After what was the shortest Christmas break my girls have ever seen they are back to school here in Canada! We had a short 2 hour orientation on Tuesday and on Wednesday is was back to a full day of classes! Sofia and Indi are attending a local elementary school and will be getting the real Canadian school experience! They came home happy and excited and have made some new friends already! Their teachers all seem lovely and happy to have some new girls in the class! Sienna starts at her new school next week! So funny to see snow covering the playground and no school uniforms!
I took my first morning walk Vancouver style today – lets say it was quite a contrast to my regular Sydney walks of the last few weeks! All I could think was I am glad Scooter isn’t here yet as there is no way his little paws would have enjoyed the cold snow I had to crunch through! Lets say this was probably the sortest and most clothed walk I have been on for some time! Brrr …
Happy New Year! Welcome to 2017 which for us comes with big change and challenges as we have just picked up our family of 5 and moved to the other side of the world. If I think back just a year ago I could never imagine the changes that 2016 would bring us and now here we are living in Vancouver Canada for the next 2 years. As with any big life changing event it was not without serious thought and consideration but one we know will be a fabulous experience for our family. Our main reason for the move is for a school for Sienna which I will talk more about once she has started.
We are now on day three having left Sydney on the 29th December – so far so good! We are staying in an air bnb in the suburbs of Vancouver with beautiful views over the city. We are only here for a few weeks until we move into a rental in Kitsilano for the remainder of the girls school year. After settling in on night one (without our luggage that was delayed in San Francisco) we did wake up the next morning to clear skies allowing us to get out and pick up a car that we had purchased before we left Australia. We took a drive around the area to see the girls schools and get our bearings!
Day 2 and new years eve and we were in for a treat! Snow! The snow began at around 11am and by mid afternoon it was fairly heavy and blanketing everything. The girls had the best time playing the backyard building a snow man and just having fun. They have never been in falling snow before so it was quite a special way to spend our new years eve. We cooked up a delicious roast dinner and snuggled up inside watching a movie waiting for the new year to arrive! Certainly a different experience to what we are used to in Australia.
So here we are on the first day of 2017 and day 3 in Canada. I am really looking forward to embracing my time here and hope to bring a bit more to the blog – I am not sure what that will entail but I am hoping to use my time to get out with my camera and discover this amazing place as well as write a little more about the school system we are embarking on with Sienna.
In the meantime here are some photos from our backyard on new years eve! Happy New Year to everyone!
So the final leg of our big USA adventure – a drive down the beautiful Pacific Coast, via Big Sur and into Santa Barbara.
We departed Monterey mid morning after grabbing a quick breakfast and hitting the road for one of the most scenic parts of the California Coast. The drive is definitely not one you should rush – I was constantly saying pull over I want to just stop and look. I actually would have liked to have taken longer and stayed one night on the coast so we could do more exploring as there is so much to be seen in this part of the world however we needed to get to our accomodation in Santa Barbara.
As well as our numerous stops along the coast to take photos and admire the beauty we also stopped at San Simeon for lunch. We had hoped to visit Hearst Castle which is on the hill overlooking San Simeon, however most tours were booked out and the only one left was at 4pm and we needed to continue on our journey. After leaving San Simeon we stopped to visit the elephant seals which you can find on the beach about 10 minutes south. It is an amazing site to see the seals playing and enjoying life – at certain times in the year this beach is so packed with seals that you can’t see the sand! So amazing!
Finally we arrived in Santa Barbara around 5pm – we loved Santa Barbara – such a pretty sea side town. We ate dinner at a casual cafe on the water, with a beautiful sandy beach out the front – it reminded us a lot of home. We only had the one night here which was just not enough for us to explore and just hang out so if we go back again we definitely would stay the extra night or so.
Our final morning in the US was spent having a delicious breakfast in the main street of Santa Barbara followed by a look around the shops and then a walk on the lovely Pier. We hit the road back to LA around 1pm which took us along the final stretch of the coast via Malibu and back to Santa Monica where it all began. We stopped at our favourite Mexican for an early dinner before a quick drive back through some of the stunning streets of Beverley Hills and back to the airport for our late night flight! We seemed to cram a lot into our last few days which seem to rush by all to fast.
So there is the final leg of our great US adventure. So much fun – a trip I would highly recommend for anyone wanting a great family holiday.
Here are the final few photos to show of our last few days. I do have a video but sadly I can’t get it to load into vimeo so it will have to wait for now. I hope you have enjoyed hearing about our trip and of course I am always happy to share any other info about places we stayed and things we did.
After 4 fantastic days in San Francisco we headed south down the coast to the beautiful town of Monteray where we were staying for the next two nights. Monteray is a charming little sea side village that is well known for it aquarium, fisheries and sea life
On recommendation from a friend we stayed at The Intercontinental on Cannery Row. The location was fantastic and our room was just wonderful. It was spacious (which was lovely after San Fran) and like all Intercontinental properties it was beautifully presented and maintained.
We ate in some of the lovely restaurants along Cannery Row where we could watch the sea otters playing in the water out the front. Cannery Row does have a lot of very touristy shops but it was fun and relaxed.
On our second day we took the drive 15 minutes further south to Carmel which is the most beautiful village with loads of lovely shops and restaurants. We spent some time walking along Carmel Beach and the wandered the shops, stopping for lunch. We visited the Mission church and once again enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere.
This area is home to some prime real estate so we took a drive around the area to see the wonderful homes. You can see a few in my little video below.
We headed back to Monteray for the afternoon and hired a Surrey Bike that the 5 of us could take a ride on – loads of fun and reminded me of muscles I haven’t used in a while!
We had a lovely relaxing two days in Monteray and Carmel – again the weather was cooler like San Francisco so we were pleased to have our jackets in this part of the world.
Here are my favourite snaps plus our video showing this very pretty part of the world.
