Monday, July 30, 2007
Meet our new addition to the family...
This is Puma Kitty Reynolds...
Born March 1 2007
Born March 1 2007
We adopted him from the SPCA yesterday.
A puma, we all know, is another name for the mountain lion, or cougar. But it also means "be grey, whitish" in Maori... so we all decided that it would be a good name.
(It is also the name of the snowmobile that my parents had when I was little.)
Puma is fitting in really well with his new friends Athea "Cheetah Cowboy Kitty" and Haidyn "Black Kitty".
"Cheetah Cowboy Kitty" loves to carry poor Puma around the house and has been relentlessly stalking him since he arrived. Puma Kitty has been really good about it and we have not had a "real scatching" incident yet (but at the rate Athea is going it is bound to happen=).
"Black Kitty" is a little more laid back, she just likes to pet Puma and watch him play with yarn. In fact, Haidyn has been really good at trying to remain calm to help our new kitty get comfortable in his new house. She constantly reports that she has not been scratched yet.
I know what you are thinking...
We are crazy... well, maybe... but so far so good. =)
Puma also represents another male in the house. To kind of balance things out. But since every toy and doll in this house has alway been female, we are having a real hard time using male pronouns with him. As Athea will say, "She's a boy!". And since he's fixed, it doesn't really matter.
Puma also represents another male in the house. To kind of balance things out. But since every toy and doll in this house has alway been female, we are having a real hard time using male pronouns with him. As Athea will say, "She's a boy!". And since he's fixed, it doesn't really matter.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Home again Home again Jiggity Jig
The whole family in now back in New Zealand.
The girls and I arrived yesterday morning at about 10:00 am. The only hitch is that somewhere between LA and Auckland our blue roller suitcase went missing.
Keep your fingers crossed for us that is actually shows up at some point. :)
Eric was at the airport waiting for us when we arrived and he took the whole day off to spend time with his girls. It was really great to see him!
My friend Nicola stopped by the house with baked goodies and beautiful welcome back cards designed by her girls. Maryana, who is also a friend, stopped by quickly and dropped off flowers and treats. This was such a nice Welcome home surprise.. I sure do appreciate these gals and was glad to see them!
It is now Thursday morning here in NZ.. I think =)
We are back into the routine, Haidyn went to school today and Eric went to work. My jet lagged Athea is now sleeping on the chair, she woke at about 5:00am this morning ready to go.
The girls and I arrived yesterday morning at about 10:00 am. The only hitch is that somewhere between LA and Auckland our blue roller suitcase went missing.
Keep your fingers crossed for us that is actually shows up at some point. :)
Eric was at the airport waiting for us when we arrived and he took the whole day off to spend time with his girls. It was really great to see him!
My friend Nicola stopped by the house with baked goodies and beautiful welcome back cards designed by her girls. Maryana, who is also a friend, stopped by quickly and dropped off flowers and treats. This was such a nice Welcome home surprise.. I sure do appreciate these gals and was glad to see them!
It is now Thursday morning here in NZ.. I think =)
We are back into the routine, Haidyn went to school today and Eric went to work. My jet lagged Athea is now sleeping on the chair, she woke at about 5:00am this morning ready to go.
Here is that sweet girl of mine, I just took her picture and while I was posting it to the blog I noticed that she is cuddling the American flag. She must be having sweet dreams of a great summer vacation!
The month just flew by! We had a great time! Only 365 more days until I get to go home again. We better start saving our cash now!!
Friday, July 20, 2007
Ten Wonderful Years
Well here we are. Back at the church where it all started. What a great adventure we've had so far. It's been a wonderful 10 years. Sometimes easier than others. We certainly bit off a lot to chew. I sure do love my Anna and I hope our next 10 years are as exciting and as crazy as our first 10. But maybe not as much house moving this time around. And you all know we have two of the nicest girls anyone could ever want. I am missing them all if you can't tell. Here I am in a very clean house (just the way I like it), and it isn't nearly as great as a messy house with my girls running around in it. They get back in five days.
Happy Anniversary Anna!
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
More Choteau Action
OK, here are some more pics. I would just dump all these pics in one blog, but I start going batty with this blogger formatting anytime I get more than a few pics downloaded. So I just do a little each day. That is how us old guys cope with this new technology.
Here are my girls and Chris and Jim's Finn at the Fourth of July parade in Choteau. It was all about the candy. One of the pictures is Chris running out to grab Finn because he probably saw a piece of candy still out in the street under a horse or moving car or something else that could squish him.
Then here are some pics of the girls bowling their first game. Oh we were very sporty this Forth of July week! That is their cousin Jessica helping. She was great with the girls. They had gutter guards put up on their lane. Haidyn and Athea both would roll the ball. Then turn and walk back and hang out with me because it would take about 45 seconds for the ball to actually get to the pins. Haidyn almost had a strike. Her ball came to a complete stop at the last pin and just sat there.
Here are the girls dancing in the Choteau park with Lindsey and Erin Lincoln. The Lincoln's (Tim and Laurie are the parents) came up to Choteau from Great Falls to see us. It was great seeing them again. I went to college with Laurie, and I roomed with Tim for a week back in High School, and then again when we both had our first jobs post-college in Minneapolis.
More to come. Bye!
Here are my girls and Chris and Jim's Finn at the Fourth of July parade in Choteau. It was all about the candy. One of the pictures is Chris running out to grab Finn because he probably saw a piece of candy still out in the street under a horse or moving car or something else that could squish him.
Then here are some pics of the girls bowling their first game. Oh we were very sporty this Forth of July week! That is their cousin Jessica helping. She was great with the girls. They had gutter guards put up on their lane. Haidyn and Athea both would roll the ball. Then turn and walk back and hang out with me because it would take about 45 seconds for the ball to actually get to the pins. Haidyn almost had a strike. Her ball came to a complete stop at the last pin and just sat there.
Here are the girls dancing in the Choteau park with Lindsey and Erin Lincoln. The Lincoln's (Tim and Laurie are the parents) came up to Choteau from Great Falls to see us. It was great seeing them again. I went to college with Laurie, and I roomed with Tim for a week back in High School, and then again when we both had our first jobs post-college in Minneapolis.
More to come. Bye!
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
More Vacation Pics
Ok, here are some more pictures. Man, getting on a plane and flying back to NZ.... I might as well have jumped on a space shuttle and gone to the moon. It just feels like I'm on a different planet.
More pictures from the Willy Nelson Concert:
Here is Patti and Bryce. All the way from Tacoma Washington. Patty wins the award for knowing every word to all the Willy Nelson songs.
Here is my cousin Debbie and my Aunty Rita. Rita scored most of our free Willy tickets. She also made sure we got there early so we would get seats in the grand stand which has shade. Again folks, because it was HOT out! Poor David Letterman sat on the opposite side of the rodeo grounds in the sun. He's not connected the way we Reynoldz are. The next picture is Patti, Chris, Dannielle, and Lloyd. I think he is enjoying the concert. Dannielle is another cousin from Tacoma.
Here is Anna's Dad Ted. He is texting his buds letting them know how the concert is going. He flew from Minneapolis to hang out in Choteau with us. Ted does not like to miss anything fun. He is doing retirement right! The next picture is one I took of the Choteau grain bins on our walk home from the concert to our motel.
Tomorrow's Blog will be the Choteau 4th of July parade!!! Don't miss it!!!
More pictures from the Willy Nelson Concert:
Here is Patti and Bryce. All the way from Tacoma Washington. Patty wins the award for knowing every word to all the Willy Nelson songs.
Here is my cousin Debbie and my Aunty Rita. Rita scored most of our free Willy tickets. She also made sure we got there early so we would get seats in the grand stand which has shade. Again folks, because it was HOT out! Poor David Letterman sat on the opposite side of the rodeo grounds in the sun. He's not connected the way we Reynoldz are. The next picture is Patti, Chris, Dannielle, and Lloyd. I think he is enjoying the concert. Dannielle is another cousin from Tacoma.
Here is Anna's Dad Ted. He is texting his buds letting them know how the concert is going. He flew from Minneapolis to hang out in Choteau with us. Ted does not like to miss anything fun. He is doing retirement right! The next picture is one I took of the Choteau grain bins on our walk home from the concert to our motel.
Tomorrow's Blog will be the Choteau 4th of July parade!!! Don't miss it!!!
Monday, July 16, 2007
Vacation!
Summer vacation is over for one of the Reynoldz. That's me. Eric. Sitting in cold New Zealand. The girls still have a few days of sun with Ted and Donna before they come home.
We started off our glorious vacation with two days in Los Angeles, visiting with our good friends Kevin, Kate, Madison, and Sidney. We went to some theme park (anna: edit this part!) and stood in some lines and rode some rides. Oh, I possibly also gave poor Kevin viral meningitis.
From there we went onto Bozeman to see my folks Lloyd and Joanne, and Chris, Jim, JEB and FINN!! We spent the first week getting ready for our monster yard sale where we got rid of most of our earthly possessions. Anna went hopping over to Vancouver to see her OLD girl friends who she hasn't seen in awhile. So the first week wasn't super relaxing. However, we did get a chance to discover the great American past time. No, not TV, or bombing people. I'm talking about baseball!!
Here are some pics of the new sport the kids all learned in record setting 100+ degree heat!!! They had a blast! First base was a pillow. They would run to it and then lay down on it. It took a bit of practice but they eventually learned how to run the bases in some sort of correct order. Looks like that pitch to Haidyn is a bit high.
The yard sale was a success. Other than a stupid dog peeing on one of the beds we had already sold, it went pretty well. I have to thank my dad again for all the work he did moving it all up from California. It was a ton of stuff.
Then it was off to Choteau for the 4th of July!! Lots of relatives and friends were there. David Letterman (who has a cabin outside of Choteau) paid for Willy Nelson to come there and give a free concert for the towns people. We initially didn't think we had any chance of going (the 3000 free tickets had all been snatched up a couple months ago), but by our first few hours in Choteau, we had scored five tickets. Free.
So off we went. It was held at the Choteau Rodeo Grounds. It was a hot dusty show. Anna kept pointing out old fat drunk guys and saying "There's Dave! I think that's Dave! (Letterman)
He was in the crowd we later found out, but we never saw him.
Here is Chris and Anna. Living the Willy Nelson dream!!
(one of the Choteau police officers took this photo for me since he could get closer)
Well folks. I am jet lagged and am going to bed. Will add more tomorrow.
Cheers
We started off our glorious vacation with two days in Los Angeles, visiting with our good friends Kevin, Kate, Madison, and Sidney. We went to some theme park (anna: edit this part!) and stood in some lines and rode some rides. Oh, I possibly also gave poor Kevin viral meningitis.
From there we went onto Bozeman to see my folks Lloyd and Joanne, and Chris, Jim, JEB and FINN!! We spent the first week getting ready for our monster yard sale where we got rid of most of our earthly possessions. Anna went hopping over to Vancouver to see her OLD girl friends who she hasn't seen in awhile. So the first week wasn't super relaxing. However, we did get a chance to discover the great American past time. No, not TV, or bombing people. I'm talking about baseball!!
Here are some pics of the new sport the kids all learned in record setting 100+ degree heat!!! They had a blast! First base was a pillow. They would run to it and then lay down on it. It took a bit of practice but they eventually learned how to run the bases in some sort of correct order. Looks like that pitch to Haidyn is a bit high.The yard sale was a success. Other than a stupid dog peeing on one of the beds we had already sold, it went pretty well. I have to thank my dad again for all the work he did moving it all up from California. It was a ton of stuff.
Then it was off to Choteau for the 4th of July!! Lots of relatives and friends were there. David Letterman (who has a cabin outside of Choteau) paid for Willy Nelson to come there and give a free concert for the towns people. We initially didn't think we had any chance of going (the 3000 free tickets had all been snatched up a couple months ago), but by our first few hours in Choteau, we had scored five tickets. Free.
So off we went. It was held at the Choteau Rodeo Grounds. It was a hot dusty show. Anna kept pointing out old fat drunk guys and saying "There's Dave! I think that's Dave! (Letterman)
He was in the crowd we later found out, but we never saw him.
Here is Chris and Anna. Living the Willy Nelson dream!!
(one of the Choteau police officers took this photo for me since he could get closer)
Well folks. I am jet lagged and am going to bed. Will add more tomorrow.Cheers
