Day 1-2: Seattle and Chelan

We had a totally pleasant flight from London to Seattle, and then we picked up our awesome rental pickup truck, and drove to Will & Rebecca's house in time for a late dinner and happy reunion with cousins and Grandma Debi.

 The next morning, we had breakfast and drove to REI so Rhodri could do his "consumer research" for 3 hours,

 then we got back into the truck and headed east to Chelan

Once in Chelan, we paaaarrrrttiiiieeed at this awesome house we had decided to rent! It has a pool, nice grassy lawn, beautiful view of the lake which is a short 5 min walk down the hill, sleeps all 13 of us, and it is just so wonderful!

One funny thing is that my friend Denise from SB and her family were by coincidence up staying the week in Chelan and we overlapped by this one day! So her whole family came over to see us at our awesome pad and we got to hang out chatting for a bit. That was fun and we will see them all later when we get down to SB at the end of our trip.

USA here we come!

 At last the day has come and we are off on holiday for 3 weeks in the USA! We have all been so nervous and excited, trying to be really careful and limiting exposure and risk so as to not jeopardize our extensive plans. 

Now that it looks like it is really going to happen, I can reveal our plans:

July 30: fly London Heathrow to Seattle.

July 31: go to REI first thing in the morning, then drive to Manson in convoy with Will & Rebecca, and with Mom/ Grandma in our car.

July 31 - Aug 5: Stay at a rented house (with a pool !! and a massive lake view!!) in Manson with most of the DGFU (Debi Gans Family Unit), although sadly Heidi and her fam won't make it. There will be 13 of us.

Aug 5: go uplake to Stehekin on the Lady Express, and all 13 of us will be splitting up to stay at 3 different accommodations for the next few days.

Aug 5 - 8: Grandma Bucky's Memorial service weekend. The event is on Sat Aug 7th at 10:00am, and there will be a lot of extended family around so should be blissful mayhem!

Aug 9 - 13: After saying goodbye to everyone on Sunday Aug 8th, the Lewis Unit will join with the PGFU (Phil Gans Family Unit) and go on a backcountry adventure with horses to carry our stuff to Cottonwood Campsite, and we will do adventurous day trips from our base camp there. We will walk out on Fri Aug 13..

Aug 14: Take the new "Sunny Jo" fast boat downlake in the morning and drive to Seattle to stay the night with Will & Rebs.

Aug 15: Rhodri will fly back to London, and the kids & I will fly to Santa Barbara.

Aug 15 - 20: Kids and I in SB, flying back to London on Aug 20th.

Should be an awesome trip! 

Two dogs in da house

Auntie Sions is here and so is Winnie! Annie was a bit afraid of Winnie today, and it was funny to see her trying to read Winnie's behavior and figure out what to do about it.

In other news, we finished the stone and gravel path to the gate in the dog yard! Here is what it looks like now...

Gallery opening

 This evening after my full day of walking with Dave and the boys, I showered and dressed and headed into Lewes to join some of my sea swimming friends at a gallery opening. In fact, the gallery opening was for two of my swimming friends: Olivia and Jenny. 

Nice to do something a bit different!

Tour de Amberley

 Tryfs and I met Dave and his son Jonathan in Burpham and we did a full day circular walk which involved lunch at a gorgeous pub in Amberley! Here are some shots from our day...

It was a fun day. I expected us to split into two pairs to walk - me with Dave, and the two boys together - but actually we stayed walking altogether chatting all four of us through the whole day.  It was a drizzly cool start, but by the end we were in full sun with dramatic clouds over Arundel Castle as we headed home.

New blue addition

I had purchased a paddling pool a few weeks ago but didn't get around to setting it up until now! Annie won't go in it, which is perfect since she would puncture it. We've been flopping in there at the end of the day when it is really hot. 

End of school (nearly)

 Today was a hot day so Emma and I agreed to take our kids down to the beach and pick up some dinner on the way. It was a good idea in theory, but there was some weird roadworks in Newhaven which created a traffic jam that delayed our arrival. We got there in the end, though, and it was fab!

Football awards

 I was a bit grumbly about spending the afternoon at this football season awards gathering. Really, there were so many other things I wanted to do and it was sooooo hot today. But I went along with it and actually ended up making new friends who are called Sachiko and Itai, a very interesting Japanese and Israeli couple who I would love to meet again.

Tryfan won the "Manager's Award", which he was stoked about, and the whole team won the league so that was the original catalyst to make a big deal of the season, especially since last year was cancelled. At the very end of the event, we had a fairly short Parents vs Kids football game, which we tied at 2-2 (I scored one of the goals!). We ended up losing in instant death penalties, which the kids were soooo chuffed about. In fact, the winning goal was by Len (purple shirt) who shot the ball barefoot past Rhodri who was goalkeeper! Really impressive. So the whole event ended up better than expected.

Helping a friend

This weekend I ended up helping my friend Mary at her new house. I saw her at the Nesh She launch party and hatched a plan to go swimming first thing Saturday morning, then things evolved from there. I got a lift from Rhodri and Tryfan who were on their way to a football tournament Saturday morning, so got dropped off at her new house in Chailey. She drove us down to the beach, then we hung around for a bit waiting for the other friends to arrive. We got a bit restless and decided to just go in ourselves and head back before the day got on too much. It was due to be super hot, so time was precious to get stuff done before the heat of the day! 

As we drove and I heard more about what she was going to do for the day, I decided to change plans and stay to help her assemble shelving units, and that worked out really well! 

Then today we had our last group running club session starting from her house, so I was back again to run this time. I got a lift there with Naresh, and we had a great run, then I stayed on and helped do more shelves

It was fun to help a friend in need, and I so enjoyed spending time with her.

A passion for fashion

Our friend Naresh just launched a clothing boutique called Nesh She, with the tagline "A passion for fashion" and hosted a launch party at her garden pod to celebrate. It was the most beautiful evening: golden light, prosecco and girlfriends.

I didn't come away with anything on this occasion, but I have purchased items from her in the past and I always get compliments when I wear them.  Best of luck to Naresh and her new venture!

2nd jab

 I got my 2nd jab today, this time at the Apple Tree Hindu Centre in Ifield, Crawley. It was an interesting place to get it done, and everything went according to plan even though it was a walk in unscheduled thing. Super glad i did this today, since it means I will technically qualify for "fully vaccinated" by the time we leave for the USA later this month.

Little outings and a big game

Tryfan and his friends went to the cinema today to see Peter Rabbit 2. One of the other Mums booked the tickets, and hearing their accounts of the experience was so funny. Imagine four 13-year olds in a cinema full of small kids and their parents! Anyway, I was the one picking them up, but by the time I got there, they had discovered a sort of local fair in the park which had some football balloons. So the 4 of them played football for about an hour, which gave me time to go buy some groceries. Perfect!

Today Rhiannon and I took Annie on a walk together over to Airman's Grave. It was a gorgeous day, warm and sunny with big textured clouds. I was soooo happy to be out walking and chatting with my girl. 

Tonight was the long awaited final of the Euro 2020, Italy vs England. We actually thought that England would win, but they lost in penalties which was very sad. It was a great game, though, and we were all on the edges of our seats as we stayed up late to watch the end. In fact, it was such a big deal here in England that the local primary school (and I'm sure many others across the country) had agreed a late start to allow the pupils the chance to stay up and watch it. I'm sad this sporting event is over now. Love watching football (and playing, of course, though its been awhile now).

Emma's birthday lunch

I got to go out to lunch today to celebrate Emma's birthday. Hellie and Danni came too, and we went to a lovely pub called the Snowdrop Inn which is quite nearby that I had never been to! Great discovery! 

And what a treat to actually go out to lunch during the workday. I haven't done that in a very long time. Next time I want to bring the family back to this pub. They had great food and a nice atmosphere.

Chief Day

Today would have been my Dad's 72nd birthday, and we celebrate it as Chief Day by thinking of him an extra special bit that day and just appreciating all the good he brought into our lives and other people's lives. We watched the Euro 2020 Semi-final game of England vs Denmark, and we imagined that he was there with us enjoying the excellent game.

Weekend

 It was a great weekend actually.

First we had a couple of Euro 2020 games on Friday eve, and Emma came round to sit outside and drink wine with me in the waning daylight. We listened to music and sat out, and it was wonderful.

Saturday morn I was up early with Annie and then went swimming at TM. Picked up Leigh on the way, and that was fun as usual to be with her and the girls at the beach. 

In the afternoon, Rhods and I worked on building the new pathway along the side of the garden up to the fence gate. It gonna look real good when we are done.

On Sunday, Rhods was out on his bike with his friends so the kids and I built an obstacle course in the back garden and then we went on a walk with Annie. 

It was just an easy, decent weekend all around!