Last few days now before moving on to Maui. Because I was away for a while in the middle it feels a bit fast and short. Today dad joins us again which will be great. He has been missing in action since going to the lake so I am keen to hear from him again and I am sure I will get the full report on the buzzes and the lake on our last walk to So city Starbucks on Wednesday morning.
This morning I am at Peets on grand avenue. Noni was worried about me walking to Starbucks on my own and so she left a note on my bed to wake her up and she would drive me to Starbucks! The last thing I wanted to do was wake her up so I decided to do pets instead as grand avenue is still considered a safe zone by N&G.I went in to tell her before I left and she was really happy because she had not had a good nights sleep so she was able to sleep some more. S here I am. WIFI is available for 1 hour if you buy something, not as good as Starbucks but it will be enough for this morning.
Pets has a different clientele. I don't think our friends who order the large whip cream topped drinks would ever be seen here. Definitely the coffee spot for young professionals. the music inside is classical and muted but overridden by traffic noises and the constAnt sirens as we are near the hiway and the freeway. But all ok..
Yesterday aftew our starbucks walk linda and Mike picked up noni and i for a small shopping trip. Our first stop was a wonderifl second hand jewelry shop in burlingame because noni has this marvelous old rhiestone bracelet which is missing a few stones and this lady finds stones and fizes these things. The shop was great fun and little did this lady know that she was brushing shoulders with the biggest collection of old jewelry treasures for miles around.'
We then went to look for the lego things and noni had a wonderful time looking at toys and especially matchbox cars which she still dearly loves. We had lunch at willys smokehouse and linda ordered sliders, which are a very popular thing here in calisofnia, mini burgers but they can have lots of different things in them. non anhd i split a sausage sandwich and uncle mike went for the ribs.
That night non cooked a small dinner for us, peas and carrots, thin pork chops and a pasta contribution from linda. In the photo of the peas and carrots you will see a small but powerful fire work that uncle mike carried around with him all night, just itching to light it off somewhere. it is totally illegal evidently a very powerful one which hsi neighbor gave him that afternoon.
After dinner I went with Linda and mike to watch the Fire works display with uncle mikes sister Marla who lives in the canal estate development that was built in San Mateo some 30 years ago. It has really been well preserved and even though it is now surrounded by large office blocks, once inside it is really nice and has been well maintained. I am not sure what the water quality is like in the canals as this is always a big problem with these sorts of developments but visually it is really lovely and you could see it would be a very pleasant place to live on a day to day basis. That connection to water is always a winner.
The fire works display is held in a bayside park near there. What with local knowledge, we did not have to walk all the way to the park and only had to use the freeway crossover and find a spot on a grassy bank which gave us a clear view to the fireworks. When we arrived we were one of two groups. The other was a mum and dad with 2 cute boys. We got out our snacks and this was spotted by one of the little boys who. Immediately said to his mum, "we should have brought snacks". Well of course there was no. A we could not respond to this cry in the wilderness, so we looked at what we had that we could give them and the obvious thing was the packet of hostess cupcakes. But uncle mike refused to give these up so they got the carrot cake. The little boys did not know wht they missed and they were ecstTic about the cAke.
Today I am investigating e best price for the iPad 2 32 gb wifi. Found this for 499 yesterday (before tax price) and as our dollar is so good this price is even lower. This compares so well to the AUS price. Anna had put in her order for one and I am thinking that this might be good for 47 king st as well. I am slo going to SF with Linda who has an afternoon doctors appt so I will have another dangerous opportunity to wander the sf shops.
Noni made another of her beautiful banana cakes yesterday and she has cut it into several small packages, one for the grounds crew at the giants park which is waiting for collection on the front porch and 2 other packages for I am not sure who, but they are redy to go. So yes she is still make and delivering food to others, but down to a few select food items. No more apple pies.
A small note about the photos sitting Around the house.. Photos of our Aussie kids are everywhere, in albums on the buffet and in picture frames. Joshua starrett of course has been here 3 or maybe 4 times, so he pops up a number of times and at various ages, so his picture collection is the largest. but there are pictures of the other starrett boys playing with uncle tony, who of course is always loved by small children. There is a small album featuring the Slatter visit and this is a crack up. Michelle must have taken all the photos but they are great, bene with her small inscrutable expression she had where she looked like she was thinking about whether she should smile at you or not. Oscar looks like he fit into into la famiglia like a glove.even though the prietto children have not been here their photos are everywhere too. Linda you must be religious about sending school photos because there are school photos from many years. Eleanor has made her entry as i brought some with me and dad and I went to the photo place an made 2 small albums which we will be leaving behind when we go. so thT is all kind of fun. But of course Noah and Luca are the local stars as it should be and they are really in demand. If everyone could see them every day they would be really happy. But of course this does not happen what with different people picking them us for different things during the week and them having time with Ryan too, so when they do see them it is special.
I am not sure how I am going with my hour so is all for now, the next installment will be from the dynamic duo.
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