Los Angeles

Hannah, Thomas and I have just returned from a few days in LA. We stayed in a great hotel - The Garland - which had a touch of the seventies about it, but done tastefully ! We spent two days at Universal Studios, quite a lot of it in the wizarding world of Harry Potter ! We also enjoyed the animal actors and special effects shows. It's all very professional, and in November without crowds and heat, quite enjoyable.

On our day off from Universal we went to look at the touristy bit of Hollywood, and then on to the Science Museum (it's free! and they've got a space shuttle!)

And we indulged in some ridiculous sugary treats. Yes doughnuts as big as your head and in that pink cup is cookie dough and ice-cream !

Thanksgiving

Last week was Thanksgiving, so we made an attempt at Thanskgiving dinner, including pumpkin pie (the adults said yes!, the kids said "Mum can I please have the berry pie we bought from the supermarket....."). Excuse the somewhat bizarre array of serving dishes (sprouts in a loaf tin anyone)!

Weekends - snow, hot chocolate

So I have been a bit remiss in posting here, mostly due to the fact that I foolishly decided to try and do Nanowrimo. No I haven't made it to 50000 words. There's a faint hope I might make 25000. However I have discovered that I like writing, and that writing is a good way to learn lots of stuff about whatever it is you're writing about. There are some potential blog posts in my head, which may see the light of day at some point, about what I've learned about home-ed and about learning during our time in the USA.

Last weekend we went to find the snow at Snoqualmie pass, which is about 45-60 minutes from our house in Redmond. The kids were really excited, and it made me realise that this is probably the most snow that they have seen in one place. And that is only after the first snowfall. I am working on getting some skiing lessons in before we leave.

Also at the weekend we discovered the winner of Seattle's most-chocolatey-hot-chocolate competition.

Weekends - San Juan Islands

Last weekend we went to the San Juan Islands, which are about 1.5 hrs drive, 1.5 hrs ferry and a whole world away from Redmond. It was a foggy morning ferry ride over, and still foggy when we found a drift wood beach for our morning construction project. We saw the sunset (and Canada) from Lime Kiln point State Park. The next day Anthony and Thomas went whale watching, whilst Hannah and I explored the rest of San Juan island. For our last day we took an early morning ferry over to Orcas Island and drove to the top of Mt Constitution for an amazing view. We were only on Orcas Island for a day - I wish we could have stayed longer !

Weekends - pumpkins and a hike

Last weekend we went pumpkin picking at a local farm. Yes not only do the shops here have a wide selection of pumpkins for sale, you can also go and choose your own. There were a lot to choose from ! but we finally managed to make our selection.

This weekend we managed to persuade the children to go and see some countryside. We went to Rattlesnake mountain which is about 45 mins drive from Redmond. I was not hopeful of managing much of a walk but luckily from the lake at the bottom of the trail we could see lots of people standing on a tantalising looking ledge (the rocky outcrop in the first picture). This spurred the children on - "it doesn't look that far" - and 2 miles and 1200 feet of elevation gain later we made it to the top.

out and about Thursdays

Thursday is our 'free' day. I like to say we can go on adventures, but Hannah tells me I'm not allowed to call it adventures as they involve jungles and snakes.

Yesterday we adventured again into Seattle, this time experimenting with taking the car and parking in a neighbourhood near to downtown then getting the bus in. Previously we've got the bus from Redmond to downtown, which is great if you just want to there, but not so good if you want to explore some other areas too. Anyway taking the car worked well, and I even remembered to mark the spot where the car was parked on my phone map so that we could find it again. And my phone didn't quite run out of battery, so my technology skills rating given to me by my offspring definitely improved !

There is loads of cool stuff to do here, especially given that Seattle isn't a particularly large city. This time we went to MoPop, the museum of pop culture founded by Paul Allen, one of the Microsoft founders. The kids weren't that interested in the sci-fi and fantasy aspects, but did enjoy the video games room, and especially the SoundLab where you could play drum kits, guitars and keyboards. They even had mini sound-proof studios where you could go and bash and strum away for ten minutes at a time (or more if it's not busy because your home-edding and everyone else is at school - hurrah !) We then got the bus to a little park with spinny things, and one of the classic views of the Seattle skyline. Mt Rainier wasn't completely out yesterday, but you can just see the top of it to the right of the Space Needle.

Lakes

Idyllwood Park, Lake Sammamish

Saint Edward State Park, Lake Washington

Chism Bay, Lake Washington

We (well the kids more than me) have spent a lot of time in lakes over the summer. The nearest lake beach to us is at Idyllwood Park on Lake Sammamish. This one is only a 15 minute drive from Redmond and you can park very close to it, so it was busy in August, with lifeguards, swim area lanes and swim tests. The lifeguards packed up for the season at the beginning of September, so more recently we have been pretty much the only ones there.
Saint Edward State Park is a bit further away on Lake Washington. There is a 10-15 min walk down to the lake, so this one was never busy.
Our favourite beach, also on Lake Washington was Chism Bay, which is a small bay near Bellevue with a great jumping platform out on the lake. I think this one had lifeguards in the summer, but we didn't discover it till after the main swimming season so we were pretty much always the only ones in the lake.
We are now definitely hooked on outdoor freshwater swimming. Going to have to look for places to go when we get back to the UK!