Sunny Santa Cruz

When all is wrong with living in California (as it sometimes feels like) the good news is that everything is always right in Santa Cruz.  We went for the last full operating day of the season - until next year ...

Soaking wet from the log flume!

On the sea swing all by herself!

Another year, another pumpkin patch

T spent the whole time racing over the hay barrels with his friends like a loon.  Sophia and Rachel actually stopped to draw breath a look at the pumpkins.  I feel like we have well and truly 'done' pumpkin patches.

No Jacket Required

To beat the heat (and to make the most of our wristbands) we headed down to Santa Cruz on Sunday.  Only problem with this plan is that the current heatwave is blowing in from the desert.  This is causing the a/c to click on in the middle of the night as it's so  hot and it also means the coast has ridded itself of the dreaded fog and is actually warmer than the inland.  It was the clearest skied, most scorchio day we have ever had in Santa Cruz!
We did the rides (the kids discovering the joys of the log flume on a very hot day), the beach, jumping in waves and ice cream.  A perfect day :)

Little Earthquakes

Tommy and Brady go to see the Earthquakes.

It was all fun and games down on the pitch :)  Although a tired and sad boy came through the door at 11pm - they had lost.  As a England (and potential Bolton) fan, T is going to have to get used to losing!!

Sophia joins the swim team

Sophia was excepted into the pre-competition swim team at DACA swim school.  She had to have an evaluation which she passed and she started this morning.  We are very proud of our little fish. She did really well, only swimming into the wall a couple of times! (she was doing back stroke to be fair!)  It's certainly the day for swimming, when we got there at 9am it was already about a million degrees and all the parents were fighting for the tiny bit of shade.  I took these sitting next to the bin!!

The drought and the heat

Oct 3^rd 2014

So it’s meant to be fall.  Only problem with this is that it’s 100F today.  A heat advisory warning has been issued and it’s going to be one of the hottest weekends of the year. I have to say I am truly sick and tired of the hot.  I was in target the other day returning a swimming costume I had bought for Sophia (she needed medium instead of small – my baby is growing up!)  The air conditioning was blasting out and I was duped into believing I really needed a soft thick hooded cardigan (you can tell where Tommy gets it from!) So I bought it.  Obviously as soon as I got outside again I realized that there’s no way I shall be wearing any time in the near future.  It’s now winking at me from the coat cupboard.

So the year of continuous flip flops has now really come to bite us all in the butt (as they say here) First it was serious drought, then severe drought.  Now it’s exceptional drought, the worst CA has ever seen.   It really is crazy.  Last week it rained, for the first time since April and for the fifth time this year, and people were literally dancing in it.  But then in true CA style after an hour it cleared, the clouds parted and the sun came back out.  You could almost hear the state groaning.  And it’s not only the lack of rain, it’s just been so hot.  We’re now back up to mid-August temperatures.  When’s it going to end??  There is a reservoir on the expressway about a mile from the house that is completely bone dry.  The need for water is getting desperate.  Yet the Californians are still sprinkling their lawns because, god forbid, they go brown.  Stop it!!!  It really winds me up. 

The long term forecast doesn’t paint a pretty picture as the moment.  Sun, sun, sun, sun, oh a bit of cloud, sun, sun, sun. You get the picture.  Don’t get me wrong I love the sunshine but I also like the seasons.  Oh, and water coming out of the tap when I turn it on.  Come on rain.  I want to leave the house in my lovely new cardigan with an umbrella in my hand!

Meanwhile at the fall festival...

Sept 26^th 2014

Whilst Ste was off at half dome we were having fun at the fall festival at Carden!

It's a long way down...

Sept 26^th 2014

Ste and Shay conquer half dome J  It was a 19 mile round trip and 5000ft elevation.  I wasn’t worried at all about Ste – he’s not that clumsy really :/  Due to the fact that the green car was making a horrid squealing noise and the silver car wouldn’t make it to Yosemite (I doubt there are many charging points along the way!) a fancy convertible was hired to make the drive more bearable (it’s a hard life!) 

They both came back full of beans. However his stories about how easy it would have been to fall make me very glad I didn’t know that before he went!