Yosemite National Park

The massive granite blocks on both sides of Yosemite Valley were amazing:

We had a brilliant day, we drove through the park and stopped and admired the scenery regularly!

But we spent so long making sure we had everything in the car that baby Olive could possibly need that we both forgot all our warm and waterproof clothes, Pete didn't even have a coat! We tried to hike to a waterfall viewpoint, but the mist was like torrential rain, so we didn't get very far!

We knew it wasn't very promising when it started hailing on us in the car park, but we walked to the bottom of Yosemite falls, there was snow on the ground and we were freezing! 

By the time we got to the bottom of the falls, we were both cold and wet!

We caught the bus around the valley and Yosemite Village, but there was an accident with a cyclist and we ended having to change buses and it took forever. When we finally got back to our car we found we had accidentally left the boot wide open in our rush to get out of the hail. It had been left open in the car park with all our luggage and valuables inside, for about 2 hours but luckily nothing had been touched!

Arriving in US

Despite Pete setting his alarm for 2 50am, and us having spent all week planning, it was still a mad dash for us to catch our flight. We panicked when uber wouldn't work and wondered if we were mad sat in Bristol coach station in the early hours of the morning with more luggage than we could carry. 

But the flight was awesome, it was the first British Airways service to ever fly to Oakland, the flight was empty, the staff were great and the baby slept for most of the journey. There was a welcoming committee, complete with Union Jack and a film crew!

We were delighted when our last piece of luggage arrived onto the carousel. It didn't arrive with the other luggage, someone had already been to check the hold and we were sat discussing what paperwork needed to be filled out and how long it was likely to take!

We picked up our hire car and gave ourselves one night in Oakland to recover. Chicken and waffles was our first taste of America and noisy Amtrak trains running down the main road outside the hotel!

And so we start a new chapter

We entered new territory on 23rd November 2016, with the birth of our daughter, Olive. Welcome!!

Babymoon

With only a few weeks to go until our little bundle of joy arrives, we headed for a last minute holiday to Tenerife, our last holiday as a twosome! We stayed in the quieter North West corner, in a lovely hotel up in the hills:

We spent most of the time chilling, starting each day with a lazy brunch in the hotel restaurant, grazing on their selection of bakery and deli foods. Normally I find European breakfasts can be hit and miss, but not here!

We did have a few day trips as there was a good bus network. We went to the neighbouring town and took a dip in a natural swimming pool (no photos!). Another day we went up further into the mountains and enjoyed the spectacular views and rock formations:

We also spent time just relaxing in the local town, eating some tasty food and having afternoon cuppas in the local square.

All set now for holidays with three....

Outdoor jobs

We've been doing some outside jobs, first the front lawn:

Then Pete painted the stone circle:

Then we re-felted the summerhouse roof and painted it inside and out:

And repainted the fence:

Orange!

Ghana/LA

Selina used some of her extra leave to visit family friends in Ghana....

As soon as Selina booked flights to Ghana, my friend from Uni, Gav invited us to his wedding to Jen in LA. So after Selina had a couple of nights back home, we both headed to California for wedding celebrations. Many congrats Gave & Jen:

We enjoyed wandering around the different areas of LA, Venice Beach was lovely, we particularly liked the nearby canal:

My favourite day trip was Universal Studios. I've always wanted to go:

Looking round the different themed areas was fun (Simpsons, Shrek, Jurassic Park - although ride was shut! Boo! Transformers, Minions), but my favourite bit was the tour, going round film sets and then special effects bits (Psycho, Jaws, King Kong). The live action Waterworld was also good:

We were in town for the Oscars. We had a fun night in a bar a few doors down from the famous TCL Cinema where the event was actually happening. The streets were all locked down, so no celebs spotted!

Another real highlight was going to an LA Clippers basketball game. The bits in timeouts were mental, freebies being fired into the crowd and people trying to win jeeps! You can just about make out Beyoncé and J-Zee in the front row:

Gav also took us on a road trip to San Diego for a couple of days, going round some Microbreweries and getting up close and personal with some seals:

Thanks Gav and Jen for looking after us so nicely!

Eden Project, Dismaland & Glasto Retreat

We used our tesco clubcard points to visit the Eden Project in Cornwall. It was a lovely place, with some great indoor biospheres.

Camping nearby in a YHA was fun with great views out to sea, enjoyed with a bottle of Korev.

We also visited Banksy's Dismaland in Weston-Super-Mare, good fun!

We also went on a yoga/meditation retreat at the Glastonbury Ashram, still trying to be hippies! We did lots of yoga, a Kirten and ate lots of healthy veggie food. It was a lovely long weekend, definitely to be repeated.