YAY – the sun has come out again :-)

It feels like it has rained for two weeks solid ๐Ÿ™ย  There have been mudslides and all sorts in the area around here.

Thankfully the sun came out a little yesterday and has been out quite a lo today, with the temperature making it’s way to almost 20 degrees Celsius this afternoon.ย  As a result we went out on the bikes tonight and the boys played in Houge Park for 45 minutes or so.ย  Was nice to be able to be out in t-shirt and shorts again – was January the last time we were able to enjoy the weather like this.ย  Apparently the week will only get warmer… ๐Ÿ™‚

Simon went to a business friends place in San Francisco on Saturday night and they made what this guy called Deathburgers – basically a burger with grilled cheese sandwiches for the bun, a 1/2 pound burger (hand made), bacon that was fried and then eggs that were fried in the fat left from the bacon, chips that were fried in the fat that was left after the bacon and eggs, chilli, lettuce, onion, avocado, tomato ketchup etc etc – you get the jist of it…. There were definitely way north of 2000 calories in these bad boys….

We had a lovely dinner at Daisy and Roy’s last night to finish the weekend off nicely.

We are heading back to the UK in a little under 2 weeks so we are beginning to think about what we need to take back vs. bring back here 2 weeks later.ย  We are trying to minimize baggage all round as it will make it much easier to manage with the boys if we have little or no luggage. It also means we could leave the date car in the airport car park rather than the X5 – the X5 has over 9,000 miles on it, yet the date car has not yet got to 7,500.ย  Given that we are paying extra so that the date car can do up to 12,000 per year, we need t use it a lot more at the weekends.ย  This is not a major drama since for some reason the boys both seem to prefer the Golf.

Still raining :-(

Check out the wonderful birthday cake that Amy, Jason and Charlotte brought for Vicky’s birthday celebrations last night ๐Ÿ™‚ How cool is this cake?ย  For perspective it is about the size of a head ๐Ÿ™‚ Almost felt too nice to cut…..

Only said *almost* ๐Ÿ™‚

We have had cake for breakfast this morning – Olly certainly approved of cake for brekkie ๐Ÿ™‚

Happy Birthday Mummy

We are heading out to the shops to buy mummy something nice ๐Ÿ™‚ |We are also heading round to Escobars Jewellers as they have finished upgrading Vicky’s rings with the new diamonds, created the earrings and HOPEFULLY have the new ring in as well – will make a nice start to mummy’s birthday.

The rain has been persistent for the last few days and looks like it is here to stay for a significant few more ๐Ÿ™ At least the reservoirs will be full and we won’t need to worry about the water supplies over the summer.

Simon picked up his new watch last night – he ended up upgrading it (typical !) and so picked up a rather cheeky IWC Portuguese Automatic Special Edition (Laureus).ย  He seems very pleased with it even if it’s arrival has overshadowed Vicky’s birthday ๐Ÿ™

We are going out for a nice meal tonight with the Folks, so that will be nice – the restaurant that Amy suggested in Los Gatos looks really rather nice – looking forward to finding out.

Simon received his new glasses this week – they were shipped over from the UK by Simon’s optician when the US folks would not make any up for him – apparently his eyesight is too bad for rimless glasses in the US.ย  They are spot on and even have reacting lenses to UV so they turn into sunglasses in the sunlight – nice.

He passed !!!! :-)

YAY !! Our big boy passed the exam from last weekend and has secured himself a place at the Junior Kindergarten @ the Mulberry School.

Now all we have to do is find a place for Olly to go to and we are onto a winner.

Celebratory meal at the Outback last night then ๐Ÿ™‚

We have been out shopping at the Stanford Shopping Mall in Palo Alto today – Simon checked out the Parrot AR Drone Quadricopter in Brookstone.ย  This is a remote controlled 4 rotor helicopter that is controlled by the iPhone or iPad:-) To top it all, we were in the park with the kids later and Simon managed to break his new RC Helicopter (provided by a work colleague Mike Mills last weekend) on its first outdoor trip.

Simon has ordered his Apple iPad 2 and the delivery date is set as April 6th 2011 – we leave for the UK on the 7th – hmmm – what’s the betting it is going to sit on the doorstep for two weeks then ?

We are in the midst of trying to figure out if we should buy a couple of rental properties in the UK OR if we should buy a house out here in Silicon Valley – the house in SV will cost us circa $1.3m and the houses in the UK 160k UKP each.ย  The challenge is that to transfer our funds to the UK will end up in our losing a little cash :-(.ย  Amy out here suggested that as and when we decide to return to the UK we could always rent out the SV house – a smart point that we had not actually considered before – on $1.3m we will be able to relatively easily score $4,000 per calendar month so it would be a pretty good earner.ย  Clearly we would need a *significant* mortgage for the US option.

Simon is heading out to New York tomorrow night for 4 days and Vicky’s diamonds will be ready for collection at some point during the week.ย  The question is will she be able to wait until Simon is back before running to get them………

Elly’s first entrance examination

Yesterday was a BIG day for Elliot – he had to go to school (yes, that’s right, on a SATURDAY) to go through a sort of entrance examination to see if he is ready to progress to Junior Kindergarten at the school he presently goes to four afternoons a week.

Pretty stressful time for mummy and daddy – we certainly weren’t expecting Elliot to be going through exams at four years old !!!

He came out at 3pm quite happy and chirpy and so we think he did OK – he certainly knows all of the things that they need him to know – Vicky has spent a lot of time educating him over the last few months, since the school actually (believe it or not) does not give them the skills that they need to pass this exam…. ๐Ÿ™

We will find out next Friday as to what the score is.ย  We already found that Olly is 2 months too young to join the infant class two mornings a week so that is a big of a bind – he is DESPERATE to go to school – he wants to stay every time we take Elly in.

Simon took the plunge yesterday and ordered the IWC watch he has had his eye on for a little while.ย  Couple of issues;

  1. They did not have one in stock and could not tell how long it would take to deliver so we have agreed that if not delivered to the store within a month, they will give a full refund
  2. The banks in the US do not allow switch transactions over $5k so we had to wait on hold with the bank while they agreed to allow the funds to be released on the transaction – took 45 mins….. PAINFUL

We wait patiently for both situations to unfold.ย  We may need to lookfor new schools for both boys in August ๐Ÿ™‚