Hi all,
Arizona is just too beautiful for words. The vastness of the Grand Canyon, the beauty of the iconic Monument Valley, the red rocks, desert landscape, volcanos, mountains, trees, and Ancestral Puebloan ruins.
I won't try to describe them - have a look at the photos.
Love,
Tom x
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
A long journey
Hi everybody!
It's six thirty a.m. and I am sitting in a hotel reception in Flagstaff, Arizona, as I'm unable to sleep. Max was awake a few times in the night and after finally getting him back to sleep, I couldn't.
Yesterday was quite an epic day. We flew over 2,100 miles and then drove another 150. Getting up early we got a taxi to Newark airport, checked in and had some breakfast. Security was a nightmare, and as always seems to happen, we were the last onto the plane, after they called our name out (you know that family in the fast show?.....). You could see the look of trepidation on everybody's faces as we walked down the aisle - hoping that we weren't sitting near them! The stewardess asked us which seats, and said "what all four of you there?" as we didn't pay for Max, so we had three seats for the four of us. Somebody else lauged but probably more out of fear for six hours of hell. Actually the boys were amazingly good on the flight and lots of people at the end of the flight said how good they had been.
After collecting our bags we went to pick up the hire car. As part of our journey will be on bumpy dirt tracks we had decided to hire an SUV (Chelsea tractor). Everytime we've hired a car before they have just given us one. This time they said we had a choice. We went down into the car park and there were about 20 different cars/trucks to choose from - 4x4s and pickup trucks, Fords, Dodges, Chryslers, Chevies, Kias etc. After not much sleep and a long flight we were a bit lost. Sam sat in a few and tryed out the hazard lights and we chose a Chevrolet Traverse. Mainly because it looked nice, and Adrian - our most petrol-headed friend - drives a chevy.
We then set off on one of the most amazing drives of my life. Starting in Phoenix in 26 degree heat, and ending in Flagstaff at below zero. Phoenix is in the middle of the desert and shouldn't exist really - all the water for the million residents is piped in from over 1000 miles away. The road out took us uphill, past big red rocks and hills covered in huge cacti. Some of the cacti were at least 20 feet tall. Amazing. We kept going uphill, then across desert plains, then uphill again past amazing scenery, with big red mountains and rocks in the distance. Then as we went higher the landscape completely changed into forests, with huge snow covered mountains in the distance. Flagstaff is 7000 feet above sea level - almost twice as high as Ben Nevis.
We then had a really nice meal and an early night. Today after a swim at the hotel we're driving to the Grand Canyon. I'm very excited. The first view of it is meant to be completely breathtaking, and I can't wait.
Talking of swimming - Sam sam his first length without a float this week. He wears a jacket with floats in it, so not unassisted, but a big step for him, especially overcoming the fear.
The day before heading off to Arizona we went to see the Christmas Spectacular at the Radio City Music Hall, which is America's most famous christmas show. Paul's girlfriend is a Rockette - the troup of dancers that do most of the show - and got us really good reduced price tickets. The boys loved the show, and it was loads better than I had expected. The dancing and overall production was fantastic. Max was on my knees jumping up and down and clapping. Afterwards we went backstage, met the camels, and saw how the stage works.
We'll have internet access as some of the hotels we're staying at, so we may post again. Have a good week.
Tom x
p.s. I can't believe Robin van Persie got injured playing for Holland again. Really bad timing as he's been playing really well and we have a big game against Chelsea in two weeks. At least everybody has been scoring, so we should be ok, but he's done really well in the central striker role and will be a big loss. Bloody international friendlies - what a waste of time.
It's six thirty a.m. and I am sitting in a hotel reception in Flagstaff, Arizona, as I'm unable to sleep. Max was awake a few times in the night and after finally getting him back to sleep, I couldn't.
Yesterday was quite an epic day. We flew over 2,100 miles and then drove another 150. Getting up early we got a taxi to Newark airport, checked in and had some breakfast. Security was a nightmare, and as always seems to happen, we were the last onto the plane, after they called our name out (you know that family in the fast show?.....). You could see the look of trepidation on everybody's faces as we walked down the aisle - hoping that we weren't sitting near them! The stewardess asked us which seats, and said "what all four of you there?" as we didn't pay for Max, so we had three seats for the four of us. Somebody else lauged but probably more out of fear for six hours of hell. Actually the boys were amazingly good on the flight and lots of people at the end of the flight said how good they had been.
After collecting our bags we went to pick up the hire car. As part of our journey will be on bumpy dirt tracks we had decided to hire an SUV (Chelsea tractor). Everytime we've hired a car before they have just given us one. This time they said we had a choice. We went down into the car park and there were about 20 different cars/trucks to choose from - 4x4s and pickup trucks, Fords, Dodges, Chryslers, Chevies, Kias etc. After not much sleep and a long flight we were a bit lost. Sam sat in a few and tryed out the hazard lights and we chose a Chevrolet Traverse. Mainly because it looked nice, and Adrian - our most petrol-headed friend - drives a chevy.
We then set off on one of the most amazing drives of my life. Starting in Phoenix in 26 degree heat, and ending in Flagstaff at below zero. Phoenix is in the middle of the desert and shouldn't exist really - all the water for the million residents is piped in from over 1000 miles away. The road out took us uphill, past big red rocks and hills covered in huge cacti. Some of the cacti were at least 20 feet tall. Amazing. We kept going uphill, then across desert plains, then uphill again past amazing scenery, with big red mountains and rocks in the distance. Then as we went higher the landscape completely changed into forests, with huge snow covered mountains in the distance. Flagstaff is 7000 feet above sea level - almost twice as high as Ben Nevis.
We then had a really nice meal and an early night. Today after a swim at the hotel we're driving to the Grand Canyon. I'm very excited. The first view of it is meant to be completely breathtaking, and I can't wait.
Talking of swimming - Sam sam his first length without a float this week. He wears a jacket with floats in it, so not unassisted, but a big step for him, especially overcoming the fear.
The day before heading off to Arizona we went to see the Christmas Spectacular at the Radio City Music Hall, which is America's most famous christmas show. Paul's girlfriend is a Rockette - the troup of dancers that do most of the show - and got us really good reduced price tickets. The boys loved the show, and it was loads better than I had expected. The dancing and overall production was fantastic. Max was on my knees jumping up and down and clapping. Afterwards we went backstage, met the camels, and saw how the stage works.
We'll have internet access as some of the hotels we're staying at, so we may post again. Have a good week.
Tom x
p.s. I can't believe Robin van Persie got injured playing for Holland again. Really bad timing as he's been playing really well and we have a big game against Chelsea in two weeks. At least everybody has been scoring, so we should be ok, but he's done really well in the central striker role and will be a big loss. Bloody international friendlies - what a waste of time.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Baby, Halloween and NFL
Lyn's post
Hello everyone,
Firstly and most excitingly, Mandy has had a baby. Beautiful Bella was born on Monday 2nd November. I've only seen her on skype but she looks gorgeous. Can't wait to meet her in the flesh and see her Mum, Dad and big brother again.
Halloween
There have been decorataions and hype up for halloween since september, so our expectations for it were pretty high. It did not disappoint. Sam had been to 2 halloween parties the week before and there was a general party atmosphere and people dressed up in mad get ups all week. It felt a bit like the week before christmas except much more American.
On Halloween itself we all dressed up in our fancy dress costumes - Max was Winnie the pooh, Sam was Darth Vader and a Ninja type hero, Tom was a chef and I was a fairy. We went to a children's halloween festival in our local park. There were bubbles, music, big art activities and haystacks to jump around on. It was loads of fun and very cute, seeing all these fairies, ladybirds, witches, astronauts, spidermen jumping around and playing in the hay. Then we went to Central park and went to a pizza restaurant. Michael Douglas came in, ate a pizza and sat on his own at the bar. As we were leaving, a firework display started in the park to celebrate the marathon. We love our fireworks. Then we decided to go and watch the big halloween parade that goes through the Village. The parade was fantastic with brilliant floats and music and truly amazing costumes. The thing that really struck me from the whole day was the absolute enthusiasm and complete lack of self consciousness shown by everyone. I expected the parade to have great costumes, but everyone on the subway train and in the pizza restaurant had obviously put huge amounts of effort into their costumes. The atmosphere at the West 4 subway station was really something. I've never seen so many adults in fancy dress in such a small area in my life - all as happy and excited as can be. I can't imagine anything like that ever happening in London because we would all be too self conscious.
Sam had a lifetime's worth of candy in 1 day. Shops, firestations and just passers by were just giving it to him. He ate toffee for the first time and said, "This sweet is making my mouth work very hard!"
He was a bit disappointed when he went to shops in the days following and no-one was giving out sweets.
Miami Dolphins @ New York Jets
On Sunday, Tom and I went to our first NFL game with Tom's colleague Preston and his lady, Kristin. Preston played American football at school and he was very helpful at explaining the intricacies of the game to me. Tom has been a Dolphins fan for years and was excited to get his first chance to see them live. I was a complete novice. It was loads of fun but felt a lot more serious and passionate than the Yankees game. The ground was full was noisy. The first half was very defensive ending 3-3. The second half even I could follow with touchdowns galore and 49 points scored. The highlight was a 7 minute period of three touchdowns, including two kick off return touchdowns for the Dolphins. Both times he caught the ball and ran 100 yards past every player on the pitch, something that is very rare, and for it to happen twice in one game was an NFL record. You can see it here - even if you have no interest this is worth watching, just for how much fun the man is having! The game was close right up to the end and it could have gone either way, but the Dolphins held on to win 30-25.
Sam and Max
Max is a very sociable little boy. He's recently got very excited about waving and says, "heyho". He likes to wave at people down the street and photos. He also likes Row row row the boat and shouts Wo Wo Wo and rocks back and forwards when he wants to sing the classic. He's desperate to walk and pulls himself up on anything that stays still for longer than a second which can be a bit irritating. He really loves swimming and splashing in the bath. He's beautiful.
Sam quite likes school. The teacher said he is immaculately behaved, very quiet but confident. I'm very proud of my Sam, but I wouldn't call his behaviour immaculate! She recommends play dates so he can make more friends. I've lined him up a list of prospective suitors. Tom and I went to a school parents' pot luck party where we met all the parents of Sam's classmates and we took their phone numbers. Sam loves his teacher too and told me he wants her to come and live with us. He likes it here and loves the fire engines, the lifts, the playgrounds, the towers and the dogs. He does miss people from England though.
We're off to Arizona next weekend. Have a lovely week. Talk soon.
Lots of love
Lyn and Tom xx
p.s. Tom also put a post up today with photos, so keep reading if you haven't seen it yet.
Hello everyone,
Firstly and most excitingly, Mandy has had a baby. Beautiful Bella was born on Monday 2nd November. I've only seen her on skype but she looks gorgeous. Can't wait to meet her in the flesh and see her Mum, Dad and big brother again.
Halloween
There have been decorataions and hype up for halloween since september, so our expectations for it were pretty high. It did not disappoint. Sam had been to 2 halloween parties the week before and there was a general party atmosphere and people dressed up in mad get ups all week. It felt a bit like the week before christmas except much more American.
On Halloween itself we all dressed up in our fancy dress costumes - Max was Winnie the pooh, Sam was Darth Vader and a Ninja type hero, Tom was a chef and I was a fairy. We went to a children's halloween festival in our local park. There were bubbles, music, big art activities and haystacks to jump around on. It was loads of fun and very cute, seeing all these fairies, ladybirds, witches, astronauts, spidermen jumping around and playing in the hay. Then we went to Central park and went to a pizza restaurant. Michael Douglas came in, ate a pizza and sat on his own at the bar. As we were leaving, a firework display started in the park to celebrate the marathon. We love our fireworks. Then we decided to go and watch the big halloween parade that goes through the Village. The parade was fantastic with brilliant floats and music and truly amazing costumes. The thing that really struck me from the whole day was the absolute enthusiasm and complete lack of self consciousness shown by everyone. I expected the parade to have great costumes, but everyone on the subway train and in the pizza restaurant had obviously put huge amounts of effort into their costumes. The atmosphere at the West 4 subway station was really something. I've never seen so many adults in fancy dress in such a small area in my life - all as happy and excited as can be. I can't imagine anything like that ever happening in London because we would all be too self conscious.
Sam had a lifetime's worth of candy in 1 day. Shops, firestations and just passers by were just giving it to him. He ate toffee for the first time and said, "This sweet is making my mouth work very hard!"
He was a bit disappointed when he went to shops in the days following and no-one was giving out sweets.
Miami Dolphins @ New York Jets
On Sunday, Tom and I went to our first NFL game with Tom's colleague Preston and his lady, Kristin. Preston played American football at school and he was very helpful at explaining the intricacies of the game to me. Tom has been a Dolphins fan for years and was excited to get his first chance to see them live. I was a complete novice. It was loads of fun but felt a lot more serious and passionate than the Yankees game. The ground was full was noisy. The first half was very defensive ending 3-3. The second half even I could follow with touchdowns galore and 49 points scored. The highlight was a 7 minute period of three touchdowns, including two kick off return touchdowns for the Dolphins. Both times he caught the ball and ran 100 yards past every player on the pitch, something that is very rare, and for it to happen twice in one game was an NFL record. You can see it here - even if you have no interest this is worth watching, just for how much fun the man is having! The game was close right up to the end and it could have gone either way, but the Dolphins held on to win 30-25.
Sam and Max
Max is a very sociable little boy. He's recently got very excited about waving and says, "heyho". He likes to wave at people down the street and photos. He also likes Row row row the boat and shouts Wo Wo Wo and rocks back and forwards when he wants to sing the classic. He's desperate to walk and pulls himself up on anything that stays still for longer than a second which can be a bit irritating. He really loves swimming and splashing in the bath. He's beautiful.
Sam quite likes school. The teacher said he is immaculately behaved, very quiet but confident. I'm very proud of my Sam, but I wouldn't call his behaviour immaculate! She recommends play dates so he can make more friends. I've lined him up a list of prospective suitors. Tom and I went to a school parents' pot luck party where we met all the parents of Sam's classmates and we took their phone numbers. Sam loves his teacher too and told me he wants her to come and live with us. He likes it here and loves the fire engines, the lifts, the playgrounds, the towers and the dogs. He does miss people from England though.
We're off to Arizona next weekend. Have a lovely week. Talk soon.
Lots of love
Lyn and Tom xx
p.s. Tom also put a post up today with photos, so keep reading if you haven't seen it yet.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Connecticut in the fall and Yankees win the league
For the second weekend of my Mum's stay with us we had hired a car to drive north, get out into the countryside and see some more leaves. I picked the car up on Friday night and we set off early. People at work had recommended going to Sheffield in Berkshire, but we had been watching the "fall map" which shows where the leaves are the best colours, and instead that area was "past peak", so instead we headed to the Cornwall and Kent area in Connecticut. It has to be said that the British settlers weren't very original when they set about naming the places in New England! (Although just south of Kent and Cornwall is the fantastically named Gaylordsville).
After a nice lunch in Kent we stopped to look and some great sculptures, and then went for a nice walk by some waterfalls and through a forest. The weather wasn't great, but it was still beautiful. We stayed at a small motel and got a good night's sleep and on Sunday we woke up to a really clear sunny day. In the cornwall area a lot of the leaves had already fallen, so we headed south to a place on the Appalachian Trail, with a nice river, canal and covered bridge. We had a nice walk and then found a lovely pie shop for lunch. The apple and pumpkin pies for pudding were delicious. After lunch we went to a state park on Lake Candlewood and had fun throwing stones in to the water and looking at the beautiful colours in the trees surrounding the lake. We have now put some more photos on our flickr site, including some of the amazing leaf colours.
After the drive back to New York my mum babysat so that Lyn and I could go and watch the NY Yankees against the LA Angels in the American League Championship Series. If the Yankees won they would win American League and qualify for the "World" Series - kind of the baseball equivalent of the Champions League. I had been to three baseball games before and the atmosphere had always been a bit flat, but the new Yankee Stadium was absolutely rocking, for this big game. The Yankees hadn't been to the World Series for 9 years. Even though we were on the top (fourth) tier we were standing up for half of the game, and I was surprised by the fact there were chants for a lot of the players. The Angels took an early lead, but the Yankees fought back to win 5-2 and the stadium erupted to celebrate winning the league. Lyn and I had a great night, and one of the good things about american sports is you can drink beer in your seat. The game finished at midnight and we stayed to watch the celebrations before heading home.
Right - Sam and Lyn are making pancakes and I need to go and buy some lemons. Lyn will be writing soon, and we have Halloween and an NFL game to tell you about. Feel free to comment at the bottom. Love to you all,
Tom x
After a nice lunch in Kent we stopped to look and some great sculptures, and then went for a nice walk by some waterfalls and through a forest. The weather wasn't great, but it was still beautiful. We stayed at a small motel and got a good night's sleep and on Sunday we woke up to a really clear sunny day. In the cornwall area a lot of the leaves had already fallen, so we headed south to a place on the Appalachian Trail, with a nice river, canal and covered bridge. We had a nice walk and then found a lovely pie shop for lunch. The apple and pumpkin pies for pudding were delicious. After lunch we went to a state park on Lake Candlewood and had fun throwing stones in to the water and looking at the beautiful colours in the trees surrounding the lake. We have now put some more photos on our flickr site, including some of the amazing leaf colours.
After the drive back to New York my mum babysat so that Lyn and I could go and watch the NY Yankees against the LA Angels in the American League Championship Series. If the Yankees won they would win American League and qualify for the "World" Series - kind of the baseball equivalent of the Champions League. I had been to three baseball games before and the atmosphere had always been a bit flat, but the new Yankee Stadium was absolutely rocking, for this big game. The Yankees hadn't been to the World Series for 9 years. Even though we were on the top (fourth) tier we were standing up for half of the game, and I was surprised by the fact there were chants for a lot of the players. The Angels took an early lead, but the Yankees fought back to win 5-2 and the stadium erupted to celebrate winning the league. Lyn and I had a great night, and one of the good things about american sports is you can drink beer in your seat. The game finished at midnight and we stayed to watch the celebrations before heading home.
Right - Sam and Lyn are making pancakes and I need to go and buy some lemons. Lyn will be writing soon, and we have Halloween and an NFL game to tell you about. Feel free to comment at the bottom. Love to you all,
Tom x
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