Thunder Birds are Go

We have been here just over a week ... today we head of on our 'epic' road trip with lars and Roxcy. Full disclosure, I am a little nervous ... it has been a long time since I have had full time care of young children. I am a little scared that I have lost my touch. Chris is very hands on with lars and Roxcy and does some very creative things with them ... creativity has never been my strong point. Mike has downloaded movies ... we have audible books ... Chris has a Spotify a/c and is ready to share her road trip music with us ... Thunder Birds are GO! 

An after thought ...

The BFG ... we took Roxcy and lars to see it ... I loved it. I really like Mark Rylance who plays BFG, he was fantastic in Bridge of Spies and he is wonderful in BFG. What child has not read or possibly had read to them a Roald Dahl book at some point in their lives. He knew how to capture children's imagination ... in all his books the children have the power and are the heroes, often rescuing adults ... or giants like The BFG. I think Steven Spielberg, the director, is getting better at relationships in his movies ... he is better at the closeness of the connection, at least for me.

 Roxcy and I did the girly thing and got our nails done. I like having my nails painted, I think I like how they look when finished ... I feel all dressed up. The woman doing our nails told Roxcy to hold her hands up until her nail polish set so they wouldn't chip. Later on that evening Roxcy appeared with no polish on ... she said she couldn't hold her hands up any longer. The literalness of a child.

This is how the mornings start here at 14 Pine Street ... we come downstairs about 6.30am ... lars and Roxcy are already awake and watching Pokemon together. They do that really well. They make a really cool little team.

Someone is usually on the elliptical machine ... usually Jason, he turns up about 5.30am. Then Mike & Chris come downstairs about 6.30 and they take their turn. Jason and Mike come of this machine dripping wet!

Then Jason makes breakfast for everyone ... 

I did it Cheryl Vanden Bosch ... I bought wool to knit myself a throw. I have been telling Cheryl for the last couple of years that it is time for me to buy some wool and  knit a blanket for myself ... I did it Cheryl. I found Quince and Co a few years ago ... a website that sells beautiful wool and patterns. I am very excited! 

We now have an Atlas ... time to get lost in America.

Just because I love the color.

I love, love, love this poem ... 'Hag Riding'.

Roxcy and I went blueberry picking ... I found it so peaceful and restful. Soothing classical music playing while we were picking. Roxcy started out enthusiastically and after about 15 minutes gave up ... I kept going until my bucket was full.

'Pete's' little helper. lars will go anywhere with Pete!

We had a lovely evening at the Snapdragon Inn ... sitting out on their lawn and listening to excellent live music, 'Carolina Story' they are great, I bought a vinyl recording from them. Meeting up with people ... eating hamburgers and chilling, this is the summer evening life. We were escorted home by 'fire flies'.

I know I have said this before ... I love Target ... the only reason to visit the US.

Dressing up our RV from Target. What is not to like about Target? I loved my day with Chris and Roxcy ... we spent literally hours wandering the aisles. I so wish we had a Target in NZ.

A spontaneous rain storm on our way home from Target ... the US does some amazing thunder and lightening storms.

Father, son, Father, son. I had to take this photo. These three Cammock men are pretty awesome!

Roxcy and I went picking wild flowers from round the lake this afternoon ... a gift for 'Mom'.

Mike and Chris are big TV series watchers ... part of the fun staying with them is watching some good TV. We have been watching the series Stranger Things by the Duffer Bros ... I love these four they really make the series ... particularly the guy in the cap, he is awesome. This is kind of ET meets Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Winona Ryder is one of the leads ... I find her a little whinny and annoying ... I think she overdoes it as an actress. We got to the end ... well worth a watch if you have been an ET fan.

We are of ...

If I were you I'd wanna be me ...

We are here ... our flight was a breeze! Caught up on some movies ... ate dinner ... took half a sleeping tablet and slept for about 6 hours ... one interruption with someone vomiting into a paper bag behind us. We were not looking forward to flying into LAX ... our preferred airport has been SF but LAX was surprisingly easy. There was an ongoing recorded message throughout the airport staying ... 'we hope you have an exceptional experience' ... I thought it was quite funny. We enjoyed stepping outside arrivals into heat. 

We feel very lucky/privileged/blessed to be able to fly to the northern hemisphere in the middle of our winter. I do feel a little spoilt! It is lovely and warm here in VT and we are loving spending time with our family. One of the upsides of having children marry offshore is the travel to see them ... by the time we get back to NZ in September all 4 children will be overseas. The downside is that it does get a little expensive ... but while we can we intend to travel to see our children and grandchildren as much as we can. Life could be a lot worse.

I have tried to remember lucy's advise to take lots of photos ... so here goes!  

Starbucks ... I had my worst hot chocolate ever at Starbucks in Hamilton ... it was so bad I threw it in the rubbish bin. Those of you who know me will know how fussy I am about my Hot Chocolate's. May be I have mentioned it before when we blogged while travelling. I like them rich, strong and hot! This one was not so bad. Not fantastic, but not bad. 

We had a meal at LAX ... I had black beans ... I love black beans! Lucy and Josh cook the best black beans.Pete had American fish and chips ... very disappointing but still worthy of a photo.

This little girl loves to dance. lars and Roxcy were so excited to see us ... we felt very special. They loved their treats ... Roxcy and I did some dancing and we all hung out for a while. Mike and Chris have done wonderful renovations to their house ... they have taken something that was pretty basic and turned it into a space full of light, color and magic. Very inspiring.

I know you have seen this before ... Mike and Chris live on a man made Lake ... it is beautiful! This is the view from their bedroom window ... Room with a View. Since being here we have seen some beautiful views of the lake and light through this window.

We took lars and Roxcy to buy ice creams from the ice cream stand at Home Depot ... some of the selection of flavours ... so much choice ... note there is no Hokey Pokey or Boysenberry ... our favourite flavours in the commercial ice cream line in NZ ... Deep South our go to brand. Tip Top Boysenberry Ripple is award winning.

We forgot about Roxcy and ice cream. This is a small ice cream! It is almost as big as her face. So it started out like this ... we bought lars' ice cream in a dish with chocolate hail ... I thought Roxcy would like chocolate hail as well ... but no! When she got her ice cream she no longer wanted it but wanted Pete's ice cream ... so Pete ended up with candy floss ice cream covered in chocolate hail in a dish and Roxcy ended up with Pete's 'small' cookies and cream ice cream in a cone! I'm not sure but I think Roxcy got the better deal.

These 2 are BFFs ... lars will go almost any where with Pete. 

The future is here ... a Tesla ... recharging at a battery charger. There have been many conversations among the men in our family about 'the Tesla Car', the car of the future. Mike has ordered one ... I think it comes in 2021 or something like that. I wonder if he will still want it then.  

I could not resist this photo ... these three were playing together at the green in Windsor where we were enjoying meeting up with people and listening to some local musicians. Every so often this little trio would stop and huddle together ... who knows what they were talking about or planning ... but Roxcy was the leader ... the power of one!

Look at me ... look at me .... look at me!

Jason the Incredible ... this is Mike and Chris' friend ... carpenter ... breakfast maker ... baker ... RV repair man ... we all need someone in our lives like this ... who is just there filling the gaps, tonight he brought over the most amazing meal! He comes over every morning and cooks 'Scottish Oats' for breakfast for Mike and Chris ... with chia seeds, nuts, apricots, prunes, fresh pineapple and almond and coconut milk ... he is awesome! He is doing repairs on our RV so that we can take it on the road ... soon. 

Pool Time ... 

Just because I love the color of this pepper.

lars' bed all made up ... Pete and lars now sleep in the RV. lars loves it.

My task while here. I love knitting! I knitted Roxcy a blanket when she was born that she has loved to death! So my task while I am here is knitting a new blanket for her. She has been very particular about what she wants ... color, stripes and hearts! I had to make a managerial decision and narrow the options down. We went to Woodstock yesterday and picked the colors she wanted and this is what we came home with. I had a wonderful time with her. I will definitely have it finished by the time I leave. There will be no hearts on it, but I suggested that I knit some heart pillows as a consolation. They will come later. 

Leaving on a Jet Plane

We are heading of to the States for 7 weeks ... we are looking forward to some sun ... adventure and relaxation. It is a great time of year to be flying to the Northern Hemisphere to enjoy their summer. I have had requests from a few people to blog our trip so today I start ... 

We are so excited to hang out with these guys ... we are looking forward to some very fun adventures with them ... more tandem riding and a few road trips! We just don't get to spend enough time with them. 

We are doing this trip American style ... we have bought ourselves an RV ... yep ... this will be our home when we visit the States which is quite often these days. It has been Pete's dream for a long time to own one of these ... when we were travelling he had a plan to continue to rent our house and live in a house bus driving round NZ ... I DO NOT want a house bus up our drive ... but I am happy to drive round the States in one. Mike, Pete and lars spent weeks/months looking at RVs ... discussing various models and finally narrowing it down to the real deal ... and here it is. No matter what type of RV we bought it had to have a TV ... that was Lars' specification. We plan to take Lars and Roxcy on at least two road trips while we are there.

I am guessing that Pete and I will take turns in driving ... the last time we did a big road trip round the States was in 1996 with all of our children. I was navigator for a while ... but that did not work very well ... Pete and I had some very tense moments over my map reading so I ended up driving and he navigated ... things went much smoother. We listened to Lord of the Rings ... BBC version and a lot of the Eagles, Hotel California and Joan Osborne, What if God were one of Us CDs to name some of our listening. I have been collecting a few songs for this road trip ... Maroon 5 ... Bruce Springsteen to mention just a couple.