You wanna go where everyone knows your name ...

... or at least where a few people do - Boston baby !

We're just back from our Christmas trip to Boston to visit Lisa, Kevin and the girls.  Alma has seen Lisa a few times since we all emigrated our respective ways, but the last time I saw the two lads was in 1999 - the very first time we went skiing in New Hampshire.  Sure t'was mighty !  To make us feel right at home they took us straight from the plane to an Irish pub for a couple of (socialable) drinks.  Now I'd be the first to question the authenticity of most Irish pubs as the vast majority are owned by non-Irish nationals cashing in on our greatest export.  This pub however - hand on heart - was the genuine article.  Within minutes of our arrival a fight broke out.  It was almost as if it had been staged specially for us just so that we could feel right at home.
Needless to say the lads were under fierce pressure after such a blazing start on the entertainment front, but true to form we had a brilliant time !

The first couple of days were all about eating, drinking and generally lazing around - I mean it was Christmas after all.  Most mornings we made a special effort to get up before noon, but it wasn't easy I can tell you.  Even the dog got in on the act after a while - though I don't think he really had the stamina for it.

On one of the days we took ourselves as far as the subway (not the 'restaurant') to hitch a ride to town for a good old fashioned walk about.  In classic style we had no clue where we were going - nor did we really care, right down to forgetting at the time that the "Cheers" bar was located in Boston.  Turns out there's two of em in Boston; the original and a replica.  Coincidently we came within a stone's throw of both - oh well.

We did happen upon the homeground - the "Garden" of both the "Bruins" (ice hockey) and the "Celtics" (basketball), and managed to catch a lovely sunset not too far from the original "Cheers" bar (am I starting to sound a little bitter yet?).

The "Garden".

Sunset in Boston ... not too far away from the original "Cheers" bar (bah humbug).

Later during the week we headed to New Hampshire to see if we could slot in a bit of skiing.  As it turned out the weather was too mild, so rather than attempt to ski on ice we decided to give it a miss.  Skipping all forms of snow related fun was not an option however so we had a good old tubing session with the kids.

The route to New Hampshire.

A view from the lakehouse we stayed in for the night.  The story wouldn't be complete without passing the ever so casual remark that the heating died at some stage during the night, so needless to say it was a little on the "fresh" side.  It could have been worse only for the fact that we had coincidently warmed up before going to bed via a hardcore session of "Just Dance 3" for the Wii - just to humour the children you'll understand.

Tubing with the kids.  Look who's having the most fun !  The superman move was optional (but I can assure you - highly recommended).

After getting back to Boston and to top it all off, we headed out for a meal on the final night only to discover that it was Alma's birthday !  She genuinely looked surprised (can't imagine why).   It's only a matter of time before they start asking for ID for these things.

Leak detection - Uncle Sam style

For those of you who haven't already read a couple of posts back, we've got a leak.

It's everyone's worst nightmare, but especially when you're house is made of papier mache - or wood as it's sometimes referred to.  When faced with a crisis of such dramatic proportions there's clearly only one thing to do - call the lads from Oakwood (corporate housing).  They don't quite have a "S" on their chest or run around wearing their underwear on the outside of the normal clothes (at least that I'm aware of), but they're good !

Within seconds (ok I'm perhaps overutilising my artistic license) the plumber dude was here.  Seconds later (and this time I'm not exaggerating) he's put his leak detection skills to full use.  Five holes in the ceiling later he's nailed that baby down !  Yes - you DO have a leak.

So now not only do we have a leak (nope - still not fixed) but we have five holes in the ceiling.  That's what I call an added bonus !  THANK YOU MR. SUPERHERO PLUMBER DUDE GUY.  Oh and let's not forget that the water is now switched off, the carpet stinks and in line with the X-Factor theme, no guesses who wants to go to the loo.

I've got that feeling, that Christmas feeling ...

It's Christmas time - even here in SD !

As newbies to the area it's especially hard during the day to get that Christmas feeling because, well let's face it - the sun is still beating down.  They're even predicting it's going to be 23C on Christmas day.  At night it's a slightly different story.  It's still really bright, but then for a very different reason.  The whole idea of conserving the planet hasn't quite made it this far yet so it's all about having electric personalities (if you did my drift).  It goes from the extravagant (by our modest standards) ...

to the ridiculous ...

to the downright perverted ...

I mean who seriously has the time to put up that many lights let alone setting them up so that it dances to the music that happens to be on at the time (not that you can see that from the photo).  On the other hand, it's not that different from the Halloween set in that respect (see here).  Rumour has it that they also go to great lengths on Paddy's Day and Easter.  The mind boggles.

We're falling behind but.......

... still alive and kicking. 

Finally managed to go to the X-Factor and actually GET-IN!!! (in your face William!!! ... not that I'm childish or anything)  It was brilliant!!!  I was in the excellent company of two very enthusiastic Dutch women, thanks Freke & Sandra!!  We had to queue for hours but it was a great chance to ''people watch'' and believe me there are some very strange, very botoxed people in LA.   When we finally got to our seats, we needed to go to the loo, of course!!!  We had to beg to be allowed to go, stating that instant death was almost eminent.  We were then escorted to the only two working loos - outside no less.  Now we all know how difficult it is to pee when somebody is waiting outside the door for you but knowing we were about to see the great (cue appropriate Dr. Evil move) Simon Cowell in person was enough to sort that out.  We managed to get great seats and clapped and screamed until we were hoarse.  We all enjoyed the show and seeing how it all works.  It's no wonder these women on TV look absolutely stunning, they are constantly surrounded by other women who are touching up their makeup, hair and even powdering the top of LA Reid's bald head!!!!

The surrounding area in LA ("The Grove") was also great.  We had lunch in the Cheesecake factory and coffee after the show, where we watched it (fake) snowing outside..  only in America!!!

On a separate note, I've started my golf lessons and cookery classes.  If I don't become the next best thing since Tiger Woods, then I'll give Martha Stewart a run for her money.  William has also joined the world of golf but we have to thread very carefully not to frighten him off.  The new clubs, specially tailored made to suit the freak he is, have been purchased.  Now we just need to make it all work perfectly... those of you who know William know what I'm talking about!!!  Fingers crossed.

Spent a day last week making Christmas cookies with some expert help from very experienced Americans. This is a holiday tradition and they spend hours and more sugar than you ever want to know about making and decorating Christmas cookies.  These are then lovingly packed into Christmas boxes and given as gifts to neighbors, teachers etc.  It was great to do, but I don't know if I'd have the patience to decorate so many cookies.  Maybe Martha Stewart has nothing to fear after all!! 

Today, as you can see I'm catching up on some long overdue correspondence and blogging while I'm waiting on the professional carpet cleaners to arrive.  Now I know that sounds very luxurious BUT it's not often you have mushrooms growing out of your carpet!!!!  It's not all glamor and fun filled days over here you know......  I have my stresses too.  I wonder what will I have for lunch????

What Will didn't tell you.....

... that he failed to win me a cuddly toy for my birthday.  All he had to do was climb the ladder... simple!!

... that having my brother Roy over, was providing me with just as much craved after company and attention as I'm used to over here!!

... and lastly, the reason for not catching any fish was not totally Roy's fault...  the reading material didn't seem to have any answers on catching trout either.

Our First Visitor

No one could have predicted it, but our very first visitor came in the form of none other than Alma's brother Roy, and with him he brought the weather.

The first couple of days were miserable, and not just because of Roy.  We're talking freezing, damp and other - not really all that synonymous with San Diego weather related adjectives.  We EVEN had to light the fire - though to be fair we're talking American style meaning at the flick of a simple switch.

Luckily we had a couple of half decent days (again nothing to do with Roy) where we managed a trip to the Coronado Hotel (famous for a feature in the film "Some Like it Hot" and other "not really all that important to a mainstream Hollywood fan" films).  As it just so happened on the same day at the same location, the America's Cup was in the bay (yeah we knew that before heading that way - no honest). 

 (Nothing would satisfy Alma but to have her picture taken beside yet another Christmas tree in the hotel)

We also fitted in a trip to the Solana beach ...

... and just yesterday the big fisherman took me fishing on Lake Poway.  We're talking a definite cert here.  The lake was just after being stocked with hook loads (excuse the pun) of Trout, so off we headed to Walmart to get the cheapest possible fishing rods (remember: hook loads of fish => no expensive equipment / skill required) while doing our best to avoid the weirdos.  The latter however failed.  With wall to wall fishing rods, picking the "one" that best suited us turned out to be a bit more challenging that we had anticipated.  Luckily help was at hand in the for of "Jeff" at the bait counter.  Unfortunately Jeff wasn't a fishing rod expert.  In fact Jeff sounded like he was from way down south (no deeper than that) which really begged the question, "If Jeff is not the fishing rod expert, does that mean he looks after the guns?".  Anyways, we quickly moved on to his best bud; got outta there and headed to the lake.

Filled with anticipation we hit the lake.  I caught loads of fish (see example below of me reeling in a big one).

Roy on the other hand had to occupy himself in other ways (see example below).

Ah in fairness, neither of the two of us even got a sniff of a bite - though we did see plenty of fish swimming past our boat in a rather "in your face" manner.  I had some excuse being a nerd, but as for the other fella who's lived off the land (and water) all his life ... well let's just say one of us was a little disillusioned.

In Safe Hands

No we're not talking the "safe hands" of David Seaman or for that matter the slightly less safe hands of Packie Bonner - no, no - we're talking the safe and more than appreciative care offered by those good folks from Sharp Medical.  I mean how often do you get a thank you note - personally signed mind you - after a trip to the doctor?  In fairness it has to be more than just a little concerning.  Shouldn't they have more pressing matters to be attending to? 

Who ever said medical insurance costs in the US were overpriced?

SeaWorld

Last week (yes it's taken that long) we headed to SeaWorld for Alma's birthday.  It wasn't as big as I expected and you kind of feel a bit sorry for the animals there as they just get to swim around and around in a very confined area .... but at the same time I'd have to admit - it's fairly spectacular !

It's not just all about sea creatures.  They also hold parrots, owls etc. captive ... er I mean are helping the conservation cause.  Below is a heap of pre-selected photos.

The sealion / otter show is done like a couple of different TV sketches of game shows / x-factor (don't mention the war) like programmes - pretty hilarious !

The "Shamu" show was easily the most spectacular.

The compulsory drowning in the "splash zone".

They're so good, they even have Christmas there already !

Disaster Squared

Disaster 1:
Last weekend to avoid going all stir crazy we decided to get out of the house; not an easy decision considering the weather at the time but nonetheless we bravely faced the elements.  For those of you passing a snide remark or two - it was actually lashing rain (the highest quality "top of the mornin" variety at that).  So we hit the road and headed for a town (I'm already exaggerating) called "Julian" - made famous during the gold rush and in more recent times for its apple pie.  It took us a little over an hour to get there but when we did it was a case of, "Right, hit the toilet, grab some pie and let's get out of here".  Miserable !!  The weather was like a mid-July afternoon in Donegal; freezing cold, the kind of damp that could penetrate your granny's bullet proof underwear and just down right dark at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.  That said, true to its reputation the apple pie went down rather well.

Outside the "Miner's Diner" across from the town hall.

Disaster 2:
A couple of weeks ago I was sat behind ye olde laptop (as I'm wont to do) "playing" away to my little heart's content.  Alma was engrossed in the X-Factor on tv at the time when she casually shouts across to me during one of the 15 billion ads, "Will I see if I can get tickets for the X-Factor?".  Unwilling to participate in a deep and meaningful conversation about how I would rather chew my own arm off, I performed some quick mental arithmetic estimating the probability of "success", taking into account how popular the show is (outside the group of people I care to call friends) and the rather limited period of time in which to acquire said tickets.  My natural response was of course "yeah yeah yeah" and proceeded about my very very important business.

You can't possibility imagine the chill of horror that shot down my spine when Alma phoned me at work about a week and a half later all excited (read as: huge understatement) about having got the tickets and for free no less.  Where could my calculation have gone wrong?  Frantically, I clicked on the Matlab icon ... but that's a story for another day.

So we were off to see the X-Factor.  All we had to do was find and follow that yellow brick road.  I had my doubts - I'm talking serious doubts.  Not about the whole concept behind the show, not even the contestants, but how could we possibly have gotten tickets for the most "popular" show on earth and then without it costing a single dime.  My concerns however fell on very deaf, still very excited ears.

The big day arrived.  As if the tension wasn't already high enough, what with my so called colleagues ripping the absolute p*ss out of me, Alma received a mail from the organizers (all of them individually now mind you) conveying how much they were looking forward to seeing us.

So resigned to the fact that there was no God in this world, I started up the beast and we headed off to Hollywood Baby !  The journey itself was rather uneventful.  We arrived nicely on time (which by the way was again fairly suspicious) - gates opened at 2:15pm and closed at 2:45pm .... hmmm, and headed for the queue.  No sooner had we arrived than we were told that it was just NOT going to happen.  The tickets were issued on a first come first served basis and they already had their quota.  Suddenly things became clear - we had been given muppet tickets; tickets to help fill the studio so it continued to look like the most "popular" show on earth.  Alma was gutted - the kind of gutted that a kid feels when they discover that Santa Claus isn't real.  After some pleading (not from me) we had to face the truth: it was NOT going down in this hood today.  After masterfully placing Alma's tail between her legs we headed off.  I was under strict instructions to simply shut up until Alma managed to recover from a soul destroying upper cut.

All's well that ends well.

Addendum: Despite the blatent cruelty in this post both from the organizers of the X-Factor and myself, there is a good chance that Alma (but definitely not Will) will be given a second chance to go with confirmed tickets.  Fingers crossed people.

To go or not to go......

...that's the question!  I went!  We all do it from time to time.  It's orange, well, maybe dark orange but wouldn't it be more dangerous to slam on the brakes and skid half way over the white mark??  Traffic lights can be so tricky.  There I was, knowing I probably should have stopped... and then, there it is, yep, ah sh*t... a police car.  I knew he would follow me... I saw those awful flashing lights in my mirror, pulled over and waited for the stocky donut packing cop in sun glasses to approach.  License, insurance and vehicle registration please mam.....  I fumbled around for said papers, apologizing profusely in my best Irish accent, hoping to God he was one of those millions of Americans who had Irish blood somewhere in the family.  Oh please go easy on me, think of your great, great, great grandmother....  He said I ran a red... well how was I supposed to know that by the time I actually made it across the rather large junction, the lights would indeed be red for about 10 minutes from his point of view!!

He went back to the car to check my documents and I sat sweating in the car (it was not only the nerves but it was a rather hot day).  At least nobody knows me here I comforted myself.  Two joggers passed by and had the decency not to look back and laugh.  What is taking the cop so long?  and HOLY CRAP what the hell is Johan doing knocking on my window?  Of course I'm so bloody flustered now I can't even get the window down. Where are the keys, the window button thingys etc.  Turns out Johan was one of those very decent joggers who just happened to be out jogging on his lunch break.  Wouldn't you think he would have some important meeting to attend, never mind catching me red handed.  Still it was nice of him to check if I was ok.


Praying hard now as the officer approaches the car...  ok here it goes, keep apologizing and acknowledging the bad decision with pleading eyes.  After repeating several times, how dangerous running a red light was, he let me off... oh the relief.. Thank you God!! Now I just have to get home to ring Will before Johan gets to him first.......

Where are we again?

Last night we hit the cinema using the voucher Rob and Sandra got us as a present (we left the popcorn and candy at home just in case we were asked to share) - thanks you guys !  Anyways, it turned out we were just shy of the ticket price, so Alma whipped out the old debit card and proceeded to ask if she could "PIN" - the Dutch equivalent of using your debit card.  Oddly enough the lady behind the counter didn't immediately cop exactly what she had in mind and proceeded to question Alma's true intention.  As is typical in a foreign land, when one doesn't immediately understand you, it MUST mean they're deaf, so Alma again repeated that she'd like to "PIN" but obviously this time in a much louder voice.  At this point I decided, to give her an auld nudge and whispered "debit card". 

Clearly shook by the whole incident she then proceeded to try to slip past the guy collecting the tickets ... even though she had just bought them.  Old habits die hard - you can take the girl out of Glynn, but you can't quite take the Glynn out of the girl.

Halloween Party

Last Saturday we hosted our very first Halloween Party (and judging by how long it took to clean up afterwards it will definitely be our last ... only messing !).  Harm, (of Neerhof heritage) helped us out with loads of ideas to scare both children and adults alike.  We were very pleased with the result but what was even better was that everyone (the dudes from work together with their families) put a lot of effort into their costumes - which really added an extra dimension to the atmosphere.  I'm not normally short of a word or two at this blogging thing, but I think in this case the pictures say more.

 

The host and hostess.  Finally I got to dress up as my all time favourite super hero - Dr. Sheldon Cooper.

 

Freke's buns.

A small selection from the not really all that scary room.  The brush keeps moving around the floor while laughing like a witch.  Funny for about the first 5 seconds.  After that you just want to smash it.

 

Frankie says, "Relax" (or perhaps - put your hands up in the air)

 

A glimpse of the "oooh my underpants are starting to fill up because it's so scary in here" room.

 

 

Harm arrives in style at the party.

 

Spock and his fairy God wife.

Now I've got you, you wascally wabbit.

 

They say these parties can put years on you and judging by what happened to Thijs, I'm inclined to believe it!! (Above: the 'before' shot)

The 'after' shot.

 

Everyone - tucking in !

Alma in her finery ... and many of her finer creations - which in all fairness ooohed and aaahed the trick or treaters this evening.