Easter eggstravaganza… sorry couldn’t resist!  

We seem to have celebrated Easter for two weeks. On the 1st, Redwood Shores held their egg hunt, not sure who enjoyed it more, Myles or Mummy.  I may have become competitive mummy excitedly pointing at the golden, prize winning egg, whilst Myles stared at me bemused… we got it though, score!

Americans do not take Easter as a holiday which is a shame, especially when reading everyone’s facebook updates back home about their 4 day weekend breaks. We did however squeeze in a lot of special activities.

Saturday we left the Peninsula bubble for some time with friends in the city, Myles enjoys playing with Scarlett, or Scar Scar as he enthusiastically refers to her, and harassing poor Minou the cat.  We took a stroll in the sun to the park, and stumbled across a nice little bar for a cheeky beer.  The entire day was most pleasant, well except for the high decibel screaming from a very over tired child, but we can blank that part out.

How to start the Easter weekend 

Scarletts brick at AT&T Park 

Sunday we ventured to Pismo Beach, you may have heard us talk of this place before. We first visited back in 2009, and again when we came out in December 2011.  I have a big soft spot for the place, it combines laid back easy living with a beautiful beach and great seafood.  Add a playpark on the beach, and you have the perfect family escape, no worries, no hassle, no time constraints, bliss.

This time we were able to meet up with our friends that were over in SoCal on holiday from the UK.  It truly felt like a little mini vacation and Myles had great fun with Neeve and Connor, dutifully agreeing to do or go wherever Neeve suggested… a life lesson for the boy about woman me thinks!

Pretty much a perfect weekend, a bit of city, a bit of beach and all in one weekend…not something we’d ever do back in Guildford.

Myles loves sand (and trucks)

Burying Neeve and Connor

Turning Californian

A couple things you notice when you walk around here are

1.       90% of woman (and men) appear to work out in some way

2.       95% of people walk around in their work out gear, woman in black pants (I will note that this was also the case in Vancouver, I knew I should of bought lulemon pants back in 2007)

With this in mind, I joined the gym. I was going at home anyhow but with everyone around me jogging to the library, talking about their latest class and looking like they were always ready to sprint at any moment I thought it’s time to at least make an effort.

The local YMCA here is fantastic, it’s a family gym and swimming pool. All classes and crèche time included, this is a huge plus when you have a toddler.  Everytime I collect Myles he tells me he drove the car, kicked the ball and played with the choo choo’s , a little place of heaven for him then!

Now all I have to do is stop eating the American fair, such as deep fried chicken and waffles, deep pan pizza, and cookie dough frozen yoghurt, I might actually see some benefit.  

Projects – Dining Table

So my first project is the dining table. We purchased it from craigslist for a very reasonable figure, I love the shape and style and the white base, but the black chalk board paint top isn’t my idea of sanitary dining! So with home depot as my new love, I got myself a little sander, the mouse, and went about discovering what lay under the paint.

It took a few hours, several sheets of sand paper and some painful back ache but I hit gold (well for my taste anyhow) underneath is a beautiful wood top, which I believe is oak. Ive now diverted from my original plan of painting the entire table white and decided to go down the farmhouse look route and give it a classic stain. So after some finer sanding this is the first coat of stain…

Removing a nasty layer of chalk paint over white gloss

Applying the first coat of stain

Moving Day

Moving day finally arrived! It's lovely to be in our new home and to have our own things again. It's going to take a little while to sort everything out but it's exciting. Kirsty has great plans to renew some of our furniture which will be awesome. Some stats from the movie just for the fun of it..

Distance Traveled = 5359 miles or 8622.63 Kilometers
Items Transported = 113 boxes by Sea + 7 Boxes by Air
Time taken to transport = 55 days
Items of new furniture put together = 9 (so far)

The move has been handled really well by the removals company - they packed it all up in the Uk and even helped unpack here are the new place. Luckily nothing was damaged or lost in all of this!  We are all connected up with Electricity, Cable TV, internet and the other of lifes essentials - all of which has been quite painless so far. As Kirsty has written - we both have cars now which really helps. I've got a Ford Fiesta which is perfect for getting me around to work, etc and we gave it a good road test last weekend on our first trip away...

We had a wonderful weekend at Pismo Beach catching up with the McDairmant family from the UK (I worked with Alan at Criterion).  It was lovely seeing Myles play with Conner and Neeve and the seafood at the Cracked Crab was as scrumptious as always.

I'll post some pictures of the trip soon but here we are relaxing with an appropriate drink in the sunshine..

 

A new hobby

As part of saving money and furnishing our new home ive been looking around at second hand pieces of furniture I can work on. 

I guess the projects will serve a few purposes, save money, get creative again and give me something to do other than stare at the tv or go online all evening, ill be honest, im very excited about this prospect! Ive purchased a small electric sander and plan to set up in the garage. My first project is going to be our dining table. If successful im going to attack our old bed frame, and hopefully bedroom furniture. 

One of the ladies ive recently met here does this kind of thing very very well so hoping for some hints and tips. 

The dining table, starting easy with just needing to work on the table top

Lets see how it ends up!

Out and About

Although mainly parks, Myles and I have been starting to explore our new surroundings. Myles loves the parks here as they are mostly on sand, which means digging and playing. In summer I think he is going to have a great surprise that a lot of them have water play features, im going to have one happy boy.

This weekend we went to the local Easter egg hunt, it was great fun and very well organised. Unfortunately the Easter bunny got a more extreme reaction to Father Christmas, lets hope those two are never in the same room!

No No NOOOOOO! Not a fan of the bunny

but ill happily take your friend

We are spending Easter Sunday in Pismo Beach, Im hoping we will have a few more smiles :-)

The basics

I havent posted on here for a while as I wasnt sure whether to continue with a blog or not, it seems everyone now is blogging, is it getting boring or is it the new way to share a little bit more than just a picture and status update?
Well, boring or not Ive decided I need somewhere to write thoughts, feelings and random rants and if people chose to read all the better.

The daily basics...

We have been here for 6 weeks now and little by little its beginning to feel like we can settle here. Myles has settled quickly, give a toddler a park, some sand, sunshine and new toys and they are all set!  Pete seems to be settling in at work, I never get too much detail, but the fact he is not coming home ridiculously late or moaning all the time is a plus in my opinion.
I have made a friend... yes 1 friend! We met the first week of arriving, both from Surrey both with sons and both a little lost in our new worlds, a perfect match.
I am in the process of beginning to strike up conversations with more people and slowly exchanging more than a smile with other mums, but its a slow process, toddlers do not equal coffee and chatting, more running around like a crazy lady trying to prevent anyone breaking a bone or gaining a concussion!

Our shipping, we are assured, is in the country and awaiting delivery to the warehouse where it can be unloaded, re loaded and delivered to our house... nothing like direct route. This seems to be taking an age, I guess because we found our house a little while ago and are desperate to move. The apartment we are in is nice, but its dark and cold, quite often deceiving us as to what the weather is outside (and yes I could just pop outside but this isnt so easy when Myles, if told is going out, is going no matter what and Im not so keen on cold, wet or windy walks)!

We now have two cars, I have the Jetta which I love, its a proper mum car, I can fit the pushchair, the shopping and all other paraphernalia I need on a daily basis, sad but true this is what makes me happy now.
Pete picked his new car up today, a ford fiesta sedan, its cute, lots of buttons and gadgets and saves me having to run around. He also no longer has to car share when he goes to the other office which means he can get home quicker yay.

Oh, and we both passed our California driving tests, this was a big thing for us.  Here, they use driving licenses as main form of ID it seems to be a golden ticket for opening store cards and getting credit, to have it done and dusted is a great relief.

I think thats all the mundane setting up stuff done now, once we move and have all the furniture set up we can actually start exploring and enjoying our new home.

(A note to myself, for when I look back, I dont like Thursdays, for whatever reason Thursdays bring a little black cloud)

Our new home...