Unloading In Three Rivers!

We found us a home! It is situated right on the main fork of the Kaweah river. The House is fairly retro in style (which means it's a little dated inside) but the views are awesome and it has great decking outside with lots of great seating in order to absorb the atmosphere!



























We've already done our IKEA trip (3.5 hours to L.A.) and stocked up on furniture to fit in with our 50's/60's house! David got the fridge and washing machine today and we even have DSL again and I can use the desktop online again (with National Public Radio playing in the background) after 9 months. It's all good!!
This snake was not seen by our house but we are told to watch out for the Copperheads! The kids already found a scorpion on Maya's bed this morning!! Things to think about while listening to the rush of the river!

Three Rivers

Well we packed up once again and amazingly it all fit in our 5x8 trailer perfectly. (David is a master of packing at this point). We drove for three days....the kids got through Return of the King, Revenge of the Sith and Princess Monoke more than once on D's Laptop....I did plenty of knitting...Dolphin snoozed most of the way and realized early he'd just have to deal with it.....and D did lots of driving and we all arrived without any hitches in Three Rivers. It truly feels like we are in California....the dry heat and the rushing sound of the river (which was the first thing we headed for). There is a rapid out the back of the motel which we took a look at (photos show it in the background)....actually I should say David salivated over it. We splashed around at the water's edge (ok...again I should say that D took the plunge and swam across the river-couldn't resist the cheesy picture of D in front of the rapid)....and it felt really good! That was the first evening! Then we saw 4 different rental properties on Saturday morning-one with absolutley amazing views from the hillside overlooking the valley, however the inside wasn't so charming...two not so nicely located ones....and then one right on the main river! We think this last one will do us for now and have put in an application (should hear tomorrow). The inside is kind of dated and not our style but it has huge windows looking out onto the river and great outdoor spaces and decking and even a sunken hot tub in the deck (which needs serious cleaning), so we'll just spend most of our time out there. Needless to say David headed straight for the river and felt satisfied he could play in his boat there (it's a bit too swift for swimming right now but could be good when the water is lower). We met up with a contact David had made from Cal State Fresno ( a student who lives out here and knows some of the same rafting folks we know here). She kindly took us around and filled us in on various locals and swimming spots. Then we dropped by the house some rafting friends of ours have bought here (which is very close to the rental we're interested in) and surprised one of them (Amicaya) and caught up a little (the others are arriving next week) before he headed off for a rafting trip. Ate pizza and drank a beer on the rocks by the river for dinner (bit sick of pizza now but the beer was good). It's Sunday morning and we have interent connection in our room for the first time in two days (wireless hasn't been working)....the forcast for the forseeable future is sunny sunny sunny .....and so far we're having a lazy Sunday! We'll let you all know when we have an actual home again...hopefully soon!

Elves, Barbarians and other strange things!

Some pictures from David's recent trip to the Elf Fanatasy Fair in the Netherlands!

Yes that is David getting to battle as a Carthaginian......they beat the Romans in this one!

David got to keep the armor and now Sage is complete as a wee barbarian!

D also brought back some very safe bow and arrows for the kids (note big rubber ball on end of arrow)! Now the first thing Sage does in the morning is go out for archery practice.....and tries not to hit any of our apartment dwellers as they leave for work!

Cat training and Mum's wee bit of news

Well it's not exactly training but we did get a leash for our cat Dolphin so he could safely go outside. He has actually taken to it without much of an issue. We just have to be ready when he leaps after a fly! Of course now he meows at the door waiting to be taken outside!

And now to my wee bit of news.....David is soon to be joined in the publishing world by his wife!! Yes ..me....I have had a knitting pattern accepted by an online knitting website called knitty.com

Obviously it's small potatoes compared to the hubby but it's major for me ( I do get paid a wee amount for this). It will be out in the summer issue and will have photos of Maya wearing the design (which is a skirt but I can't publish any pictures until the design comes out online).

So now I'm officially a knitwear designer! I'm already planning submissions to other places!

I have also just set up my very own knitting blog which will be called Shetland Trader (well there is nothing on the blog yet but I'll link to it once I put some stuff on there). I'm using Maggie's picture above as my wee trademark signature and hope it will become some kind of business for me in the future. The website that is publishing the pattern will allow me to provide a link to blog/website hence my being prompted to finally get around to doing what I had been meaning to for a while.

Yipee...I'm so excited!

Alligators in the desert!?!

Yes it's true they really have alligators in the deserts of Colorado! We stopped by on our recent trip with D's students to the college's retreat-like campus in the mountains.
So I have to tell you that Maya and Sage did actually hold a wee 3 foot alligator...where are the photos?...well it was one of those 'you have to buy our photos for $20 deals'...so you'll just have to take my word for it...(stingy parents)

So the real deal with these guys is that they were originally brought in to clean the tanks of the Tilapia fish that are farmed here (and which is still the main business at the reptile park) and now they breed them there also.

No this isn't our new luggage!

The kids had fun watching all the tumbleweeds blowing around and were wondering how the owner of this house was going to get out!

Yes we own our very own tumbleweed now!

Desert light. I don't have photos but we also visited some natural hot springs with the students and got to bob around in the hot water while the sun cast it's golden light on the mountains.....sooo relaxing...even the kids chilled out!

Birthday Boy

A Few Snapshots of Sage on his 6th birthday!

Sage and his pet Rancor!

Sushi was of course requested for the birthday meal...

...and happily consumed!

Maya's birthday picture.....this is a Jedi called Shakti by the way!

Sage the Sarcastic!

Sad news about Girly

I'm afraid there's some bad news to announce. Our well-loved cat, Girly, died yesterday. It was all quite sudden and bizarre and made for a miserable day.

For a little over a week she'd been getting nosebleeds. They'd come and go, but throughout she seemed to be just fine. She didn't act ill. She ate normally and was her nervous, lovely self. But yesterday morning, while I (David) was at work, her nose began to really bleed. Gudrun and the kids bundled her up and took her to the vet. It was clear straightaway that the vets thought it was grave. They tested her blood and found her clotting slow. They also gave her an epinephrine injection to close up the bleeding. They wanted to keep her in, so Gudrun and the kids had just arrived back home - I was there too now - when the vet called to say that Girly had gone into cardiac arrest.

The vets think - they're not really providing any other answers - that Girly was poisoned, probably by some sort of rat poison that she found someplace, or by contact with a mouse that had recently been poisoned. This is a bit hard to understand, considering the apartment we live in and Girly's unadventurous behavior. But there it is. That's what happened.

The kids are very upset about it, of course. Maya in particular was devastated. It was hard to watch, especially as they came back from the vet quite happy to have put her in caregiving hands. So when the phone rang with that news none of us expected it at all.

So, anyway, we're going to collect her ashes and eventually release them - perhaps back in Massachusetts.