spectacular (spekˈtak ula) adjective Beautiful in a dramatic and eye-catching way. Before we left California, we spent a final few days at Disneyland. It was the end of September, but the whole place was bedecked in ‘fall’ colours and pumpkins. In true Disneyland style, it was spectacular. Dazzling shows of colour, light, water, fireworks and […]
Californian Adventures 2013-2014
Autumn | The Photo Gallery
Our last month in Santa Barbara, California, coincided with the start of the ‘Fall’ season (though the temperatures and local foliage were hardly indicators of autumnal weather!). With only weeks left, before our return to Wellington, New Zealand, (just in time for spring) I definitely felt the need to indulge in some autumnal fair before […]
Frying in Anaheim, California. A Scorchio Weekend!
We were practically frying in southern California last weekend, as the temperature rose over 100 °F (close to 40 ºC). Our main reason for being down in Anaheim was for our 8 year old daughter to see a live game of baseball with her Daddy (she’s really enjoyed going to the ‘batting cages’ and slogging a few balls […]
Sunshine weekend | Santa Barbara to Santa Monica
We’ve driven south from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles several times in the past year. One of our favourite routes is along the Southbound California State Route 1, on the Pacific Coast Highway. We always make a pit-stop at the giant sand dunes to admire the scenery and burn off some pent up energy with […]
A Magic Moment – seeing Endeavour
His eyes welled up as we walked into the large hanger, the Samuel Oschin Pavilion, holding Endeavour, at the California Science Center. My breath paused. The children stopped moving, momentarily. We stood in the presence of a real space shuttle! This shuttle had been into space on 25 successful missions. It blew my mind to […]
Silent Sunday
Butterflies, Smokey Bear & Woodsy Owl at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
It was an unusual overcast morning, with cooler temperatures than we have become accustomed to in southern California. We didn’t realise, until we arrived at our destination, that this would work in our favour. We’d planned to meet up with a friend and her sons at the butterfly exhibition at the Santa Barbara Museum of […]
The Sky
In a few weeks time we will say farewell to a year of Californian blue sky. It’s as though you could walk into a paint shop and pluck that exact colour off the shelf. It’s been practically unchanging all year – apart from at sunrise, sunset and night-time. Having grown up in England, followed by […]
Living out the last of our Californian days
It’s been a wonderful first week in our last rental home in California. We have one month in total here. It’s a beautiful home, with a lovely swimming pool, chickens in the garden, a great tree swing and in a friendly neighbourhood. A great place to finish up over a year of living in Santa […]
Kiwi Kids Hit the Beach in Santa Barbara!
We’ve enjoyed some wonderful moments at the beach in Santa Barbara this week. I often head out for a run when hubby gets home from work, finishing up on the beach, where he then meets me with our daughters. Our youngest two are joining in with a children’s sand race at Ventura Beach soon, as […]
The Photo Gallery: World Photography Day
How do you choose one photograph to summarise a year? World Photo Day is celebrated every year on the 19th August, (but to understand more head over to the website and escape into a thousand images from around the globe). Between August 19-26 the website opens for submissions and, for me personally, it’s a wonderful moment in the year to […]
A beautiful weekend in Monterey
We drove into Monterey on Friday evening, after a stunning drive along the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco. If time had permitted we would have stopped a while to enjoy the many picturesque, sandy bays. Some of the bays were carved deeply into high cliffs, with difficult access making them even more appealing to […]
San Francisco’s Pier 39 & our 15th Wedding Anniversary
With three children a visit to San Francisco’s Pier 39 wasn’t something we could skip on. We’d been to San Francisco before and the attractions on the pier were quite the highlight of their last visit. The moment we told them we were accompanying Daddy, on another business trip to San Francisco, they were amped […]
Catching some air in San Francisco!
The children discovered there was a ‘House of Air‘, in an old airplane hanger, in Crissy Field Park, San Francisco… Our first visit was in the evening, when the older girls could play an exciting game of ball tag on a dozen trampolines, but our youngest had missed out on the younger children’s bounce session, […]