Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone,

We are sending you our best wishes from Phoenix, Arizona, where we are spending Christmas with family. We hope that you too are enjoying this time with your family.

One of our Christmas traditions is to have a cheese fondue for Christmas Eve dinner. Being invited tonight we had it last night...we are flexible! Our first fondue in the bus! The children Grandparents and Great Grandma were there too. It was all tight, warm and cosy in here.

(Unfortunately our camera is not working so we do not have pictures to show you. Hope it gets fixed very soon.)

Another tradition that we did back in Switzerland every Christmas, when I was a kid, was to say a poem or sing a song holding a candle in front of the Christmas tree before we could open the presents. My children are now doing the same. They have been practicing their song ( Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, I think!). They are so excited, that Christmas is tomorrow, that Ben is jumping and bouncing all over the bus instead of walking!

What are your Christmas traditions?

May Santa make all your wishes come true.

Joyeux Noel

Sylviane

After San Diego

After leaving San Diego we stopped in Indio, CA, close to Palm Spring, for a few days to visit with Gene and Shirley who were our neighbors in Modesto. They will spend the winter over there. They told us about the area and the places no to miss so we didn’t waste anytime and went to visit The living desert. Loved it! Thanks for the great tips…
During that time we also did some shopping, stocked up on food to prepare for our Quartzsite adventure since we had no idea what we would be finding over there.

Well, we’ve been in Quartzsite now since Tuesday 9th…the weather has been changing everyday. First we had a beautiful warm sunny day, the next one was overcast and cold with showers, the third one was sunny but so windy it shook the bus so much we thought we were sailing on the ocean, now they are calling for rain and wind for the next couple days.

Bill is getting a lot of projects done here. Being parked in the middle of the desert allows us to be noisy and to spread out which is perfect for working on the bus. Today I painted some wooden containers to store office and craft supplies which will eliminate some boxes of paper that we still have here and there around the bus and give the kids more room to store their legos in their room. I’m also, STILL working on the advent calendar…sometimes I wished I had bought one already made at Target! It is taking a veeeeery long time. I have to confess that I used the pocket #8 until yesterday just adding a post-it to change the number. The kids would get up, see the little piece of paper and say with a reproaching tone: “Mom, you did it again!” Anyway, I’m caught up now until the 16th. Yoohoo, I can rest my fingers for a couple of days.

It is our first boondocking experience, not being plugged to city water or electricity. We are now on conservative mode…quick showers and no extra lights turned on. Bill built this bus with wild camping in mind so we have more fresh water and tankage capacity than most motorhome. We are hoping to last two weeks before we have to go back to civilisation to fill up with water, propane and dump the tanks. We'll find out!

We are loving it here! The children can run free exploring the mountains near by and mine for precious rocks with pick and shovels. So far they've found lots of quartz, some turquoise rocks and the skin of a snake. Lots of great adventures!

Sylviane

The gingerbread house

Ben and I built a gingerbread house (with a kit from Trader Joe's...so far the easiest and nicest we've tried. I recommend it! Syl.).

I didn't really like eating the gingerbread house except for the frosting! It was fun!

Eva

The living desert

When we were in Indio, at the beginning of the week, we went to the living desert. It was very cool. We saw all kinds of animals who live in the desert. We also saw poison dart frogs, a mountain lion, coyotes, owls, foxes , road runners, and other animals. We had lots of fun. We even got to play on African drums.

Ben

"les merveilles"

I just had a WONDERFUL thought as I was cooking some semolina for my diner (it's like cream of wheat but better. When I was a kid my mom use to make it often for our diner! She cooked it with milk, sugar and raisins...so good!) which reminded me of something else very yummy from my childhood......les merveilles! Merveilles is a very thin, crispy cookie, as big as a plate, coverd with powdered sugar. It is deep fried and delicious. Anyway, I've been dreaming of eating "merveilles" for about ten years now, especially the ones that you buy at the "migros"(a chain of swiss grocery stores)...they have the best ones... and just haven't been able to have any, not even a crumb. It is a treat that you can find only around February-March, for "Mardi-gras", which makes it more difficult. I haven't been back to Switzerland at the right time of year or too fragile for my parents to bring when they come over or I've forgotten to ask my mom to save me some until I would get there (usually in April)....a tragedy! But, (here comes the wonderful thought) next year we are going to Switzerland in March!....YES, after ten years I will finally be able to eat some "merveilles"!

I just had to share this wonderful, exciting thought....thanks for reading

Sylviane

Sylviane went to the Homeland Security Office (INS) for her Test/Interview today

We had a list of questions that may be on the test to study from and Sylviane knew all of the answers.

I didn’t know all of the answers to begin with but I read the questions to her to help her study so I learned a few things too. I am still not sure I could name the 13 original Colonies but I do know the 4 amendments that guarantee or address voting rights.

Sylviane did great on the test, of course, but there was one question that stumbled her up just a little bit.

She wasn’t real quick to answer the question "what is your address". lol

We should find out in 4 to 6 weeks when she is scheduled to take the Oath and the ceremony to become a citizen. I have heard it is a nice ceremony.

This is a special day!

Bill

a couple of updates..

We got home from my Mom’s house Saturday to realize a live band was playing here at the campground. It was late but Eva (and to a smaller degree Ben too) really wanted to go check out the band. Eva and Sylviane danced the whole time they played. I started to dance but half way through the second song I looked down and remembered I had white socks on with flip flops…. Certainly not the cool fashion statement, I left the floor. I did finally take off my socks and rejoined the ladies for a few more songs.

Yesterday Sylviane took the kids to walk at Poway Lake, she went with Marie Laure and her family. I mostly goofed off yesterday but I did modify the plumbing so we can use the City water. Up to this point I had to fill the fresh water tanks and use our bus water pump to serve our needs. It’s nice not hearing the pump anymore and even nicer not to worry about the tank running dry. With the clothes washer we go through quite a bit of water.

Today we moved the bus again to our third spot here at the campground. We went ahead and drove over to the boat ramp area and gave her a bath while we could. I did notice one of the bus batteries is shot so I need to get that replaced by the time we take off at the end of this week.

Oh, I don’t think I mentioned that I got a couple more hoop nets before Ben and I went out last week. Now each of us has one. We had a great time pulling up the hoop nets. We launched at La Jolla shores, there is an area of the beach that is set aside for launching kayaks and small boats. Out in the open ocean waters of the Pacific! Very cool. We had no wind so I rowed for 30 minutes to get out to the kelp beds. No worries, I need the exercise. We had some nice warm barley soup that Sylviane put in a thermos for us, it was so nice to have in the cool night. We were too busy though to eat it all. As soon as I pulled up one hoop net I just had time to row to the next to see what was in that one. All the bugs were short but what a great night. The sunset was awesome (see the pic above). There was a seal that swam close and checked us out quite a bit. Two of the hoop nets had the bait stolen and I think it was this seal. I taught Ben how to use the shore lights to mark the location of the traps. Actually it’s pretty hard to find them in the darkness even though we had a flashlight. We looked toward La Jolla shores (East) and lined up a light near the beach with a light up on the hill, this gave us one line. Then we looked south to the city of La Jolla and lined up the close street light with lights on the building several blocks away, this gave us our second line and the fix we needed to get back to our hoop nets there. We also had two nets in a different spot but it was near a big permanent buoy that was easy to find.

Ben wrapped up in a blanket on the way from the kelp beds back to the beach, it was cold and we were tired but we had a fun and memorable evening.

Bill

December

December is here... This morning the children opened the first pocket of their advent calendar and they each got a little kit to make a necklace with wooden beads. Ben decided to give it to a special person for Christmas! They are so excited about the calendar. They always try to find out what will be in the pocket the next day. I do not fill it up in advance! This year I decided to make a new one out of burlap fabric, wool felt and coconut buttons, all natural fibers. It is taking much longer than I thought. So far I have #1 and #2 completely done and half done through #4. I hope that the days will not catch up with me!

A complete change of subject....
Last September I sent in my request to become an American citizen. After finger printing and background checking, they decided that I was okay. I have an appointment on Thursday for an interview where they will be testing my english and my knowledge on American history and politics (the very basics)....I will still not be able to talk politics!
I'll keep you posted...

Sylviane

Thanksgiving thanks

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

We are spending this Holiday with Bill’s family in the mountain, like we do each year. He has a big family; four of his siblings are here. Ben and Eva are having a blast playing with their cousins. Bill’s mom lives in the Big Bear area so the weather is quite different from San Diego…it is cold and wet! We even had a hail storm yesterday. Personally I’m loving it, it reminds me of Switzerland, plus I don’t feel guilty staying inside for the WHOLE day. After living in San Diego and Modesto for all these years we are not ready for cold climate, my children don’t even own a sweater! We have a lot to get ready for our skiing trip in February!

We’d like to send our thanks to all of you for reading our blog and leaving little notes to let us know you visited us. You are the ones who motivate us to keep blogging, thank you!

Also a very special thank to our blog designer who created this blog and taught us patiently how to use it. Without her we wouldn’t have a place to share our adventures…thank you!

Sylviane

Fish and lobster!

Last night me and dad were hoop netting
and we cot 22 lobsters and 2 fish in
the hoop nets! All of the lobsters were too small to keep.We saw krill type things
in the boat. We could only keep one
fish it was a calico bass.
I’ll tell you what those krill things are when I find out. We saw some blue and turquoise glowing spots too.
ben

Huge bat ray!

Two days ago me, Eva and dad went hoop netting.
The first thing we cot was a small sting ray, later we cot another.
Then latter I hauled the hoop net and I said: “its heavy.”
And dad said: “your doing grate.” Once I got it up we were
getting splashed. We looked to see what it was… it was a huge bat ray!
ben

Lobster fishing

Bill and the children are gone lobster fishing. They took the hoop nets and the bones and head from the bass that Bill had caught last night (let's say early this morning...if Bill can't sleep he'd rather be fishing!) and bundled up to stay warm. Eva was yawning big tonight at the diner table but she still wanted to go. Both were so excited! They love fishing... I personnaly enjoy eating the fish but it's about it. The bass was delicious, by the way, especially that Bill did all the cooking...what a guy!
I would have taken a picture of my mighty fishermen but couldn't find the camera...sorry!

I'll let you know if we'll have lobster omelette for breakfast tomorrow but for now I'm gonna got read a good book and enjoy the silence!

Let me know if you have a good book to recommand....now I have more time to read!

Sylviane

the open ocean

We saw 3 seals on the ocean . On the boat there was no wind, we needed to roe. I rowed too.

Eva

a job for Ben

Last month in malibu we wanted to go to the beach so Dad got some keys and locked the bus and we left. But when we came home the keys Dad took
where the wrong ones! So Dad put me on his shoulders and he told me:
"Go in the window but don’t bump the mirror, and give me the keys that are on the pop-up counter". so I went through the window and gave him the keys.
Ben

Hoop nets!

I was like a kid with new toys last night. I went to West Marine and picked up a few things that have been on my list for a while now. I wanted a flare gun, air horn, and running lights so I can go out at night. I even found good hoop nets at a good price so I got two of them. Um, one for Ben and one for Eva. Gotta tell ya, I am happy they have hoop nets now!

The store only had the red and green running lights, I did order the white light (it shines all around, 360 degrees) and should have it in a few days. Last night I turned the red/green light fixture to face to the sky even though it is designed to face foreword. When it is facing foreword the red and green can be seen only for a span of 120 degrees each. This means that the back third of the boat shines no light. By turning the running light vertical the red and greed each span 180 degrees. Having the lights span 180 degrees may not be a strictly legal way to display the lights, but it was safe.

I simply had to take her out last night to see if I would get lucky with a bit of wind. With luck I may find a breeze to push me out to the mouth of the bay to test out the hoop nets. After some bobbing around for a few hours, completely enjoying the view, I ended up rowing back to the boat ramp……. with no bugs in the goodie bag.

Tonight we get another date night! Heading out to see a play called “defending the caveman”. Looking foreword to seeing it.

Bill

Man overboard!

Yesterday when I was sailing with Eva and our friend Ari, on the way back I
was standing on the bow holding the rope and I lost grip and fell into the water
but before our boat was too far I got hold of the side. I couldn’t climb back onto the boat so Ari helped me.

Ben

Campfires

There is something about campfires that is good for the soul.

Every night we sit as a family and Sylviane (sometimes it’s me) reads a book out loud before the kid’s bedtime. We have been reading the series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little house on the prairie and such) lately. The other night we had a campfire going and decided to read out by the fire. Eva, especially, seems to like the fires.

Bill

Legoland

Yesterday we made a visit to Legoland and had a nice time. Grandma and Grandpa came to our campsite on Sunday so they came too. Sylviane and I even got a date night Sunday! We hit the Hard Rock Café for some drinks and food, then headed across the street to see "Burn After Reading", anyone else seen it? After the movie we stopped into a very pleasant Spanish restaurant call Sevilla. The cool thing is that the Spanish atmosphere brought back lots of fond memories for Sylviane. She went to Spain often as a kid on family vacations and also went there as a young adult. We discussed how awesome it would be to travel there.

Saturday would have been Dad’s 84th birthday. Brought back some touching memories for me. We all sang happy birthday for him.

I bought some wheels that strap onto the bottom of our sail boat so I can just push it down to the boat ramp, then back to our RV spot when finished sailing. I like to be able to just go whenever I feel like it and not have to load it on and off the car. The kids and I have been out sailing several times, I even took a midnight sail by myself one night, very cool stuff!

I am spending more time than I expected at this point to wrap up the church project and there are still plenty of bus project that need to get done. I try to tackle a few when I can. I did get my computer/work desk installed last week. Now I have a work station that allows me to be more efficient. We even have the printer working. Next on the list is to adjust some of the plumbing, and get an awning set up over our slide out.

Bill

San Diego

San Diego is a great place to be. There is so much to see and enjoy. We have been quite busy but I bet that you have noticed...we haven't had time to blog!

The weather during the day is like summer time. We are enjoying the pool, beach, bike rides, sailing trips on the bay...

During the week the kids and I went to sea world to spend the day. We used to have a year pass when we lived here before Modesto so it was nice to go back to our favorite places like the bat rays pool. It was feeding time so they were all staying near the edge and we got to pet them on the head and hold on to their wings and go for a ride....well, not quite! We also spent a long time watching the manatees eating lettuce which reminded me of a story that my good friend Sophie had told me. They were watching the manatees being fed a bunch of lettuce when her oldest son, who was little at the time, asked her: "Mommy, when do they add the salad dressing?" ....too cute.
Did you know that the manatees were the creatures that the sailors, after spending many days at sea crossing the Atlantic, mistaken for mermaids??
We got a little too cold waiting for the Shamu (killer whale) show to start so we decided to go to the playground instead and come back an other day to see it. We live so close to sea world we can bike there which we'll probably do next time to save the parking fee!
The kids each pick an animal that they saw during the day to do a report on. Ben chose the bottlenose dolphin and Eva the sea otter.

Another great thing about San Diego is our old friends...it's so wonderful to be back!

I better go to bed...I've got a birthday party to go to tomorrow!

Sylviane

The church

This is a picture from Modesto....it is the church that Bill has been working on for 2 years. Gorgeous, isn't it? This picture shows many of his great accomplishments....see them all? The best ones aren't the biggest in size!

Sylviane

first fire

On October 27'th 08 we made our very first fire in the wood burning stove. We thought it would not work very well, but it did! Eva wanted to roast a marshmallow right away!but dad said:"not yet eva".so Eva did not talk about it any more. She took her purple tedy bear on a chair that was close to the woodburning stove and sat near it and injoyed the heat.

Ben

Malibu beach

We left the San Joaquim Valley late Thursday afternoon for the coast. It was about 1 am when we arrived at Malibu beach rv park. What an amazing spot we got! We are right at the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean. Water is all we see through the windshield. We can finally take a deep breath and relax...

A short little trail takes us to the beach where we spent most of the day Friday and Saturday. Bill enjoyed body surfing...he has that glow of complete happiness when he is close to the ocean. The kids went in the water too and looked for sand crabs. I just sat on the sand and enjoyed watching them. This is vacation!

I'm off to the beach...

Sylviane

A day with my friends

First we didn't know what to do then we decided to do art. We made some hearts for our moms. We had a great time.

Eva

About the crabs

Here are some pictures of the crabs!
We couldn’t eat them because they where too small,
So we let them go. There were at least 12 crabs all together! I cot them on the beach with pliers, not a hoop net.
ben

Our first trip

It took extraordinary effort to get moved out of the house and into the bus. We still don’t have all our systems working and tested and we do still need to finish up some work on the bus. One of the items I didn’t get fixed yet is the windshield wiper. The wiper motor gave out about 3 years ago and it’s been on several “to do” lists during that time. As we left Modesto the weather reports called for hitting rain on the way so we washed the windshield real good and put some RainX on it. As it got dark we did hit rain just as the darn directions from Yahoo Map had us on some small twisty roads in a rural area. I am sure the poor folks behind us had choice words for me but I had to go slow. The RainX (it’s a product that helps water bead up and get off the windshield) did a good job and it was only bad when oncoming cars left their darn high beams on. We found a nice Italian restaurant in the town of Bodega then crawled our way the last 10 miles or so down into Bodega Bay. And here we are, in our first RV park!

Going through Oakland Eva started up singing and we all joined in loudly: Come on vamenos, everybody let’s go, I know we can do it, so come on let’s get to it. Where are we going???? Bodeeeega bay. Where are we going. Bodega Bay. Where are we going Booooodeeeeegaaaaaa Baaaaaaaaay, yeah! Ben only sung once. After the third time we sung this Ben was annoyed and wanted us to stop. But we didn’t.

The Honda Pilot towed just perfect. We decided not to use the Brake Buddy (braking system for the towed car) as it was the first time we even tried towing the car. Ian at Modesto Hitch did an awesome job to set us up. In all of the chaos of working on bus and moving from the house to the bus, I did lose the electrical cord that connects the lights from Bus to toad, so our departure was delayed for a couple hours as I tracked down the parts and made up another one. It all worked great.


Saturday morning we checked out a different park out on the beach but there isn’t any places for a forty footer. We took a walk down the narrow concrete breakwater and saw some people using hoop nets to get crabs. Now Ben wants some hoop nets (me too….. but we’re gettin ‘em for Ben….). All day Ben was asking when we get to go sailing and fishing. Eva only asked about a dozen times. Wind is still a little gusty so we’ll wait till tomorrow.

Writing in this blog is new so bare with me (I’m sure I’ll do better in time). As I write it all seems a little disjointed. There is so much to write but it’s not easy to select just what to put down here.

It feels great to be out enjoying this bus after 5 ½ years in the making.

Bill

bodega bay story

one day we decided to go to bodega bay. when it was raining and we were hungry we were in
bodega so we went to a restaurant. then we came home and went to bed. when i was in bed dad was driving the bus to a rv park. i wanted to see the rv park but it was too dark to see.
the next day i looked out the window and saw the bay.

ben

Busy and intense!

Things are just crazy busy lately. Working hard to get the church finished and busy getting the bus ready for us to call it home.

Waterproofing the slide out has been a real head scratcher but we are making some progress. I am also making sure the black water tank hold water perfectly. I noticed just a slight leak a week ago and had the fitting off and back on three times now. I filled it up with fresh water and it does look like it is holding tight. I was bummed to see it leak a week ago but real happy I decided to make a final test with fresh water BEFORE we used it.


Bill

Being space efficient

Board games and puzzles can be pretty bulky especially the boxes so I removed them and used fabric bags instead. I used special pieces of fabric...

From left to right...

- made with Eva's too small loved dress.

- made with the fabric that was used to cover the ring cushion that Ben carried at his aunt's wedding (2007).

- made with an old t-shirt that my mom & aunt had made for Bill with a picture of a St-Bernard (Swiss rescue dog).

- a lovely bag made by our dear friend Sophie for Eva's birthday (2005).

- made with leftover fabric from Ben's bed on the boat.

- this fabric represents the quilt from "the Quilmakers gift" story which was the theme in a dance recital that Eva performed in...she was a cute 3 1/2 years old butterfly. (San Diego May, 2006)

- used an old piece of fabric that I've had for at least 15 years...whoo hoo...I finally found a use for it! In the front I added a piece of Ben's favorite pirate T-shirt that his "grand-maman" sent him from Switzerland for his 3rd birthday.

It feels good to keep the memories close by to cherish them every day!

Have a memorable day!
Sylviane

Yard Sale

Sylviane is out front right now selling most all of our stuff. I have been moving stuff out there all morning and just started a loaf of bread in the bread machine. The house is getting quite empty now and sounding a little hollow.

The old boat rule is “if you haven’t used it in a year then get rid of it”. Sounds like a fairly liberal rule but it’s amazing how much stuff we end up with and don’t really use. Some of the stuff is not easy to get rid of, they have history and some have sentimental value.

Yesterday I brought the bus to get the hitch installed. First step was to remove the rear bumper. Ian (the shop owner) got the bumper off and now he will build the hitch receiver to be within the bumper. I like this approach because it will not take away any ground clearance in the back (the other installs I have seen on MCI buses were mounted just below the bumper). I also set up an appointment with a shop that can check my suspension. The front suspension doesn’t seem quite right since I took off the kneeling system .

Bye for now. I need to see if Sylviane needs any help out front and I really need to get my garage stuff organized and crated up for the bus……

Bill

The curtains...

My main focus lately, besides painting, putting locks on all the cabinet doors has been the curtains. With some good advice from my friend Samantha (check out her work!) I didn't do too bad. She had me iron the fabric before sewing! I usually like quick projects without extra steps but I did it anyway. Much better result! The curtains in the kid's room are done as well as the one in the bathroom covering the washer/dryer. My mom would be proud of me... I hung it with velcro! Read why

Three more sets to go. We have so many windows in the bus without talking about the gigantic windshield. I've started that one but I may not show it to Samantha! What maters is that it blocks the light, right? I better get back to my sewing machine.
Sylviane

Installing the bunk railing.

The kids took apart the bunk bed they have been using so we could use part of the railing in the bus. I welded a piece of the railing to the upper bunk in the bus.

We needed to take some pictures to use for insurance purposes so we put the kids mattresses in the bus. So much excitement we just had to sleep in the bus that night.

We plan to move into the bus full time at the end of this month. We are busy getting the bus ready and going through the entire house and sorting our stuff. A pile for the yard sale, another pile for stuff going on the bus and a third pile for what we are keeping but wont fit on the bus. This third pile should be very small, at least that is the goal. Mostly it will be pictures and books that we can't part with.

Bill

What I think....

I hope I have a good time in the bus. We will go fishing,
Hiking, explore and have a good time!
Ben