality of the safety ropes!

 No residual tree damage here though; just perpetual blossoms from our two Dogwoods flanking the Japanese Maple.  The arborist told us that the low rainfall this spring has caused the flowering trees to keep their blossoms for a longer period of time. 

 Here's an alternate shot with the late afternoon sun casting shadows.  At dusk the white blossoms take on a hue similar to what Iceberg roses do at dusk; something we loved about that particular rose we planted in our Christchurch garden.

Just in case you didn't see them properly in the last picture!  Amazingly, that's just a sample of our spring showcase.  I wouldn't think of boring you with every flowering plant/shrub/bulb located in our yard.