Steps to Halloween

The steps to Halloween:

1. Prepare pumpkins to be as scary as possible. These go outside the front door to tell passing trick or treaters that it's ok to come inside.

2. Don appropriate costume and roam the streets, knocking on doors to extract maximum amounts of candy.



3. Return to base when containers are full and count candy.

4. Repeat from 1 until it is late.

San Jose Earthquake!

An earthquake happened here at 8.05 pm, nine miles from San Jose. It was 5.6 on the Richter Scale. The TV guy described it as a "good solid moderate quake". We are all well. The whole house rocked for 12 seconds. One picture fell off the wall and was broken.

Sienna now knows that you should get under a table when an earthquake happens and cover your head. Or, run outside or run run run to the bathroom or stand under a load bearing wall. Sebastian, Ian and Sienna are currently practising the "run run run" part and hiding under tables and running out of doors!

See http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/eqstats.html for earthquake facts and statistics.

Sonoma and Napa to Grapes of Joy

Monday, we travelled north to Sonoma county to check out the vineyards. On the way up, we stopped at the Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve, a grove of redwoods. The biggest was over 100 metres tall. That's the bottom of it above. It's called the Parson Jones tree.

The forest was very quiet and Sienna did all she could to address that problem. However, when she was quiet, she could hear the birds and squirrels.

She was very quiet and she saw a little brown bird, a wren, with a really large chirp.

This is Sienna standing next to a tree slice. The markers on the trunk show different events in human history. At the edge is the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. In the middle is the signing of the Magna Carta in 1066. This tree is over 1,500 years old.

We stayed that night in Healdsville, having dinner in a bear-themed microbrewery. The next day we quickly visited three vineyards, wending our way south to San Jose via Napa Valley.

The country is beautiful right now with the grape leaves changing to yellows and reds before they fall off for winter. The area has transcended its initial French theme and is now firmly mock-Tuscan. Huge amounts of money make us wonder what the Hunter would look like if we had a US economy. We drank some nice, expensive wine.

San Jose to Grapes of Wrath

Another night of exhaustion...

This morning we packed the seven seater Buick Enclave and headed two hours south to Point Lobos, a national park south of Monterey. The park features amazing, spectacular scenery and an array of seal lions, otters, birds and kelp! It is one of earth's special places. We did two short coastal walks including one to China Beach where Sienna, Sebastian and Ian built a sand pool.


Then we drove up the road for lunch at Black Bear Diner on the outskirts of Carmel. We stocked up on the usual energy food before venturing into Carmel itself. It was a beautiful day with none of the fog that had been there on my last visit. Kevin and Amelia kindly watched over the kids while they built another sand edifice and Stephanie and Derek checked out the boutiques in the main street and the designer dogs walking outside.


Next, a short drive up the coast got us to Monterey and the famous Monterey Aquarium. The aquarium is a great place. Derek had visited it many years ago soon after it opened. It was good then and now it's even better. Many wonderful things to look at, particularly the otters and the jelly fish, and many hands-on exhibits for the children to investigate.




Out last trip for the day took us up to Moss Landing where we had dinner at Phil's Fish Market and Eatery. Stephanie and Amelia shared a chilli crab while Kevin and Derek had some nice spicy Ahi. Sienna and Sebastian insanely settled for cheese sandwiches but there's no accounting for taste!!

After dinner, it was a fast hour and a half on the freeway to get home. We thank Amelia and Kevin for planning such wonderful experiences for us.

San Jose

Derek gets to write again as S & s have expired beside him!

We rose late this morning after the party the night before and cleared away some debris. Sienna, Sebastian and Ian raked up the leaves in the front yard ready for collection by the council. You just pile them in the gutter and they get picked up. However, they seem to get blown away each day so the kids have enjoyed raking them up anew each time.

We left the kids to learn a little Mandarin with the boys' tutor while the adults went off to have a pleasant lunch at Los Gatos. Sienna practiced counting to ten in Mandarin and also writing the numbers. Good practice for Japanese next year.

Then, after picking up the kids, we went to the San Jose History Garden which has a beautiful Japanese garden attached with ponds containing the biggest koi on the planet.

Sienna tried to feed herself to a fish but just got wet feet. That was just a quick visit as we were really there to see Sebastian at ice hockey training.

Ice hockey was fun to watch. It was like judo: The first thing to learn is how to fall over and the kids practised that in abundance. Then we saw the girl's team practising and the end of an adult match.

Finally, home for dinner -- lots of party leftovers -- and charting our trip tomorrow down to Point Lobos, Carmel and Monterey. It's an early rise tomorrow.

San Francisco / San Jose

Derek was waiting for us at the arrival gate at San Francisco airport. We were very happy to see him and we grabbed our bags and headed off to pick up our very large car, more like a truck really. It has seven seats and Sienna sits in a new seat every time we venture out.

We headed down to San Jose where we are staying with our friends, Kevin, Amelia, Sebastian (7 yrs) and Ian (6 yrs). We have been here for six days now and we are behind in the blog postings because we have been so busy. Sienna is also enjoying her time with the boys. They have been busy decorating the house and garden for Halloween

On Tuesday we headed for San Francisco. We spent the morning wandering around Fishermans Wharf, enjoying the Venetian Carousel and viewing the sea lions that live on Pier 39. We had lunch with a great view of San Francisco bay and Alcatraz. The afternoon was spent wandering around the city, enjoying cable car rides and the local chocolate delights.

We stayed in San Jose on Wednesday. We spent most of the day at the Children's Discovery Museum. The museum is on Woz Way, which is named after Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple. The museum is designed specifically for a hands on experience. Sienna loved the water works section and the pin wall.

On Thursday we travelled south to Gilroy, home of Californian garlic. Phew! We stopped off at the outlet center to stock up Derek's wardrobe. Here Sienna met Maxwell, a rather large great Dane. He was placid despite his appearance. We continued our trip south to San Juan Bautista to see the mission and have dinner.

Friday was spent at home to prepare for Kevin's surprise birthday party. Kevin was surprised and a good time was had by all.

Seattle - Now it's pouring!!! (Saturday 20th October)

Our day started with an early trip the Holy Grail of Malls in downtown Seattle. Gina's Pottery Barn and Peter's Apple discount cards were inspiration for extra purchases. We gathered our final supplies for the spooky dinner party and headed home. The evening was a great success, great company and great food.

We were joined by Nikki, Steve and Jessica. Dinner started with spicy pumpkin seeds and pumpkin soup. Followed by chilli lamb shanks and cous cous. We finished with chocolate pavlova served with raspberries and cream. YUM!!!!!

In between courses everyone carved pumpkins and pretended to be scary or scared.

We left Gina and Peter on Sunday, another rainy day. We had a great time and we will miss you very much. Thanks soooooooo much for looking after us.

We left on Sunday morning to meet up with Derek in San Francisco.

Seattle - It's still raining (Friday)

Another slow start was followed by a light lunch with friends of Peter & Gina. Nikki and her five and a half year old daughter, Jessie, meet us for lunch then we ventured off to the local pumpkin, sunflower and corn farm.

The massive field of pumpkins was over whelming, absolutely amazing. We ventured into the slush to pick out our pumpkins to take home for carving. Three in all one large, one medium and one small, plus a few extras for table decorations.

The girls loved it and the splashing in the mud was almost the highlight of the day.

The afternoon and early evening saw lots of food preparation

for the spooky Halloween party tomorrow. After dinner we

scooped out our pumpkins in preparation for the actual carving

planned for the Spooky party.

Seattle - It's raining, it's pouring (Thursday)

We started the day slowly and headed off to downtown Seattle to see the Space Needle.

We crossed Lake Washington on the floating bridge. The water on one side of the lake is calm due to the protective nature of the bridge and the other is rough, an interesting view as you drive west to down town Seattle.

The weather in Seattle is very much like London, drizzle and then some more drizzle. It was very cold with very low visibility due to the low cloud cover.

We then ventured off to the Pike Place Markets which look directly over Puget Sound. We saw live yabbies and enormous fresh salmon and lots of rather large vegetables and fresh flowers. Lunch today was fabulous crab cakes followed by a wonderful clam chowder. The afternoon was marked by a fierce wind storm that arrived around 2pm with amazing Whirlpool displays of relocating the thousands of leaves that were scattered on the roads.

We returned to Kirkland across the floating bridge which now resembled a bridge sitting in the surf. The car was pounded by the crashing waves, much to Sienna's delight!!!






Our day finished with a visit to the Wholefoods (Organic) Supermarket. The food and wine selections were mind boggling and the trolleys were fun.

Sleepless in Seattle

Seattle is beautiful... just like a scene out of Narnia. The spectrum of colours in the trees as they drift into Autumn is spectacular.

Our second day in Seattle started late. We slept in (due to Disney exhaustion) until 9am. Sienna kicked back for a morning of "Charlie & Lola" while we caught up on some washing.

We left home around noon for some retail therapy at one of the outlet centers north of Seattle, bargains galore! Six outfits and two pairs of shoes for Sienna (for under US$100) and a shirt for Derek. We ended the day with a special treat for Stephanie & Gina, a trip to the local Spa for two hours treatment....heaven on a stick.

Peter & Sienna played games, cooked dinner and made orange brains and green snot for the Spooky Halloween party on the weekend. We came home to a beautiful dinner of local Salmon, yum!

Let's split! (Tuesday)

Today we split up. Stephanie and Sienna are heading up to Seattle with Peter and Gina. Derek is heading east to Boca Raton in Florida for a meeting. We won't be doing much today except travelling.

Stephanie will continue the blog from Seattle and I'll report anything exciting that's happening in Florida . I'll also get some maps up for you to look at so you know where we have been.

We departed the Disneyland Resort early with some time to spare just in case there were delays at LA airport. Lucky we did, as the main exit ramp to the airport was closed and every car entering Arrivals was being searched by the police. This also impacted the Departures. We were lucky enough to have a great taxi driver who gave us the "Back Lot Tour" of LA airport and managed to get us to the departure gate with time to spare. The security in LA airport is on the scale of CRAZY!!!!!

Our flight though a little bumpy was uneventful and we put on our big fluffy coats straight away. Peter managed to perform a Houdini trick with the nine pieces of luggage into a compact VW and we arrived some what squished yet safe.

Seattle:

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I Do Believe in Fairies! (Monday)

Stephanie says: This week has been the longest year in my life!
Sienna says: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Derek says: Ugh

We hope all Sienna's friends are enjoying being back at school this week. Sienna misses you all.




Today started with us listening to some nice Bluegrass music while we waited for Peter to post some important papers. Sienna played washboard while Derek played some kind of bangy thing.

Sienna decided that she would be very brave and would have a ride in California Screamin', the scariest ride in the parks. She did it so she could get the same tee shirt that Derek bought after we did the ride last night.

After the roller coaster ride, we walked from CAP back to Disneyland where we were going to finish off Fantasy Land and Tomorrow Land. We found another Arial grotto complete with photo opportunity.







Then it was lunch at Blue Bayou, a New Orleans style restaurant set in simulated darkeness inside the Pirates of the Carribean ride. The Monte Christo Speciale was the lowlight of the lunch. It is a deep fried sandwich made from "egg bread" with ham and cheese inside dipped in a raspberry and grape sweet sauce. Truly hideous despite a Lonely Planet recommendation! The gumbo was great, however, and the jumbalaya passable.

Back to the rides with a quick rocket trip and then a return to Buzz Light Year Astro Blaster where Derek achieved Level 4.

























Autopia was next. You drove a car with a hybrid engine around a railroad track.
Sienna says: I got to drive a real car all by myself without a license. Then she got handed a license!

We then split up with Stephanie and Sienna going to It's a Small World After All and to the Fairy Fantasy Faire. Peter went to see Innoventions while Derek and Gina had another fantastic roller coaster ride at Space Mountain.





At Fairy Fantasy Faire, Sienna saw a coronation ceremony for princesses and princes selected from the crowd. Belle, Moulin and Aurora were in attendance.