Freemans' visit in October

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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#)