Something different

I invited some colleagues from work over to my house to celebrate the end of Q3. This was something new for me because I've historically kept my distance from people at work. But I'm trying to be a bit more social so I went out of my comfort zone and invited 6 people over, including my current manager Adnane and my former manager Lyndsey. Paul, Chris, Vicki and Bala also came over.

 It was for the most part, a gorgeous starry night. But we had a few episodes of massive clouds coming through and dumping heavy showers of rain on us! In these moments we fled into the lavvu (tipi), which I had set up for this purpose. We had a good campfire going and we roasted marshmallows and just chatted.

It was a fun night that was made extra fun because Tryfan and Rhiannon were there. I had planned to lock them away (or rather, bribe them to stay in their rooms), but actually my friends seemed to enjoy talking and joking with them so we all just stayed together. They resisted a little bit when i asked them to put themselves to bed at 9:45pm, but they did it all the same and I was so proud of them!

Visiting schools

Rhiannon has to name her preferences on secondary schools by the end of October, so now is the season to go around visiting them. In reality we are only visiting two schools: Chailey and UCTC. Both are good schools - "state schools" they are called here, meaning "public schools" in Ameri-speak.

Both schools had open evenings on consecutive nights, so we were a little gang of parents and prospective students that toured around Chailey on Tuesday night and then UCTC on Wednesday night.

Rhodri's birthday was Tuesday, and he was Not Stoked to be spending it at the Chailey open evening, but this was for one night only so we had to go. Anyway, we tried to make the best of it.

Heading back home

Sadly this weekend came to an end all too shortly and we had to drive home this afternoon after lunch. Nevertheless, it was a real treat to spend time up here in North Wales and for the kids to be able to hang out with their grandparents. 

Tryfan got some new goalie gloves which he is showing off in front of the flowers

 Our drive home was shorter and we were grateful for that.

Grade 3 scrambling course

We drove up to North Wales this weekend, leaving Friday morning because we needed to get up there by Friday afternoon. In reality, we ended up getting stuck in the worst traffic ever so the journey took nearly 10 hours rather than the 5.5 or 6 that it should take. Oh well. Since the motorway was at a standstill, we headed into Birmingham and took quite an educational route through the inner city! There are no sari shops in our part of Sussex - that's for sure. Anyway, we eventually made it to Nain and Taid's house and were treated to a lovely dinner.

Saturday morning Rhodri and I headed for the hills to meet our Instructor for the day - a man called Graham. It was a little messy getting going because we took two cars and had a really hard time finding a parking spot along Llanberis pass, and the day was wearing on. But we got going eventually and hiked up to the cliff that is in the top right of the photo below (the one with just Rhodri).

Today we learnt about Grade 3 scrambling. I didn't know this was an actual thing with a name, but its what Grandma Bucky would call going through a "tricky section" of a path in the mountains where all of a sudden you have to use your arms and your legs in order to get from A to B. These are the sections that can be pretty dodgy unless you have ropes and harnesses and all that. And all that is what we had on this day! In fact, the whole point was to learn how and when to use ropes and belays and protection. In other words, how to get from A to B through tricky sections and sometimes even scary little cliffy sections while protecting yourselves from getting hurt.

Rhodri and Graham

 Although the morning was pretty overcast, the weather improved as the day went on, so while we were on Crib Goch ridge near Snowdon, it was just stunning landscape around us.

Looking down at the cliffy section that we scrambled up

On the Crib Goch ridgeline looking across to the other ridge

Back down the mountain, done for the day

Once we got back down to the car, we drove over to Beddgelert to have dinner at the Saracen's Head and we met Nain, Taid, Rhiannon and Tryfan there. Perfect end to a great day!

Our famous Aunt Carol

This week in the Sunday Times magazine there was an article about Barbra Streisand and this photo caught my eye. Turns out this lovely lady next to Barbra IS actually my fabulous Aunt Carol!

First day of school

And the new school year starts today! Rhiannon is in Year 6 - her final year of primary school (!!!) - and Tryfan is in Year 4.

They were both really excited to see their friends again and get this year started.

Girl and Dog

Rhiannon took this photo of herself with Bentley using her new precious iPod touch, and she sent it to me while I was at work.
Every time I look at this photo, it makes me smile!

Getting ready for rugby season

Tryfan is getting ready for rugby season to start, and since they are going to be doing actual tackling rather than just tagging, he needs some kit. 

Here he is with his new mouthguard and scrum cap!

I love how sweet Tryfan looks in his rugby cap and uniform here - not at all a big fierce tackling rugby guy, just a really sweet 8 year old.

Back to England

We had an 'okay' trip back from Seattle to Gatwick via Reykjavik. Sadly not impressed with Iceland Air and so the flights seemed to take a very long time. But we survived, and were really happy to get back home.

Nain and Taid did a great job looking after the house and made a wonderful homecoming for us.

A few days later we made a trip to Costco in Croydon, which is about an hour from us. We were Very Excited to discover they had both Cheetos and the fantastic brownie mix we enjoyed in Montana.

On the Bank Holiday Monday yesterday, we were able to get the Waters family over to visit and that was really great too since we've been trying to do this for awhile.

Zoey, Rhiannon, Sam and Tryfan having a picnic

We've continued to have fantastic warm, sunny, summer weather. What a treat to come back to England and have it still feel like summer!

The warmth in Seattle

Aunt Judy drove us to Billings and saw us off at the airport. We had a nice little dinner in the bar, and then flew Billings to Seattle.

Looking out the back of the truck towards the ranch as we drove away

Beautiful land forms from the air

We had a fine flight Billings to Seattle, but then a less-than-fine experience with Uber as we squeeeeeeezed ourselves and all our luggage into a tiny Prius and got a ride across town to Will and Rebecca's house. All of us were sort of in grouchy moods as we arrived, but tensions soon dissolved as we reunited with Will and Rebs.  Saturday morning, Rebecca and I went grocery shopping and then came met the men and children for a walk around the trendy part of Seattle. 

Phoebe and Ingrid

Taking a snack break in the shade

We then got a lift from Will going to the airport, and said goodbye to the USA for the year. It's been an amazing trip.

Final days at the Ranch

Ahhh, I reaally wish we didn't have to leave.
It is just so extremely wonderful here.
Today we had a leisurely day and hung around the house. In fact, it was even a bit cool with little bursts of rain later in the day. But we did go for a walk up and around the near pasture, and we visited Chico and Pete along the way.

 Later on, Aunt Judy let the kids go bareback riding

Here is some video action from the arena:

It is going to be so hard to leave here tomorrow, but at least we will get to see Will & Rebecca in Seattle before going back home.

Great skies

I know this is the state of "big skies", but to me they are more like "great skies".

I was just mesmerized by the clouds, the landscape, and the light playing across everything. I want to sear these grand images into my forehead and keep them just behind my eyelids so I can access them anytime.

Cody, Wyoming

Even though we seemed to spend a lot of yesterday in the truck going to see the wild horses and the Overlook, we actually went on another trip today in the truck! That's right - we drove to Cody, Wyoming. We visited the famous museum complex there, had lunch at a sports bar/ brewery that had an arcade in the basement, walked up and down the main street, ate ice cream, and went to Walmart!

I loved this regional map and I added "the Ranch" location to it myself

We joined our Montana neighbors the Mosai for lunch here too! It was fun to hang out with them out of context. Actually, it was "only" David, Megan and Ellie who were in town today but they were pretty fun to be with!

Tryfan, Rhodri and Rhiannon concentrating on their video games

We went into loads of gaudy t-shirt shops and also hunted for minerals, but in the end all we bought was ice cream. It was sooooo delicious.

Rhiannon, Ellie and Tryfan with their ice cream cones

The final stop on the Cody tour was Walmart, and this is where Rhiannon finally was able to purchase her own iPod touch using the dollars that she earned babysitting for her little cousins up in Washington. I wish I had taken a photo of her as she bought this item, because there could not have been a more excited and proud 10-year-old girl in the world as this one was today at Walmart! So all in all, it was a very productive and wonderful trip to the cool town of Cody.

The Overlook and the wild horses

Today we went on a special trip up to the Overlook, which is on the way to the wild horse range.

It took a good 2 hours to get there from the ranch because it is a very bumpy dirty road! On the way there, we saw a 5th bear.

So once we had driven a couple of hours, the car came to a stop on a big plateau and we all got out and walked in the direction Aunt Judy told us to walk. Soon the enormous expanse of land opened up and we could see for miles across the Pryor Mountains and over to Little Bighorn. It was breathtaking, even though today was just a little hazy due to forest fires somewhere in the region.

 

 After spending some time soaking it all in, we drove a bit further and into the wild horse range, and finally had lunch (it was after 4pm by this time) at Penn's cabin on the picnic table there.

We got our fill of picnic food, and started heading back to see the horses. Judy had just been telling us a bit about wild mustang herd dynamics, and how there is always a dominant stallion and a dominant mare, and young stallions go off and form smaller herds of their own to get strong and eventually try to take a mare from an established herd. As she was explaining this, we came round a bend and saw these stallions rearing and fighting in the road. 

 They ended up coming around to the side and then in back of the truck and they seemed very curious about the dogs Buster and Lily! There was no barking or neighing - just staring each other out.

 We drove along a little further and saw these other wild horses including a foal. So beautiful in the evening sun.

Then we drove on back to the ranch and had a quiet evening in tonight.

Playing with clay

Aunt Judy converted a stable stall into a pottery studio and we have been able to play in there sometimes!

I've found it so inspiring to see all the work that Judy has been doing and the amazing effects that different clays and glazes and kiln temperatures can give. It is really a new world!

Bears

We went for a little family walk today, just up the road further up valley past the ranch.
Suddenly Rhodri turned straight back around and whispered "BEAR!!" to me and we quickly started making our way back. We had seen the HUGE back end of a light golden haired bear who was wading up the creek and going around a corner. We didn't see his/ her upper back, so we didn't see if there was the telltale hump of a grizzly bear, but this bear was the right color and his butt was ginormous!

It wasn't until we were about 10 minutes back down the road that we realized we should have tried to take a photo. Oh well. We took this one instead!

And actually, later on today we ended up seeing a different bear with her 2 cubs! The dogs had chased them up a tree and we saw them through the binoculars from the comfort of Judy & Joe's awesome kitchen window. So already today we saw 4 bears (and we lived to tell about it!). Very exciting.

More horse time

Aunt Judy let us go riding today even though Joe is away and he is the main horse guy these days. Rhiannon learned how to catch the horses from their respective pastures and halter them up, then lead them to the stable to saddle them up. She and Aunt Judy looked so sweet walking together in the morning sunlight.

Rhiannon leading big Hick into the stable

 Even I got to ride today, and the horse I rode is named Pete. I found this really nice, since our horse when I was growing up was called Pete also. This Pete was far better trained than my old Pete was, though!

We got to ride around the arena and then go for a little trail ride. Tryfan wasn't feeling that great today, and neither was Gunner (the horse he has been riding), so Tryfs and Rhiannon took turns on Big Hick while I rode Pete and Judy rode Sonata. 

Downtime

One of my favorite spots here at the ranch is out on the porch: the chairs are comfy and a bit rockable, the wind breezes through this spot and it is surrounded by flowers with 180 degree views. Annie and Naomi have been here this weekend also, and it has been really nice to spend time with them.

So there has been plenty of downtime: reading books, playing dominoes, just generally chilling out and enjoying each other's company.

Tryfan playing with Naomi in the living room

 As the afternoon turns into early evening, happy hour beverages are made and dinner contributions get started. They have a fantastic kitchen with lots of inviting places to sit or perch. It is such a treat to be able to just hang out with these good people.

Most nights involve a dinner party at someone's house - either the Mosai or Judy & Joe's, and normally their other friends Steve and Maura come too. We've been eating delicious food, drinking lovely wine, and having interesting conversations amongst these extended family members, and it has been an absolute pleasure.