Making beer

It was time for my company's quarterly meeting. The place I work is so cool that this was combined with making beer. Brew it Up is a Sacramento microbrewery where you can either drink the professionally made beer or make your own (under professional supervision). We made 72 bottles of a brown beer that will be ready in a few weeks. Our very talented designer made these labels for our beer.

Catching up

It has been a while since I have had time to write up my adventures....here they all are on one day!

Yosemite

The day after Thanksgiving, we packed up the car and headed for a camping trip to Yosemite National Park. This was somewhat brave as it was pretty cold but the weather was cold and crisp -- a really wonderful time to be there. We camped for two nights, hiked to the North Dome -- it was fabulous. Chris' Mum was visiting for a week and she came along with us

Here we are eating breakfast looking bundled upAnd here we are stopped for a break looking over the valley

Thanksgiving

For the first time since I have been in the US, I didn't travel for Thanksgiving. We stayed at home and cooked a very, very large amount of food. Owen and I are looking a bit sceptical about the tofurkey.....
But it all seemed to turn out OK in the end....

Oranges!

When we moved into our house, we thought that we had a lime tree. We were very excited to have a source of fresh limes just off of our "cocktail" balcony to add to our gin and tonics.
But the fruit ripened 4 months later....and they are oranges. We now have a lot of oranges.....

Yet more football...

Another trip down to San Fran to watch the 49ers play the Seahawks. Again, the right team won. We had a great weekend catching up with people and shopping...breakfast at a cool diner followed by heading out for the game. The game did get a little tense towards the end -- there is nothing quite like 60,000 fans on their feet shouting helpful advice to the players. This time it was "two hands on the ball" to the player who had most recently fumbled the ball......

An afternoon at Candlestick Park

More football....

We had tickets for the 49ers v Vikings game. Again is it was sunny and warm. But this time the team we were supporting won.....Chris is a 49ers fan and was very happy with the result. The small figures in the distance are the 49ers scoring a field goal

Football Season

During my time in Pittsburgh, I became a football fan, or an "American football" fan for those not from the US. My team are the Pittsburgh Steelers who won the Superbowl last year and who are having a horrible season this year.
For my birthday, Chris got me tickets for the Steelers v the Raiders. The Raiders have the reputation for being one of the roughest crowds in the game and I was warned that they might not be too friendly. Fortunately the Steelers managed to lose the game and so the crowd were pretty happy on account of how the Raiders don't really win much.
Here I am at the ground with my friend Sophia, also from Pittsburgh. Note that whilst it was the end of October it was still 20 degrees and sunny....
The seats we had were pretty high up but we got a great view of the Bay

First post

As I am terrible at writing emails about what I am up to, I have decided to start to keep a web page. There will be few opinions, just pictures of what I am up to here in Sacramento.

I arrived in Sacramento in August and my things arrived in September. Here is the very big truck parked outside our little house.



We are settled in properly now -- I'll post more of my "adventures" over time......