The Californian Rust clan wish you the very best on your big day – 60 today – WOW, time flies…

We are sorry that we are unable to celebrate with you, but are there in spirit if nothing else 🙂

Have a WONDERFUL day.

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Our shipping container contents will be here today!!! YAY!!!  They are delivering between 12:30 and 16:30 today, so we are looking forward to having MORE stuff to put away 🙂  Elliot is really chomping at the bit to get his toys back…

Elliot is due to the paediatrician tomorrow also, so we suspect that he won’t be feeling great following that trip – there are likely to be a number of injections that he requires.  Olly had his last week….  With a bit of luck he will forget about the trip once he finds his toys are here…. 🙂

The bikes are due to be collected this coming weekend 🙂 Apparently the trailer will be here tomorrow, but the weekend will be our first chance to collect.

Vicky is working on the flights back to CA etc in August – thanks for the help Claire H – it seems that we are getting v close to having reasonably well priced flights 🙂

UPDATE:

The gear arrived at lunchtime, and there is now half a ton of bubblewrap and cardboard with a bigger pile of selotape sat in the garage right about now.  We have a very excited little boy in the house at the minute – it seems that he REALLY missed MACK 🙂

The boys truly do have more toys than they know what to do with right now.

Amazingly enough, the delivery guy turned down a significant number of green bills to help Simon shift the heavy wardrobe upstairs, so we need to find a man with a van to help sort that final piece out.  We have ended up doing really well on the day with much of the stuff already put away 🙂

Will prob take a few weeks to finish up though….

We finally got the all clear from the customs people so we are expecting the shipping stuff in the next 4 or 5 days – typically, because they required BOTH x-ray AND full piece by piece search, we have had to pay an additional $500 before they will release our goods 🙁

Then, today, we went out to an outlet furniture shop in the hope to find a piece of furniture that we would be happy with that could be delivered in the next two weeks, to find that we can specify exactly what we want, with whichever fabric (something like 80-90 to choose from), and then to top it all – delivery in under a month !!! Nice.

So, we have bought a three seater settee with built in luxury inflatable queen bed – believe me the inflatable is not a lilo like you would have for on the beach – it is very comfortable – in fairness it needs to be as I suspect that Vicky and Simon will be the ones who have to use it… i.e. if visitors come to stay, it would be less good if Simon woke them on his way out to work @ 6am….

We are heading to Florida for a couple of weeks in three weeks – well Vicky and the boys are – Simon will be travelling out to work from there.

The beach is calling again tomorrow – well after we have breakfast in Los Gatos – going to see if we can set a new routine for Sunday’s with breakfasts 🙂

We will be ensuring that daddy has enough sunscreen this time….

Another week dispatched 🙂 Time is flying by. Olly has seen the paediatrician today and has had FIVE injections to catch up with what is required here in Silicon Valley – apparently there are more nasty bug here than any other state in the US – something to do with all the aliens from the various countries 🙁

We have still not yet found a suitable settee yet for the lounge area. we have only just realized that the waiting time is the very same 12 weeks that it would be in the UK. So we are going to start looking around the consignment centers to see if we can bag a bargain that can be delivered in days rather than weeks.

Hopefully the bikes and trailer will be available v soon so we can get out and enjoy this wonderful sunshine that we are experiencing at the moment.

We also ordered a really cool looking car seat for Olly that we can use on the planes – it converts into a pushchair at the flick of a switch 🙂

The idea is that when we travel, we could reduce the amount of stuff we need to carry.

We are planning a two week trip to Florida in June where Vicky and the boys will enjoy the terrific Floridian heat while daddy works in New Orleans, Chicago and new York.

The question was posed to us yesterday by our next door neighbours who saw the house name plaque.  Our explanation was met with two blank faces, meaning they just didn’t get it.  Not sure if it was poorly explained or if it simply does not translate over here.  Simon will check it out with a couple of his colleagues to see if it is a translation issue..

We stayed in most of the day, but nipped out furniture shopping at 3pm – we spent 2 hours in ONE store – it was HUGE – 80,000 square feet and probably nearing 80 to 100 suites….

We are still none-the-wiser 🙁 Well, other than most items will take 12 weeks to arrive…. 🙁 We really could do with it next week, not in 12….

Sill not heard from the shipping company 🙁 – other than the container that our gear is in is being strip searched – could take 1 week, it could take 20 weeks – they are not really telling us much right now.  We are hoping (and possibly a little optimistic) that it will be delivered to us next weekend.  Fingers crossed all you readers out there ….. 🙂

We head down to the Morgan Hill BBQ Competition today to see what it was all about.  Basically, about 30 or so “competitors” took over a public car park in the centre of town, and stayed up all last night to cook their meat 🙂

We didn’t end up getting video footage but have plenty of photos – can be found in the gallery – but for now, here is Simon’s favourite….

It seems that the BBQ is typically something that you TOW being your ridiculously large truck OR ride – like this one 🙂 We are actually users of GRILLS – we have learned this today ,and will remember it forever 🙂

We are still struggling to find suitable lounge furniture – we fancy something a little out there – for example, see the below – OK, so before you start ripping into us – think of it like this – this is an American piece – no doubt stolen from elsewhere around the world – but while we are here, we can change our style and nobody knows or cares 🙂

Now, get a load of this bed….