American Adventures

Freemans' visit in October

2012-12-02T22:40:00.001-08:00

Arabella, Andrew, Jasper and Jemima visited us in October/November. This was mainly a "hanging out" visit - the kids spent a lot of time playing with Matthew, and mucking about around the house. We managed one last swim in the pool, a few meals out and some trips to our favourite places. We did one big trip down to Monterey to do whale watching (very bumpy but spectacular) and a trip to the aquarium (beautiful as ever). They were also out here for Halloween - the English visitors joined in with trick or treating very sportingly - and for Alex competing in the San Francisco half marathon.

Here are a few photos:

More photos here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/102053381273068034374/1210FreemansVisit?authkey=Gv1sRgCJnQ-pSb2fLSqgE

Some photos from Jennie's visit

2011-10-05T23:11:00.000-07:00

I have yet to upload some videos I took as well, but thought it better to share some than none :)

Here are some pictures from: Tiny Treks at Redwood Grove in Los Altos, a playdate in Palo Alto, the Cantor Art museum at Stanford, amazing Monterey Bay aquarium and beautiful Big Sur
https://picasaweb.google.com/102053381273068034374/1110JennieSVisit?authkey=Gv1sRgCKWH2KL3ueGWBw

Ruth and Jennie at snack time on Tiny Treks

I'm not quite sure this is what Rodin had in mind

Lunch at Monterey Bay aquarium

Bixby Bridge at the start of lovely Big Sur

Our gorgeous cabin where we stayed the night

Birthday weekend in Mendocino

2011-07-15T15:08:00.000-07:00

https://picasaweb.google.com/gawley/117BirthdayWeekendInMendocino?authkey=Gv1sRgCPe_-obOlvrcFw

We flew up to Mendocino for the weekend - lovely quiet little town by the sea. Not much to do but eat lovely food and mess about on the beach. Perfect.

Trip to Colombia

2011-06-19T22:50:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we flew to Colombia with our friends Tom and Rob. Tom is also a pilot - in fact it was him who got use excited about flying in the US last year. Colombia is a very cute goldrush town, all original wooden saloon bars and shops offering you the chance to pan for gold and so forth. They also had a special even on called "Tent Town" where a bunch of fascinating individuals had set up a super-authentic goldrush town from the 1850s and were pretending to pan for gold. The guys doing it had really got into character. Anyway, all very photogenic, so why no photos? Yes, I forgot to put the battery back into the camera.

Luckily, Rob had his iPhone to the ready for some photos of Alex, Ruth and I landing.

Also some great shots of formation flying.

We could see them from our plane too! (Ruth asleep in the foreground)

... and Alex took some video of the formation flying on his phone, which gives you a good feel for the countryside on a rather overcast day.

Florida

2011-05-20T08:59:00.000-07:00

In April, we had a week's holiday in Marathon, Florida, which is about half-way down the Keys chain. We hired a huge house with our friends Marc & Zoe (flying in from England) and Andy & Kate (from Toronto), with their little ones Ava (Ruth's age) and baby Molly.

Ruth and Ava looking for dolphins

We spent most of our time splashing about in the lovely pool, or hanging out on the balcony admiring the view and enjoying a beer over a board game or two.

Al fresco Dominion

Sundownders

We ate outside every night

We managed a few excursions, one morning Pippa went on a snorkelling trip with Marc and Zoe who were diving. The water was warm and filled with huge bright fish who were very bold. I was sad that I did not see the turtle that another couple spotted, but also happy that I missed the 10' hammerhead shark that swam below one of the other guys.

Another day, Pippa went fishing with Marc and Andy. We caught 18 grunts and torros, all on the small side but collectively enough for dinner!

https://picasaweb.google.com/rickard.marc/20110426FloridaFishingTrip02?authkey=Gv1sRgCJnWw5yL8KDZeQ&feat=email#
Thanks to Marc, who took photos of the fishing trip.

... and on the last day, we hired a small motor boat and went put-putting around the key. Under seven-mile bridge to Chiki Tiki for lunch.

More Florida photos here: https://picasaweb.google.com/gawley/114Florida?authkey=Gv1sRgCOXm9c7hgbqzXg#

Thanks guys for a great trip. We'll be back...

The 808 state

2011-05-18T23:35:00.000-07:00

Back in February we made our first trip to Hawaii. Hopefully not the last. It was lovely.

We went as part of a Google jolly, so we were staying at the Sheraton Waikiki. Any qualms I had about being a travelling sell-out soon faded in the beautiful warm patio, with nice people bringing drinks, watching Ruth happily playing in the pool complex.

Ready for the pool!

Waikiki was very touristy and busy, but the natural beauty of Hawaii still shone through.

We visited Pearl Harbour, which was really interesting.

Oil still escaping from the hull of the Arizona

Inside the Arizona memorial

The highlight of the trip was hiring a plane for the day and going on a tour of four of the islands - Molokai, Maui, Linae and Oahu. The weather was a little overcast, but the islands were still spectacular. We saw more than two dozen whales, frolicking in the water. So cool.

More photos here: https://picasaweb.google.com/gawley/112Hawaii?authkey=Gv1sRgCK3GxJjSrOGHcg#

San Andreas Fault

2011-02-12T18:59:00.000-08:00

Today we went walking up in the hills outside Palo Alto in search of the San Andreas fault. Fortunately there is a self guided tour of part of the fault in Los Trancos Open Space Preserve so we were not disappointed.

You can see a map of our self short hike (much of which Ruth did all by herself) below. The fault runs South-East to North-West on this map (from the most Eastern part of our track up through the middle of the big loop. Sadly, you can't see a giant chasm in the Earth, but you can see lots of geological features that are indicative of a fault:

Benches - flat road-like structures created when the crack in the fault fill with earth
Sag ponds - depressions where the land is not getting the support it needs
Strange ridges - ridges and valleys that run parallel to the contours rather than (more naturally) perpendicular to them

I'll post some pictures later. But for now, enjoy the map.

Sunny day in Mendocino

2011-01-20T18:24:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, we flew up to Mendocino for the day. This was our first real taste of what flying can help you to achieve - it would be a 4-5 hour drive, but is just over an hour in a plane. It was a really nice sunny day and the flight up there was just beautiful - up the valley, over San Francisco then along the Marin coastline north. Unfortunately Alex was a bit busy feeding Ruth snacks and handing her toys to take any photos, but he made up for it when we got to Little River airport, using a retro camera app on his phone.

Little River airport building. It's not exactly SFO :)

Mendocino is a lovely little sea-side town with cutesy shops for rich tourists and nice cafes. We didn't have very long there after having a few transport issues getting to and from the airport - we learnt lots for our next day trip. And we are already planning our return journey for a long weekend...

Ruth enjoying an ice-cream in the sun

On the way back, the clouds had rolled in over the coast and it all looked very pretty.

Ruth was really tired by this time and screamed alot. She eventually fell asleep.

There and back again

2011-01-09T16:04:00.000-08:00

It was a beuatiful sunny day today, so we went on a great family bike-ride today from the door of our house, south along the Bay Trail to Baylands Park. It's a 10 mile track (see route below, courtesy of the My Tracks app on my Android phone) so 20 miles all in (feel the burn!).

Ruth was pulled by Pippa in her Burley chariot and, despite a little bit of grizzling, seemed to quite enjoy it. She even fell asleep on the way home (testament to Pippa's silky smooth technique).

We stopped for lunch amongst the proud mums and dads at the Twin Creeks Sports Center who were kind enough to feed us despite our lack of ineterest in (or knowledge of) softball...

View California Ave To Baylands Park in a larger map

#18 - Labor Day camping

2010-10-26T23:37:00.000-07:00

Way back in September we went proper tent camping on our first Labor Day weekend. The weekend was organised by Stroller Hikes (more about them soon), and there were about 15 families all camping on a private ranch. Debbie from Strollerhikes and Liza (whose ranch it was) had organised the weekend awesomely - most of the meals were communal, and the campfire never went out.

We camped on a farm with loads of cool old equipment lying around...

... and acres of untouched forest

The funny thing was, I hadn't wanted to seem like a complete alcoholic in front of all these wholesome organic moms with their healthy outdoor lifestyles, so I had packed one modest bottle of wine for the weekend. But by 2pm on the first afternoon, all the mums and kids were playing in the creek, and all the dads had set up a table playing poker, talking about guns, doing shots of whiskey with one hand and holding bottles of beer in the other. I dispatched Alex to the store to get some beers and we rolled up our sleeves and joined in.

The real highlight for Ruth (and all the other kids) was the creek. She played "big one tiny one" with the stones all afternoon.

She adapted to life outside really quickly, she slept really well and enjoyed playing with the other kids and the doggies. We really enjoyed the late nights round the campfire, making s'mores and watching the stars over a beer.

More photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/gawley/109CampingWeekend?authkey=Gv1sRgCPfEoYq0y7Odeg#

Pippa Gawley: Private Pilot

2010-10-17T21:37:00.000-07:00

Pippa recently passed here Private Pilot's License out here in the US. That's right, she's now a fully paid up Top Gun. Ruth and I are very proud of her.

As you can imagine this opens up a world of possibilities for us to travel further afield while we are here and we're all very excited about that. I'm also particularly excited about never being the 'designated driver' :-)

Since she passed, Pippa has taken me, my Mum and most recently both me and Ruth out on short trips. Of course, Mum had the best weather and so got a full on Bay Tour with views of the city, the bridge and Alcatraz. Ruth and I had to settle for the short hop over to Livermore for a burger at the highly auspicious bar of the local golf club, but nonetheless it was awesome. I am happy to report also that Ruth loved it and even kept her headphones on for most of the flight!

Anyway, here are a couple of videos from the flights (beware, the only sound you will hear is engine noise and your computers speakers just weren't made for that - go on mute!)

The first video is from my flight with Pippa and shows the massive wind farm at Altamont Pass. It's on an incredible scale (the largest in the world?) and you gets a good perspective on that from the air.

The second records Ruth's first flight. Pretty cool huh.

#17 Choo choo train

2010-08-08T14:01:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went to the Roaring Camp railroad, for the dual benefit of our visiting friend Elliot, and also Ruth, who are both are obsessed with choo choo trains. They have an impressive hundred-year old steam engine which takes people up on a trip up through some beautiful redwood trees.

Ruth was a bit scared on the way up the mountain, because there was a lot of noise and steam. But she soon recovered to sing her favourite train song all the way down. We had a really nice picnic afterwards, with Ruth continuing to shout "choo choo train!" urgently whenever a train went past. And this was pretty often as the organisers had struck upon the brilliant idea of not just regular trips up the mountain, but also a steam train shuttle to the car park to keep kids happy. The icing on the cake was the fact that Thomas the Tank Engine - yes, the Thomas - was visiting this week. Ruth doesn't know who he is, but hey, another choo choo train has to be good news, right?

(more photos here http://picasaweb.google.com/gawley/108ChooChooTrain#. All photos taken by Elliot - thank you!)

#16 - Flying

2010-08-08T13:40:00.000-07:00

I started learning to fly in January. It's something I've always wanted to do, and to do it out in California felt like a good idea - it's a lot cheaper than the UK, and the countryside around here is spectacular. There is a little airport at the end of our road, and there are lots of similar little airports close by - probably about 30 within a 90-minute flight. This adds up to lots of potential for fun weekend trips.

I have been learning in a Cessna 152, a tiny two-seater single-engine propeller plane which I find more comfortable than my 6'4" instructor. I've found the experience incredible - I love the feeling of flight, and seeing the ground from the air. I finally went solo and passed my written test in June, and I am hoping to take the practical exam to get my licence in the next month.

Here are some photos from my first solo flight:

Until I get my licence, I can't take up passengers. But I can if my instructor is also in the plane. In May, I took Dad up for a tourist flight around the Bay, and last weekend I was lucky enough to repeat this with our friends Elliot and Julie (of toilet roll video fame). They took some great photos of San Francisco and the Bay:

The financial district and the Bay Bridge

The salt flats on the east side of the Bay

The mudflats and estuaries near the airport (and our shadow)

I'll keep you posted on progress!

(More photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/gawley/108Flying#)

67th birthday party

2010-07-25T15:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had a belated joint birthday party where we celebrated being 67 with some of our friends that we have met out here. We wanted to share it with you.
http://picasaweb.google.com/gawley/10767thBirthdayParty?authkey=Gv1sRgCL3R8aL-2qa74QE#

I spent the morning preparing food - cupcakes, salads, marinades. Alex took Ruth to the Discovery Museum where they really enjoyed the water area.

The party started at 4pm, we had about 25 people and 10 kids enjoying themselves in the sunshine.

The kids liked the paddling pool.

The food went down well, especially the tri tip steak (from Costco! We are so American now...). Alex's friend Jerry needed to choose some wine for a family party, so he organised a blind wine tasting.

Most people with kids left by about 7.30pm, but luckily a few couples were able to stay around for a more relaxed after-party. We sat out in the garden finishing off the wine tasting until late.

The morning-after clear-up was livened up by Ruth who managed to make my hang-over more bearable with her new "Dingle Dangle Scarecrow" obsession:

6 month-a-versary

2010-05-24T19:56:00.000-07:00

We recently celebrated our 6 month-aversary of when we moved out here, which prompted me to think about the things that we like about life in California compared to the UK. Please join the debate....

Things California has got right

The weather - although this has been the coldest and wettest winter practically on record, the weather is still so much better out here. It's rare to get a day without sunshine, and California does sunshine so well. Massive blue sky and bright bright sun. My tomatoes are shaping up to be some kind of record size, and for the first time in my life I have managed to keep a basil plant alive for more than a month.

Friendliness - everyone here is very positive and friendly. You go into a shop, they ask you how you are and they smile and they mean it. They seem to actually take pride in being nice. When I go out with Ruth, I am routinely stopped by people wanting to tell me how beautiful she is, and than chat for half an hour about babies. I actually haven't met anyone grumpy and negative at all (apart from Alex). Initially this can seem a bit fake, but you soon realise that people are genuinely cheerful a lot of the time. And that is nice.

Pride - people seem very proud of being American, and of themselves. It is normal and expected to celebrate success in a most un-British way. It is normal to see bumper stickers telling you that the occupant is an honor student at their school, or to have a building/facility/trail named after a local benefactor.

Community involvement - I have been struck by the levels to which normal people are involved in the community here. There seem to be so many volunteer opportunities and so many chances to get involved with the running of things, and everywhere we go we seem to be invited to contribute, much more so than the UK. This ranges from volunteering to lead tours at museums, to rangering at the kiddy farm, to parent-run schools. It is also much more common to go to church and to be involved with it. People also wear their allegiances on their sleeve more openly - we see lots of political banners outside houses supporting a particular candidate or suggesting that you vote a particular way on a referendum, and we have been invited to a coffee morning to support a candidate for assembly - I can't imagine anyone we know bothering to do this in the UK.

Playgrounds - there are 28 parks in Palo Alto, and they all have absolutely lovely playgrounds. Ruth asked me to put this one in.

Things the UK has got right

Pubs - we really miss pubs. There is no equivalent in the US. And weird commercial zoning laws mean that all shops & cafes are in particular groups, and you don't get corner shops or pubs sprinkled through residential areas like you do in the UK. Our walks seem oddly goalless now.

Roundabouts - I can handle the four-way stop signs, they even seem quite sensible after a while, but trying to get onto the motorway via a short slip road that has cars both accelerating to get on, and decelerating to get off, while all frantically trying to change lane to avoid being pushed off at the next junction - just crazy.

Electricity - 110V is wimpy. It takes a good 10 minutes to boil a kettle. By the time the toaster pops, Ruth has had a hunger melt-down. Safety shmafety - give me 240V anyday.

TV - thank goodness we can get the BBC over the internet. I always thought it was good, but American TV brings a whole new meaning to the appreciation I have for the Ten O'clock news. And there are so many adverts! You can flick through 50 channels and well over half will be showing ads at any given point.

Supermarkets - yes, Wholefoods is nice, but I would swap it anyday for a nice big Tesco down the road. Overall, groceries are more expensive than the UK, and there is no one place you can go to to get reasonable quality for reasonable price on the whole range of things you might want to buy. In any given week, I go to four different supermarkets to get different groups of things. And only Safeways does internet delivery.

#15 - California Avenue Farmer's Market

2010-03-28T14:57:00.000-07:00

Not technically our first visit to the Farmer's market, but the first time I have remembered to take any photos.

This is the California Ave Farmer's market. So yes, it is on our road, but it is about a mile away. To get there we walk from the grotty end of California (where we live) through the posh bit to the commercial end, where there are lots of nice cafes and organic-y shops. Today we cycled, hence the photo of Ruth looking grumpy in her chariot.

The market is every Sunday from 9am to 1pm. There are lots of lovely happy vegetables and food stands, and good live music. Ruth had a felafel for lunch, then she cheered up a lot and danced to the music.

I saw a homeless man with a sign begging for - I kid you not - organic vegetables. Palo Alto - a more discerning class of homeless person.

#14 - Geocaching in the US

2010-03-28T14:48:00.000-07:00

As I am spending so much time in parks and nature reserves with Ruth, I have started geocaching again and have just placed my firt US geocache in a nearby park. Here is a picture of Ruth enjoying the swings in the park.

Note: if you don't know what geocaching is, it's basically like a mini treasure hunt using GPS. Anyway, don't worry, just pass on to the next blog post.

#13 - eating oranges from our front garden in the sunshine

2010-03-14T17:40:00.000-07:00

So sweet and lovely. Ruth ate four in a row. The weather has really turned a corner this week, and we have finally bought some patio furniture. This added up to our first outdoor brunch this morning where we had 2 other couples with kids round. We ate baked stuffed mushrooms and sat in the sunshine watching the kids running about in the garden. Just lovely.

You say zucchini...

2010-03-07T08:06:00.000-08:00

Food in America is more different than I thought it would be. You expect the oven temperatures in F and measuring things in cups not by weight, but there is a whole world of strangeness beyond this.

First of all, the regular supermarkets are nowhere near as good as in the UK - at first glance they are enormous and bursting with choice, but upon a closer look, so many of the aisles are filled with pre-prepared food and snacks. For example, it is actually quite hard to buy raw ingredients like bread flour and herbs and if you do find them, there won't be much choice. The fruit and veg are not great quality, and although meat is cheap (suspiciously so), it is rare to see a meat counter so you can't look it in the eye. Given that we are striking distance to the Pacific, the choice of fish is very limited and poor quality, mostly pre-frozen. And the prices are higher than the UK for most basics. A few happy exceptions are asparagus (much cheaper than the UK and very good), and steaks (ditto), so these are our staples! One weird phenomenon is that you simply can't get everything you need from one shop, in the same way that you could in say Waitrose or Tesco, and everyone seems to accept this. So we do a big online shop from Safeway for commodities like cereal, wine and diet coke, then get fresh produce from a smaller market-style supermarket called Trader Joes, and then go to speciality butchers (which are bizarrely hard to find) for decent cuts of meat or fish.

Then there is the matter of different foods being available - often I have had a complete blank look when asking for something which I had always taken for granted in the UK, like fruit squash or tartare sauce . On the other hand, there are aisles full of ingredients where I have no idea what to do with them - perhaps time for an American cookbook.... Also, sneakily, sometimes they have something called the same thing but it turns out to be different, like stuffing (US version all horrible and bready so I have smuggled in a few kilos of Paxo), and sausages which - would you believe it - are sold pre-cooked! And don't get me started on "biscuit".

And then, there is the matter of translation. It seems to me that it is in the food arena where the language differences are most apparent. I have frequently felt like I was playing charades with the attendants in Safeway trying to communicate what vegetable stock is (turns out it is called bouillon, ad is usually sold in cans). There are the well-known ones like zuchini (courgette) and eggplant (aubergine), and cilantro (corriander). But it took me a while to work out that rocket is called arugula (what a pretty name), and broad beans are called fava beans, and many more. The cuts of meat are all called different names, as are flour and sugar.

And finally, the American habit of mixing savoury and sweet things with great abandon. Nowhere is this more apparent than when eating breakfast out. You might order scrambled eggs and bacon, and to go with it you are offered a hash brown (sensible), home fries (just about acceptable) or a fruit salad (fruit and eggs? On the same plate??). And on the side, toast (fine), English muffin (fine), sweet fruit muffin (weird).

#12 - Palo Alto duck pond

2010-02-07T11:08:00.000-08:00

Ruth was a bit scared of the ducks and geese to start with, but she was soon waving and saying "birdie". The duck pond is part of the Palo Alto Baylands nature reserve with an "interpretive center" (Alex refused to go to this). It is close to our house, and very close to the airport where Pippa flies from, so we could see little planes coming in and out. The weather was beautiful. Pippa is planning to plant a geocache there.

#11 - Cooking with gas

2010-02-07T10:31:00.000-08:00

We achieved another major milestone in the American Lifestyle Experience yesterday with the purchase of a large gas barbeque. Obviously we have a long and colourful history of barbequeing, with the Emsworth influence, but we have never cooked with gas before. However, we thought that this would be the way ahead out here so we can have bbqs after work easily. We visited "Barbeques Galore" in Palo Alto, where the salesman soon spotted an easy upsell opportunity and talked us into a larger model than we had planned. It took us* two hours to put the beast together, but finally we were able to christen it last night with a pair of big steaks. We think February 6th is a new record for the first Smith barbeque of the year**.

* i.e. Pippa
** although we did cheat by moving to a warmer continent.

The blog of new things

2010-02-06T14:09:00.001-08:00

Hello all

Sorry we have been a bit rubbish at updating this blog. I was struggling to work out what were interesting things to write about. I've now decided to structure it around new experiences and adventures we are having out here. So here are the latest few:

New Experience #10 (we must be up to about that): Trip to Sonoma

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/gawley/1RichardSVisit?authkey=Gv1sRgCNb7gYTb75GQ9wE#

We visited the Sonoma wine region with our friend Richard. Although the weather was not great we found this quite conducive to indoor wine-tasting. We enjoyed Sauvignons at the Dry Creek Vinyard, and Pinots at J Winery (really good).

And just enjoyed the nouveau-riche italian-themed villa and grounds at Ferrari-Carano. The pig statue was quite special.

We stayed in lovely Healdsburg, in the Inn on the Plaza which was a small period-style ("quaint") B&B. They had a great feature of a spacial "carpe diem" rate if you book on the day which worked out well for us. We really liked Healdsburg - Ruth went to sleep in her stroller two nights in a row as we sampled their excellent restaurants. We especially recommend Zin.

Stanford & Museum of Computer History

2010-01-10T21:35:00.000-08:00

We also went to Stanford University a few times while Alex's mum was here. In fact we got quite into it, with tours of the Rodin sculptures at the Art centre, a student-led tour of the university highlights and lunches at the campus coffee house. It's a really beautiful campus, with lots of sandstone buildings with terracotta roofs (I've since been lucky enough to fly over the university and it looks like a lovely old mediterranean village from above). It has a very sad history - the wealthy Stanford family founded the university over a hundred years ago (making it a pretty historic place by American standards) to honour their son who died aged fifteen on a european tour. Stanford University is very wealthy and influential in the area, it owns over 8,000 acres adjacent to Palo Alto including a shopping mall.

We also went to the Museum of Computer History which was absolutely awesome. Lots of old computers and alpha geeks.

http://picasaweb.google.com/gawley/12StanfordTrips#

Trip to Carmel and Monteray

2010-01-10T20:40:00.000-08:00

Finally catching up on posts from the end of last year...

We took a trip to Carmel in December with Alex's mum Carol. We had a wonderful time, we stayed in a place that looked like somewhere Snow White would honeymoon, and to boot it had a free wine and cheese reception, so Alex was happy too. We stumbled across the most amazing Italian restaurant, and Ruth was a very good baby who slept in her pram despite the raucous surroundings. The highlight was a visit to the Monteray aquarium, which was just the most lovely place. We loved the jellyfish room, which had huge backlit tanks and ambient music.

More photos here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/viewAlbum?uname=gawley&aid=5413817583678096593&pli=1

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T12:03:00.000-08:00

More Christmas photos - http://picasaweb.google.com/gawley/Christmas2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCLnyqYyqubvgwgE#

Hello all

We've now moved into our new place and have mostly unpacked. We really love the house and the area, we've been enjoying walking around finding nice little cafes and parks.

Our first Christmas out here has been great - our first Christmas together just the three of us, starting our own traditions. We started off with a big breakfast and marathon Skyping, followed by a long walk around the Baylands park near our house. This is a big marshy flatland at the south end of San Francisco bay, which looks a lot like Chichester Harbour in places and even has Brent geese. The weather was incredible, very bright sunshine, there were people (braver than us) walking along in shorts and t-shirts. Then Ruth had her nap while we got started on the champagne and grown-up presents, so we could focus on her presents when she woke up. She has got a little play room in our new place, which is now filled with all her new toys - thank you everyone. We had our big meal in the evening - chicken with lots of pigs-in-blankets, Paxo stuffing (from the British shop) followed by Pippa's yule log.

On Boxing day we set off to Tahoe, the nearest big mountains and ski resort about four hours away. We stayed with some friends in a little chalet, where we ate lots and played silly games, and had a hot tub under the stars (not so good for the carbon footprint really).

We've just celebrated New Year's Eve at home, and we are looking forward to all that 2010 has to offer (first flying lesson tomorrow! :D ). Here's wishing you all a very happy and healthy new year - looking forward to seeing you all soon.

Love

Pippa, Alex and Ruth xxx