Big Basin Redwoods

When we drove to Santa Cruz on Saturday, both Jack and I noticed the signs to Big Basin State Park and, remembering some cool photos that a friend of ours had posted of the place, we decided to venture there on Sunday. It was a good choice because Big Basin is an amazingly, fabulously, mind blowingly beautiful place. 

Spending a lot of time cloaked in fog, the redwood forest is an incredibly productive place which is exploding with life. From insanely tall trees to bright yellow slugs and purple fungus, Big Basin is overflowing with things to find, explore and enjoy.

We are seriously loving how much there is to do and see around our new home. Hope you like the photos from our latest excursion.

x 

Santa Cruz

The weather this weekend in the Bay Area was rather spectacular and, lucky for us, this amazing weather coincided with our first visit to Santa Cruz and some of the beaches in the area. About a 40 minute drive away, Santa Cruz is filled with sea cliffs, fighting seals, boats, holiday houses, fish and chip shops (finally!!) and a huge amusement park right on the beach.

Probably our favorite stop of the day was Capitola, which is a beach front town just south of Santa Cruz. Compared with the bright lights of Santa Cruz, Capitola is small, almost quaint, with shops and pubs right on the water that reminded me more than a little bit of home. Shovels, sand, rocks and water had the kids  totally entertained all day.

The Pumpkin Patch

There are pumpkins and spiders everywhere in Cupertino at the moment and I suspect that most other cities in the US look the same. Getting into the Halloween/Fall spirit, we visited a pumpkin patch (not a real one, just a carpark that has been temporarily transformed) earlier this week. It won't be our last visit to pick some pumpkins before Halloween - Reuben has a school field trip to a local farm and Declan's school is hosting one too.

On further Halloween news, the spotted eagle ray costume I have made for Declan totally rocks. Its not quite finished, so I'm not going to post any pictures of it yet but I am very impressed with myself over this one.  

Conquering the straw mountain

Choosing pumpkins is a big job

Reuben enjoying a hay ride

Could this be one of the best places on the planet?

We spent this weekend at Lake Tahoe. If you don't know it, Tahoe is an alpine lake on the border of California and Nevada. Oh, and it is also one of the most amazingly beautiful places you can imagine. Beaches, snow, water, mountains, scenery, bears, horse riding, the list goes on and on and on. In fact, there is so much good stuff to say about Tahoe that I am instead going to focus on what I wish was different about the place. 

1. It could be closer to Cupertino. The 220 mile, 4.5 hour drive is a pretty lengthy escapade for a weekend (especially with three young kids). 

2. The water, even though it looks so wonderfully inviting, is really quite cold. 

3. Some of the roads around the lake could do with a few more safety railings. One part of the road, between Emerald Bay and Cascade Lake, with sheer drops on both sides, is the second scariest road I have ever been on. More scary than the Amalfi Coast, but not as horribly terrifying as the road to Slieve League in Ireland. 

4. My friends and family don't live there.

As you can see, with a few minor adjustments, Tahoe would be pretty close to perfect.

Ivy on Pope Beach

Beaches and mountains in the one place, what else do you need?

Loads of places for little hands to explore

School Lunches

In my opinion, a school lunch should consist of a sandwich, a price of fruit and maybe a muesli bar, cookie, muffin or whatever. Here in California, school lunch menus read like a big, long, sordid list of foods not to feed kids. Interestingly, the state is proud of the nutrition standards is has set for its school lunches.

I never considered myself to be a health food zealot, but my ideas on nutrition are so massively different to what is considered good food in California that it makes me wonder whether I am a bit over the top. I have included a link here for the October school lunch menu at Declan's school so you can decide for yourself - healthy and nutritious, or not.

Diwali

Cupertino does not have a fish and chip shop. This major handicap was felt keenly by Jack and I this evening as we reminisced over many fabulous occasions spent devouring fish and chips on the water at Hillarys Marina. Moving past this obvious flaw, one of the very big positives of Cupertino is the multicultural aspect of the city. Today we enjoyed an insight into the Indian culture when we attended Cupertino's annual Diwali Festival, which was held a 5 minute walk from our house. 

The bright colors, dancing, amazing foods and activities at the Festival were amazing and, being so close to home, it was a wonderfully stress free day too. 

Ivy riding Walter

The Week in Review

Its been crazy and hectic this week. Between shootings, school excursions, storms, massive manhunts, the death of an icon (who, as a Cupertino native, was universally and passionately loved around these parts) and just the general melodramas of our daily life, Jack and I are starting this weekend a little bit uninspired.

I know that we are both tired, and can't really be stuffed doing anything this weekend because its Fleet Week in San Francisco and neither of us are sure that it is worth the effort to go. If we were our usual selves, an event like this, complete with aircraft carriers and a big airshow, would have Jack, the kids and I full of excitement and big plans.

The fact is however that most of our weekends of late have included lengthy, tiring (but loads of fun) expeditions and I think we are experiencing a little adventure fatigue. We will most probably snap out of it by Sunday and make the hour trip north to battle the cars and crowds for a good view of the Fleet Week entertainment. I think it all depends on the level of relaxing that takes place on Saturday, enjoying the fun and excitement that is on offer close to home.

Logistics of Wind Farms

While I must confess that it is not something I have really thought much about, the logistics of building a wind farm, especially getting the giant turbines on site, must be incredibly complex (imagine moving and constructing something as monstrously big as this 7MW Vestas wind turbine!).

On our recent road trip to Sacramento, we got to witness some of the challenges faced when transporting wind turbines first hand when we came across a train loaded with blades and generators. I don't know where this train had come from, or its final destination but I can tell you that it was very long, and moving no faster than walking pace. It was an exciting sight for someone who is as into wind energy as I am.

Here are a couple of photos taken by Jack as we waited for the train to pass.

Feeling the Halloween Pressure

Halloween is a big deal here. No, let me correct that, Halloween is a hugely massive deal here. In Australia, retailers hire holiday staff to help with Christmas shopping. Over here, holiday staff are hired in the lead up to Halloween. To sell what? Candy? Costumes? Pumpkins? I don't really know, but I need to find out, and fast.

I have been given a bit of an inside scoop from some local parents about the Halloween thing and apparently one parent needs to stay home to give out candy to kids who visit our house, while the other parent takes our kids around the neighborhood to collect candy. A pillow case is considered a good sized treat bag. Many kids will return home to empty out their full pillow case and go out to get more candy. Clearly I am going to need to buy a lot of candy!

Running away from Halloween or pretending it doesn't exist are not viable options. "Farms" selling pumpkins have cropped up on every vacant corner in the city. Declan has the day off school. Both Declan's and Reuben's schools are having Halloween parties. All of the shops and many of the houses are decorated with hay bales, witches and giant furry spiders with evil red eyes.

Today I am biting the bullet and the kids and I are heading out to buy some big hairy spiders, maybe a pumpkin or two and the makings of some Halloween costumes. Ivy is going to be Tinkerbell, Reuben wants to be Robin Hood and Declan a spotted eagle ray. In case you are in the market for one as well, I can tell you that spotted eagle ray costumes are hard to come by, so we'll be making our own (but if you DO happen to find one, please let me know).

The inspiration for Declan's costume

Weekend in Sacramento

We spent this weekend in Sacramento. Well, Roseville and Lincoln to be exact as these two places are about a half hour north east of Sacramento. The trip was primarily to visit our friends, Will, Casey and their little boy Wyatt. Declan, Reuben and Ivy loved hanging out with Wyatt, playing with all his toys and  his pool. The boys especially loved racing remote control boats around the pool!

Will and Casey are expecting another addition to their family in just a few short days. It was so great that they made the time to see us (and cook us a great meal) even with so much going on - thanks guys!

Decs, Ivy and Reuben each with a mouthful of chips

Wyatt

Will busy in the kitchen working on our fabulous dinner

The water was colder than Ivy expected

Second Car Update

Did I ever tell you guys about the time that Jack bought a new car and tried to pretend that he hadn't? Yes, seriously, he thought that I wouldn't notice the difference if he just "upgraded" our two year old car to a brand spanking new one.

Anyhow, after that little incident, I have pretty much had carte blanche over which cars we have bought for about ten years now.  When we bought our first car here in the States, it was originally going to be Jack's choice. He wanted a BMW but we ended up getting my pick, a Volkswagen.

This is where the sad story about me nearly being a Mini owner begins. You see, Jack has been so good for so long about driving cars of my choice that I relented over getting a Mini and said that he can pick our second car.

So, at this stage, instead of looking at Minis (although we did test drive an awesome bright blue one today) we are now back to looking at MX5s, BMWs, Audis and even a Porsche Boxster (and you thought a Mini was impractical!). My Mini wish may still come true however. We have set a budget for our second car of $10k. This buys a nice Mini but it doesn't appear to buy too much of anything else (that Jack wants anyway). If he is willing to bide his time, he might get the car of his dreams but I'm secretly hoping that he will run out of patience and decide on the Mini.

This will of course be a win win for me because I'll get the car that I want, and it will have been Jack's choice, so the next time we buy a new car it will be my turn to choose again!!