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It has been over 35Celsius for the past few days, with today reaching almost 40!!! This is very rare for the Bay area and Foster City. We don’t have air conditioners in our homes here, so everybody was trying to figure out how to stay cool this past week. Click here to see how we kept cool over the weekend.

Basically we kept ourselves wet. We went to the PJCC swimming pool on Saturday morning. My first time in the pool with Shor and Orr. They had a blast. Both took to my training very well, and by the end of an hour long session in the water, both were doing underwater dives. Ron elegantly refused to be subjected to such abuse. After napping in our sweltering home, we took off to San Francisco, a city where Paola has yet to wear short sleeves. Finally she was able to be comfortably warm, even at 8pm in the evening. We visited Japan-town and had a bite to eat, before returning home via night views of the Golden Gate bridge.

Today was the hottest day of this Hell-week. We were invited to a noontime BBQ which proved to be very hot, even whilst sitting in the shade, and then went to other friends for an even hotter afternoon meal sitting in the sun. Luckily all had kiddy pools for Ron and the girls to enjoy.

Now it is almost midnight and finally the weather is bearable. The house has cooled down and there is enough of a breeze to feel comfortable. Veterans here say that this type of a warm spell comes once in 10 years. It’s a good thing we took alot of pictures of the kids in the various pools. This way they will have souvenirs when the real Foster City weather rturns.

This site is for family stuff, but we can’t ignore the reality of the world we live in. To all our family and friends in the mediterranean, we hope you are well and will soon get back to normal.

We just got back. Trip was great. Lots o fun and good memories. The kids were as well behaved as can be expected and the traffic was more merciful than on the way down. Pictures and details to come…

Update July 16:

Finally I have some time to write. Our trip to San Diego and area was great. Hard to call it a vaction though. With 3 small kids, away from home, you work hard to maintain their daily schedules as much as possible. Mostly this is a hat’s off to Paola. Click on the pictures below for some images from Legoland and the drive up the coast back home.

Legoland

Drive back home

This afternoon we strolled the streets of old town, which is a tourist trap remake of life in San Diego 150 years ago. Still, it is pleasant and not too much “in your face”.

In order to keep Ron excited, he got to take some pictures with Daddy’s camera. he’s actually quite good. Since the camera weighs more than Ron does, at this point, I’m in charge of holding the camera, Ron is in charge of shutter release. We are negotiating additional responsibilities down the road…

The artistic composition below was suggested by Paola and flawlessly executed by Ron as can be seen by the shadows. Click on the image for more pictures.

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In the evening we strolled along the harbor not too far from our hotel. Shir and Orr fell alseep in the stroller as the sky turned dark, and I waited for the pefect moment of light to capture some nice pictures.

This afternoon we strolled the streets of old town, which is a tourist trap remake of life in San Diego 150 years ago. Still, it is pleasant and not too much “in your face”.

In order to keep Ron excited, he got to take some pictures with Daddy’s camera. he’s actually quite good. Since the camera weighs more than Ron does, at this point, I’m in charge of holding the camera, Ron is in charge of shutter release. We are negotiating additional responsibilities down the road…

The artistic composition below was suggested by Paola and flawlessly executed by Ron as can be seen by the shadows. Click on the image for more pictures.

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In the evening we strolled along the harbor not too far from our hotel. Shir and Orr fell alseep in the stroller as the sky turned dark, and I waited for the pefect moment of light to capture some nice pictures.

We took the kids for a day at the beach which lasted a whole 2 hours of fun in the sun. We knew in advance that a whole day is too much at this point, especially as this beach where there are no facilities. It is just several miles of sand right in front of a residential neighborhood.

At first we were apprehensive of putting the girls into the sand, as we knew they would start to eat it, but then we decided, what the heck, they need to learn…

The results are before you in a great set of pictures that Paola took. She was torn between the love of the photoshoot experience and her motherly instinct to clean off their mouths.

This is probably the best known zoo in the US, maybe the world. Right in the middle of San Diego, 10 minutes drive from our hotel. Needless to say, we were all very excited to go there, and the kids were too. We saw many animals that we had never even heard of. Some of the highlights were the Panda bear exhibit, the elephants (one has a face just like Arik Sharon – see photos), and Ron’s participation in the bug show. The girls enjoyed everything they could see from the heights of a stroller.

Click on the picture to see the full gallery

Today we visited a lesser know amusement park in the Los Angeles area (Last year we visited Disney).

It is smaller than Disney, but it has Camp Snoopy and we decided it’s time Ron get acquainted with some new comic heros.

Ron had a great time, although the weather was incredibly hot for us (35C). Even the girls were sweating.
Click on the image below to see a gallery of photos. Check out the video clip of Ron on a “freefall” ride.

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We got to LA last night after leaving Foster City at 7:15pm and hoping to make the ~400 miles in about 5 hours. Unfortunately there was some traffic and we arrived at the hotel in LA at 2:30 in the morning. As usual in these cases, the electronic key did not open the door and I had to run back to the reception.

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After spending the morning and noon at Knott’s we left LA for San Diego this afternoon, hoping for a short and pleasant hour and a half drive while the kids nap. Not.

The traffic this weekend is terrible (4th of July, 4 day weekend). It took us almost 3 hours, and although the adults and Ron were fine, Orr and Shir were not content with the pace, and they made us stop once for a feeding break, and wince for the last half hour of the drive as they screamed their heads off.

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We are now in a nice hotel in Downtown San Diego. Paola and the girls are sleeping, while Ron is making 1001 excuses for not.