Catching up on April

April passed me by a little quickly and I have slipped behind here once again. It is actually W's birthday today and before I blog about that and J's as well I thought I'd update April. We are living at a crazy pace and unfortunately it is not going to slow for the remainder of May and all of June, but I am hoping we can then take it a little easier over the summer months and that we can get to the pool again as much as we did last year.

It rains so much here it is depressing, I think about the 90ml dad recorded last week in the rain gauge in Adelaide and I excitedly told my friend who was astounded that 9cm (or 3 1/2 inches) of rain was something to be excited about. Given that day alone whilst we were in the bowling alley at least that much fell here. Today the sun is shining, fingers crossed it will stay that way for a while longer.

So, here is the april update.

This year the NZ consulate hosted Anzac Day, on Saturday there was a dawn service which we missed but on Sunday there was a church service in a garden on the roof of a building in the Rockefeller centre (about 7th floor) it was lovely and the Kiwi's did a great job...next year the Aussies are in charge and we really hope to make a dawn service finally.

We actually drove into Time Square along broadway for the first time ever, pretty exciting and certainly something good to do on a Sunday morning, not something we might like to try any other time soon.



It is a little hard to tell but this is Helen Clark...honest.



The children and I, it was sooooo hot and unusual for April, completely oposite of all the Anzac Days I remember from home.


M and the fountain.


D and I, check out those medals, pretty cool hey?


J, enjoying the sun shine, Pretty in Pink.


Smelling the flowers, then having a yellow pollen stained nose.


W - Rockefeller plaza in the sun.



This year the EB did a stellar job of hiding eggs, incredibly we were still finding them up to a week later, on a window ledge here, behind a candle there, great fun for all.








Taking advantage of the lovely weather (which was unbeknownst to us about to change fo the rottener quite soon). We drove about half an hour north to a spot on the husdon river called Croton Point and had a lovely picnic lunch and lazy afternoon.

What luck, as soon as the last of the sausages went down range we heard the sweet sounds of the Ice Cream van. It certainly is a universal sound and just like pavlovs dog we jump at the almost desperate desire for ice cream the second the tinkly reaches our ears.





This is me waiting for the left overs...



The boys tried their hand ar fishing, there were lots of others with the same idea but I am not sure any one actually caught anything...any hints about river fishing woule be greatly appreciated. Although, to be frank I am not too sad about never having to clean a caught fish yet.



The ups and dowwwwwnnnnssss, of flying a kyte. It was not too bad a day for kyte flying, but a bit gusty and suddenly the kyte was on the ground...again.







We took a walk to check out the camp sites, this is where W will have his camping birthday party!!




Finally at the end of April there are some signs in the garden of Spring arriving. It happens quite quickly when it finally deigns to appear. One day, the trees are bare and then if you are looking closely you might find the buds and then quickly they are in bloom or leaf, and now we are living suddenly in a veritable forrest, the bunnies and chipmunks are back, the mallards visit the creek and the days are full of beautiful ceaseless bird song, life has returned....at last.







Under the influence and tutelage of her friend S, a true Fairy officionado, J has been making fairy houses in the garden, here she is showing M just how it is done.




Meanwhile, her dad is getting more serious on the other side of the garden, once again growing tomatoes and various vegetables and herbs. We can't help ourselves, even in the limited space allowed to us - something about eating something we grow, very special.






With a few lovely days showing themselves in April, it was hard to resist my little man who loves all things 'WAR' and particularly those where he can get the best of his mum. So, after days of saying it was too cold, I joined him in a water fight of great proportions and ended up very very wet. I have not laughed so much is some time, it was good for the soul.








We HAVE managed to do a little bit of school work this month. We made phenal somethings out of red cabbage and used it to test for acid vs alkali in various liquids. It is always nice when a science experiment ends up looking just like the picture in the book.



We have also been learning about different Native American Groups, world geogrpahy, Time, and lots of ART. April was mostly Andy Warhol including a visit to a Pop Politics exhibit at Purchase College, but we also did a Laurel Birchel inspired Cat. Of course we were at co-op on Wendesdays and meeting with our Tuesday friends at Cranberry Lake too.