Sunnyvale

10-Jul-2004
We got up and packed the remaining luggage in the car and headed off towards Sunnyvale. On the way we stopped at a dog trail (agility) that Kathy had found while searching the web. We stayed for a while and Lisa, Matthew and Alex came along to watch for a bit. We even got to meet a couple of Kerry Blue Terriers (same breed as Teffa!). We had a nice chat with their owners ... I think we were the only out-of-state visitors!

We also spent some time at the playground with Robert spending some time pushing the tire. We also ran into Alice Collins (friend of Kathy, Lisa and Troy) and their kids ... completely unexpected!

After the dog show we headed to Lisa & Troy's house in Sunnyvale where we had a nice dinner and chat with everyone.

Rob went to sleep early but Kathy stayed up later talking with Lisa & Troy.

Editor's Note: The names of the Kerries were Meg and Riley. Robert had to be "saved" from Riley by his owner (Riley tried to lick Robert's ears off! :-). It's only one more week till we see our dogs again (yay!).

The house is looking great ... there is a future garden in progress in the back yard with all kinds of neat things ... vegetables, fruit, flowers ... yum!

11-Jul-2005
Today was a very quiet day. Kathy spent the day working and Rob ran some errands (shipped some items back to the house in Pittsburgh) and read some books. After lunch we both walked down to the local Starbucks (and Borders Books ... dangerous ... be careful!) ... and ... bought some books :-). Good thing we shipped some stuff home!

After our hosts got home, we had macaroni & cheese (one of the kids' favorites) for dinner, along with some leftovers from the night before. We played a game of Lord of the Rings monopoly where Robert had a great start and proceeded to dominate the game until bedtime.

12-Jul-2005
Rob joined Matthew and Lisa on a field trip to tide pools at the FitzGerald Marine Reserve for 1/2 day while Kathy worked at the house. There were 5 adults and 12 kids, Lisa and I were the only adults who weren't associated with the day care center. Our drive was just under 1 hour through some pretty country and Nito (the driver of the van I was in) and I got to listen to Radio Disney through the whole trip :-).

We arrived and met our volunteer naturalist tour guides and were separated into three groups (4 kids each). The guide for my group was Jim and we got to see some neat stuff (sea anenomies, crabs, star fish and harbor seals, which had given birth two months ago ... we had to keep away from them - the white blobs on the rocks are some of the seals).

We had to be careful when walking along the pools so as to not step on any of the creatures and critters inhabiting the area. The park is restricting the number of visitors in order to limit the amount of damage that is done to the area and reservations are necessary for large groups.

Editor's Note: After getting back from the field trip Rob and Kathy grabbed some lunch and did laundry - last time this trip! They then spent the rest of the afternoon around the house reading and working (and updating the web site - gotta keep the readers happy! :-).

After the kids got home Matthew asked for a rematch of Monopoly. We started the game and Matthew built up a big lead but some crafty negotiation by Rob pretty much evened things out. At the intermission (bath and bed time), Matthew has two monopolies, Kathy and Rob each one. Kathy has the most money, Rob the most strongholds (equivalent to houses) and Matthew is in the middle of both.

13-Jul-2005
Today started nice and slow. We did some shopping for this evening as Kathy and Rob were cooking dinner.

Lisa was working at home today so we had some company even though most of her time was spent on the phone.

After lunch we headed off to pick up Matthew and Alex from Early Horizons to take them to play miniature golf. We found Matthew on a tricycle in the back with a dragon painted on his face! After some short delays the kids were in the car and we were off to Golf Land!

The kids didn't want to be scored so only Kathy and Rob were marked down. After a back and forth game, both Kathy and Rob ended under par with Rob 1 stroke ahead of Kathy ... revenge at last :-). Most impressive was Kathy's hole-in-one on the dreaded square volcano (Hole #18) ... way to go! After the game we had a snack and played some games in the arcade before heading home for dinner.

After dinner we headed out to Baskin Robbins for some ice cream and then we packed up for our flight to Denver in the morning (we need to leave around 7:30am or so).