1 night in Chelan

We arrived into the familiar town of Chelan around 1pm today and immediately found our motel where we tried to check in. Check in wasn't until 3pm, so we spent a couple of hours eating ice cream, buying fishing licenses, and general milling around the town until 2:59pm at which point we tried again to check in.

But lo, the motel had messed up our reservation and only reserved 1 room instead of 2, and now they were fully booked and couldn't find a 2nd room for us. We impatiently milled around the lobby making grumbling noises and waiting for the receptionist to find another solution for us. In the end, she found a suite at the Lakeside Lodge & Suites, which turned out to be a much nicer place to stay!

As we had been driving into Chelan earlier today, we had passed this section of lake and Mom commented how Dad (Grandpa Carl) used to love going to this particular Lakeside Park every chance he got. So then it seemed very special to be rerouted to actually stay the night at this exact spot. I even went swimming in the lake right there at the park (as opposed to swimming in the 2 hotel pools, which is what the rest of the gang were doing) just because I could.

Meanwhile, I had made contact with cousin Christy (who usually knows what is going on and who is where) and mentioned that we were thinking of heading over to the Boat Shop for a swim that afternoon, and would any of the family be around? So while we were hanging around various motel lobbies, Christy had rallied the family so that they were all down at the Boat Shop waiting for us so we could all BBQ together. With all the to and fro, and now being on the other side of the lake to the Boat Shop, we had actually been thinking of not going to see the fam, but after talking again to Christy we decided to go over.

View from the Boat Shop looking out

View from the water looking back at the Boat Shop

I always laugh at the state of the Boat Shop -- such an eyesore among all the pristine, sophisticated lakefront vacation homes. The sparkling houses that line the lower shores of Lake Chelan often look empty, but then you get to the Boat Shop, which is usually bursting with people playing in the water and sitting around in lawn chairs, with the tattered infrastructure behind it and a dark abyss which is the cooking area under shelter.

 Needless to say, we had a great time there catching up with rellies and playing in the water ourselves until it got dark and we realized that we still needed to buy groceries before catching the boat in the morning.

Beautiful girl in a beautiful place

Map showing Lakeside Lodge and Boat shop

Rhodri and I whipped round Safeway in Chelan while Mom and the kids waited in the minivan, then we all went back to the Lakeside Lodge to sleep for this 1 night in Chelan.

Seattle and the drive to Chelan

We arrived into Seattle at 5:30 pm, picked up our rental minivan (verrrry exciting!) and drove to Scott and Holly's house for dinner. Will, Rebecca and Phoebe met us there, then Mom stayed at Scott & Holly's house while the 4 of us went to Will & Rebecca's house to sleep.

View inside the mini-van

I don't have many good photos of the evening except for this one where Kelsie is kindly playing basketball with her much younger 2nd cousins. She was really sweet with the kids.

The next day, Will and Rebecca had to get up early for work and other engagements so we had a leisurely start and then picked up Mom at 9:30 am to start the drive over to Chelan. 

No problem for us, because we had Pippi Longstocking videos to watch! Yep, I bought the whole box set from 1969-1970 which stars Inger Nilsson as Pippi (dubbed into English) that I remember watching in my childhood. Mom kept Rhodri company in the front while the kids and I laughed and sang along with Pippi, Tommy and Annika. Good times!

Final days in Santa Barbara

We flew from Santa Barbara up to Seattle this afternoon, but we had a fabulous 2.5 days of general hanging around town before we left. We did some shopping and wandering up and down State Street and paid a visit to Chip, Georgia, Beth and Eric at the law office where they work (and where my Dad used to work too, of course) on Monday afternoon. As it was the end of the day, we went to nearby Carlito's for happy hour.

Chip, Georgia, Tryfan, Rhodri, Eric, Rhiannon, Kristin, me and Beth

 Santa Barbara is just so beautiful and the weather was perfect - warm but not hot and plenty of sunshine.

On Tuesday afternoon (and again this morning), we went for final swims at the Birchim's marvelous pool and then Tuesday night we went for a lovely dinner over at Denise's house.

Ava, Lucas, Rhiannon, Tryfan and Liam

Kristin, Rhiannon and Ava holding baby Billy

The awesome waterslide at the pool

Ava and Rhiannon

It's been a really great week here and of course we don't want to leave! Grandma Debi is coming with us up to Seattle and on to Stehekin for the next week, so we are glad we don't have to say goodbye yet.

Rodeo!

This weekend was the Santa Barbara Fiesta celebration, and so we decided to take advantage of the rodeo which was in town for the festivities! Ryan, Eric, Kristin and Billy came with us and we had great seats to enjoy the action. It started at 2pm and went till around 5pm with all the normal events, including Mutton Bustin', Bronc Riding and Bull Riding. Good times!

Three amigos: Rhods, Ryan and Eric

 We had been planning to go to the rodeo while we were up in Washington next week, but it was great to take advantage of this one while we were here.

Kristin and I each bought a cowgirl hat as a souvenir.

In the evening we had a lovely dinner back at 601 and then relaxed for the night.

Reunion at the beach

Today we met up with my Mom's side of the family down at Leadbetter beach in downtown Santa Barbara. The picnic tables are first-come, first-served so Eric and Ryan got an early start on the day and took their breakfast down to stake a claim.

The turf we claimed for the all-day reunion

We didn't ever take a full family photo, especially as people were coming and going all day and we were hardly all sat round at the same time. But it was great to see Jana & Michael, Ryan, Holly (w/ Craig and 2 of his boys), Dawson, Grandpa Don & Sonya, Kim & Steve with Danny and Matt as well as the Gans clan that lives in SB also.

Rhiannon, Eric & Billy, Kristin and Holly standing around

Rhiannon took every opportunity to push Billy's stroller around with Auntie Kristin

My good friend Polly stopped by with her family and we had our photo taken

It was a long but good day with a casual atmosphere - sitting around chatting, playing games on the sand or grass, swimming in the ocean, and of course barbecuing some delicious beach food. Many thanks to my Mom for making it happen! In the evening, after cleaning up and changing clothes, some of us headed back downtown for some adult beverages at "Seven" in the Funk Zone. My friend Amy joined us and I was so happy to see her and introduce her to my rowdy cousins! Again, thanks to Mom for babysitting all the kids so that we could go out. 

Santa Barbara, Day 2

The first day of August, and we kicked things off with a trip Goleta Beach with Denise and her kids. Rhodri went on a bike ride first thing this morning (having rented a really nice bicycle for the week that we are here) and then joined us.

The waves were ripples that were miniature and not really boogie-boardable, so they found other things to do before we called it a day and went to the Birchim's pool again!

In the evening, Rhodri and I got to go see the opera Carmen which was shown at the refurbished Granada theatre.

Thank you Mom for giving us tickets to this and for looking after the kids so that we could go!

Santa Barbara, Day 1

The kids got up bright and early and trotted upstairs to snuggle with Grandma

while Rhodri and I got up just as bright and early and zoomed off to play golf with Butch and Dorothy. Grandma then took the troops to the SB Zoo with Kristin and baby Billy, then met us for lunch at Glen Annie Golf Course.

Tryfan wanted to see the giraffes

Rhiannon, Billy and Tryfs

On the golf course

Dorothy, Rhodri and Butch having lunch at Glen Annie

Kristin and Billy

Libby also joined us for lunch before she headed off to LAX to fly up to Washington with Phil and Ruby. 

The rest of the afternoon we spent at the Birchim's pool with Kristin, Billy, and also my dear friend Denise and her 3 kids Ava, Liam and Lucas. We have been planning this reunion at the Birchim's pool for the past couple of years!

The best pool in the world

We are so lucky to have a lot of close relations and dear friends in one place, and such a gorgeous place too. We love visiting Santa Barbara!

San Clemente to Santa Barbara

Today we went down to the beach again but the other direction to yesterday. We did some more boogie boarding and diving through waves, then headed back to the awesome house to get packed up and dried off. We sadly said goodbye to the Pearces and hit the road to drive up to SB. Although it was a short visit, it was so great to reconnect with Deanna and Mike and their gorgeous boys. Our kids sure adored those two! 

Mike, Aidan, Deanna, me, Tryfs and Rhiannon

We left at 1pm and got to "601" (what we call Grandma's house) at 4pm, so no terrible traffic through LA. All good! We pretty much just dropped our bags, gave Grandma Debi big hugs, and then headed over to the Birchim's pool next door.

Rhiannon at In-n-Out

For dinner we went to In-n-Out and it was sooooooo good. Hurray for cheeseburgers animal style!

The rest of our first full day in California

After the house intruder adventure, we went swimming in a neighbor's pool

Neighbor's awesome pool with jacuzzi and slide

Making Jell-O with Tyler

Grooming the dog whose name I can't remember

In the evening, we 4 drove back down to San Diego (La Jolla) for a lovely dinner party with our former colleagues and friends from the marine electromagnetic world. The party was hosted by Steve and Cathy, and we were thrilled to spend a whole evening with them along with Arnie, Jacques, Kerry, Carolyn, Len, Lissa, Jim and Maren...all our old homies!  We had lovely wine to drink and delicious Mexican style food, and all the details were right. These 2 are professional dinner party hosts! The kids were a bit grouchy (well, Tryfan was anyway) and uber-tired, so eventually fell asleep on the couch while Rhodri and I enjoyed the rest of the evening. It was truly special and wonderful, but eventually the night had to end and we had to say goodbye again. I didn't take any photos because somehow that felt wrong, but it was such a special night. 

House intruder!

When we got back from the beach, I went into the Pantry of Fun to start foraging for lunch items and immediately heard a loud rustling coming from the back corner of the room! I couldn't see much, but I knew straightaway that it was bigger than a rat and had a black appendage. We had left some sliding glass doors open while were at the beach (which apparently is what the owners do as well) and something had clearly come into the house and was now in the pantry! I quickly shut the door and we three adults conferred about what to do next. Skunks inside people's houses are a big problem locally, and getting them out of the house without them spraying their nasty skunk smell is notoriously difficult. We quickly researched "what skunks like to eat" and "how to get a skunk out of a house" and similar topics while relocating the dog to a neighbor's house and locking the kids in the ground floor room (not as bad as it sounds with it's own patio, massive TV, indoor trampoline and kitchen/bar!).

Then we built a tunnel of chairs and other miscellaneous furniture to help coax the intruder from the pantry out to the nearest deck area. We had found out in the course of our research that skunks allegedly like raw eggs, so we sacrificed a few onto paper plates leading outside. But as we were moving furniture around, we noticed some little splots of melty poo on the floor, the couches, the rugs... hmm... Anyway, Rhodri then set up his laptop as a video camera and skyped it from his phone so that we had remote video coverage.

Finally, when everything was staged and people were in their positions, I slowly opened the pantry door with the skype camera focused on the path of egg plates.  I peered inside and confirmed visual contact with.... a crow. Boy did we laugh! We were so relieved to discover that the intruder was just a crow rather than a skunk! That explained the melty poo all over the house. Anyway, I found a broom and shooed it out of the pantry, but it was really disoriented and flew around the living room and dining room, landing briefly on a piece of expensive artwork (eek!) before finally getting back outside to freedom. We celebrated for a few moments, then started trying to scrub crow poo out of the rugs and couch cushions. Anyway, it was an adventure.

Beach Day #1

Tryfan, Tyler, Rhiannon and Aidan with Deanna in the back

After foraging for breakfast in the Pantry of Fun, we headed down to the south beach from the house.
We took a couple of boogie boards and Aidan took his surfboard.

Walking down to the beach with the house in the background

Awesome patio at the house

San Clemente south beach, near San Onofre

We all went swimming and boogie boarding in the waves - Rhodri, Deanna, me and the 4 kids (Mike was at work) - and it was sooo great to be out in the water diving through waves and getting sandy. The kids had never boogie boarded until today, and although the waves were pretty big to start on, they got some good action in the white water.

 

We had a great few hours down there and then headed back up to the house when it started to get close to lunch time.

San Diego bound!

Today (yesterday  now) was the long-awaited day that we flew from London to San Diego. It was a long ole flight but we all settled in just fine and watched the movies of our choice and tried to get some sleep too. Tryfan slept about 5 hours (of 11) and the rest of us managed to get at least 1-2 hrs, so it was a success.

We landed around 6:15 pm, rented a mini-van, and drove an hour north to San Clemente to stay with Mike and Deanna and their kids Aidan and Tyler.

 Mike and Deanna had scored a dog-sitting job at an amazing house in a gated community in San Clemente, and this coincided with our visit so we got to enjoy this place as well ! By the time we got there and Deanna had whipped up some dinner for us, we all had a second wind and so were wide awake and happy to be sitting outside in the fresh California air on the comfy couches around a fancy gas fireplace drinking wine (adults only, of course). Deanna and I stayed up past midnight chatting and it was soooo wonderful.

R & T at sunrise on the patio, with comfy couches and gas fireplace in the foreground and the Pacific Ocean in the background.

 We all woke up pretty early and helped ourselves to the pantry full of fun things to eat. Beware anyone who allows the Lewis family or Pearce family to house sit for them if there happens to be a pantry full of fun things to eat!

We are going to go to the beach and various swimming pools today, and life is very good!

Cousins unite

Gabs and Valentin and Auntie Nia came to visit today and they are going to housesit for a week while we are in the USA. We were hoping for a bit more of an overlap with them, but we made the most of the day we did have.

Ice lollies on the couch before bedtime

We did lots of playing outside in the back garden and making a mess in the bedroom by pouring all the Lego onto the ground.

Tryfan and Gabs playing the Quiet Game before dinner time

 It was great to see them and we are really grateful that they are going to housesit for us!