Cameron is our super speller

Today was the final of the Cielo Azul Elementary School's First Annual Spelling Bee.

One child from each of the 3rd, 4th and 5th grade classes in the school competed to be in the finals several weeks ago and Cameron made it through from his class qualifier.

In all, 20 kids competed over several rounds, each taking turns to spell words from a list which had been given to them about 4 weeks ago.

Cameron worked hard with Genevieve and I over the last week to learn the word list and was all ready for the competition today.

I think in the end, Genevieve was way more nervous than Cameron was. But as Genevieve's Mum, Jane, said "There is some sort of sweet justice in Genevieve having to go through this" since Genevieve was often involved in these types of things at school as a kid and put her Mum in this very same situation on many occasions! LOL!

Cameron took his time, concentrated and ended up in 3rd place in the whole school!!!!

We are all very proud of him and he is even more proud of himself.

Granny's sweaters

Kenny's Mum sends lots of beautiful hand-knitted clothes from Scotland.

Here are a few photos of Mackenzie & Scarlett in the latest delivery for the winter.

More Snow!

We had some decent snowfall yesterday and school was cancelled......so out we all got wrapped up in our snow gear and went to build snowmen and have snowball fights!

As you can see, Cameron took advantage of anyone not being alert or ready to ensure they got well and truely "snowed"

Mac was super cute in her new snow suit which we got last year but she has not had a chance to use yet. She loved it. This is the first year she has been big enough to go out and enjoy the snow and loved every minute. She helped us all build a snowman and kept on fixing him up long after we had all moved on to play other games in the snow.

After about 2hrs outside we were all feeling the cold a bit and headed indoors to warm up. Dayne from next door was with us for the day since his Mum and Dad were working and school was cancelled. Once we all got warmed back up we decided to make and decorate some Christmas cookies. I think as much frosting and sprinkles ended up on or inside the kids than on the cookies, but they all had fun and it only took about an hour to clean up the kitchen after them!

It looks like the schools will be back tomorrow........

...as Cameron says it "Awwwhh Man"

Scarlett has arrived!

On Wednesday 10th December 2008, the Black family became just a wee bit bigger!

Well, 7lb, 10oz and 21" bigger to be exact, as we welcomed the arrival of:

Miss Scarlett Isobel Black

She was born at Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque, NM at 04:00. Genevieve and Scarlett are both doing great and the rest of us are just excited about our newest little addition.

Click here for a slide show of all these photos and more

The first snow of winter

This morning we had the first snow of winter.

Mackenzie was VERY excited and wanted to go out and play as soon as she woke up. We convinced her to wait until she had got some breakfast and had got changed out of her PJ's before she went out though.

There was not much snow, but just enough for her to throw it about and get herself cold in 15-20 minutes that she wanted to come inside and warm up by the fire.

Can't wait till we get a decent snowfall and she can really enjoy it.

A "Deep Fried" Turkey Day

Thanksgiving has came and went and we got to have our first Thanksgiving dinner of our own since Genevieve's Mum was up in Rochester, NY awaiting the arrival of the next grandbaby.

Kenny got up early and ran in the Thanksgiving Day 10k race in Rio Rancho called the Hobbler Gobbler and set a new personal best of 54 mins 4 secs (on a hilly course in the rain) before heading home to help Genevieve with all the prep for the Thanksgiving day dinner

We planned to do the full big dinner of turkey with all the delicious trimmings (creamy mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, corn, bread rolls, stuffing….all from scratch) made by Genevieve’s fair hand and with assistance of Miss Mac and Cameron.

We decided to deep fry our turkey instead of roasting and with the help of our friend Don (who has the turkey fryer and was joining us for dinner) the guys all ventured out into the cul-de-sac in the showery rain to fry up the bird.

It went great and we managed to avoid injuries, grease fires, 3rd degree burns etc and ended up with a very crispy, yet moist turkey.

Genevieve's Dad and brother Matt arrived and joined us for dinner too.

We all over ate (as always happens) and watched some football allow things to settle before we attacked the desserts…(yes plural). Genevieve baked furiously during the week and made apple crumble, apple and cherry tart and mini mince pies, which were all served with ice cream or whipped cream…..YUMMY!

All in all a day of feasting and being VERY thankful for all we have!

How 'bout dem Cowboys???

Christmas came early for me this year when Genevieve and Don surprised me with a gift on the second week of November.

Yes it was a trip to the "Mother Ship"

A one day round trip to fly to Dallas to see the Cowboys play the 49ers in one of the last games ever to be played in Texas Stadium. The Cowboys move to their new stadium next season.

I have been a Dallas Cowboys fan for many years (since I played for the Paisley Panthers as a Cornerback while at university in Scotland and when the Cowboys were at the peak) and yet had never been able to visit Texas Stadium for a game. Even though I have seen them play in Arizona and in Buffalo in previous years I had never been to a home game. So with Genevieve being pregnant and not able to travel this year and our plans to make our annual pilgrimage to an NFL game put on ice, it seemed like it would never happen.

However, unbeknownst to me, Genevieve and Don had been making plans for this trip for months and on Sunday 15th November while getting ready for our usual Sunday ritual of sitting down to watch football, a surprise was sprung. A mixture of shock, disbelief and amazement hit me all at once. After a few seconds I realized that the next Cowboys game I watch would be in Texas Stadium from the 50yd line! I was gobsmacked.

After a long week of waiting (and hoping that Scarlett did not put in an early appearance) the day came. Don and I flew out (first class) on the 6am flight from ABQ and got a cab to the stadium. We arrived about 3 hrs before the game which gave me just about enough time to circle the stadium both outside and in to be able to take it all in. We got to watch all the players arrive, got my "fairwell to Texas Stadium" shirt and took a ton of photos (a few of which are posted below.

I won't bore you with the details of the game but I will say it was great and the Cowboys played well and won (easily). I had an amazing day and flew home that night. Exhausted but exhilarated.

All I can think of now is......how do I try to top that for Genevieve's Christmas gift.....I better get my thinking cap on!

In summary, if you ever give Genevieve a gift, think carefully because......the one she gives you will always be better!

Arrrrrr me hearties! It be Halloween

Ahoy there me hearties, It be that time o' year again to be dressin' up an' be goin' out huntin' for booty by the Trick or Treat. This year we be goin' wi' the theme o' PIRATES!

So on this fair moonlit night, Cap'n Black hoisted the Jolly Roger and led his band o' buccaneers together with his loyal wench, the fair Genevieve, and navigated the River's Edge area of Rio Rancho. On the voyage we be plundering as many ports as possible to gather all the doubloons and pieces o' eight we could carry from the landlubbers afore the night be closin' in.

After a great grand night o' pilliging and wi' bountiful swag in hand, it were back to Port Jewell fer some fine eatin' and some grog.

Not a night fer the lily-livered among ye.

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta 2008!

What perfect weather for the balloons this year! Mackenzie was the perfect age and loved all the special shapes! We got there nice and early and had time to eat breakfast before the balloon launch.

We got to take pictures with Steve Stucker, the channel 4 Weather guy! He collects balloon pins and he said his jacket weighs over 25lbs.

We found the Intel balloon too!

There were also some guys walking around the park dressed up as Star Wars characters. Cameron chased them all around the park until he got pics with all of them.

What a fun day!!!