April and May 2006 update

is for rain, I'm singing in the rain !!

Wow - sorry that this took so long to get out.

==April events==
San Francisco was plagued with rain in March, there were houses falling down the hills with some frequency (if you believe the news). Thank goodness April is drying California out and generating some lovely blue sky.

Spring is in full bloom now, there are blossoming trees everywhere and lots of squirrels out and about. Recently Japantown hosted it's annual 'Cherry Blossom Festival' to celebrate spring - Anita went to the festival with Goce, Stacey & the 3 kids and had a wonderful time. There was plenty of shopping to keep Anita & Stacey occupied and the kids got to be on Japanese tv as they endorsed a soy milk product! in fact whenever we hang out with Goce & Stacey there seems to be someone taking photos of their kids (total strangers of course) - the world seems obsessed with their cute children!

Meanwhile, Manu was having a great weekend snowboarding with friends Marc, Cisca, Eric & Marius... he had a fantastic time, making full use of his new CamelBak amongst the trees after a superb powder dump.

We have definitely been enjoying the summer here in San Mateo, as unlike San Francisco which gets foggy there is sun, sun, sun. Anita bought a bike in April, so we are taking the odd bike ride around San Mateo - it's been great. Went for a spin and then threw a frisbee around the park - hadn't done that in ages, very enjoyable. Hoping to do some mountain biking when we can locate the trails. We've bought a bike rack that we can put onto rental cars (we've decided to hire a car every 2nd weekend from now on as works out cheaper than buying!). We'll put the bikes on the rack and find some tracks in the surrounding area.

As you can see by the pics in Flickr we went to see Goce and Stacey's children watch an Easter parade and participate in an Easter Egg hunt - lots of fun for all concerned!! That very same night we made use of a lovely wedding gift - a dinner cruise around the San Francisco bay which we used to celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary - very lovely indeed.

==May events==
Manu has finally registered for a sprint triathlon so is back in training - although with all the travel we've been doing that has suffered a little - ahh well, he'll get there.

Very early on May 21st we dragged ourselves onto a train into San Francisco and walked the Bay to Breakers with Roxy, Eliza and some of her friends - an annual event of frivolity and drinking. It sure was an eye-opening experience, the pictures give an indication of the craziness of the day.

We had planned on seeing Manu's cousin Cam in LA the following weekend however he was unexpectedly called to work in New York so we took a last minute 6 day trip to the Grand Canyon & Las Vegas.
We had a great time - we took a flat water raft trip down the Colorado river, hiked some of the Grand Canyon (only about 1.5 hrs as we ran out of time) - then we made our way to Las Vegas where we gambled away some money, overindulged and enjoyed the sights and sound. It was great. We managed to see one of the Cirque Du Soleil shows 'O' - AMAZING!

We got home to find we'd left our fridge door open - then we got a blocked up loo! made us wish we were still on holiday!

That's all for now.
lots of love and big manu hugs,
Anita and Manu

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