Apologies we have been offline for over a month – we have been moving all our gear out of the house in Ossett (we have rented it out for the next 12 months (starting 1st April) and have now moved to Los Gatos, CA.

We are 10 days in now, and have beds, a couch, a TV with Cable, internet connectivity and post / pans etc.

Oh, and we have got Vicky a new X5.  Simon’s Golf GTI should be with us in a couple of days.  Surreal how straightforward some things are yet, how different they are to obtain than in the UK.

We are using Facebook now as a means of keeping in contact so not sure at this time how up-to-date we will keep these pages.

This weekend has actually been our first relaxing weekend, where we took Simon’s mum and Bernard up to San Francisco to see the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, take a trip on a tolley (Cable Car) from Fisherman’s Wharf to the shopping district, and then take a drive down the coast (Route 1).  That was yesterday, today we went to Santa Cruz to the beach etc.  A bit like Blackpool in some respects, but with 15degrees celcius BETTER temperature and none of the masses of slot machines.  Plus it is VERY clean on the beach and surrounding places etc 🙂

Suspect we will be going to the beach fairly frequently (since it only 20-25 minutes away ……

We finished the week by going to Rodeo Drive and Beverly Hills area, Santa Monica Beach and Malibu – all very interesting to see, but painfully long to get there and back due to the really nasty traffic.

The beach was really nice @ Santa Monica, although with the wind, it was particularly cold.

We also visited Huntington Beach which again was really nice – great beach, folks were surfing and kite surfing – cool.  Huntington Beach would appear to be a location where a number of championships are held each year 🙂

All in all, we (Vicky and Simon) agree that the San Francisco Bay area feels like a nicer area to live than LA – this is not based on anything other than 3 or 4 days driving around the LA area.

The people that have rented ForkHall have made a request that we let them move in on the 26th of this month !!!! It is v unlikely that we will get all the gear sorted by then so we will be going for the 1st April.

That way, we can literally move out and head to CA the week after Easter Monday – flight costs will make the decision for us 🙂

Olly and Elly were OK on the flight home from LA, with them both ultimately getting a reasonable amount of sleep – mummy and daddy maybe got 3 hours in.  They then didn’t get out of bed until they were awoken by mummy @ 11am this morning – so that’s 14+ hours of kip……

Let’s see how they do tonight…..

We have been in Anaheim for two days now, and we spent the first one in Disney’s Californian Adventure, and today in Disneyland itself.

We saw the real Lightning McQueen yesterday and had our photo taken with him AND Mater.  Then we saw a parade just before end of the day and we saw McQueen again but this time he was driving – Elliot was in heaven 🙂  We travelled all this way to see Lightning – and thankfully we saw him on the first day in LA.

We spent today in Disneyland itself, which for those who have been the Disney World in Florida, is clearly the park that gave ALL the inspiration for the Magic Kingdom Park in Orlando.  This park here is a scaled down version – the rides are very similar also.

We have enjoyed some terrific ice-creams on both days – warm caramel sauce on the inside of a waffle cone with cookies and cream ice-cream – nice 🙂

Both days have enjoyed nice sunshine, but only after lunchtime today.  Simon has characteristically burned his face and neck in the sun today – muppet.

We have plenty of video footage and hopefully some of it will be useful 🙂

Finally, Oliver has figured out how to crawl during this trip and has begun to not want to eat baby food – he wants to eat the same thing that Elliot or mummy or daddy is eating…..

We feel like we brought a baby out to California with us and will be bringing a little boy back with us 🙂

Sorry for not keeping ontop of updates this week – it has been very busy and very boring (in some respects) – certainly for Grandma, Granddad, Elliot and Oliver – who have been mostly confined to the car 🙁

We soon focussed in on Los Gatos as being the place that we wish to live, given the wonderful town centre and the parks and general rural feel of the place.  This of course makes it more expensive than the other options but we feel it is worth the additional premium.

The initial house that we liked was in Los Gatos but it was really for sale and there is (as of mid week) a pending offer to buy the house meaning that it is not going to be available to rent in the short term.

We have been AMAZED at the price of housing over here – a small (less than 1500 sq feet) wood home that looks like a caravan that has had it’s wheels taken off and some plants dumped around it is still selling for $600k – incredible.  So this of course means that such a place commands more than $3000 per month in rent 🙁

The place we have found (and subsequently contracted to rent from the 1st April 2010) is a 2 year old detached home in a community on the outskirts of Los Gatos – it actually has a San Jose address but is only 8 minutes drive from the town centre of Los Gatos.  It is in a relatively small community and has a very small front area for BBQ and tables and chairs etc, with a double garage underneath at the back.  There is plenty of space for kids to play out on bikes and will be relatively quiet since the only traffic will be people returning to their homes etc.  there is also a park just 300 yards down the end of the street with children’s play equipment etc in it.

We got a shock when we went car shopping – we did the english thing and went to Cadillac – a 6.2 litre V8 Escalade was the option (nice 🙂 ) and when it came to checking out what it would cost, the guy soon closed up on the fact that we were not US and did not yet have credit in the place – in retrospect, makes a lot of sense – but we were still shocked at how he decided that he was uninterested in us at all.

We are seeing a car dealer that has been recommended to us today before we head to the beach at Santa Cruz.  He has been recommended to us and Simon has spoken to him a couple of times – he seems to think that it will not be a huge issue to locate a couple of cars to suit out needs.  An Audi Q7 / BMW X5 and a Toyota Prius remain at the top of the list.  The Prius we hope to pick up cheap given all the publicity recently 🙂

Monday, we fly down to LA to relax in a more holiday environment – been a heavy week this week, so we REALLY looking forward to it 🙂

So we are here in the bay area having now completed our first day searching.  We have a wonderful tour guide who Simon has been corresponding with over the last couple of months by email.

Her time has been invaluable since she knows the area very well, and seems to have picked up on our requirements exceptionally well even via email.

We have seen inside 3 houses, and two more from the outside.  It is nice to know that Simons gut feel on Los Gatos was well founded – this is the preferred location presently – Vicky agrees with Simon’s thoughts on how nice the area appears to be.

The second house that we saw today was brand new and was on two levels (much like homes in the UK) and was perfect in many ways – a quiet cul de sac of probably 25 homes.  Its’ downside – it is right next to the motorway (sorry, freeway).  We think that as a rental home, this is not far from perfect – it is as ideal as it could be for Simon for work, yet retains many of the qualities that we like in houses.  The back garden is small but already setup perfectly – and has a grass section etc for the boys to play in.

Hopefully, the rest of the week will set us up to see many more locations such that we can decide on the style of home we want and the location in which we would like it to be.

We have also seen a very nice pre school that both Elliot and Oliver could attend.  We are not that sure that we would like Oliver to go there yet, but Elly could certainly do 5 mornings a week and it is priced similar to Little stars Nursery.

Bottom line, Los Gatos, Saratoga and Mountain View are all very much in play at present.

Considering that pretty much all we have done today is travel in the car, Elliot and Oliver have been really amazing – only a small outburst from Elly as we walked around Walmart, and Olly has been good as gold all day.

Vicky had a small outburst his afternoon, as her mum closed the door of Gail’s (tour Guide) Range Rover on Vicky’s hand, squashing three of her fingers 🙁

There appears to be no lasting damage – just a little whinging – good job it wasn’t Simon’s fingers – he would have whined on all day, and I’m pretty sure that there “would” have been broken bones etc.

It is no 8pm, the boys have been bathed, and are now in bed and the second glass of free red wine (manager’s happy hour every night here @ the Milpitas Embassy Suites enables free drinks from 5:30pm to 7:30pm – ace) is looking less likely to be required – we are all pooped and ready to hit the sack.

Hopefully we will get a full night’s sleep in tonight – Elliot woke Olly last night from coughing and this was at 3am – took 40 mins to get Olly back to sleep and Elly woke and took more like 2 hours to get back to sleep.  Daddy got the good deal in choosing to sleep with Olly 🙂

More as it happens…..