Windsor Birth Place of Vermont

Mt Ascutney

Our first trip to the US was in 1996, Pete taught a semester at BYU Provo ... so of we all went ... the six of us! Mike, lucy & Mack attended school in Provo,  Alice spent her days with me and going to kindergarten ... she would often sneak off to the dairy with money she had pinched to buy 'candy'. We lived in Student Housing on campus and attended a BYU Young Marrieds Ward. We discovered Cinnabons ... how cheap the cost of living was compared to home ... bikes, shoes and computers, which all came back with us to NZ on our return. I do not know how our children look back on that time, but I think we had fun. When Pete finished his teaching we went travelling and drove the Mormon Trail. We lived in a VW Vanagon and had $US96 a day to live on and we did it. We slept in the Vanagon mostly and sometimes we would stay in Motels and then there were times when we relied on the generosity of friends! The Brunts in Ithaca NY ... a very cool place, the Palmers in Chicago ... another cool city and the Bloomquists in Arizona ... redrock country which I fell in love with. Little did we know when we left to come back to NZ that our lives would be so intimately connected with the US at some point in the future.

Then Mike met Chris ... who was attending BYUH ... lucy, who also attended BYUH thought Chris was the coolest person she had met in a long time and kept telling us she had met Mike's wife! To cut a long story short ... lucy was right ... as usual. Chris came out to Christchurch for a conference, Mike had just got home of his mission, like weeks I think, Chris stayed with us and the rest is history! I remember when I first met Chris ... I thought she had the most beautiful blue eyes ... luminous blue eyes as Pete says. She was standing at the kitchen bench and we were talking ... her hair was longer and she pushed her hand through her hair of her face and I saw her as a mature woman. Mike and Chris have now been married for 10 years and have 2 gorgeous children, lars and Roxcy. They moved back to VT in about 2007 and we have been coming to visit them regularly in Windsor VT since 2008.

Life runs at a very different pace here. Windsor as I have probably mentioned is a tiny town, but it has a wonderful community feel to it. People are friendly and life seems a lot more relaxed. People seem to support community events with enthusiasm and pride. There is an interesting assortment of people who live here ... poets, environmentalists, a very well known Glass Blowing factory, some great outdoor activities and right over the Connecticut River is the Cornish Colony ... a well known artists colony. The biggest surprise of all for us was discovering that Beth, of Beth and Jason, Mike and Chris' neighbours went to Cheese Mongering school in the UK with Martin and Sarah our local Cheese Mongers in ChCh.The world really is small.  The village green is a great gathering place and they have a very cool library with very enthusiastic librarians and volunteers. Windsor really is VTs best kept secret! There are some very nice gardens here in Windsor ... vegie gardens and flower gardens ... a little different to NZ, but they are beautiful and were full of color when we first arrived here.

Mike and Chris live on a great street with children playing in each other's yard and lars and Roxcy have cousins all around them. Reminds me a lot of our family times with Rob, Viv, Pita, Carly, Rosie, Joe, Sam, Evie and Chuckie. I have wonderful memories of our family times together. My first tramp with Mike and Carly came along. Rosie turning up at our door at 131 crying and mascara running down her face ... she would fall asleep anywhere. Pita and Carly staying with us for a few weeks/months while Rob & Viv moved back from the NI. Pete would get up in the morning and get them toast and their bikes ready to ride to seminary. I think they got a bit of a shock living with us, they often talk about the trauma of no TV and hot water on their Weetbix. lucy, Rosie and Joe hanging out together, Mike playing Dungeons and Dragons with Pita and his friends after school. Christmas' @ 371 River Road and the children playing in the River with the Robinson children, Emma, Danny, Ben and Abbie. Family meals at Marg & Syd's. Lake Lyndon during winter, the projector in tow and towing the children on their tyre tubes on the back of our cars. Water pistol fights at Christmas. Mack and Sam on the back of our VW on 90 mile beach. Evie, Alice and Chuckie came as a threesome when we were together.

Rob was always up for an adventure and we had some great ones with him. Off we would go ... late in the day to a destination that we had some rough idea of. A lot of fun and wonderful memories and relationships came out of those times. Then Rob & Viv decided to leave ChCh and move to Temple View ... that was a big loss for us. We bought their house in 1997 ... 29a has been a great blessing for our family and I love living there! Of course Rob is no longer with us ... which has left such a gaping hole in our lives ... even more so for his family and particularly Viv. Children have grown up and now have their own lives and families ... but I hope the memories of family, adventure, ritual and love linger on in their lives ... when they look back they have a wonderful sense of being part of something that was warm and loving for them!

I believe life is about relationships ... building relationships that will last ... learning to forgive ourselves and others ... creating something meaningful and lasting, being vulnerable with those who we love. I hope some of those things have rubbed off in our family ... and as I watch lars and Roxcy with their cousins I think what a wonderful life they are having and I see history repeating itself. Marg would often say to me, 'these children have a great life' ... that is how I feel about lars and Roxcy ... Elizabeth and our extended family ... cousins etc ... 'these children have a great life' and they have  great parents! Dean & Carly, Pita & Tasi, Joe & Belinda, Mack & Ite, Mike & Chris ... you are doing a wonderful job of loving and parenting your children.

I have not forgotten ... photos ... here are some random photos of events over the last couple of weeks ... highlights and some shots of Windsor that I like. Feel free to comment if you feel so inclined, I like reading your comments.

This photo reminds me of Rob ... 5K Fun Run

The Finish line

Beautiful Color

The Village Green

Fire Safety

Library

Best Ice Cream So Far

Mike's Office

HoBo Spider

Now I am pretty sure if this was in the Matthew's wardrobe, Tom would have saved it and shown it to their children, Meg would have wanted to know how many eyes it had probably and then there would have been a whole google thing going on to find out what sort of spider it was ... not me ... this thing had to go!!

A Visit to River Road ... 

Can't not have a photo of these 2 

Reminds me of the NI Cammocks

Final Photo ...

Uncle Brig, Grandad Pete, Uncle Mike, Cousins ... Family