Author: neil

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Alki Beach

After a glorious day yesterday, we woke this morning to what promised to be another scorcher. After a round of conversations on skype we got our stuff together and set off for the beach. The initial plan had been to go north and take a ferry to Whidbey Island however a check on the weather suggested that Alki Beach may be a better bet. So we hit the road,  got lost round the dock area of Seattle – not the nicest place – and eventually made it across to Alki. Clearly on a sunny day you need to get there early because it was packed. People had sent up camp with their tents, BBQs and everything else you could possibly need for a day on the beach.

Harry and Toby were so convinced that they were going to swim in the Sound that they both bet me $10 that they would. Easy money! They were never going to swim in that cold water, although to be fair they went in a lot further than I expected, or than I would have gone. I didn’t even put my toes in! Harry did make a claim that he swam – see the “splash” photo below (look closely he is in there!) – but I didn’t accept it, so it is now double or quits on the next visit to the beach.

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Lunch was fish and chips on the beach and then after another play in the water we packed up and headed back to the apartment. Back home we played some tennis, Harry and Toby shot some hoops – Harry is pretty impressive at basketball I must say – and then we went to the pool and the boys had a nice cooling swim. Cooling being the key here – the pool is not heated!

The rest of the evening was pretty quiet as we all got ready for school and work tomorrow. Two things of note though, firstly I did manage to capture my first picture of a Bald Eagle which is rather exciting! Check it out here!

And secondly, Harry had his finger nails cut! He hasn’t bitten them for at least a couple of weeks. Well done Harry!

 

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Nanny’s Birthday

As it was Nanny’s birthday we thought we’d better honour the day by doing something fun!

Fun thing number one was singing happy birthday to Nanny. Skype was playing up a bit so Nanny couldn’t see us but we saw  a glimpse back to England! Harry and Toby were their usual sociable selfs – standing there, saying nothing and looking completely gormless – probably a good job Nanny couldn’t see! To be fair though, they did sing happy birthday so I suppose we can’t expect too much in one call.

Straight after this, we set off for fun thing number two – picking up my new car! Harry and Toby joined me in the PT Cruiser for the drive home while Tracy headed off to do her driving theory test in Bellevue. I’d been and done mine yesterday and passed with 91%. I have my driving test in 2 weeks – ooooo! Unfortunately, after sitting there for a couple of hours, they informed Tracy that she couldn’t do the test as she didn’t have a social security number. You’d think they would tell you that on the website, or the relocation assistant might think it was worth sharing with us. Either way, nether of them did so 2 hours were wasted. Tracy needs to schedule an appointment to have an interview and prove that she does live in the state of Washington. What nonsense. Anyway, that was the only non-fun part of the day!

Next stop on our fun filled spectacular was the Space Needle. We got an annual family pass so we can go up everyday until Nanny’s next birthday. We also get 50% off two other peoples ticket each day, so if anyone wants to come over we can take you up the Space Needle! Toby was (and still is) very excited about the Space Needle. Wherever we are, if he catches a glimpse of it the cry of “oooh, space needle” goes up. He never tires of this!

It was with much excitement that we travelled up to the top of the needle – all 590 feet up in the air. It was also somewhat predictable that for the second time that Toby has been up the Space Needle he wanted to stay inside the Needle and not go out onto the observatory deck. Just to be clear, it’s not because he was scared. Oh no, it was because it was a bit cold. Which I suppose is a valid point however it wasn’t that cold! I may even go as far as saying it wasn’t cold at all. Anyway, cold or not – I’d like to make it clear that it wasn’t because he was scared.

The views from the observatory deck were amazing. Probably the best I have ever seen from up there. Hopefully the pictures below (and the others on Flickr) do it justice. Beautiful views on an absolutely beautiful day. Let’s hope we have a summer like this!

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Most of the photo’s are above but check out the full set on Flickr.

After the boys scoffed a kobi beef hotdog each we took the lift back down and headed to the international fountain. Not sure why it is called that – in fact I’m not 100% sure that it is actually called that, but I think I saw a sign calling it that. The fountain was spraying water far and wide and was surrounded by screaming children running in and out of the spray (and a few over enthusiastic parents). Harry and Toby joined in and thoroughly enjoyed themselves with Harry being a bit braver than Toby and managing to reach/touch the middle.

httpv://youtu.be/Z8v0AzibHV0

After sitting at the side and drying off, we took the monorail back into Seattle and did a spot of shopping – snapping up a few bargains in Gap. We drove back to the Eastside and and stopped at Safeway to get some food, including this amazing $5 cake. Grampy would love it in the supermarket cake sections!

After dinner and some Top Gear, two tired little boys went to bed (in separate beds these days). Another day of sunshine is forecast for tomorrow, so we’re heading to Alki Beach.

This is the life!

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Captain Kid

This week at school Harry has been “Captain Kid”. Every week one of the children is Captain Kid and this entails a whole heap of exciting things – and 4 pages of instructions. It looked like being a busy week and this was confirmed when at 7:45pm on Thursday night we were still trying to sort the Captain Kid science experiment.

Activities for the week included…

“Caring Captain Kid Book” – this involved all the children in the class writing a page in a book giving Captain Kid compliments and telling them how special they are! Keep reading to find out more!

“Captain’s Favorite Snack and Story” – on this day Captain Kid has to take in his favorite snack to share with the class and bring in his favorite book. The snack was two packets of smartie cookies – yum, plus some raisins for the healthy children. The raisins remained untouched. The favorite book was one that Harry Captain Kid read recently which is all about Titanic.

Next up was “Hooked on my Hobby” day which involved Captain Kid telling the class all about soccer, how brilliant he is at it (as well as everything else), some photo’s of him playing for Harrold & Carlton FC and spending the day at school wearing his Harrold football shirt.

The week ended on “Science Experiment Day” which focused on static electricity. I won’t go into all the details of positive and negative charges, atoms, protons and electrons because we all know about that. But basically Harry taught the class about static electricity and then rubbed a balloon on his tummy to make it stick to the wall, his belly, make hair stand on end and ground pepper jump in a plastic pot!

When we got home from school on Friday we had a read through the “Caring Captain Kid Book”. It was a very entertaining read – some of the highlights as follows:

“You have great cursive”, from Lily

“You are awesome”, from Katie

“I really like your hair color”, Arielle

“Do you know what twenty times ten is?”, Zoe

“You are corgeous [sic] for joining a new class”, Shivani

“I have some things that I want to share with you”, Omar

“What would you do if you had 1,000,000,000$?”, Ashley

“I like your awesome accent”, Dane

“Do you like kangroos? [sic]”, Ruby

“What would you do if there was a pig inside your house?”, Taylor B

“Why do you like parrots so much?”, Giovanne (apparently Harry told the class that parrots are his favorite animal. No idea why.)

“I like your accent because it sounds like Harry Potter’s accent and it is awesome. Can I call you Harry Potter?”, Sarah

“Where would you go if you could go to Korea, China or Japan without the earthquake damage?”, Haohan

“You are awesome kid”, Liam

So that’s some of the compliments and questions Harry got from his new school friends.

If nothing else it has enabled us to find out what the children in his class are called. Having been there for just over a week he’d managed to find out about 3 names! At times he is almost too sociable.

So that’s a week in the life of Captain Kid! He’s quite pleased that he is not Captain Kid next week!

 

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Falls & Games

Having had quite a busy day on Saturday, Sunday followed suit for the most part. It started with a early trip across to Seattle Aquarium. I had received an email saying it was early entrance for members – which we are. However I obviously didn’t read the email as it is next Sunday! Never mind. We only had to wait for 15 minutes before we got in. We checked out the octopus, which really is ugly, stroked some starfish – the aquarium is unusual in that respect as they do let you touch some of the creatures. Having spent about 90 minutes there we took a quick walk up to Pike Place market to see some of the flower and seafood stands. They flowers were particularly impressive and incredibly cheap. We couldn’t buy Tracy any flowers though as we had more adventures to head off on.

Next stop was about 40 minutes east along the I-90. We headed past Issaquah and up some mountain foothills to Snoqualmie Falls. The waterfall here falls a very impressive 270 feet which is apparently 100ft higher than Niagara Falls. The log at the top of the waterfall in the 6th picture below is actually a massive tree which is probably a good 70+ foot long. I’d love to watch that go over the edge!

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After leaving the Falls we headed back to Bellevue and had lunch at The Cheesecake Factory. This is the restaurant that always does giant portions that make you feel full just looking at them. Worryingly this time we ate most of the food and remarked that the portion size wasn’t as bad. Hopefully they have reduced their portion sized. If not, we are obviously just turning into biffas and becoming American! The rest of the afternoon saw us spend most of our time lazing around the apartment and playing a little bit of tennis. Toby is improving no-end.

Monday saw us take in our first game of baseball as the Mariners hosted (and beat 4-3) the Baltimore Orioles:

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The weekend had been spent building up to the baseball. Mainly in the shape of “you’re not going to go to the baseball unless you start behaving yourself”. Most of the time they didn’t behave. Particularly Toby “in a mood every 20 minutes” Stickells. He managed to just about behave enough to get his ticket and a trip to the match. It didn’t last long though as he also managed to end the day in a mood as well – crying about taking his clothes off and putting his pj’s on. Honestly! He is currently under threat of having to sleep in the middle bedroom which is the room with the single, hard bed and no duvet!

Anyway, back to the game. When we arrived one of the stewards asked if it was the first game Harry and Toby had been too – they are obviously trained to spot them! When it was confirmed that it was they were given a certificate to keep and a Seattle Mariners shirt each. They only had youths XL sizes so they look like they are wearing dresses but they are both happy and wore them out playing tennis later that evening. We climbed a lot of steps before finally reaching our seats. It was pretty high but the view was still surprisingly good, although it did make my legs have slight wobbles as I walked down the steps towards the ground on toilet trips with the boys. The game was pretty entertaining and lasted just short of 3 hours. Harry enjoyed it all, even going as far as saying it was better than soccer but I don’t expect that view to last long – he is a bit fickle. Tracy enjoyed it too – the Kindle didn’t even come out the handbag. Toby liked it but spent some of the time on his DS and quite a lot of the rest asking who was playing and who was winning. He enjoyed the games on the big screen, the singing and dancing though. As a side note, we managed to put away 3.5 foot of hotdogs between us! It sounds worse than it actually is. I think!

The weekend ended with shepherds pie, some tennis, Toby in a pj mood, Harry in the middle/naughty bedroom, Tracy drinking my bottles of beer and a lovely sunset over the lake. Perfect!

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Memorial Weekend

Another busy week has flown by but it feels like it has been a productive week.

Firstly, and possibly most importantly, after the stresses of dealing with grumpy women at the Social Security Office in Bellevue (where there are some very “special” people) I finally got a social security number. No longer am I an illegal alien! Tracy still is but then she will be for the duration of the tour – poor Tracy!

Armed with this number we can now get on with life in the US of A, including, getting health insurance (although we have some temporary cover now after I moaned a lot at work!), order cable TV for the new house and collect the car we are leasing. On the subject of the house, we paid the deposit and signed the forms for that on Tuesday (or maybe it was Monday – I can’t remember!) so it is officially ours. Can’t wait for our stuff to arrive and move in.

Once we had the lease on a house sorted, it meant that Harry could start school – much to his disgust. The first two days went well though and he is enjoying himself, so I think it worked out for the best. It also helps to separate Harry and Toby for a few hours each day – they seem to have lost the ability to play nicely at the moment. It is non-stop fighting, arguing and being little sod-pots at the moment! I think it may be cabin fever induced by living in an apartment.

As a “well done” for being so good at going to school this week, Harry got to decide where we went for dinner on Friday night. Being a creature of habit he chose the Mexican in Kirkland again. He and Toby wolfed down their tacos, Tracy ate a brick sized burrito and I had steak fajitas. All very yummy – especially the pints of Mac & Jacks. It’s a shame it is draft only, I’d happily drink it at home. The only other thing of note from the night was that Toby used a urinal for the first time! Clever boy!

The productivity continued into the Memorial bank holiday weekend when we went car shopping on Saturday morning. After viewing lots of cars online we went and bought my “drive to work car” in the morning. Tracy found it at Brooke Biddle (“if you want to buy better, you better buy at biddle”). It is a silver Chrysler PT Cruiser or a Batman car as I prefer to think of it. I think we got a pretty good deal. It’s 7 years old and has just over 70,000 miles on the clock from one previous owner but it scores well on the US used car system that they have over here. The interior is pretty clean and I think it would have been on for a higher price but it’s a manual and Americans don’t like them.

After much confusion with the cheque and lack of credit history, we signed lots of forms and have to return with a bankers draft for $7,088 on Tuesday. We can then pick it up next Saturday – assuming we’ve got some insurance sorted. Here’s the beauty:

On the way home from Biddles we stopped at Houghton Park in Kirkland which is another lovely beach park – there are a lot round here (Waverley is still my favourite). It has a nice area in the lake for swimming in and a nice new play area being built which should be ready at the end of June. After a quick walk around and paddle by the boys we headed home to the apartment for lunch and to watch the Champions League final. Thankfully Barcelona won, beating those Dirty Mancs!

I missed the final 20 minutes of the game as I stood on the balcony looking down a camera lense at an eagle sat in a tree. He was well camouflaged though and an alternative tactic had to be employed. I went down and stood at the bottom of the tree with camera trained upon the eagle which was still hiding in the tree. Eventually he flew off and I got a couple more pictures but none quite to the standard I am looking for. I won’t give up though!

After Tracy had finished being “floopy” we decided to head out again. The sun was shining so we thought we better make the most of it. We headed along the I-520 towards Redmond and then headed on down West Sammamish Parkway before stopping at Idylwood beach park. It gave the boys a chance to play some soccer and run off some of that energy. After leaving here and driving past our house to be, we headed on down to Sammamish State Park (at the bottom of the lake) and then moved on to Issaquah Soccer fields. There were lots of goals setup and the boys had a real good run around. The pitches are only about 10 minutes from where we will be living so I think we will be spending quite a few evenings and weekends there. Although we have signed Harry up for Lake Hills football district so we may not be allowed to play on the rivals pitches.

With good weather expected again tomorrow, we are planning a trip to Seattle Aquarium first thing in the morning as members have early access ahead of the public and assuming it stays nice we will head on over to Snoqualmie Falls which are about 40 minutes east of Seattle. The waterfall is meant to be 100 foot taller than the Niagara Falls but I’m assuming not so impressive but we will find out tomorrow. On Monday it is a bank holiday and we will be heading to Safeco Fields to watch Seattle Mariners take on the Baltimore Orioles. This will be a first taste of baseball for Tracy, Harry and Toby. The game lasts about 3 hours so Tracy is taking her kindle to read. I think it may be worth taking the DS’s as well. It will probably only be me watching the game in the end. Lucky I only bought the cheap seats!

Oh, and I bought a MacBook Air. It’s lovely.

 

 

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First Day at School

Now that we have signed a lease, and much to Harry’s horror, he was able to start school! The school couldn’t bear the thought of Harry being off school until September so they made a special exception and allowed him to go for the last 2 and a bit weeks of term. Officially Harry is at Spiritrigde Elementary however that school is being completely rebuilt this year so the school relocated to Bellewood.

We took Harry to school for his first day this morning – it was a shock to the system for some, particularly as school starts at 7:50am. He is in classroom Portable C (“the place to be”) and his teacher is Mr Oppenhiemer (or Mr O). His class size is 24 and he sits on table 5 near the back of the class. It had a very nice feel to it and we think he’ll enjoy himself even if Harry doesn’t! Anyway, school finishes at 2:25pm so we will find out then how his first day went!

//Update

Two days in and school seems to be a roaring success. Harry has made three friends so far – an Italian, German and an American. This in itself is impressive because at the end of day one everyone in his class bar one was American. The first birthday party invite has come through – with a disclaimer to sign – a trampoline party in a couple of weeks.

The only downside so far is that Harry won’t help his friend making causes by winning everything he plays at school. This includes a new game called Bump, a catch game at the end of class today and at PE today (which was 10 pin bowling – no wonder he likes school!).

And to end with, a quote from his “Family Communication Journal” that he has to write at school and bring home for us to see:

“In maths I’ve been counting by four it was prity (sic) easy but some people found it hard unlike me.”

What a modest child we have!

 

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House Hunting

A busy weekend of house viewing started with the first of three trips to Issaquah. We were viewing two houses on a complex called Montreux. The houses were about 500 yards apart but the viewings three hours.

The first house was huge. The main concern, other than the small yard was that we wouldn’t have enough furniture to fill it. It was huge. Five bedrooms, an office, countless other rooms and three garages. The current tenants were in the process of packing and boy do they have some stuff to move. But then I suppose you would with a house that large.

After a flying visit back to Kelsey Creek Park for a 1st birthday party it was back to Issaquah. Although not quite as large as the first house it was beautiful. An absolutely stunning house with fab views and a dog bed in every room. As lovely as it was there were a few too many thinks that were not quite right – price, yard and 1 year lease to name but a view.

Next stop on house hunting Saturday was Juanita for a second viewing. The views were great – Mount Rainier, the Space Needle and Seattle. The house was large and the yard ok but something wasn’t quite right. So no to this one too.

We headed back home and found a couple more places to view before our third trip of the day to Issaquah. First (or should that be 4th) stop was Crossroads. Not the poshest part of town but the street had a nice feel about it. The yard was huge! Fortunately it came with a ride on tractor mower because it needed one. The yard was like a park. All good then. Apart from the house. It was a good size but grubby. Even though it had clearly just been cleaned we couldn’t have lived there.

Nevermind. Onto Kirkland/Rose Hill. After sitting on the drive of the wrong house for about 15 minutes – fortunately the owners of that house were out – we moved along to the right house. If the previous place had been the right yard, wrong house, this was the right house, wrong yard. I’d have moved into this house immediately. It was a tri-level house and it absolutely lovely. The trouble was it had no yard at all so it was a reluctant no. Still the owner was very helpful about places to eat and places to go, so not a complete waste of time.

Final viewing of the day was back to Issaquah for a third time. Third time lucky we hoped. It wasn’t. Strange layout, dirty, a road either side. A definite no but she did bake nice cookies.

The only thing left to do was go home, with a pizza and a bottle of a champagne! Never let it be said that we’re not classy! Buying the champagne at least gave me my first experience of a liquor store and brown paper bag purchases!

Onto Sunday. Another day and two more viewings. The first was a second viewing of the first house we saw in Kirkland the previous Sunday. It was good to go back and the house was better than we remembered. A good sized house and a good yard. The school was just down the road and there was a park opposite. If we didn’t have another viewing at 3pm then we would probably have struck a deal however we still had one more to go.

So after lunch we headed to a part of Bellevue over by Lake Sammamish. It was a second viewing for Tracy and the boys but my first. It was nice. Very nice. At the end of a cul-de-sac and with views over the lake and mountains it definitely fits the bill. The yard is a decent size – big enough for two goals – and the house is lovely. Hardwood floors throughout, a lovely master bedroom with ensuite, a great bathroom and three other bedrooms. A formal lounge, dining room, kitchen, family room and double garage complete the house. An application form was completed and given to the agent. It will be submitted to the owners (in San Francisco) tomorrow and the fingers will be crossed. I think at least one other application will be submitted so we have to hope they go with our application. Here’s hoping. It will suit us down to a tee. Worst case scenario we will have to wait 48 hours. It will be a nervous wait …


View on a map

 

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Kirkland / Juanita

Week two has flown by. Work has finally felt normal in as much as I am located where work actually is, I can attend meetings instead if dialling in at odd hours of the night and I am settled in my office. I was meant to leave the office with a view on Wednesday this week but it’s looking like I may be there for couple more weeks which is good.

Weather wise this week has been great! The sun has been out, the skies blue and we’ve had the hottest day of the year so far (70 degrees). Mount Rainier has been spotted at least 3 days this week which is pretty impressive but nowhere near as impressive as the mountain itself.

Tracy and the boys have checked out numerous houses, although it has not been easy as the quality of American customer service doesn’t seem to extend to estate agents. Could they be any more unhelpful!?

As part of the house hunting process we did stumble across Waverley beach park on Wednesday evening. It is a beautiful spot just north of Kirkland in a highly desirable part of town. We were driving past a house we’d seen online however we couldn’t get hold of the agent and by the time they finally responded the house had gone. Never mind. Anyway the beach park had an area of the lake to swim in, a play area, plenty of grass for lazing around and a small shop selling Hawaiian hotdogs which the boys seemed pleased about.

[flickr-gallery mode=”photoset” photoset=”72157626683105353″]

We then drove further north to an area called Juanita to sample the delights of Spuds Fish & Chips. It was exactly like reviews on Trip Advisor had described, 3 or 4 spotty teenagers taking an age to serve what were yummy buffalo shrimps and chips and fish and chips for the boys. It took about 3 visits back to the counter to get what we ordered but to be fair it tasted good – I’m sure we’ll be back.

Thursday and Friday were busy days at work with back to back meetings but Friday evening saw a visit to Clyde Hill beach park, which is a beautiful setting, followed by a trip to Red Robbin, shopping in the mall for new trainers for the boys and an early fathers day present for me as I bought myself a new watch! I’m pretty sure I deserve it!

The weekend brings house hunting and a BBQ – updates to follow! And maybe a photo of an eagle, here’s hoping!

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The Elusive Eagle

One of my first aims of our Washington adventure is to capture an amazing close up photo of the eagles that are flying all around Yarrow Point. This page will chart the progress until that incredible photo is captured!

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I will accept that the first picture is a bit of an effort! And not a great one. But I can also confirm that that was the cameras fault – it chose the wrong time to adjust the focus. The exact wrong time. Having been fine for the previous 10 minutes that I had stood there with the eagle in full focus (behind a branch), it then decided to refocus just as the eagle took flight. Nevermind, my time will come.

UPDATE!

June 5th 2011 – the best effort so far – and my first bald eagle. The is the one I want the most. The quality goes a little on when I zoom and crop the photo but it’s still pretty good/ Check the 10th photo above or take a look on Flickr.

 

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Weekend #1

So we should probably have done something amazing on our first non-travelling weekend in the US, but we’re saving that for another day. Both days started with football (soccer). It was the FA cup final on Saturday and Liverpool on the Sunday. It’s quite good having soccer first thing as we can get that out the way over breakfast and then we’re free to carry on the day.

On Saturday we had a drive around Bridal Trails, across to Redmond and then down the east side of Lake Sammamish to Issaquah. We drove up Cougar Mountain, much to the concern of Harry and Toby! No sign of cougars though although there were news reports later that one had taken a labrador that had been out for a walk. Issaquah has the look and feel of an old US mining town. It’s not our first choice location but it has potential. After the mountain climb (in a car) we had to stop in Newcastle, at McDonalds, as the boys were starving. There is obviously something about Washington/US air as they have been starving everyday since arrival.

The afternoon was spent playing some tennis (my legs still ache) and then the heavens opened! And stayed open until Sunday afternoon!

Sunday morning saw a return to Seatac airport – a little sooner than we thought but at least the car insurance has been resolved and the £3.7k insurance payment is no longer pending against the credit card. Phew! On the way to the airport I pressed the red button on the rearview mirror. Note to self, don’t press red buttons. The car was immediately dialled through to some emergency service call centre who wanted to know what our situation was. After apologising for the behaviour of my interfering fingers they wished us a good day and on we went. There is a blue button next to the red button. I’m tempted with pressing it but I don’t think I will. And Tracy has told me that I won’t!

The only other things of note from the weekend were…

1. I like Williams Sonoma a lot! Specifically waffle makers, roasting pans for bbqs (picture above) and coffee machines
2. We spend a lot of time (and money) in supermarkets
3. The ribs from QFC or Trader Joes are very good. Melt in the mouth good. Yum!
4. We still don’t know where the post gets delivered!

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Week #1

Today was the first working from home day. Tracy and the boys went to watch Rio in 3D and stuff their faces with popcorn. They arrived back with tennis rackets for Tracy and I so we all can play now. We all had a play down on the courts, I’d forgotten how much fun tennis was. I’m still rubbish but it’s fun. It was also pretty cool playing tennis and watching the eagles swooping overhead – they are huge! One was definitely an American bald eagle but I think there may be another variety – the bird watching skills of Gan Gan are required.

In the evening we headed over to Kirkland for something to eat. We went Mexican. If you can call chicken nuggets and fries Mexican! But that was only Toby, Harry went for a beef taco and Tracy had a giant something or other! Harry followed up the taco with some deep fried ice-cream!

We then headed on down to the lake and saw the final few minutes of the sunset. Truly beautiful setting which made Kirkland as a potential place to live rather more appealing.

It was then all off home to bed (at about 9:30pm) as the FA Cup final kicks off at 7am in the morning!

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Settling in

It all got off to a good start as the captain announced a journey time of 8 hours and 50 minutes – about an hour shorter than usual. the flight was pretty uneventful. Toby did his usual trick of falling asleep about an hour before the journey end and then woke up all tearful and in a pickle.

Border control was reasonably straightforward and for the first time, not completely intimidating – the guard was actually nice and made conversation – there’s a first time for everything! The luggage came through quickly and all was under control until customs suspected us of smuggling food. Our luggage was screened and their suspicions confirmed by x-ray machines – we were sausage smugglers! After going through the guilty suitcase, and Tracy’s underwear, the sausages were identified as bottles of toiletries so we were let off.

Next stop collecting the cars. Once again Egencia managed to mess up the booking with no insurance. All was sorted with a credit card but it will all end in yet another expenses claim.

With Harry reading the directions the journey to the Villaggio was quite straightforward. The apartment is spacious and comfy. It’s a little sparse on towels and kitchen equipment but all in all it should make for a nice base for the next few weeks (if Harry and Toby can learn to understand that they can’t shout at 4am and run and jump round the flat!).

Straight after unloading the cars we hit the shops, well a supermarket anyway. QFC was the first supermarket, swiftly followed on Sunday by Trader Joes. Then QFC again. And again. Trader Joes is small but has some nice looking (organic) good and probably most importantly some red wine at $2.49 a bottle. We bought some assuming it would taste like vinegar. It doesn’t! It’s good! More bottles to follow and we’ll give the white a try out too.

The only other thing of note so far (apart from the constantly naughty children) are the frogs that sing us to sleep. It’s just like being on holiday.

Update: Here’s a floor plan for future reference because we’re bound to forget what it was like!