Hi all,
Time for another weekly roundup:
Wednesday 12.06.13:
Great way to start the day with the happy news that Zhann Wyatt Nicol arrived safely today. Congratulations Drew, Lys & Zakiyah, we cant wait to meet your gorgeous little man xxxxxx
Today we had decided to hire a carpervan to go and explore the Orange County surf beaches along the coast. Somehow through a miscommunication between Ben & I, he had booked the car at one branch yesterday while I looked up walking directions to another branch (we didn't realise this at the time though, we thought we were all efficient having all of our info together). This is what happens when you have no internet access & then get on free wifi madly rushing to search all the info you need for the next few days haha :) So this morning we set off to the car hire branch and long story short, once we realised we were going the wrong way, checked the GPS to find the right place and worked out where we were meant to be going, it was about a 2hr walk before we arrived at the correct branch. I can laugh now, but it was seriously not funny at the time haha. So I guess we started the day off badly, we were both in a bit of a mood by the time we got the car. We'd booked a small economy car but they upgraded us to a 2012 Mazda 6 so that felt like luxury. I tell you what though, after driving Toby the Mazda felt like I was sitting on the ground.... I was surprised how much I'd gotten used to sitting up nice & high and being able to see where we were going. I really didn't like being so low in the hire car, it just felt weird which I thought was funny because it was pretty much the same as my car at home which I've always loved - funny what you get used to hey. We stopped for coffee and then hit the coast road, which again was very scenic and pretty. We drove through Seal Beach and Long Beach but didn't pull off until we reached Huntington Beach. It's a very surfy town with another really long pier over the water and I was surprised how many people were out & about at the beach for a weekday, it's obviously a very popular place. We had a walk out along the pier & around the main streets, then stopped by the international surf museum only to find it closed for renovations which was a real shame. We had a blowout on Toby the other day when our (plastic) pressure regulator on our water inlet hose burst, so we found a Walmart & bought a new brass one. Now we can hook up to our water again instead of using our tanks. We had planned on going in to Dodger Stadium to catch the baseball tonight (since we have the car), but we didn't end up leaving Huntington Beach till 5pm so we wouldn't have made it back home and then across town in time. So that was a bit disappointing, we both LOVED the baseball last time, but we sussed out the Dodgers schedule and they'll be playing in San Francisco when we're there so we might go see them play then. Instead, when we got home we grabbed some beers, cooked some hotdogs and listened to the game on the radio. Not quite as good as really being there but it was still a fun night :)
Thursday 13.06.13:
There's a bit of a baby boom this week with more happy news that Reegan Valentine Williams also arrived safely today. Congratulations Kurt & Sarah, she is just beautiful xxxxxx
Mum & dad are coming today!!!!!! Our first job was to return the hire car, so we dropped it back & had the rental car company drop us off in Manhattan Beach. We had a really yummy brekky at The Kettle then strolled around checking out the area before ending up back down at the pier. There were heaps of surfers out again so we sat watching them for a while. It's like having front row seats watching them off the pier - you're practically right above them which is great. After watching for a few minutes we noticed a pod of dolphins playing amongst the surfers in the waves as well. That was pretty cool - they were just riding the waves up and down the beach & were fascinating to watch :) Afterwards we walked home along the beachfront path which took about an hour, but because there's so much to see it didn't feel like that long at all. There are so many big fancy houses along the beachfront!!! Lots of rich people hehe. Once we got home we did some laundry and tidied up a bit, then went and lazed about on the beach for the rest of the afternoon. Excitement of the day was when mum & dad arrived for dinner around 5pm, it was soooo good to see them! Lots of hugs all round!!!! We got the fire going on the beach and sat out there having drinks and pizza while we caught up. After dinner we traipsed up to Toby for coffee and dessert, where mum pulls out a goody bag for us. We have a little wedding photo album from Michelle & Chris, 2 x huge 1kg jars of moccona coffee, 2 tubes of vegemite and a 'Toby' bear from mum & dad plus 4 x 500g jars of moccona coffee and 4 x small jars of vegemite from Nan. Thank you so much everyone, I can't believe it, love you all!!!!!! :) I cannot wait to have vegemite toast in the morning!!!! :) Mum & dad were understandably pretty knackered from their flight over so we had a relatively early night. Can't wait to spend some more quality time together in the coming weeks. Once they left we packed up & got ready to head off in the morning.
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