Happy New Year

It's officially 2013!

All day I've been seeing photos appear on Facebook of my friends ringing in the new year back home in Australia and I felt a little like I was living in the past. Well, for about half a day we were in different years!

A few hours ago it was finally our turn here in California. San Francisco celebrated the start of the new year with a spectacular fireworks display. The roof top garden of our apartment in Berkeley was the perfect viewing spot for said fireworks and, just like last New Year's Eve, I discovered that hardly anyone in our building was home to make use of it! Apart from a handful of revellers taking in the fireworks I pretty much had the roof to myself as I snapped away with my camera. Fourth of July had been a different story with the roof completely packed for the fireworks display so I was glad that this New Year's Eve was the same as the last.

Fireworks over San Francisco

The Color Run

On Saturday we took part in quite possibly the funnest fun run you could run for fun - The Color Run!

As the name suggests The Color Run features colour - and lots of it.

A colourful bunch at the end of the run

Father's Day USA

Oops... once again I've written out a blog post and then forgotten to go back, add in the last few details and click the publish button!

It's not really Father's Day here anymore, but it was when I started typing this post...

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It's Father's Day here in America.

Lucky Kim gets to celebrate Father's Day twice a year; in June for American Father's Day and again in September for Australian Father's Day. No fair! I only get one Mother's Day.

The upside (for me) to having two Father's Days a year is that I get an extra chance to work on gift and card ideas.

This year for Father's Day (USA edition) Ava and I decided to give Kim the gift of family bike rides. Ava drew some lovely pictures of Kim and the girls riding their bikes and I turned them into a gift pack.

Ava liked the idea of giving Kim a booklet of vouchers. I liked the idea of making him a card that entitled him to unlimited family bike rides. Something he could keep in his wallet and pull out every time he wanted to take the girls for a ride. We decided to combine the ideas and make both. Well, sort of.

We came up with the idea of the Mason Family Bike Club. Ava and I made ID cards for each member of our family and these were included in a Member Gift Pack with a dozen vouchers, each one good for one family bike ride.

The "Mason Family Bike Club"  member gift pack with Ava' original drawings

Modern Communication

I thought I'd share this photo of the girls chatting to their Nanna through Skype.

Hello Nanna!

Got to love modern technology. It certainly makes keeping in touch with family and friends on the other side of the world so much easier. Between Facebook and Skype we're always up to date with news and the distance just doesn't seem so big.

Bon Voyage

Our little family will soon be relocating from Adelaide, South Australia to San Francisco, California.
It's a big move and it all started yesterday when we said goodbye to Kim at the airport.
Kim is going over ahead of the girls and I to start his new job. We'll follow in about a month and a half - or whenever we get everything ready!

Family farewells at the airport