In Siberia

Here are a couple of pics from our trip.

This first photo is out the window of our apartment. it was -28 degrees last night when we landed.

This second photo is Katya posing in our Beijing Hostel. She was a bit upset about all the changes going one with feed times and locations... but she is starting to settle well.

This last photo is us settled down for lunch.

We are now in a process of registering. We have done a big shop (which included the legendary peach juice!!!).

Some new looks

Katya wearing a hat we got in Atlanta many years ago.


What a mess!!!


Katya had been putting the ball in the toy, picking it up and repeating heaps of times before I got this. It was quite funny.

Some fun pics

We have had to put Katya's cot down a level as she can now escape over the edge. It tok a few nights for her to get use to it.

This is Katya crashing!!!

Since Katya has been born we have worried about the cat. Well today the cat learned that it needs to be worried about Katya. Katya crawled herself ontop of the cat, worked her way to the tail (occasionally biting on the way) and wrestled the cat by the tail (while still lying on it). Needless to say the cat was not to happy but she is blind and deaf and had no idea what was happening. When I pulled Katya off she had a mouthful of cat hair!!!

Some new toys from the Toy Library.

Hmmm...

Someone got caught and was trying to extricate herself ASAP.

Hypocrisy defined

This morning I walked past parliament to have a catch up with someone from church. As I went past the main gate a new Crown car rolled up and drove in.

In New Zealand we seem to be on a big ting about "being green" and "zero emissions" and "carbon footprints". This has been spouted by our various ministers and this current government is making this issue a key platform for the next election.

So what do you think this new Crown car was...


A Prius??? No. Too small.


Maybe an LPG powered Falcon??? No. Obviously too Australian.


Well at least it wasn't a Hummer.

BUT it wasn't far short of it...

It was a new Chrysler 300..


That's anything up to 6.1L of V8 fuel sucking, environment bashing grunt.


Now personally, apart from them being butt ugly, I have no probs with such a vehicle. However if you are running an "everyone should be reducing their emissions" message... it is a bit rich buying these.