We have been out 4 nights out of the last week on the bikes, Daddy with Elliot in tow and Mummy with Oliver in tow.  We have (OK so Simon has) spent a small fortune on the cycling paraphernalia such as water bottles, bags, puncture repair kits, shorts, shirts etc.  A lot of this is essential stuff such as puncture stuff, but it all mounts up unfortunately.  Simon has realised that with having 6 bikes in the household, we also need to keep on top of the maintenance and this includes stuff such as chain cleaning and oiling – don’t think he ever did this with bikes as he was growing up – funny how when you buy it with your own green, taking care of it seems so much more important 🙂

Anyway, tonight was just a winner – we cycled just short of 5 miles from home into downtown Campbell, stopped for dinner in a Tex Mex type restaurant (sat at a table outside in the shade of a beautiful day watching the world and his dog go by), then cycled towards home via one of the parks near home (Houge Park) for the boys to play in the dirt (that’s right they had no interest in the swings etc – just the dirt) before heading home for bath before bed.  All in all, a great evening and dinner cost just $30 – result 🙂

Simon has been out on Barbara 3 times now, and is finding the steep inclines to get to the top of the trail torturous.  The exhilaration of heading back down apparently is great, but there is just a tad too much pain in getting to the top.  Suck it up buddy until your fitness is up to it 🙂

Finally, Elliot and Oliver have decided that it would be good for them to share a bedroom – we will be moving Olly’s bed into Elly’s room and taking one of the sides off in the next couple of weeks – handy for when Kerrie is here in a few weeks.  Guess we will find out soon if they just mess around….

HI all – following 24 hours of manual work, Simon has got all of the previous blog entries in place, including Vicky’s A 4 Aspergers blog.  They are all mixed in together and to find the A4A, simply use the search function above right and type Aspergers in the search field and click <ENTER>.  All the goods will be listed.  We will figure out a better way to represent these important updates along the way 🙂

Thanks for your patience…

We are re-building the entire ForkHall.com website so please excuse us while we get the previous content etc into place – typically because of the poor choice of technology that Simon took nearly 5 years ago, it is not a straightforward task 🙁

10th July 2011 – Yosemite Weekend 🙂

Late on Wednesday, we decided to see if we could get a hotel room near Yosemite National Park in California (approx 200 miles away from the house) as we have promised ourselves that we will go, but we have just never got around to it.  Simon found a reasonable deal on in a hotel that claimed to be just 2 miles from the park entrance, so we decided to go for it.  We put the bikes on the carrier on the car, popped in the trailers (for Elly and Olly), packed an overnight bag and set off on Friday evening.

The hotel was perfectly located with the room overlooking the Meced River – there were white water rapids right outside the veranda.  Frankly the hotel could not really have been better placed.  Unfortunately the food in the hotel was less than optimal (read crap really), but by morning, we got some breakfast snacks, jumped in the car and set off.  15 minutes later we were in the park (having paid $20 for a 7 day pass) making our way round past El Capitan towards Yosemite Village.  We were met by one of the most tremedous sets of waterfalls that were still flowing (ice from the winter supplies the falls with their water) over the 2,425 ft high granite (the 6th highest falls in the world apparently)

We took the bikes and cycled all around the valley floor (special bike paths were in place and so we did around 10 miles of cycling with the boys in tow) and stopped for a few minutes to take in various marvels – none significantly prettier than Mirror Lake.

We got back on Saturday night so we still have enjoyed a whole day at home – well we went into Los Gatos with the folks to the farmers market, had some lunch and then relaxed at home.

Simon went out first thing this morning with Barbara for the second ride, and while they got to the top of the hill by the Summit Bike shop in Los Gatos, Simon had to stop 4 times.  The route down was tres exhilarating, but his fitness level needs to radically improve if the overall experience is to stay high 🙂

Just 4 weeks until we are on our way to Maui – the countdown is ON.. 🙂

We all wish you a wonderful day – hope you have a really enjoyable day.

We had a great long weekend, with daddy getting his new Santa Cruz Blur LTc mountain bike – AND actually using it on th trails on Monday morning – yes readers, he got his a$$ out of bed at 6:30am on Monday to get out and back before the kids got out of bed… Vicky is wondering how long it lasts – Simon is hoping to do this at least once a week on top of our other cycling and walking activities.  Simon actually did over 30 miles in just over 24 hours this weekend :-).  He is still a fat lard a$$ though – in case you were wondering.  For those who care, please see a picture of Barbara below – named by Vicky and Tim 🙂

We also managed to get hold of one of the trail along bikes for Elliot as he is getting a little big for the trailer now, and as a result Olly and Elly are squeezed into it, and it is a tad heavy for the aforementioned lard a$$ to pull on the bike.

The above is a little picture of the trail along bike that we bought.  Elliot LOVES it – he clearly feels grown up, and so our first outing was to be a small test to see how he gets on with the new sensation that we all remember form our first reasonable length cycle trip.  He ended up doing just over 8 miles on Sunday lunchtime – in the heat of the sunshine as well (100F / 37C).  This was also a BIG time for mummy, as we bought a “tow bar” for her bike for the original cycle trailer so that she could pull Olly.  The decision was that while Elliot and trail along is marginally lighter weight, there was the added bonus of needing to balance both yourself and Elliot on his “bike”, hence mummy would pull Olly.  Funny though as Olly was lording it up by himself in a bike trailer for two – he certainly adopted a typical bloke seating position – legs akimbo etc.

We did another 8 miles tonight and Elliot took it all in his stride, although his balance was not as good tonight as it was yesterday – think he might just be getting a little cocky…

We had a nice BBQ last night with the Somerfields – a reminder that we should do it more frequently if we can – but another reminder that the house does not have a garden 🙁