Happy New Year 2009!

Dear friends far and near, Happy New Year! 

The change of the year always causes us to reflect on the past and anticipate the future. 2008 was a landmark year for us in many ways and we were inspired to share some of it with you.  

In December 2007, energized by a wedding trip to Mexico earlier in the year, we returned to Baja with a small group of adventuresome friends and experienced our first kid-free week long vacation since our “summer southwest sojourn honeymoon” in 2000. We spent the week on a remote nature preserve island 25 miles off the coast of La Paz. Complete with two guides, a cook, and two skiff drivers, we kayaked, fished for our dinner, hiked, snorkeled and slept under the stars on the beach. Realizing how nourishing such a trip is to our parental psyche, we hope to make it an annual event.

After a series of pregnancies, losses and adoption dead ends, we learned last January that we would welcome a healthy baby girl in July. We came to accept that not having any more children was a loss in and of itself from which we drew courage to try and try again.

In February, March and into April we embarked on a 50 day tour of Europe

 for Phil’s job as Global Product Manager of Thermo Fisher Scientific. Triggered by pregnancy and our extended travel plans, Emily took leave of her job of five years as a recovery room nurse for an orthopedic surgery center, to be a full-time mom for the first time. We are filled with gratitude for the once-in-a-life-time experiences this European odyssey brought us and feel a sense of pride having survived it pregnant, with an active niño and a demanding job all going on at the same time. Emily in particular feels a significant growth as a mother after two months of 100% Galen time, much of it as a single parent without support of family, friends or english speaking strangers. To learn more about our adventures in Milan, London, Venice, Paris, Munich, Madrid and more, please see our previous blog entries.

In May, Galen had a big week when he got on his bike (which he had rejected for many months since his pushy parents removed his training wheels) and rode around our patio, then around the house, down the street and into our neighborhood park. It was as if he’d been secretly practicing behind our backs. Happily his grandmother and aunts were there to witness it as they were in town for a mothers blessing for Emily. That same week he mastered the monkey bars and decided he was ready for a regular size bed.

During the summer, Kelsey and Tyler enjoyed the unique experience helping their grandfather with his wheat harvest in Nebraska. Both kids returned with big smiles and stronger backs. Tyler and Kelsey are now sophomores and are throughly enjoying their high school experience. Galen graduated from his beloved preschool of three years and has launched into Kindergarten. 

Our much anticipated baby girl arrived two weeks late on August 4th, with the honor of sharing  Barack Obama’s birthday, and nearly sharing her sister Julia’s (Aug 8). August has always been bittersweet for us, but with Alia Jane’s birth it weighs heavier now on the sweet side. Our family finally feels complete even with one missing.

2008 ended and 2009 began with a bang as we celebrated New Year’s on the beautiful island of Kauai, in honor of Grandma’s 70th birthday and Grandma and Grandpa’s 44th wedding anniversary!  Joining them was a herd of 19 - children, spouses, and grandchildren. We are still adjusting to sleeping without the sound of surf and grandpa’s gin and tonics. 

 We look forward to the changes 2009 will bring for this country with new leadership, and for our family, as two learn to drive, one learns to read, and one learns to sleep through the night.

With love and gratitude for our friends and family,

Phil, Emily, Tyler (15), Kelsey (15), Julia (would be 6), Galen (5), Alia Jane (5 mos)

WEEK SIX AND SEVEN- Munich and Spain

Hola from Spain!! Buenos Dias, que t’al?

Having never set foot in Spain before, who knew that Madrid (our final destination) would be our favorite city of our Europe trip (for the adults anyway, beating London by a nose), probably because the weather in Madrid was fantastic – sunny, warm, and a welcome departure from the 6 out of 7 days of cold, grey and rainy everywhere else in Europe. Our first impression was so strong that we have decided to move to Madrid at the earliest opportunity :). Ok at least we will be back to Spain for a longer tour in the hopefully not too distant future.

We had booked an apartment via the internet in the “Old Town” area, an interesting mix of people and shops which is also within walking distance to most of the notable points of interest in the city, ie, the Prado museum, Parque del Retiro, Paseo de Recoletos, Plaza Mayor, and the Palacio Real de Madrid to name a few. But sightseeing was not on the agenda for the first couple of days because we had tired of being tourists at this point in our trip we wanted to step back from the frantic feeling that we should see all the “good stuff” in the relatively small spaces of time between travel days and work days. So our apartment in the Old Town became a sanctuary and allowed us to chill and just pretend to be citizens of Madrid for a few days. Each day we wandered further and further from our abode and became frequent and recognized visitors in our own nearby square (complete with Metro stop) and the local markets, each with its specialty (one for milk, another for produce, one for wine. . . ), plus some local eateries, a barber (for the boys), and, a Starbucks. We have to admit that neither of us are big Starbucks fans back in the US, but the one we found in Madrid was staffed by cheerful young people who greeted visitors warmly and who were interested in practicing their English and didn’t mind when we tried to use our growing vocabulary of Spanish (which was often mixed with a little Italiano or French, depending which neurons were firing at the time). Spain does not seem to have a significant coffee culture like France or Italy, so the Starbucks was a good place to find a consistently good cup of coffee, an excellent Muffin Arándano (blueberry), a friendly place to sit out on a small square in the shade (in the only smoke free environment we could find) and watch the people and listen to the wandering musicians as they rotated by. Very nice.

No worries though, we did get to see the sights by the time we left Madrid. The Parque del Retiro was an amazing mixture of park space and Disneyland. No rides but large crowds and lots of entertainment – puppet shows, magic shows, an art gallery, fields of flowers, and a lake full of row boats. And we also took a walk to the Plaza Mayor and the Palacio Real de Madrid which is the largest royal palace in Europe and houses a stunning collection of 16th century body armor for man and horse and child alike. Madrid is a grand city, with lovely sights, people, and is very livable to our way of thinking.

We should mention leaving Paris on the way to (or not exactly on the way to) Madrid there was a few day stop again in Germany for the third time for Analytica, Europe’s largest trade show of the year for biomedical instrumentation. Taking place in Munich’s old airport now convention center, it was a frenetic scene with seemingly endless displays of robots, gismos and glamorous displays of science in action. Broadcasted live in one booth was a fellow from Germany’s Myth Busters, doing science demonstrations for the masses (eg blowing up a cream puff in a vacuum jar and proving that 33 cL Coke Zero is really lighter than 33cL of Coke Classic). Galen was asked a direct question by the host on camera but unfortunately it fell on deaf ears as he was spoken to entirely in German, and Galen turns away from the camera “What did he say Mommy?” Galen was the youngest person at the trade show by at least 20 years and he probably thought it was Halloween because around every corner someone would give him candy, stuffed animals, trinkets, apples, flomees (the German word for super balls) and a few more substantial gifts. We had to find a large shopping bag to bring all the stuff home.

The other highlight of the Munich was going out to an elegant Thai dinner with a great friend and former neighbor of ours, Mike, who was also at trade show for his work. Galen was disappointed that his friend Isabella (Mike’s daughter) wasn’t with him, but he loved seeing Mike’s robotic micro pipetter in action.

We are currently on our long two day journey back home from Europe; Madrid to Milan to Philadelphia to SFO!! We are so looking forward to being home and seeing our friends and family again. We are filled with gratitude for the once-in-a-life-time experiences such an odyssey around Europe has brought us and feel a sense of pride having survived it pregnant, with an active niño and a demanding job going on the all at the same time. Emily in particular feels a significant growth as a mother after 50 days of 100% Galen time, much of it as a single parent without support of family, friends or english speaking strangers. We feel completely cured of any travel bug for awhile especially as we head home to build a nest for the final M-H addition (due in July).

Emily, Phil, Galen

WEEK FIVE - Paris

Bonjour!

It is on travel days when we change hotels, cities, countries, time zones and languages, using a boat, bus, train, plane, and taxi to get there, plus stand in lines for security, passport control, and customs that we feel like packing up and coming home! But once we settle into our new home for the week these feelings subside and the magic of what we are doing kicks back in.

Getting to Paris from Venice was a long haul requiring a flight and overnight stay in Frankfurt to put Kelsey and Tyler on a non-stop back to San Carlos to resume high school after their spring break, then another flight for us to Paris late Easter evening.

In the midst of all these logistics, we got something we can never even imagine in sunny California: a white Easter! We woke up to a dusting of snow Easter morning contrasted against blooming trees of pink and yellow in the meadow surrounding our Frankfurt Airport hotel; a magically odd marriage of winter holding on and spring pushing forth.


This week we were also honored with the visit of Grandma and Grandpa! It was wonderful to see them because at this point in our trip we are really missing home. They stayed in our hotel and in the evenings that we didnt go out to dinner, we ate together our little apartment. We were sooo grateful for their visit and they even gave us a few hours babysitting time so Emily and I could get away for an romantic Paris date!

Speaking of food, it comes as no surprise that the cuisine here in France has been the best in Europe! Cheese fondue, chocolate crepes, onion soup, crème brulee, and cappuccinos smothered with chantilly (whipped cream) topped our list.

Although the weather did not cooperate as often this week, we got out to see the sights as much as we could. On our one sunny day we took a great open-air bus tour of the city but most of the rest of the time we needed to be indoors away from the weather. So instead of climbing the Eiffel Tower (the top level being closed due to winds) we found a great place to lunch (with wine naturally). And if you haven't seen it yet, check out Mr. Galen cutting it up at the Trocodero. And it was quite glorious to walk into the Notre Dame cathedral to hear a recital from a group of girls from Santa Barbara. When I was away on work for a couple of days, Emily, Galen, Grandma and Grandpa found a science museum pour les enfants de 3-7 ans. Although everything in this museum had been perfectly tailored to the needs of a 4-year old boy, Galen's favorite exhibit was the large model construction site complete with hard hats and vests for all the children, wheelbarrows to push, moveable traincars, operating cranes, conveyer belts to crank, and foam-cement blocks to move and build with endlessly. They had to leave only because they turned out the lights! They also wandered to the nearby Père-Lachaise Cemetery (the final resting place of Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, and Oscar Wilde among many other notables).

Travel always has its little surprises and this week was no exception. We were met at the front door of our Paris hotel by a very nice young man who offered to help us with our luggage. Very quickly we found that he did not work here, but was part of a large boisterous group of art students from a small Catholic college near Victoria, Australia. The really cool part was that his school uniform had the name Galen! It turned out to be the name of the school, not his (which was Isaac, the same as one of Galen's good buddies from back home). Anyway they said they would try to send us small sized school uniform for our own namesake. Naturally Galen made friends with them immediately. And they were nice enough to give us their extra food when the left to travel to Florence.

This just in! The sun finally shined on our last day in Paris! It was glorious! Just as we were laughing with some German tourists at lunch about how even more was rain falling, the skies parted, the sun broke through and practically saved the whole Paris experience! Three hours before our cab to the airport we were walking in the Jardin des Tuileries near the Louvre getting hot. Galen found a man who was renting little sailboats and after a quick lesson spent the next two hours happily pushing two boats around the reflecting pond. Those little boats really caught the wind and sailed right across! A perfect Paris moment. (And I will never tell the folks on the other end of that business telecon the exact location where I was calling in from).

So believe it or not we are down to our final two weeks! Next its another travel day to Munich where I have a trade-show and meetings, then on to Madrid (with a side biz trip to Zurich for me), and finally back to Milan for our flight home. See you soon!




Photos from Paris HERE

See ALL our videos HERE



At the tip of the Île de la Cité

The Eiffel at night. In the
pouring rain, naturally.

WEEK FOUR - Venice!

Its Spring Break Vacation!

Ciao!

Well it took a few decades, but we finally got to Venice - me for the first time, and Emily for the first time in almost 20 years. And Kelsey and Tyler joined us this week for their spring break from high school!

It is a bit of an understatement to say that Venice is filled with unusual and beautiful sights. Its little walkways and canals are unique in the world and it also has large cathedrals and squares that put it on par with many other old European cities. It was truly overwhelming. As Emily put it, after a while it was pointless to photograph anything since around every corner was some new beautiful sight.

But it’s the water that makes it so different. I don’t think there is a car in the entire city. Getting around is done by boat (boat bus, boat taxi, boat truck, boat ambulance, boat police car, etc) or by foot. Most of our shorter travels were done by foot and its a great way to see so many more details of the city – the stones on the streets and plazas, the varied colors of the houses, plus how more than a few of them seem to be leaning just a little too much one way or another. We also found a little craft shop around the corner from our apartment where they were carving a gondola fòrcola (oar lock) by hand out of a solid block of walnut. (We know what they were making because Galen interviewed the English-speaking Belgian writer in the shop who was in the process of creating a photo book on crafting Venetian gondolas).

Our base of operations in Venice was a spacious 3 level apartment that fit all 5 of us very comfortably and was just a few minutes walk from Piazza San Marco. It had a little kitchen, and in an attempt to moderate our food bill, Emily had the great idea that we would eat out at lunch, but eat in for dinner. Lunch prices were reasonable by Italian standards - 12-17 Euros per person for a 3 course meal (pasta, main course, dessert), that once or twice also included water, coffee, and 250ml of a very nice Italian red wine. Eating out for lunch instead of dinner also solved the problem of Italian restaurants not opening until 8pm, with a family of five and a half being hungry by 5pm. And what Emily found in her previous trip to Italy those many years ago still stands. The more you pay, the better the food.

Walking also presented a bit of a challenge because once we left our front door, two or three turns down the maze-like alleyways that make up the city and we could easily be lost. And since so many of the alleyways are about 3 feet wide, and three stories tall, there is no way to navigate by sun, star, or landmark. It was Tyler who first mastered getting around - and back. Our first night we walked a LONG way in an almost vain search for a grocery store. We finally found one (and guess what! My credit card didn’t work there either!) and since we had not laid down bread crumbs marking our path, we were suddenly faced with the prospect of getting back "home" in the gathering darkness. Thank goodness for the flexibility of his 14-year-old brain or we may still be wandering the back alleys of Venice to this day! (his homing-pigeon capacity also got him and Kelsey the freedom to explore on their own on a couple of occasions).

In addition to the maze, the little walkways of Venice were packed past the point of claustrophobia during the day. By mid morning, the ships and trains and busses had disgorged their tourists by the 10s of thousands. So you might forgive us when we say we believe our greatest accomplishment in Venice is that WE NEVER LOST ANYBODY! (the observant blog reader may notice that in photographs, Galen is almost always wearing a bright color. Not only does red photograph well, it stands out clearly in the sea of black that makes up the vast majority of the European wardrobe). Our very important rule when traveling as a family group in Venice is that if you come to a turn or corner you must STOP and WAIT!! With the kid’s cell phones banned due to the inability of ATT to cut off their text service texting (at 50 cents a piece just the incoming texts from the kid’s friends would have cost us thousands!) we relied on this simple rule. In addition, everyone carried the address of our apartment on the back of one of my business cards in the event of someone needing to consult the local carabiniere to get back home.

Early morning was a different story regarding crowds. With the tourists yet to arrive or arise from the night before, the streets were idyllically quiet and nearly empty except for the shop keepers preparing and resupplying for another exciting day of shopping frenzy. We parents made this our time of personal sanctuary. With three sleeping children safely snuggled away in the apartment, we snuck out on a romantic walk and a private teatime including-right-from-the-oven chocolate croissants.

7AM










11AM










Our biggest splurge (in addition to being to Venice in the first place of course) was a gondola ride along the small channels near our apartment. The gondola ride was Kelsey’s raison d'être for choosing Venice in the first place so once we got over the sticker shock we just had to go for it. And a good thing too, since it qualified by far as the most memorable experience of the week for at least three of us. Take a look at some video HERE.

One thing that we learned on our gondola trip was that Venice is currently sinking at the rate of 1mm per year, but it sank up to a meter in the last century, which means that some of the buildings have water in the ground floor twice a day during high tide. We saw evidence of this on our Gondola ride, and also we saw the phenomena close up in San Marco square during the March full-moon high tide. On our last evening in Venice we watched the square slowly fill with water as the storm drains worked in reverse, bringing in the Adriatic sea. Emily explains on VIDEO.

I could go on and on about our experiences (like how Galen befriended a pack of High School girls from London!) but I will leave you to share our photos and videos. Next stop, Paris with Grandma and Grandpa. We miss you all but will see you in a couple of weeks!

Ciao!

Phil Emily Tyler Kelsey Galen

See Venice Photos (plus a few from Heidelberg Castle)

ALL of our TRIP VIDEOS on YouTube (more being added all the time):

WEEKS THREE, TWO, ONE

WEEK THREE: Germany

In Week Three we broke from the one city per week pattern. After landing in Frankfurt, we rented a car and drove 3 hours (a trip the Autobahn Audis would do in 2) northeast to the little village of Osterode where my company has a factory and R&D facility. We spent half the week there (again, I worked, and Emily and Galen explored). But we met for lunch and discovered great donut thingies and Nutella ice cream. The Mom and Galen team played soccer, swam in the super-clear hotel spa-pool, and Galen even got to go horseback riding on a local farm (plus a tractor ride thrown in for good measure). And many more small village treats . . .Next stop was back to the Frankfurt area where I had another business meeting. The only noteworthy highlight there was the most amazing hotel pool we had ever seen this side of Las Vegas . More like a collection of lagoons and river rapids, it also had waterfalls and waterspouts, plus ocean wave sound effects. Then finally last Friday we checked in to our hotel in Frankfurt proper, with a 7th floor view of the river Main . Frankfurt is a financial and industrial city, but it also has some charms and is frankly more interesting than I had given it credit for. One thing that has been hard to come by on this trip has been our date night. But with the help of one of the hotel staff moonlighting as a babysitter, we left Galen in her good hands and went out to celebrate one of our anniversaries with a Rhine River cruise. I will leave you with two little quirks we have noticed about our time here in Germany . First of all, except for the hotels, they don’t seem to like credit cards much here. We are at the cash machine every two days trying to keep up. Secondly, we haven’t figured out how to order regular water. Its always some super special Euro-per-mouthful mineral variety (often more dear than beer), and none of our many attempts of the usual descriptions of normal water (such as "still" "natural", "tap" or "no gas") gets us wasser without bubbles in it.

Click HERE for Germany Photos

That’s where I will leave you for now. Kelsey and Tyler arrived Sunday for our weeklong vacation. We move on to Venice on Tuesday and expect to have more to share soon after!

Love, Phil and Emily, Galen, Kelsey, and Tyler

WEEK TWO: London

Week Two found us in London, in an expensive but run-down hotel located in Kennsington near Hyde Park . We had days of brilliant sunshine, and days of rain. This was the toughest week for Emily since I was out and about in the country side every day, and away for two nights, including a side trip to Ireland . But it was during this week that Emily mastered the art of going out the door in the morning with no particular agenda and finding once in a life time experiences by the end of the day. These included play time at the Princess Diana playground (complete with pirate ship!), feeding the swans at Round Lake, seeing the magical play "The Sound of Music", riding up top in double decker buses to the end of the line and finding a great park there with a petting zoo, pagoda, kid adventure park. All this with the bonus that our exuberantly extroverted son found that people would respond to his inquires in ENGLISH again! (as an aside Galen's extroversion has brought him a free bouquet of flowers, new friends everywhere we have gone, an extra serving of cake on the house, an inviation to a birthday party for a dog in Hyde Park, and a cigarette rolling lesson to name just a few . . .) A highlight for me was a day I returned from an overnight trip, Emily and Galen surprised me with a candle-riden birthday tort (39 and holding if you are wondering!). London is a fantastic city with endless things to do and see. Just make sure to bring the college fund your kids had hoped to use some day.

Click HERE for London Photos

Week 1: MILAN

Hello all!

It is true we have not been very communicative over the last 3 weeks while we have been away. Although we had promised regular entries into a blog, with my business meetings and Emily being a 110% ubermom-one-on-one-24-7 with no support network and no preschool break, we have both been pretty exhausted by the end of the day. But now we have collected a few photos to share some of the fantastic experiences we have had so far on our European Adventure.We started our trip on Feb 23 by flying to Milan . On the plane Galen says to the flight attendant "I love Italy! Its so noodlely!” Landing in a fog so thick the wingtips were barely visible from my window seat, the plane had to go around for an unnerving second try. But in short order we adjusted to the 9 hour time change (Galen has been the champion sleeper on this trip!) and we both learned how to drive in crazy Milan traffic without ending up with a scooter permanently embedded in our bumper. Highlights in Milan included Galen helping construction workers at a building site, making up stories to the pictures of Italian children’s books in the library, and most especially an evening out in nearby Gorgonzola (yes the place that invented the cheese) on a double date with a colleague and his wife to a great little place in their town (plus they had a baby sitter for their kids AND Galen!). But given that Italy is known for good food, it was odd that many of our challenges were about meals. Restaurants in Italy open at 8:00, ie, Galen's bed time, ie, Emily’s hypoglycemic crisis time, meaning it wasn’t exactly happy hour waiting to go out to dinner. So we found ourselves eating super-expensive but always available hotel fare (and doesn’t everyone know that the menu price listed for beef means by the GRAM!? nope. $90 bucks) or down at the very popular local McDonalds with other families with kids from the neighborhood. But on the whole Milan was a good place to visit. I even got to see the town center on the weekend and Emily and Galen showed me around. The middle of Milan has some old-world charm, including a cathedral complete with a pigeon-packed square, a old castle, and best of all, carnival with bumpercars and other rides! By the way if you ever visit Milan , bring your Italian phrase book since English is not well known there. Luckily you can order a big mac in a pinch.

Click HERE for Milan Photos