Been too, an American football game – Oakland Raiders, watched the Oakland Athletics play baseball and our favourite was watching the Golden State Warriors play Orlando magic (basketball).
Thoroughly enjoyed and will never forget our week in the Galapagos Islands and Ecuador. A FANTASTIC experience.
We went to first of what we hope will be many trip to Yosemite posh camping for 2 nights/3 days. For Matts 40th we spent 3 nights camping in lake Shasta, in August – bloody hot!
With work Matt has been in Chicago for 5 weeks and the UK for 2 weeks.
For 2 weekends we were in Sebastopol (nr Bodega Bay) for a relaxing and martini filled time.
The city has seen us for 3 day trips where we saw the Academy of Sciences, walked the Embacadero, Fishermans wharf, cable car ride, walked long beach.
And one weekend where colleagues of Matts kindly put us all up in their apartment next to the Bay bridge.
Sausalito is the original hippy town , we managed only 2 days trips...it will see more of us in the new year DEFINIETLY.
Not far from Sausalito and in danger of being closed through budget cuts is Mount Tamaulipas. We had one daytrip this year, Matt had a mountain biking trip there as well.
Mount Diablo is on our doorstep, I see it every morning – assuming there isn’t a cloud stuck over the top. It is 300ft higher than Snowdon and has seen us traipse over it 3 times since we arrived.
A favourite of most is Monterey Bay and its Aquarium. We went down for a day trip and loved the aquarium. Early November we went down for the weekend so I could run the half marathon around it.
A beautiful experience, the views were stunning with alot of the route along the coast line...if you could run it whilst on morphine I would recommend it to all!! J
We spent a lovely evening in Petaluma at a fabulous Italian restaurant celebrating the ‘assassins’ 60th birthday. The tequila was flowing by 8pm.
Christmas will be spent in Truckee (NW of Tahoe) with snow, food and ‘the assassin’ of martini notoriety...god help our livers!
We have also had day trips, with portable barbeque/picnic and swim gear to the following state parks:
Del Valle State park – 4 visits, Shadow Cliffs state park, Tilden national Park and lastly Oakland Zoo for 3 visits. Oakland zoo is brilliant for kids, we became members and get to go for evening events.....fabulous.
Lets not forget Ciaras broken elbow and our first emergency room experience. One I now look back on as a good learning experience – I met a doctor who worked in Scotland for 5 years and is very pro the NHS as a result of this incident. She and I had a very frank conversation about republican California (aka where we live) and what is wrong with the US healthcare system...lovely to met an American who understands/listens and respects anothers views...few and far between here they are.
1st , 3rd , 37th and 40th birthdays have been celebrated...in varying degrees....Matts 40th went on for about 3 months. J
We hosted a curry evening to thank the people who helped us settle in, with 20 ex-pats and 4 americans present and we hosted Thanksgiving for 11.
We have had 15 visitors this year and are looking forward to more in 2010....with the Satchwells, Uncle Kevin, Mrs Mattock, Maritz family, Auntie Nolls and possibly the Halls we are looking forward to a busy year.
To all of you who have put up with my ramblings may I wish you a happy Christmas. May ‘santa’ visit you all.
To a prosperous and healthy 2010.
Take care lads and lasses and I’ll fill you in on me being asked to leave a wine bar, an evening of pokino and our Christmas adventures in the new year.
Dee
Comments