A happy little elephant!

At the new park we hang out in lives this happy elephant sculpture. He is such a cutie, Ashwin loves to pat him. Last time we were there he was playing a game of hide & seek with some kid behind the elephants trunk.

It's Geese Lightning!

Go geese lightning, you're burnin' up the quarter mile, geese lightnin', go geese lightnin'! Ashwin has a Saturday night fever move here :) Oh the red stuff on his face is Cherry Pie... he scored a sample at Trader Joes when we did the groceries, kept him quiet for a while.

Fancy a drive in my car??

Here are some kids at Mitchell park in Palo Alto & it the park has some really cool stuff like polar bear & elephant sculptures to climb on. This is like Ottos bus out of the Simpsons but only smaller :) Ashwin was so keen to get behind the wheel that he was waiting in the back for ages for the kids to get out of the drivers seat, finally it was his turn, next stop the 101 (highway here in CA).

He he he - fun at a NEW playground

Wednesday it was time to venture out to new turf, so many other mums had told me about this park called Mitchell park in Palo Alto - that I had to check it out. It was excellent with this water feature with fountains that squirt water sporadically. I was so surprised that Ashwin didn't go for it, he was observing from the sideline (for now anyway!) Instead he found a Mexican friend here on the play equipment & had fun chasing him around.

Happy Fathers Day!

What better way to enjoy fathers day than with a brewski! Sunday was fathers day here in the U S of A, so we decided we'll go for a hike in the morning & go out to dinner to celebrate - no cooking day! Here is James (looking impressed with his beer) at our favourite Indian restaurant Godavari AKA Sues.

From Birds to Beasts

Ashwin has had his first graduation - at The Little Gym. He has a little ribbon in his hand to say he is a star! Our teacher Miss Sarah (in green) was excellent with all the kids! He has such a fun time there & just runs around everywhere (it is just perfect for a 20 month old), which is good as he sleeps well in the afternoon! The other bonus is that he learns gym moves like forward rolls, the balance beams & hanging like a monkey. Don't know if it is a good thing as he likes to climb everything now, even the furniture to dance on the dining table??!!

Yank tank

James is in car heaven here! Nearly everywhere we go we see these vintage cars in all their glory - I found this spunky convertible in downtown Mountain View. We were in San Jose the other day & saw a '70's Cadillac for sale, they were asking around $7,000 still it is too much to even contemplate if you aren't a car nut.

How about a taste?

It is $5 to do tastings here - I remember when I did tastings at winerys back home it was free & you left with a case of wine as you tried so many & were wasted!! This is the ranch tasting room interior with cool decor & fairy lights & antlers hanging from the ceiling. Oh & there were peacock feathers for sale from the birds that enjoy all the picnics (they were very friendly), I even saw one take a tortilla off a picnic lunch & scoff it... maybe it was enjoying a beer with it too?

How about a Shandy??

As we had an English person (Katy) in amongst the meetup crew she was into having a shandy or as they call them over here a Panache - our mate in the pic here Bill is from L.A. so he is quite the sophisticated type. We have Maura enjoying her refreshing beverage of beer & pink lemonade, goes down so well on a hot day!

Winery in our sights

On the way back from the hike I was wondering where are all the vines?? As we were on a bit of a hill looking into the winery we found them nestled next door. This is certainly a different landscape compared to the Yarra Valley or the Barossa region (the only places I have visited in Australia) will have to see more when we return home!

Buzzzzz come to me

Man if I was a bee, I'd certainly love to come & visit this mandala flower. Spring & all the sunshine brings out cute little wildflowers like this one. They are just dotted in amongst the dry long grass - geez there could be rattlesnakes in there!! The macro was in action for this one & we captured a very interesting colour combination.

View of the valley...

On this lovely hike near the winery, you could get some beautiful views of the valley in all it's sunny glory. Here is the Stevens Creek Reservoir and in the hazy background the mountains that we see everywhere we go. From this pic everything looks very green but this year the rainfall has been quite low. I just like hiking for the reason where you can do minimal elevation & get an incredible view of the valley. Imagine if we went harder, the views would be phenomenal - we just take it easy as we hike with Ashwin in a backpack!

A peacock in the winery!

Check out this spunky little fellow! Sunday we went for a hike to this gorgeous little winery not too far from us at all called Picchetti Winery - some genius (our meetup co-ordinator Maura) came up with the idea that we'll go for an early morning Sunday hike & head on back to the winery for a picnic. Now that's motivation :)

W.W.K.I.P day...

On the day of the picnic, Shona advised me that it was W.W.K.I.P (Worldwide Knit in Public) day - June 9th. These days I hardly go anywhere without my knitting as you never know when you might need to whip your needles out & do a few rows. My capelet is moving along & will be finished soon - time to choose some buttons!!

Summer days and it's picnic time...

Here we are enjoying a picnic with some live jazz tunes on a Saturday afternoon at this great park Vasona County Park in Los Gatos. At the Sunnyvale market in the morning we bought this amazing loaf of bread from a German bakery - in the front (looks like a flower) which was delicious.

Rock garden of paradise

Here is the entrance of the gardens an array of plants so it looked like a larger landscape when you looked closely. You can see Ashwin (the hooded dude) in the background on the right for an idea of perspective. Oh yeah I found out that 'dude' (the CA version of mate!) is from Dude Ranch, a place where slick folk hung out in the country.

A dandy lion

On our travels we see many a dandelion in the green grasses of sunny California. Ashwin was first introduced to the fun of these by our friend Alex when he was staying with us for his holiday - he showed Ashwin how to play with them. Whenever we see one now the fun is blowing them, or grabbing & squashing them. Usually there are yellow flowers nearby that cop the same treatment as well! Here is one in all it's fluffy glory & a little damp from the sprinklers - luckily, safe from any destruction.

Aloe Aloe

First time I saw this plant was in San Jose at the Rose Garden district, I thought what a funky looking plant - what is it?? I finally found the name of this plant Aloe Saponaria (Aloeaceae) & it is a native of South Africa located in the California area of the botanical gardens. Here is a close up of the flowers that shoot up from the centre of the aloe plant that you can see in the background.

Furry protea...

What a cute bundle of flora this is... I managed to get some pics of the protea in bloom from the early furry stages (like this) to a fully developed flower. I used to see a few at the florists in Australia. The varieties were just amazing all hailing from South Africa, which I found very interesting. It is good to increase your plant knowledge being the 'budding gardener' that I am. So far in our little patio garden we have some herbs, cucumber plants, lettuces, tomatoes, capsicum & a camellia.

On a poppy, it's a Bee

Playing with the macro function on the small digital I wanted to take a pic of the Califonia Poppy. Zooming on in & look what I found... a little bee. There are some really great looking bees around here, my favourite being the plump furry bumblebee. Speaking of bees, Ashwin sees a bee now & makes a bee with his thumb & index finger & goes bzzzz. He learnt that in music class when we were singing about bumblebees marrying flies & it goes a little something like this Fiddle dee dee, Fidlee dee dee, the fly has married the bumblebee...

Yet more squirrel action!!!

Look at this spunky little fellow, this one is one of many that came to visit us on our travels around the gardens. One thought the video camera was some sort of tasty morsel but alas there were signs that said 'no feeding the squirrels!!' Fair enough as we don't want a repeat incident of what happened in Mtn View with the squirrels that 'attack' kids for food??!! They are now dead, RIP guys :(

Rice cakes for me, rice cakes for you!

Wandering the paths we found some logs, so Ashwin thought he might take a break & have a snack 'like a frog on a log'. Looking at this pic now with the onset of summer, it is strange to be so rugged up but that is the deal when SF is foggy, it gets very chilly & layers is the GO. I even may have to start knitting up some extra scarves just to have in my bag, just in case. The only problem with Ashwin & the gardens is the ponds & his desire to be in them, in the end he just settled for a puddle to splash in.

Another tall & very big tree...

in the SF Botanical Gardens... I just loved it there as there was an incredible collection of plants that I had not seen before. The other exciting thing about visiting was going to the Australian plant section & imagining I was back home. They had a huge 'black boy' which would have been years old, but here they call it a grass tree just to be 'politically correct'. I think we could have spent hours in there wandering the paths & finding plants. Oh & it really did remind me of the 'tan back in Melbourne with even a duck pond!

At the carwash - yeah!

On the way out to SF today with Shona for a trip to the San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum. Shona was keen to go through the carwash - complete with hairdryers for drying. Ashwin hated it completely as it was noisy from the water & all the crazy stuff that was slathered all over the car.

Gym & ice cream

The other day we were trialing out a Gymboree class in Los Altos Rancho shopping centre. Here we stepped back in time to this strange strip mall with shingles on the roof & shops for people with a helluva lot of money. The class was OK but a bit unstructured and as you have to pay money for it, I'd rather go to the park.

All grown up now!

From our visit the other day for coffee at Shoreline cafe in the morning, Ashwin & I saw the goslings now in their teen years. They are looking a bit dorky these days & not as cute they were a few weeks ago. I had to hold Ashwin back as he wanted to go & pet the geese but oh-oh we don't want to get bitten.

Peek a boo!

Looking through the video camera pics the other day I found some long lost pics from ages ago... When I first saw the Canada Geese at Shoreline, it was very exciting. This little guy is playing peek-a-boo under his wing. Now when we go down there there are many more geese & their goslings wandering the paths.

I'm hungry...

...any flies on the menu?? Here is a teeny weeny venus flytrap that was at the Chomp exhibition at the Conservatory of Flowers. There were so many unsual plants that I had never seen before.

The conservatory

One of the places at Golden Gate Park I wanted to check out was the Conservatory of Flowers - the excitement was the exhibition of carnivorous plants. It was an amazing place with so many gorgeous orchids.

Greens to go...

We went for a drive to find some lunch in San Francisco & as we couldn't find a park anywhere, we landed in Fort Mason - yay as we found a free carpark! We were wanting a tasty, healthy meal & here was a restaurant we wanted to check out greens - a vegetarian restaurant, what a bonus! The food was yum & we had the most delicious pastry for dessert. We will definitely have to head back there one day on a clear day for a beautiful view of the water & the Golden Gate bridge, coupled with a delicious meal.

Ships Ahoy

Our daytrip out on our weekend away was to go for a wander through Golden Gate Park - I didn't realise that it was so big & 50 blocks is way too much to cover in a day. So we checked the map & choose the places we would check out. We had gone for a drive & it was time for Ashwin to let loose of some energy so we found a playground to play in. I liked the artwork on this boat with all it's sea creatures. Ashwin had a ball here & it was soon time to wander on to the windmill, that is to drive on over there.

Wake up lazybones!

As Ashwin was having a rough time during the night sleeping in a new environment we bought him into our queen size bed to sleep with us for a while. We had an early start in the morning & Ashwin enjoyed his sleep in the big bed with his doggie named Bobbo. The only problem was trying to get him up to face the day!

Rocking back to the 20's

Where we stayed in Pacifica there was this cool bar facing the ocean that had been there since 1927! They had the coolest furniture in their cocktail bar where we hung out for a drink & a snack. We found a couple of vegetarian options on the menu - some jalepeno poppers which were jalapeno with cheese in the centre, crumbed & deep fried (oh so bad but very tasty!) Check out the till in this pic, very cool indeed - can just imagine the bar back back in it's day with everyone dancing the night away!

Crabby crab shell

Here is the beach from a crabs point of view - with some surf in the background. Unfortunately when we arrived at the beach it was freezing cold & overcast compared to the valley where it was a warm sunny day. It is funny when you head on over to SF the differences in weather can be so extreme.

These boots were made for swimmin'

In amongst the seaweed & cigarette butts on the beach we found a dirty old boot in amongst all the rubbish. The black minerals in the sand make the beach look dirty but that is just the way it is. It is hard to compare to the beaches back home in Australia - white sand, blue water & clear sky!!

This way to our getaway...

As we had a long weekend the other week here for Memorial day, we had to take advantage & head away for a couple of days. We ended up going to Pacifica - 60 km north of our place right near San Francicso. It was beautiful to see an ocean beach & feel the chill of an overcast afternoon by the sea :)

Now for some yoghurt!

Hey there Ashwin, it's time for dessert after your dinner!! Now that Ashwin enjoys feeding himself, playing with his food & playing with his cutlery - here he is after a feed... nice moustache & beard little one. It certainly is fun to watch him eat these days as he has so much enthusiasm. If he isn't walking around with a rice cake, he's belted up in his highchair eating pasta with pesto. We have some favourites too at the moment such as strawberries and everyones favourite - ice cream!!

Little Golden Bear

This bear looks very much like a koala - this is the first time I have laide eyes on a golden koala! The biscuits are quite yummy & come in little packets, so as soon as Ashwin sees them he's screaming for some sugary goodness. I just love Asian supermarkets, you find the best stuff there!!