Like all good expats, we escaped the terrible summer heat of Shanghai and enjoyed the terrific blue skies of California. We met up with many of our friends but we spent much of our weekends with Cheryl for her's, Emme's, and Adan's birthday parties.
We celebrated Geni's 1 year anniversary on the same day as Alan's birthday, and our 9 year anniversary. What a coincidence.
From our Hollywood Hyatt hotel, we were not only close to Alan's office but conveniently located to enjoy SoCal's numerous tourist attractions, including the fantastic Getty Villa, The Grove, and Santa Monica Pier. Kyle went on a bus by himself for the first time and got back to nature at the awesome summer camp Tumbleweed in Santa Monica mountains. Here he learned to put his head under water. We also watched a ton of movies in the best place in the world to watch movies: Die Hard or Live Free, Transformers, Ocean's Thirteen, Fantastic Four, Evan Almighty, and Ratatouille (at El Capitan, including the Disney live pre-show performance).
For July 4th, we flew back up to the Bay Area and celebrated Susan's birthday and Alan played his annual King of the Oval volleyball (well, it's more like "Jester of the Oval" now).
After Hawaii, ML and Kyle returned to the Bay Area. ML co-hosted Janet's baby shower, and Kyle went to Bonnie's. Alan stopped through Kyoto for the Red Herring Internet conference, and was able to visit Nijo Castle where he walked Across the Nightingale Floor, was under whelmed by the "Golden Pavilion" Kinkakuji, walked through Gion (Memoirs of a Geisha - watch MadTV's interpretation for a laugh).
