Images by John 'K'

We got back into the US on the afternoon of Saturday August 6, 2005. After a bit of a delay in immigration (big queues – Virgin landed after BA), we collected our 14 cases and headed off to the rental car place to collectr our 2 cars (one hastily booked the day before after we realised that there was no way on earth that we’d get 14 cases and 6 people into one people-carrier/mini-van).

 

We headed home, and after a slight detour (I took us north up 101 as opposed to south – oops), we got home a bit after 5pm. After unpacking the cars and a few settling in activities, we headed out to Red Robin for a meal before retiring to bed.

 

Sunday was a day of unpacking and furniture shopping (where we spent more than I intended, but have some very nice stuff being delivered), and then Monday was spent on the first phase of getting my family integrated into society here. My daughters were taken to school to get them registered – Sarah could have gone to college but chose to do a final high school year and then do college next year, and Paula starts High School as a freshman….. so long as we can get their vaccination details sorted out. We found that our doctor hadn’t supplied up-to-date records for them so the school authority had a problem with that. Some frantic late night phone calls back to the UK got most of that sorted, but there’s still some ‘top-up’ stuff needed that we’ll have to get done here.

 

Yesterday was spent doing more school stuff, and getting Jan and the girls sorted with Mobile phones (the whole mobile phone thing works totally differently with regards to billing and usage plans). I also got to act as taxi driver for Gemma and her boyfriend (Luke) who are here on a 2 week holiday. They wanted to go into San Francisco, and I thought it better that they were taken in than have them get lost on public transport, so I kissed goodbye to 4 hours of my day!

 

Today Paula has an english test at the high school to see where she should be placed academically, and we should see the first batch of furniture delivered…… fun fun fun.

 

I’ll need to go back to work to get a rest!