Grand Canyon

I was exhausted after our trip yesterday - we left the hotel at 8am and got back about 12 hours later.  We had an amazing time though - I highly recommend the Detours AZ company if anyone is looking to do a tour!  We had only 5 people on the tour - the buses can take up to 10 - so it was a friendly, relaxed trip with a very knowledgeable guide.

I'll try to be a bit restrained with photos and not show the 100-odd photos I took :)

Our first major stop was at Sedona - a little town surrounded by amazing red-rock formations.  We had about 30 mins to stop, have a look around and visit the shops.

After we left Sedona, we drove through the Oak Creek Canyon.  My thoughts of Arizona were the 'wild west' landscape - desert and cactus - so it was a huge surprise to go through a canyon and up a mountain covered in pine trees - and snow!!

After some more driving, we finally came to the Grand Canyon.  Wow!  I'd seen it before from a different viewpoint but I think the side we saw it from this time was much better.  Plus there were very few people there - it was like we had the whole place to ourselves.  We stopped at about 6 places around the South Rim for photos (all very relaxed and not rushed at all) - we had lunch at the first stop looking out over the canyon.  Awe-inspiring!

Hurry up Mum, it's cold standing here!

And to top it all off - there was snow at the Canyon too.  This was Billy's first experience with snow, so he was just as excited about the snow as the Grand Canyon.  In fact, probably more so - he is 8 after all :)

Its a place that really stretches the mind.  Its so huge that its hard to get any perspective on how big it actually is. 

Speaking of stretching the mind - we spent today getting to LA and settling in at our hotel in Anaheim :)  Yes, Disneyland is coming up very soon!!  We'll spend tomorrow sleeping in and working out what we want to do around here - we're here for the next 10 days so we can afford to take some time to rest up!

Phoenix, Arizona

We arrived in Phoenix yesterday.  Even though the flight was under 2 hrs, the travel took up much of the day - getting to the airport, getting through security, flying, getting from the airport to the hotel..  We had a very strange taxi driver from Phoenix Airport, who on asking where we wanted to go, and me replying with the name of the hotel, said "please...  You forgot to say please..."!!!  I was slightly gob-smacked :)  Maybe he has grand-children he is trying to train to be polite?!

Anyway from that start, Phoenix has proven to be largely under-whelming so far.  The hotel we are staying at (due to Pete's conference) is in a rather affluent part of town - the shopping centre across the road has Macys & Saks!  Don't think I'll be popping across for some shopping :)  It is quite pretty in a dry, desolate way - we can see Camelback Mountain from our hotel.  The hotel itself is quite spectacular inside.

We caught a taxi into downtown Phoenix today to go to the Arizona Science Centre - but frankly, we were rather under-whelmed with that too after seeing so many great and unique ones in San Francisco.  It did have a few cool exhibits, but on the whole, not much that we hadn't already played with.  The fact we were dodging hordes of school children on excursions probably didn't help the enjoyment levels :)  Fortunately it thinned out when they all went off to have their lunch.

We have a Grand Canyon trip tomorrow which I'm really looking forward to.

More San Francisco

We spent the day riding the cable car, going to the cable car museum (really interesting!) and wandering around Pier 39 eating ice-cream in the sun.  It's a hard life :)

Muir Woods and Alcatraz

Billy & I went on a day trip today.

First stop was Muir Woods to see one of the last old-growth coastal Redwood forests.  We only had an hour to spend or the bus would leave us behind, so went on a short walk through the forest.  It was gorgeous, if a wee bit nippy in the shade!  We've been absolutely spoiled by the warm weather we've been having up until now and had to stop at the gift shop to buy a pair of gloves for Billy!

We had a quick stop over at Sausalito for lunch.  Again, only quick, or the bus would leave us behind!

Then the bus dropped us at the Pier in San Francisco where we caught the ferry out to Alcatraz - the former island prison.  We watched a short movie, and did a 45 min audio tour of the prison.  I'd been before, but I think it was even better this time.  Billy loved it!

One more day in San Francisco before we fly out to Phoenix.

In San Francisco

Sorry for all those who were waiting eagerly for news :)  We've been in the US for a week, but I've been having way too much fun to blog!

We spent the first week with Suji and her lovely family.  What can I say?!  We were made so comfortable and welcomed from the moment we stepped off the plane and its sad to leave them :(

Like the computer and science geeks we are, we've spent time at various museums - the Computer History Museum (only in Silicon Valley!), the Tech in San Jose and the Exploratorium in San Francisco.

We've also been communing with nature at the Coyote Hills Regional Park.

Sorry Suji, I had to do it :)

There's also been rock-climbing, park fun and just hanging out together...

Now however, we're off on the next part of our adventure.  A couple of days in San Francisco and then off to Phoenix, Arizona.

Bittersweet..

Little Gems short story competition

After a month or so of writing, editing and, lets be honest, a fair bit of procrastination, I finally submitted my entry into the RWA's Little Gems short story competition.

It was very nerve-wracking to hit send and put my writing out there, but I'm looking forward to getting some feedback on my story.  The story gets read & marked by 3 judges - the comments should be quite invaluable, I hope.

And I can but dream that's its good enough to get chosen to go in the anthology :)

Daily walk

One of my goals for the year was to incorporate more exercise into my life.  I had a bit of an epiphany the other night realising that there was absolutely nothing stopping me from going for a walk each morning first thing (other than my own laziness).  Billy's now old enough to either come with me or stay home, even if Pete is still asleep!  I guess I'm still getting used to Pete working from home - even though it has been almost 12 months!!

So day 5 of exercising every morning.  I've walked 4 mornings for 20 minutes and did 20 mins of Yoga one day to give my shins a rest. 

Billy has opted to come with me for 3 of those 4 walks which has been good.  I can't walk quite as fast with him in tow, but its good accountability :)  And we get to see & hear lots of cool stuff - like the spider webs we noticed everywhere this morning because of the fog.

In 7 days time..

we'll be in the air between Australia and America! The excitement level in our household is fairly high, as you would expect! Luckily we have lots of social things on this week to distract from the big event.

Preparation is in hand (I hope), with hopefully not too many last minute things to do.

Geography fun

I picked up a bargain while shopping a couple of days ago - a SmartGlobe. Its a globe with a wand attached that lets you find out lots of information about the various countries. You select the information you want to hear, then the country and you can listen to anything from the national anthem, the weather, leader, population, language etc etc etc. You can also compare distances and currencies between countries.

It also comes with quizzes - eg find the capital cities of the countries that it states within a certain time period.

And best of all, its updateable for free via the internet for one year. Billy has already plugged it in and downloaded the updates because it was annoying him that it had our old prime minister as the leader :) He's really enjoying playing with it and keeps coming out telling us amazing facts.

Meet up with Libby

Yesterday we went for a drive to meet up with fellow blogger Libby. Libby and I have known each other online for years - this is the 2nd time we've met up and we had lots to chat about.

We went 10 pin bowling first - it was right across the road from where they were staying, so very handy! Well actually, first we went back across to the cafe at their resort for morning tea while we were waiting for a free lane. Then we went back across to the bowling alley.




It took a little longer than expected (especially since we had to wait a while longer for the lane to be free), so we called it quits after one game and had some lunch at the bowling alley. The toasted sandwiches were surprisingly nice!

After lunch we headed back across the road for a swim in the amazing pool at the resort (it wound its way right through the resort). I hadn't brought my swimmers, so Libby & I sat & chatted while the kids swam.

Thanks for taking the photo Amy!

It was a fun day - I hope we can meet up again next year :)

Miscellaneous photos from 2nd week

We're back from holidays. Unfortunately it looks like we brought an unexpected visitor back with us - a tummy bug :(

The 2nd week was mainly overcast and rainy so we didn't do much. Billy did get to go skiing another time, and did some fishing; we played monopoly Jnr, and games on the computer and DS.

We went one day to the Coffs Harbour Races. I've never been to a race meeting before so it was quite an interesting experience. It was far more than just horse races - fashion competitions, reptile show, jumping castle etc.






On the last night we were away, there was a free concert by Richie Gudgeon. He played last year too, and is a very talented performer. Nice to sit back in the open air and mellow out to everything from CCR to Kenny Rogers, Paul Kelly to Rolf Harris!

To Wii or not to Wii..

So opinions needed..

Is a Wii anything more than another games console? Does it really help hand-eye co-ordination? Does it translate to the real world ie if you played Wii tennis (assuming there is such a thing), would that help when you stepped onto a tennis court? Would you get the same amount of exercise as if you really played?

If you've had yours for a while, do you still use it?

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So much to do, so little time...

And as for me, well, I've been doing the three R's - reading, writing and relaxing :)

Short story

I've managed to break into my relaxing to get the final few edits done on a short story I'm entering into the RWA's Little Gems competition.  Its gone through 4 complete iterations, with lots of tweaks in between, and I think I'm finally pretty happy with it.  Its now in the hands of my wonderful proof-readers :)