Merry Christmas to all!

Santa has come-to multiple state and homes for lucky, little Miss E. We've unwrapped, exchanged and stuffed ourselves to serious extremes for 2 days, but we've also seen many,many family from near and far and that has been our greatest gift.


We were up until the wee hours last night celebrating in Suffield, CT with family we don't see nearly enough of, and then we were back at it early this morning.


We spent a special morning with Papa and Grammy, opening stockings, gifts and savoring a delicious breakfast before hitting the road and heading back to MA. We were treated to some fluffy snowflakes on our journey; nothing to complicate the drive, but just enough to make driving on a Christmas morning feel magical.

We then commenced with the annual Pickard/Parker Christmas Day Swapathon. The cousins were delighted to see each other after a long stretch of visits only by FaceTime.


While the kids played, the adults got down to business and wrangled our way through our Yankee swap. We laughed, we ate, we drank... it was truly a perfect afternoon.

We're tired from a few days of putting in a lot of hours , but can't imagine doing it any other way, or having changed a thing!

Merry Christmas!

Location:Briarwood Dr,Attleboro,United States

Holidays, Rainbows and Bugs and everything else nice...

We're back on the East Coast for our first family visit since leaving in August, and I can say we have this week packed full with visits and fun. We arrived a little later than planned this morning thanks to some snow in Denver, but we're pleased to see 44 degrees on the thermometer and NO SNOW here :)

Interesting, we just saw a rainbow! Wacky weather, I guess.


We ended up camping out at the airport Residence Inn (our hotel chain of choice, if you recall our prior journey) due to our late arrival. Fortunately, as West Coasters, this wasn't that painful at 1:30am this morning when it still felt like a civilized hour to us. At 7:30am, it was a another story...

We wrangled ourselves out of bed and onto the highway (it feels nice to say that, in CA, they are freeways, and I have NOT mastered that lingo) and past our favorite RI landmark, the Big Blue Bug, resplendent in his holiday best- Rudolph nose and antlers. Oh how we've missed you Big Blue.



We then stopped in heaven, I mean Dunking' Donuts, and picked up the Big Box of Munchkins to keep us going. A quick stop at Nan's for a bit of luggage/present reshuffling- oh yeah, I failed to mention we arrived with 5 large suitcases because : A. Southwest lets you check 2 free bags a person B. we all know I am cheap, so why ship if I can check said presents in my luggage and C. we were a little behind in present procurement this year. This is horrifying for someone like me who NEVER checks bags.

With a lighter load in tow, Emma and I took off to meet up with her BFF Amira, to exchange some gifts, and catch up on all the little things 7 year old girls chatter about when they now live 3,000 miles apart. Mainly, "can I come live with you, can you come live with me??" Ah, if only it were that easy :) We had a great lunch at Shogun, one of our old favorite spots, and made all kinds of plans for the girl's next visit- only 6 weeks away. Much better than 5 months!!



We're on the Mass Pike now and on to Papa and Grammy's in CT. Someone is a little tuckered out from the lack of sleep last night and the time change...


Hey, it was a good travel day for us today... We made it to 3 states :)

Location:Worcester-Providence Turnpike,Sutton,United States

True California Weekend

Fall festival, wine, Apple... What more can you ask for. We had a great weekend exploring south this time. Our travels took us to a fall fair in San Jose, complete with 4H exhibits (the Big E it was not, but it was the best we could do!) where we acquired some nice pumpkins and E got her fill of small furry animals (none of which came home with us- much to the disappointment of E).


Los Gatos was our next stop, and the highlight of my day, possibly my year :). We went to the David Bruce Winery. Anyone that knows my drinking habits knows what a big deal this is. We drank lots of free wine, then bought an insane amount of not free wine.


They know EXACTLY what they are doing there :).
We even got to meet David Bruce. Interesting fellow who used to be a dermatologist. I don't even know how to draw a parallel there, so I'll just say he makes a darn good wine.


Los Gatos is right next to Cupertino. Cupertino is home of the Apple Company. Being so close, we figured we had to take a quick spin by. Sadly the company store isn't open on Saturday, so we didn't all come home decked out in Apple t-shirts, but we did notice the seem pretty fired up about the iPhone 5 launch as they were posting banners outside entrances. It was fun to see, even if iMacs weren't raining from the sky :)


Next weekend we have a 4H event and a fun run/charity event for Emma's school, so we'll be busy, but local.
We miss you all!

Location:Blackhawk Meadow Dr,Danville,United States

Labor Day Weekend Sightseeing - Mission 2

The family auto logged a few more miles today, but it was well worth the ride. We started our mission after breakfast (the farmer's market treats were delicious -I'd give the prize to the double chocolate zucchini bread) and headed over the Bay Bridge and onto the 101 for our Golden Gate Bridge expedition. I've decided there are a few too many VERY large bridges around here. I don't even have a fear of heights and these make me nervous. However, to get where we were going, and to make E happy, we had to traverse the Golden Gate. San Fran was a bit foggy this morning, and at times it was tough to even see the top.






From there, our destination was Muir Woods, but once we arrived, it was packed, parking was a nightmare, and we all know I don't like people enough to deal with that! We kept driving on to Muir beach instead, and were rewarded with spectacular, if foggy views of the jagged coastline.


We did get to see some amazing trees along the road, even though Muir Woods wouldn't have us :)



After a quick pitstop for road sandwiches at a great local deli, we ended up at Point Reyes National Seashore which met everyone's expectations. E found 6 purple starfish and lots of other shells to start our West Coast shell collection.



We took a nice long walk down the beach, and I was "surprised" by a big wave that snuck up behind me as I was helping E get a live starfish back in the water. I went home a little wet!



We left our mark, at least for today :)

Location:Blackhawk Meadow Dr,Danville,United States

Seeing some more sights

Today was a little something for everyone. We started out with our new Saturday morning ritual of breakfast out and the local Farmer's Markets. Today we tried the San Ramon market. The produce and treats were fantastic. We may be reaching the acceptable strawberry intake limit per person per week in this house, but they are just so unbelievably good and cheap! We also picked up some cinnamon buns that may or may not make it until breakfast tomorrow morning ;)

We then set off for the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield to tour the jelly bean plant, gets LOTS of samples and buy a few more treats. Check out this super cool photo of our tour. Don't be jealous of the hats...


From Fairfield, it was just a few miles to Napa, so of course we had to go check it out... and what 7 year old kid doesn't love a wine tasting?

We wandered around downtown Napa for a bit to find a good spot for lunch and settled on Rotisserie & Wine. Turns out, it is owned by Tyler Florence and HE WAS THERE! How cool! He was actually working. The food was fantastic too, although after seeing Tyler, we could have been served cardboard and I would have been happy!

We drove up route 29 and stopped at the Peju Winery for our first of hopefully many wine tastings. The spot is beautiful, as I'm sure all of Napa Valley is, but we'd seen this one on a TV special back in Boston before we left, so thought we'd give it a try. Emma was entertained with the wine barrels and artwork while Joe and I sampled some of Peju's finest.



Tomorrow we're off to the Golden Gate Bridge (E is itching to drive over it!!), Muir Woods and the beach. We love long weekends!!

Location:Blackhawk Meadow Dr,Danville,United States

Local tourists in our new city

We've spent a week unpacking and working and thought we would reward ourselves with a bit of San Francisco sightseeing today.
We started out on Lombard St.


to test Joe's driving skills on a curvy road after having just driven 3,000 miles in a straight line. I'm happy to report he can still turn the wheel :)




We then headed over to the Palace of Fine Arts and took Emma to the Exploratorium.


Very cool. So much so, that we are now members, so any of you that might come for visit-it'll be on the To Do list.
We also had our first official view of the Golden Gate Bridge today (as CA residents). It's one cool bridge.


We took a stroll around Fisherman's Wharf, saw the seals, picked up some Sourdough (E already ate this poor turtle's head off and said "it sure is yummy")


and Ghiradelli chocolate and had some ice cream.


Some of us might still be wearing a bit a bit of hot fudge!


The Alcatraz Triathalon is tomorrow and there was lots of activity going on: concerts, parties- it was a good day to be downtown.


We'll keep on explorin'...
We'll get to The Rock next time.

Location:Franklin St,San Francisco,United States

Mile 3178. Home

A lot of miles, a lot of fur, too much fast food, but we're here!



We're off to register E for school, but wanted to let everyone know we're here. Safe and sound with happy E and pets.







More later!

Location:Blackhawk Meadow Dr,Danville,United States