Thanksgiving 2009

You know you are in an affluent area when the homeless are drinking Starbucks and that's exactly what we saw on our Thanksgiving trip to Northern, CA. My first Thanksgiving spent on the beach and I was not disappointed as we ate well, relaxed, socialized and of course drank responsibly. Kristy's Great Uncle's family was kind enough to host us and we were made extremely welcome. We hiked on Friday and when Mack said we would know each other well enough for skinny dipping in the freezing cold lake at the top, I thought he was joking .... I chose to go in fully clothed, but that was more to do with the fact I slipped and fell in. We really did appreciate the warmth and hospitality of our hosts and we hope to get to join them again.

It was not technically Dylan's first trip to the beach as we took him to Felixstowe when we went back to the UK. As he had a melt down and it was raining the whole time we never made to the actual beach so we are not counting it. He loved Stinson beach and we spent many hours chasing him up and down the sand.

Tourist

Getting his feet wet
Bolinas Beach

Kristy pushed us, honest

At least she helped us up again

Hiking

Boy and guns

Zip me up, I'm ready to go home

Big Trees

We took advantage of a day off work and headed up to Sequoia National Park. It was a fantastic day but the one disappointment was General Sherman. By the time we hauled Dylan and pushchair down the toddler unfriendly path, he was asleep and never got to the see the largest tree in the world. To make things worse, Kristy said that it was not much bigger than the ones at the top of the path! On the plus side Dylan coped well with the long drive, anyone know the extended version of 'wheels on the bus'?

Sequoia National Park

'Hey dad, I found another big tree'

Early Thanksgiving

As we are going to be away this Thanksgiving we had an early one for Kristy's mum, step dad and Grandpapa. It was nice to have Kristy's grandpapa over for the first time since he moved here to Bakersfield. Dylan also enjoyed the company and even had his first Yorkshire pudding and gravy. Fortunately, mine were the first ones he had so he will expect them to be flat and wonder why English Gran's are light and fluffy. I did have to reprimand him when I caught him feeding the last one to Stella though.

Celtic music fesitival

It was only 6 months ago that we took Dylan to the Scottish festival and he had no idea what was going on. We took him to a Celtic music festival this weekend and he was dancing and running up and down the grass. Let hope Irish drinking songs are not too much of an influence on his young mind. The best news this weekend was working out how to get BBC iPlayer working in the US, now I can play Dylan all the British shows to help ease his American twang.

Is there a Doctor in the house?

I don't think I have dressed up for Halloween since our neighbor Dave decided to dress up as a cardboard box. Unfortunately he forgot the arm holes, tripped on his shoelace and ended up in hospital with concussion. Ozzy and Sharon seemed a much safer bet and we had a great time at Stefano and Heidi's party. Doctor McCutie got to go to the parade at Debbie's school and I hear he was a hit.

I also found out this week why Americans take such great care of their teeth, they don't have the NHS! Neither of us had been for, I'll just say a while and were surprised to get a $15000 quote for the both of us! I guess we have learned our lesson frequent dentist trips.

All aboard the crazy train

Is there a Doctor in the house?
Doctor McCutie

Lets hope Dylan is not a West Ham fan.