Christmas cheer all round

Hi Everyone - Merry Christmas!

Wow, I can't believe its been nearly two weeks since I've written. We've done so much! We went to a fantastic science museum which had a living roof, and an albino crocodile. The kids had a ball, and so did I. There were two huge domes built into the architecture, one which was an indoor rainforest, it was clear and the roof was clear, so it was more of a glass house, and the other one was a planetarium. We went to see the show at the planetarium, but unfortunately Ainsley freaked out with the dark and the creepy space music, so we had to leave. Tallis and Ellery stayed though, and we met them afterwards. They said it was the best show ever. They were a bit hazy on the details though. We also saw a 3d bug movie which was really well done. It was the life pf a butterfly and a preying mantis, where eventually the preying mantis ate the butterfly. Quite amazing to watch in 3d. Somehow Ainsley sat through it no worries. Never could predict a 2 year old. This is her with her 3D glasses...

This isside the rainforest dome...
And this is the living roof...

Ainsleys been going through an independent phase. One where she can't quite do everything for herself, but desperately wants to. Which is nice, because she getting dressed by herself, at 2, while Lindsay still quite happily wants me dress to dress him - at nearly 6! But its also difficult, because she really shouldn't be making her own toast, no matter how well she could do it on her own.

We've been to a few really nice restaurants. They're all over the place here! We staying in an area called north beach, which is the italian zone, chocked full with italian restaurants and little cafes. The stand out restaurant experience for me was called the 'Stinking Rose' - a restaurant dedicated to garlic! I think between us we ate about 100 cloves of garlic. After that I was walking around in an aura of garlic stench for days. It was leaching out of every pore of my body. But thankfully I love the smell of garlic, so it really wasn't an issue for me. Too bad about those around me.

We've been getting on really well with the neighbours upstairs. They've got a 5year old and a 6 year old. Lindsay has been loving their train track. A lot of the time the other kids will all be down in our house, and Lindsay will be up at their house by himself with the train track. He really is like Paul - totally oblivious to ther people. So they went away for christmas and brought down the track for Lindsay to play with while they were gone. They've also offered to babysit if we need it, which is great, there seems to be great night life going on around here.

We built a gingerbread house for christmas, which I was expected to be fairly simple. I was soooo wrong. I had no idea how long it takes for the icing to set, and just though it would just glue together nicely. Instead I ended up with everything sliding off, and then bits broke, and the the whole thing kept collapsing. It started off all beautiful and neat and symmetrical, but after many rescue attempts, it looked like there had been a blizzard of lollies. Even poor santa out the front got snow in his eyes. Eventually I got it to stand by itself after bracing it over night with all sorts of tinned food and boxes etc.

So we ended up having a really nice christmas. It was just a simple one, we didn't go anywhere. But Santa was particularly creative with a hunt for little chocolate santas around the house. Even Tallis commented on how well santa did this year. I told her it was because of the good behaviour, and that if they behave even better next year, Santa might get even more creative! The presents were all a hit, a few board games for entertainment and we bought the kids an electronics kit, which is a great one, with hundreds of easy to make projects. The kids have been really keen so far. Paul bought me a kit which teaches me how micro controllers work, so that one day I may be able to build a robot (a big dream of mine). Mum bought the kids some presents when she was here, which was nice to add a bit of flavour - everything else was from us and Santa - she gave ainsley some playdough which has been a huge hit. She calls it her volcano, and just sits at the table for hours with it. And shes so clean too, which really helps with how often shes allowed to play with it. We had a nice roast lunch, and were so full that we didn't end up eating any of the desert, and then we had the roof of the ginger bread house for dinner. Very nutritious, but thats christmas for you.

Yesterday we went on a tour in a ww2 submarine and on a liberty ship. The sub was pretty cool, but I don't think I could spend more than a day on one. The guys that did it in the war were out there for months. Like a prison. In fact, if I had to choose I'd probably prefer alcatraz. Heres a photo of us in the dining room...

On the ship was a bit scary. They engine room was the one used in the movie titanic. I felt so famous by association. But there were all these narrow high little walkways and very steep stairs. And with Ainsley being little miss independent, she wanted to go up and down the stairs by herself. It really freaked me out. The posters about danger and enter at own risk didn't help either. So I jumped ship with the girls and left Paul and Lindsay to it. We found an antique parlour game museum which was really fun. Everything was still operating too. There were races where two people had to wind their wheels to get their horses to the end first and a great little excavator which you could pick up gum balls with and drop them down the shoot for yourself. This provided the most entertainment as we filled our pockets for only a few quarters.

Then Today we went ice skating. It was great fun, but soo tiring. It didn't take too long to get the hang of, and even Lindsay ended up being able to go around without holding the edge. Tallis could spin in a circle too. Heres some photos of the kids...

We had a great day. Hope you have all been having a good christmas, and that everyone has a really good new year, and that you all have a drink for me on new years eve.

Cheers, from Nic

Yosemite

Hi everyone,

Finally got off my bum, and am updating my blog. The last week in LA we didn't really get up to much. I had to do a bit of advertising stuff for Paul, and that took a lot of time. We said farewell to our homeschool friends which was a bit sad. I really started to like everyone there. On the last weekend we went to a really cool science museum. Forgot the camera so no pics, but some of the hands on exhibits were great. They even had a little set up for making time lapse animations, with plastic animals. Very cool. We watched a 4D movie(3D with smoke machines, smells and special lighting effects) about dinosaurs which also very cool, even if a little bit scary for the kids. The dinosaurs really seemed to come out.

Getting out of the house in Hintington beach was painful. As usual I totally underestimated the amount of time that everything would take. By a factor of 5 I reckon. So I was totally frantic by the end, rushing around trying to extract all of our stuff that had gotten mixed up with their stuff. Then, as I got into the car to drive away a message on the dashboard said that the boot door wasn't closed properly. So I got out, and reopened it to close it right, and all of my groceries fell out. Two bottles of dressing broke on the floor, with glass everywhere, honey mustard all splashed over my leg. So we didn't end up leaving until about 11:00, after I'd really commited myself to leaving early. So off we went to Yosemite. I was very excited.

And I should have been because Yosemite was just amazing. Massive granite oucrops, and vast pine forests. There was a huge valley with the towering granite on either side, and waterfalls dropping over the sides. Heres a couple of the hundreds of pics that I took.

We saw heaps of wild life too, heres a coyote and some deer that we saw.

Luckily we didn't see any bears. There were heaps of warnings about how they could bend back your car door just to get at a chocolate bar wrapper. I did kind of freak out a little bit, but I decided that they must be hibernating, being winter. On the first day when I was unloading the car, by myself, in the dark, in the middle of a pine forest, my heart was beating so hard I swear I could hear it. But then on the last day, we were all inside eating breakfast, and the car alarm went off. I went out, and it looked like there were bear pawprints on the car. Very freaky. This is the house that we stayed in.

We also saw some of the largest trees in the world. Giant sequoias. WOW! It was through one of these trees that they made the car tunnel. But that tree fell over in the 60's and they haven't done it again, because they're trying to look after the trees. Apparently a lot of them are falling over because they have very shallow roots, and all the tourists damage them by walking around the trees. They have set paths now that you're not meant to go off, although heaps of idiots were. Grrrr. Also, they really need wild fires to help keep the other trees down so that can get the right amount of sunshine, and because people have been putting out any fires for the last 100 years, the popluation of these trees have been dwindling. So they're just starting doing controlled burns to help with this. You can see the burnt bit at the bottom. Those little specks, also at the bottom, are the kids (you might need to enlarge it). Thats how huge these trees were. This one was over 3000 years old.

Its also a very popular place for rock climbing. Theres a famous climb that people do here, that take 3 days, and they sleep on the rock face. Eeeek. This is Lindsay ahving a go.

Good Luck!

So now we're in San Francisco. I think I'll really like it here. We're very much in the thick of it here. In a nice little apartment with in walking distance to everything. We went to Alcatraz yesterday. It was really interesting, but kind of in a state of disrepair. I don't think they get so much money from the government for toursim in the same way that Australia does. There was a bit of a drive to get money from visitors to save the rock. It was still really good though. We did an audio tour that told/showed us where those guys dug around the side of an airvent with their spoons to escape. Nobody knows what happened to them. Mostly they think they drowned in the trecherous seas around the island. Yet again, I forgot the camera.

The other day Ellery was telling me that she'd rather go to Jail than pay a fine, because that way she gets to keep her money. After our visit to Alcatraz yesterday, shes changed her mind.

Well, I need to go and buy some food, we've got next to nothing here right now, and I really need to find a supermarket. I'm a bit scared to drive to one, because I don't think there will be parking. Not around here anyway. But I've got to buy too much to be able walk to one. I need a wheel barrow or something.

Anyway, hope all is well back in Aus, cheers

from Nic