Since we got engaged half way up Highway 84 during the Tour of California five years ago, we have been back to watch most years.
This year, the closest stage to our house started in San Jose, rode up through Livermore, down the back of the Diablo Range, over Mt. Hamilton and Quimby Rd. to finish on Metcalfe Road near Morgan Hill. Our plan A was to watch the cyclists go past at the top of Mt. Hamilton, the highest point of the route.
I dropped the girls and the dog at the top of the mountain, near the observatory and rode the big climb to get a feel for what the pros have to do. I was able to get back to the top in time to eat French food, drink red wine, and watch all the riders with Sienna on my shoulders, and with Page wearing her helmet and ringing the cowbell.
We’ve been hoping for rain to relieve this drought. We weren’t hoping for rain on Sienna’s birthday. But it was forecast, and inviting a dozen adults and a mob of kids for a barbecue on our back deck was looking to be badly timed.
You’ve already seen glimpses of these pictures and know that it was a perfect day. The rain came through the night, freshened everything up, and watered the plants.
Those plants we used for some of our cooking. Alex made a very delicious Kale salad. We made strawberry mojitos and rubs and marinades with Sage, Rosemary, and Oregano from the garden which we put on a tonne of farm-fresh beef and pork we source from 5 Marys farm in northern California. Usually Alex spends the whole day at our barbies cooking in the kitchen. This time we made a big effort to prepare most of the food the day before so Alex had more time … to look after all the kids …
We allowed Sienna to open one present before her party. Sienna “gets it” this year and has been very excited all week to grab the centre of attention away from Page. After she got to open (with Page) her first present, she requested to go to have a nap again.
Our weekend neighbours, Jake and Cassie, came over early to help us set up.
Asher, who is the son of my new CEO came over to play. Asher will be turning two too in a couple of months.
Gracie may be three, but she and Sienna always get on well.
Hannah – the camera kept following her around. I edited the pics to only include this one. The one where we can see her face under the (spolier alert) chocolate cake.
Maya lives in the neighbourhood, and goes to daycare with Sienna, where she looks out for the little girl.
The special girl and her Mom.
Meegs and the mesmerising blue eyes of Zoë.
Page already wants to marry Nick.
Alex set out a blanket on the bottom deck to get all the children to gather around and open all the pressies.
In la tradición de los norteamericanos, we had a piñata. The tweak to the tradition was that they whacked it with a cricket stump. Same result.
When everyone went home, the next day, Sienna got a chance to play with all her toys.
Thanks to Jake, Cassie, Tim, Nora, Nick, Hannah, Linda, Matt, Gracie, Jack, Asher, Jessica, Oren, Marie, Reuben, Meegan, Zoë, Joanna, Maya, Alyce, Andrea, and Juliana for making Sienna’s birthday one of our best days at the new house.
Page and I made yummy tie-dye cupcakes for Sienna to take to school today. She is 2 on Saturday, but celebrating today with her friends at TreeHouse. We think she kind of gets it… Saturday we have a big BBQ at home with our friends to really celebrate. As much as we need the rain, fingers crossed its holds off during the afternoon…
We found the most adorable Aussie Shepard! She was living with a couple that worked long hours and the poor thing lived in a crate 20 hours a day. She is pretty happy about her new home and the long walks on Shady Lane and Sunnyside Lane. The girls love her, Page is very helpful and makes sure she is well taken care of. Sienna is good with the commands. Looking forward to lots of fun days with this girl. Should we call her Bindi or Skye?
Congrats on new addition. She looks very sweet.
Esme was in cage too for 4 mos. and it was very
hard training her.But she is coming around very slowly.
It takes lots and lots of patience. But she is a joy. Love
her youthful energy.
The girls spent the week in Truckee, staying at the Naylor’s cabin (Thanks Naylors!).
I flew up to meet them on Friday night so that I could go skiing with Page for the first time.
After a week of lessons, she can ski confidently by herself.
We mostly skied the Jerome Hill and Christmas Tree lifts until we went to meet Alex and Sienna and showed off to them with laps of the Nob Hill terrain park.
I am hoping that we get some more snow this season so we can get up there again, or else I’ll have to throw this ‘career’ thing away and head down to Bariloche, Argentina for the whole southern winter.
At 9pm last night, Alex and I were sitting on the couch, having just finished watching Alex’s friend Megan try to outrun the sun.
I was telling Alex that planned to clean some leaves off our road in the morning when we heard the sound, the familiar sound, of a tree falling down. Alex instinctively leant over to protect me as the tree fell.
It didn’t hit the house.
We rushed outside. Alex could see a small fire burning at the bottom of the yard near George’s place. I put some clothes on and ran down to see if George was OK. He was, but our power lines weren’t.
One of our big oak trees, that the power company had tagged back in September, had fallen over the road, taking out the power lines.
The fire was caused by the high voltage wires, which had been ripped off the power pole, arcing against another oak tree by the trampoline.
Alex called the fire dept and they turned up pretty quickly. They couldn’t do anything until the power company arrived an later and cut the lines. By then the fire was out.
This morning our neighbour, Mike, who owns a truck and has a big chainsaw, commenced clearing. As a fellow chainsaw owner, I, and my adventurous assistant Sienna went down to help. It was a big community effort to clear the road. The downed tree was at least 20 m tall with about a metre diameter.
To give him his due, Mike did most of the work, with awkward encouragement from the nerds, chefs, and artists who make up the rest of this lane.
The Lane is clear to drive at this moment. The power company is here now, and with at least two spilt power poles, they may be here for a while.
It look like you hook out the transformer! That is what
probably caused the fire.
That happened to me once on the island. I was alone when a storm took out the transformer next to my window. Scary. Since you needed a boat to get to the island I didn’t think I would see the elec. co. for days or longer! So I took my half cooked stead, salad and glass of wine to my top deck in the dark with a candle and decided to enjoy the stars.
At around 10 p.m. a boat came to my dock. I wasn’t expecting anyone so got scared. There were about 4 big men. I didn’t know what to do. Then I noticed one of them had a shirt from the power co. I couldn’t believe it. It was only about an hour after the transformer was hit and I power shortly thereafter! REally amazing.
They were in the yard playing by themselves. I went to look for them and heard them talking about bugs and came around the corner and they were sitting on the stoop like that. Such sweet big girls for little Sienna.
Great weather for the race. I hope the five of you enjoyed the Tour.
Comment by Craig — May 19, 2015 @ 3:15 pm