Well this has to be my most favourite photo that I have taken so far this trip - just love it!
These 3 pics are really for our boys - Nick in particular. I know he is soooo keen to see the truck and they will know exactly where the pics were taken. This time we caught the bridge without fog - a bit of cloud but hey, you can't have everything!
All the sea lions that call Pier 39 home, man can they make some noise.
A whole crab and a huge glass of margarita what better dinner could a girl want?
We were amazed at how the fog had rolled in while we were having dinner, a huge thick bank of it heading for Alcatraz.
The Golden Gate has already succumbed to the fog with just the very top poking out here.
Downtown SF taken from the Bay Bridge.
Cable cars and trolleys were everywhere and an added extra to keep an eye out for.
Woohoo, let the shopping begin - the huge tourist trap of Fishermans Wharf, but oh so fun and a great place to be.
Alcatraz Island always impresses me with its history.
Hundreds of miles of man made canals taking water to all the farms we drove by.
You have to pay tolls to cross the bridge into San Fran.
We went over the gorgeous Bay Bridge - a wonderful way to enter the city and what spectactular views.
The Golden Gate in all its glory.
Into the smog! The winds were blowing in LA and had blown all the smog away - we found where it ended up on the other side of the hills.
We were quite amazed to see lots of oil wells round here too.
And fields of cotton plants that looked like they were nearly ready for picking.
Man, the smell emanating from this cattle farm was horrendous. These sheds went on for about 4 miles and they were full of cattle enjoying all their corn.
We hit the road today and drive the 380 odd miles from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Andy drove through the built up areas, but I got put my foot down on the open road parts.
We spend lots of time taking pics out the window as we drive along so figured I should get a pic of that very common occurence.
A quick peek of Los Angeles city as we race on by. We hope to get into the city itself next weekend.
I have heard of Six Flags amusement park and all the roller coasters that are there and we went hooning past that too - my tummy flipped just looking at all those different rides.
Racing past the trucks as we climbed up to 4000 feet through the hills.
The finished job on the new exhaust system. It sounds pretty close to what is loaded on the Corsa site 
One very happy boy who has just got back from test driving the new sounds! The interior looks black in this pic, but is really chocolate brown.
Kathryn and Mike took us up to Orange Hills restaurant for dinner. The aim was to get there in time to watch the sunset. We were sat up high in the hills round a fire pit sharing a few drinks and a few nibbles taking in the amazing views. These pics really don't do it justice.
Kathryn and Mike sharing a geeky moment.
The very shiny blingy grill! It is huge!
Mike coming in from the very first test drive.
Off with the old exhaust and on with the new.
Yay, we made it! A very uneventful flight which reminded us how much we hate long distance flying and trying to sleep. We are just loving being here. We landed to gorgeous blue skies with no clouds and it is like that again today with temps around the 25 mark. Just perfect. So cool to catch up with everyone and have a few laughs. Kathryn came and picked us up in the new truck from the airport. Man that is some machine. I will show you some pics later, Andy has just popped up the road and the camera is in the truck.
We really just cruised yesterday and reacquainted ourselves with a few stores. We forgot to bring a converter with us so we could plug in and recharge all our electrical bits, so that was number one on the list of things to get hold of. Tried a few stores yesterday but it wasn't until this morning we were able to find one. Found a new electrical store which was twice the size of our old favourite - BestBuys. We spent ages in there just looking.
First up this morning Andy, Grant and Mike got stuck in and ripped off the old exhaust system and replaced it with the new corsa one. Man, I thought the truck sounded pretty good anyway, but you should hear it now - we sure won't be going anywhere and just sneaking in.
Once this was all installed there were quite a few test runs to make sure they could hear the difference properly and then we headed out for lunch and a touch of shopping at the mall. I managed to get into the handbag shop and scored myself a gorgeous handbag. We had Mike, Grant and his two boys with us too and they were not interested in looking at what Kathryn and I wanted to, so didn't get too much of a chance to have a decent look round.
Off our for dinner now so will post some pics a bit later.
I am getting excited now - it seems like we have been waiting for ages but the time is now getting really close. On Friday night Andy and I fly out to Los Angeles for 2weeks all by ourselves! The boys are a bit bummed that they aren't coming too, but they are very excited about having Nana come to stay and look after them. I think Nana is a little apprehensive and quite excited too.
We are taking a laptop with us so we can keep in touch with everyone and hopefully I will even get keen about updating my blog a bit more regularly. Lots to do, because we have left most things till the last minute because it all seemed too far away before. My mind is working overtime and that is why I am up again in the middle of the night.
My baby is 10!! Where on earth did all those years go? I am sure I can remember not so very long ago tearing my hair out with 3 young boys hooning round our house! Happy Birthday Tommy and sorry I am a week late posting this pic of you at your party.
Wow, I really think summer might be starting to make its presence felt. We woke up to a glorious day on Saturday and decided to make the run up the Lakes with the new caravan. I was having a major worry session about how we were going to get the van off the section and on to the road and also how we would park it on our site. All that worry was needless as it turned out, everything worked like clockwork and we pulled it all off without a hitch. One of the highlights for me of the weekend was watching Andy and Alistair working together to get the van level on the site. It was so cool to see Ali down doing all the bits that Andy normally does and Andy standing back and watching. I loved seeing the pride that Andy felt watching this boy of ours growing up.
Oh man Nick is laying this on me really thick at the moment! Thursday at school he was playing soccer and fell over, a whole bunch of guys landed on top of him. He was whinging about a sore arm and I told him to get hard!
This morning he was racing with Tommy to try and get to Andy's scorched almonds first and fell over landing on his arm again. He put on a huge hollywood which we figured was to distract Tommy.
After discussion with DH we decided that maybe he might be a bit sore and we better take him to the doctor. Turns out he has a fracture to his arm just above the wrist. Ooops! The doctor was most surprised that a boy of 12 could break his arm by falling on it and suggested we really up his calcium intake. Suits me because if Nick had his way all he would eat would be bread!
He now has a back slab plaster and we go back in 10days for a full cast. Oh dear, I am sure I get the worst mother award for today now.
I asked him a little later in the day whether he had forgiven me yet, and he gave me a huge grin and said yes, but I bet I will hear about this many times in the years to come. I know I would definitely be repeating it, if my mother did that to me!
Yeah these are really quite fun to do. The first layout was done earlier this week and again a very easy page with just adding pics to it. Jessica really has made the whole learning process very simple with layouts pretty much completed and just teaching bits at a time.
This second layout I have just finished now at midnight! Starting to dabble in brushes now and the learning curve goes up a bit more, or maybe it is just too late at night and my brain is going to sleep. I know that I am definitely going to sleep now.
