Paloma’s first birthday!

Can you believe that a year has already gone by since Paloma was born?? We certainly can’t! But, the calendar told us that it was the 25^th of October, so we figured we had to go ahead and celebrate Paloma’s first birthday. We decided to make a whole weekend of it.

The aquarium

Grandmommy Claire arrived on Saturday morning and we headed off to the Albuquerque Aquarium. Paloma loved seeing all of the fish up close.

Here she is with Papa, learning all about fishes – how they swim, where they live, what they like to eat, what to do when she goes fishing with Papa…. So much to learn!

She particularly liked the tank of rays. They are such weird-looking creatures and you can see them right up close.

Wow! So much excitement!

Presents!

In the afternoon, we spent some time napping, reading books and opening presents. Hooray!

Remember, last week, Paloma was enjoying walking on her own, pushing the stool across the floorboards? You will never guess what Paloma got for her birthday:

Can you guess?

That's right, she got a cart to push around. Hopefully, it will help Paloma avoid more tumbles...

She also got some very cool musical instruments from the Brandenburg side of the family...

Here she is, on Sunday morning, with a bunch of new things: cart, instruments, denim jacket (can this kid get any cooler?) and a hand-made vest from Aussie Grandma (underneath the jacket - you can see it if you squint).

Birthday cake

Of course, no birthday is complete without birthday cake. Howard and I put together cassata for Paloma. This was the birthday cake that my mum made for my first birthday too!

Aussie Grandma and Aussie Grandpa called up on skype in time to join in the happy birthday song, blowing out the candle and cutting the cake.

Here's what the party in Albuquerque looked like from Australia:

Paloma had no idea what was going on (after all, she had spent the day rushing around the aquarium, reading books with Grandmommy, and missing out on an afternoon nap).

She really wasn't sure what to do with this ice-cream stuff...

Oh, but she soon got the hang of it!

She went to bed that night feeling deliriously happy and high on sugar. Happy birthday to you!

Bonus birthday!

The next afternoon, George stopped by to wish Paloma happy birthday. A quick visit turned into several hours, with George and Howard fooling around in the art studio and then a fun dinner with everyone.

Lucky Paloma gets to celebrate twice!

The real, fair dinkum, birthday day

By the time Paloma's real birthday rolled around, we were all partied out! We headed back to work and she went to school (dressed in her new denim jacket) and had another regular day. We cooked one of her favourite meals (vege burgers and fried potatoes) and she went to bed early to catch up on sleep after an exciting weekend.

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She received one more very special birthday present, a day late: a cousin! Rachel Lily Aitken was born on the 26th of October!!! Hooray!

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on the move

Paloma loves to walk around and around and around the house, but she can't do it on her own yet. Usually, we hold onto her hand and walk and walk and walk with her. Recently, she discovered that she can use her stool to get around.

Whoops. Sometimes it's not so secure as holding our hands....

a fall wedding in Taos (and a couple of other things)

Last weekend, we headed up to Taos to celebrate the wedding of Howard's cousin. We were so happy to celebrate the happy day with Meredith and Carlos! They both looked gorgeous and were beaming with joy.

Look how happy they are! Just beautiful!

Congratulations Meredith and Carlos! We wish you a long and happy future together!

It's a lovely time to be in Taos. The air is crisp in the morning and the aspens are spectacular.


We made the most of the opportunity and headed up in the mountains to take Paloma for her first grouse hunt. I think she quite enjoyed sitting in the back of Grandaddy's truck with Dave (the pink bear) - she didn't even flinch when the gun went off!


The gun went off three times, and we came home with a full bag of grouse. For those of you wondering what grouse looks like, they're kind of a pretty chicken. Like this:


Thanks, little grouse. Howard is looking forward to grouse enchiladas with green chile.

We went hunting quite close to the place we went camping in July. Remember I mentioned the beaver dam last time? Well, this time I got some photos so that you Australians can see what I'm talking about.

Here is the actual dam. It looks simple, just piles of logs.


But that pile of logs really makes a difference! No wonder beavers are considered ecosystem engineers! They really change things in the creek. (Can anyone guess that we are aquatic biologists??)

Here you can see the reservoir of water behind the dam (the dam is actually farther off to the right, outside of the photo).


Finally, we spent some time in the orchard where we were married to harvest some apples with the Adkison family.

Paloma enjoyed the long grass and lolling around in the sun....

... and quite enjoyed her first taste of Taos apples!

YUM!

The maiden voyage of the good ship Corbicula.

The beginnings of this trip took place long before this photo was taken. We waited a long time for our small raft to arrive from overseas. In the mean time we studied different lakes, purchased a life vest for Paloma, and planned our route upon the waterway. As time drew near we shopped for food and packed our dry bags. The night before we were to leave we packed the cooler with good foods and PBR. We loaded the car with all the gear for our little family to paddle around Heron Lake and camp overnight. Unbeknown to us a strange bug struck Ayesha and I that night and left us both super "crook" (I won't go into details). At some point in the night I knew our well planned trip was done for...

However, as the sun rose over our house we slowly and painfully crawled out of bed and into the car and reluctantly drove north to our planned destination. Paloma could not believe her eyes! We were afloat upon Heron Lake.



We paddled out past the sailboat slips, out past the steep cliffs and into the body of the calm lake.



The fearless crew ventured farther and farther out until Paloma declared that she had had enough of her life vest and Semilla could no longer keep still in the raft. We landed our boat on a quiet shore and set up camp.



While Ayesha and I lay in the dirt recovering from the previous night, Paloma set out to explore the landscape.


She found and sorted, by size, as many rocks as she could gather. She was quite proud of herself.


She woke up early in the morning to enjoy the sunrise on the lake.



She studied the stumps and sticks exposed by the low lake levels...



and she help organize the boat and point out our life vests for the boating excursions to follow. We had a lot of fun paddling our boat. We explored some beautiful cove and went far up Willow Creek which is one of the creeks that feed Heron Lake.




Where we stopped to have lunch we had the Brazos Cliffs as our backdrop. We were once again feeling good and no one wanted to return to the city. We just wanted to keep that boat a row'n.



After our return home the girls were ready and waiting for the next trip on the water!


I can't wait....

old friends make new friends

Fifteen years ago, I was an exchange student to the University of Washington. It was my first big adventure away from home and, needless to say, I had a wonderful time in Seattle!

When I first arrived, I was hosted by a very generous couple: Roz and Phil Greene. I have kept in touch with Roz intermittently, but I have to admit I'm not a very good letter-writer. The last time I saw Roz was in 2006 when we met in Denver and stayed with her daughter (Rhonda).

Well, actually, that's not quite true. The last time I saw Roz was just last week, in Albuquerque. She and Rhonda were in town and called me out of the blue. What a happy surprise! We arranged to meet up for breakfast at The Range (yum!) and spent a good couple of hours yakking and feeding Paloma pancake.

It was great to see Roz and Rhonda and get a chance to show off Paloma. Hopefully we will get to see each other again soon, maybe somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.

sneak peak: Heron Lake trip

Howard will soon be writing a blog about our wonderful (and quite miraculous) trip to Heron Lake. In the meantime, here is a summary of what we did:

(That's Howard in the tent, rocking Paloma to sleep.)
(That's Semilla chasing a stick and swimming. She likes to do that A LOT.)