Posts Tagged ‘California’

Family Time

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

If the past 5 months weren’t enough, these past few weeks have been a great reminder of how lucky we are.  For a few days we were living the high life in San Fran at a sweet hotel (all that shopping paid off Ellen–thanks!), complete with leopard print robes.  We had a blast checking out the sights in San Fran, but it was little Timmy, of course, that got most of our attention.  It’s amazing what happens over the course of 7 months in the life of a 13 month old.  We covered a lot of ground in just a few days, but also had time to relax and catch up on the past few months.

San Francisco 07-01-2009 7-54-08 PM San Francisco 06-30-2009 1-56-10 PM

Ken, Ellen and Timmy continued on to LA to visit friends while we headed out to Yosemite with my folks for a few days.  Wow, what a place.  Even though it was Fourth of July weekend and Yosemite Valley was a zoo, it’s still an incredible landscape.  There’s just something special about exposed granite domes that you can’t find in other areas.  And, we didn’t have to go far to avoid the crowds.  We stayed in a cabin near the Hetch Hetchy and went on a beautiful hike while seeing only a handful of people.  There were a number of fires burning in the park which made the air a bit hazy and picture taking a bit difficult.  And, it probably made it a bit harder for Joanie and I to keep up with my parents.  Whew, we put some miles under our feet!  I thought I had stopped growing years ago (at least vertically), but check out these family shots.

Yosemite National Park 07-04-2009 1-09-56 PM Yosemite National Park 07-02-2009 8-04-10 PM

It’s been so fun meeting up with friends and family that we’re feeling an urge to get to Michigan, New York and New Hampshire to see everyone else.  But, we’ve got about 3 or 4 weeks of time to explore Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota and wherever else we decide to go.

We’re Back!

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Back to the USA and back to the blog for a quick update.  We’ve been having so much fun meeting up with friends and family since we arrived in California two weeks ago that there hasn’t been much time for anything else.  We’ve done far too much to capture in one post, but here’s the quick recap.

After 5 months in New Zealand and 30+ hours of traveling, could there be anything more American than going to the San Diego Fair, eating fried oreos, twinkies, apples and avocados,  seeing a Johnny Cash cover band, and trying to win cheap stuffed animals?  Probably not.  We met up with our friends Ryan and Karin in San Diego and had a great couple of days that also included a Swedish Midsummer’s party and a snorkeling adventure in search of sharks (only saw one).

We then zipped up the coast to San Francisco to meet up with the Hipple family and the start of a two week feeding frenzy.  The past week has been a blur of good times, burritos, hills, donuts, surrey rides, burritos, laughter, trips to the playground with the kids and good music.  After a few days in San Fran with Ethan as our tour guide we all drove north to the Kate Wolf Music Festival where spent a few days listening to good music and surviving the 100+ degree heat.

Mt. Tamalpais 06-24-2009 2-22-27 PM

Now we’re back in San Fran in the midst of Albers Fest with Mom, Dad, Ken, Ellen and little Timmy.  I’ll get into all that we’ve done and how awesome it is to have the cutest nephew in the world later.  As hard as it was to leave New Zealand and the dream life we were living there, coming back to our family and friends was just what we needed.  We had been looking forward to these few weeks for a while, and the time that we’ll have with Joanie’s family when we get to Michigan.  There’s still more to come with a quick trip out to Yosemite and then we’re back on the road heading east again.

More pictures will be coming soon…once I find that camera cord.

Here We Go!

Sunday, January 25th, 2009

Woohoo, the day has finally arrived for our trip to New Zealand!  It’s hard to believe that it’s been over two months since we left New Hampshire and that the first leg of our journey is just about over.  We’re on the train right now heading up the California coast (we can watch people surfing from the train!) to our final destination in the US–LAX.  As we get ready to head to New Zealand we’re both feeling incredibly lucky to be doing this and thankful for all the beautiful places we’ve already seen and great people that we’ve met and stayed with along the way.  And, after Tuesday’s historic inauguration, it’s nice to leave home knowing that things are in good hands!

The first bit of exciting news that we already got from NZ is that the first farm we’ll be visiting–an avocado farm and organic beer brewery–is having a beer festival while we’re there.  The folks we’ll be working for asked if we could stick around to help out at the festival, which, of course, didn’t take any arm twisting!  The next time you hear from us we’ll be in NZ, and we can’t wait to hear more from all of you.  It’s great to get updates from home and hear how everyone is doing–please keep the comments, emails, skype calls, etc. going!

Geocaching San Diego 01-22-2009 11-37-38 PM

Life in San Diego

Saturday, January 24th, 2009

We’re getting used to this…

Mission Bay Windsurfing 01-23-2009 7-59-18 PM

Mission Bay Windsurfing

Geocaching San Diego 01-23-2009 3-15-31 PM Hiking with Ryan and Karin in Mission Trails Park

Geocaching San Diego 01-23-2009 1-00-10 AM Nighttime geocaching

California Bound

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

After our stay in Phoenix we took off for Prescott with hopes of meeting up with our friend Ellery.  We ended up having only a short afternoon visit with her, but it was so great to see a friend from home out on the road.  Ellery gave us the quick tour of Prescott College, we enjoyed a few beers at the pub, and swapped road trip stories and “must see” places for our return trips.  There was a little bit of snow in the mountains of Prescott, so we decided to drive a bit further south to camp for the night before heading to California.

Our next stop was Joshua Tree National Park–a place we had been to a few years ago when Joanie was working as a Bald Eagle Observer for Arizona Game and Fish.  It was nice to see a somewhat familiar place and reminisce about the flat tire and flat spare that we got the last time we were here.  Luckily, we didn’t need to deal with that again, and we headed out to parts of the park that we hadn’t seen before.  Most of the campgrounds are neatly tucked behind and among the granite rock formations which provided hours of entertainment.  Scrambling, climbing, and jumping around the rocks is always good fun–especially when you’ve got the place to yourself.  The perfect weather continued, we explored the northwest corner of the park, and then started to realize that the first leg of our trip was almost coming to a close.  We’ve been having so much fun driving across the country, seeing new places and eating incredible food, that we almost forgot that we were going to be flying to New Zealand in a week!  And, best of all, we had another visit with friends to look forward to–along with the sun and surf of San Diego. Ahh, the ocean…at last.

Joshua Tree National Park 01-15-2009 2-43-36 PM 01-15-2009 7-42-05 PM Joshua Tree National Park 01-15-2009 2-43-36 PM 01-16-2009 4-57-21 PM

We’ve been staying with our friends Ryan and Karin in San Diego for the past week, and it’s been really nice to be back near the coast with some good friends.  We spent our first full day out here learning how to windsurf in Mission Bay.  Ryan and Karin are incredibly patient and effective teachers and we were quickly standing up and sailing around the bay (with a few falls and dunks along the way!).

Mission Bay, San Diego 01-18-2009 4-39-32 PM Mission Bay, San Diego 01-18-2009 2-10-19 PM

The rest of the week has consisted of plenty of good food and leisure sports such as croquet and rock golf, a Ryan Fritzsche original.   We really feel so lucky to have good friends across the country who welcome us into their house and put up with the small piles of stuff that we drag along with us!