We went out for a walk around to the Pediatric Therapy Services open evening around by the Good Samaritan Hospital.  There are lots of things that we can do with the boys during the summer months while school is out.  The challenge is that we already have a laundry list of things that Elly is signed up for, so it is now a case of ensuring that we don’t get involved in too many things etc.

Anyway, we got home, out of the pushchair and boom – poor Olly opened his floodgates and was sick on the garage floor etc.  The poor little mite was so upset.  He has been sick 3 more times since then so has managed to go through 3 sets of clothes.  We will be sleeping on the inflatable bed in his room to minimise the impact if he is sick during the night.

On the positive side, we have confirmation of the holiday house in Maui – we just need to make space on the credit card 🙂 and book the flights and car etc.

We did our research on Sunday, contacted Kerrie on Monday (for confirmation) and are in the process of booking the August Maui trip 🙂  We decided to go for the smaller house (only three bedrooms) that has the terrific ocean view rather than no view but bigger house.  Think we will really appreciate this when we get there…..

Just picture the scene, Elliot and Olly in bed from an exhausting day in the pool and / or on the beach, the adults sat outside with a glass or three of vin rouge…… NICE.

Front view of the villa…..

Think this will be OK 🙂 The villa is booked and paid for – just need to sort flights and car rental.

Anyway, it has rained all week thus far, so we are really hoping for some sunshine.  Poor Elly got over the sickness only to find that the other end began to suffer 🙁 The issue is apparently going round the school with precision 🙁

Elly was up being sick at around 2am this morning sadly – not a great start to a Sunday.  This woke Olly, so we had two distressed children in the house for a while.  Poor Elly needed a bath and his bedsheets changing.  Mummy decided to sleep in with Elly on the inflatable bed just in case he needed help later in the night and Daddy won the Olly prize.

So, we have enjoyed a PJ day today since Elly was not really up to being outside, or certainly not this morning.  We had one further sickness episode at 8:30 and he has been fine ever since thankfully.

We are looking to book a Maui holiday in August (when Kerrie comes to visit) so have invested a couple of hours into the research while we have been house bound.  A day can make 300 USD difference just on the flights (so that is $1500 for the five of us – a significant difference).  We are looking for a house to rent that has wonderful views and is close to the beach (walkable in any case) – thank fully there seem to be a lot to chose from and they are not crazy money at the times that we are looking to go either.

We went down to the beach at Santa Cruz yesterday with Rich, Clare, Ben and Alex (Rich is a work colleague from the UK who has come over for three months to help build out the new development center here in Silicon valley for the company Simon works for) and typically it was less than 16 degrees Celsius and windy.  So, Simon managed to avoid sunburn for the first time on a beach visit, BUT obtained a wind burn to his face 😀  As always, the kids loved it although Olly was not allowed to go swimming / paddling this time around – he was not amused – clearly missed his uncle Tim.

The diet and fitness regime needs to start this week – we are definitely feeling a little overweight and under fit right now.  The beer has been removed from the fridge and the chocolate looks to be next on the list to be placed out of harms way…. 🙁

We took Mum, Nard, Tim and Betty to the airport last night and saw them disappear into the bowels of the San Francisco airport – the guy that checked them in was a cyclist so he took a keen interest in Betty – he was very helpful in pointing out that because Betty was a “gift” then Tim did not need to spend the usual $200 to put it in the hold. A NICE result.

It has been great to have had the family here for the last two weeks and we will miss them terribly – Elliot even informed the Pizza delivery guy last night (yes we relented to having Papa Johns… 🙂 )that Grandma, Nard and Uncle Tim had gone back to England 🙂

It was REALLY quiet in the house last night without our visitors.  It was NICE however to be in our own bed – although the littlest Rust soon helped us with that by getting up at 11pm and pretty much demanding to sleep in mummy and daddy’s bed.

Olly is still not well with a temperature of over 40 degrees at 3:30am and sleep not appearing for him for nearly a further 2 hours.

We spoke with Tim and Mum earlier today and found that they arrived safely and cleared customs, picked up their bags and were on the Heathrow Express train heading into Central London in about 25 minutes – nice result.  only to find that hey still had to wait for 5 hours for the train back up North 🙁 Betty is safely in the UK, ready to be built up again in prep for the first UK ride 🙂

We went out for a cycle ride tonight and head out in a direction that we have not gone before – towards Campbell – all in all a nice leisurely 7.4mile ride with 15 minutes at a park for the boys in the middle.  We clearly need to get back into the cycling to help with our fitness levels and lard reduction – the programme starts here 🙂

Oliver’s big day today – 2 years old already.  He wanted to celebrate by spending time with family on the beach in Santa Cruz. It has been a really nice hot day (even in Santa Cruz) and Tim, Mum, Simon and Nard have all been victims of the sun – Mum being the worst and Simon who has for once almost got away with it.

Oliver received lots of nice cards and some cool presents – thank you everybody who has sent things through for Oliver – he really appreciated everything and has not stopped playing with his new toys (well, except for when he was on the beach 🙂 )

Tim collected his new bike tonight so we guess that he will be up early doors tomorrow out on the trails….